authors
list | date_download
timestamp[s] | date_modify
null | date_publish
timestamp[s] | description
stringlengths 1
5.93k
⌀ | filename
stringlengths 33
1.45k
| image_url
stringlengths 23
353
| language
stringclasses 21
values | localpath
null | title
stringlengths 2
200
⌀ | title_page
null | title_rss
null | source_domain
stringlengths 6
40
| maintext
stringlengths 68
80.7k
⌀ | url
stringlengths 20
1.44k
| fasttext_language
stringclasses 1
value | date_publish_final
timestamp[s] | path
stringlengths 76
110
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-30T10:52:43 | null | 2016-08-30T09:23:46 |
The quarterback wants to ‘bring awareness’ and tackle police brutality
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fcolin-kaepernick-stay-seated-national-anthem-until-racial-oppression-ends-video.json
|
en
| null |
Colin Kaepernick: I'll stay seated for national anthem until racial oppression ends - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick talks to reporters on Saturday following his seated protested during the US national anthem played before his team’s pre-season game against Green Bay Packers on Friday. He says he will continue to sit until ‘a significant change’ takes place. Kaepernick adds he wants to bring awareness of the unjust way African Americans and other minorities are treated and points out police brutality as a particular issue. Photograph: Ben Margot/AP
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2016/aug/30/colin-kaepernick-stay-seated-national-anthem-until-racial-oppression-ends-video
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bc63c615c17d0ae9e11529e0eefbaba7f0215fada0b4be41fcbc79e36941c5f3.json
|
|
[
"Paul Rees"
] | 2016-08-28T12:52:00 | null | 2016-08-27T21:00:13 |
Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty has described the Lions’ 10-match trip to New Zealand next year as a punishing schedule, that was not discussed with all concerned
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fmark-mccafferty-premiership-rugby-lions-tour.json
|
en
| null |
Mark McCafferty urges Premiership Rugby and Lions chiefs to discuss dates
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Premiership clubs want to be consulted by the Lions before tours are drawn up and given a say in the schedules, arguing that next year’s 10-match trip to New Zealand is unfair on the players.
Clubs in England and the Pro12 have no say in the organisation of a Lions tour and they want that to change. The agreement with New Zealand, Australia and South Africa runs out next year and negotiations for an upgrade will not properly get underway until the international tour schedule from 2020 is worked out.
Australia's Olympic champion women to join Sydney Sevens event in 2017 Read more
The Lions leave for New Zealand next year before the Premiership and Pro 12 finals, while the Top 14 final is being played on the weekend of the opening match of the tour. If Toulon are involved again, it could affect the Wales full-back Leigh Halfpenny, a match-winner in Australia in 2013.
“It is going to be very difficult next year,” said Mark McCafferty, the Premiership Rugby chief executive. “It is a punishing schedule and I do not know why it was signed up to. Ten games over that period is a lot and there will be difficulty for players coming off that tour going into the 2017-18 Premiership.
“The Lions is in the mix as we move towards the season structure post-2019. It is a fabulous brand and an important part of the economics for the southern hemisphere. It should carry on but it is not sustainable that players can go through a club and international season, be involved in that scale of a tour and be in shape for the following season.
“People involved in the Lions need to listen. No one is operating in a vacuum and wWe have got to sit down and talk. Do you need to play that number of midweek games when the economics are driven off the back of three Tests in the main? Nothing can be done about next year but then the agreement will be up and things need to be worked out.”
The Wasps director of rugby, Dai Young, who went on three Lions tours and captained the midweek side in 2001, agrees with McCafferty. “I am a big supporter of the Lions and that tour should never be taken away from players because it is special,” he said. “I am surprised the finals are being played so close to the tour and the organisers should have sat down and talked about the dates. The Lions are not the big brother in this relationship: we should be working together in this rather than one telling the other what will happen.”
At the end of a week in which the former Sale scrum-half Cillian Willis instigated legal action for negligence against the club after allegedly being allowed to play on after being knocked out, McCafferty said he did not believe it would be the first of many cases. “I cannot comment on the Willis case but we have done a phenomenal amount of work in the past two or three years on the management of concussion risk and concussion incidents,” he said. “Education programmes have changed the culture and I am confident we are moving in the right direction in handling this.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/27/mark-mccafferty-premiership-rugby-lions-tour
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2f0834016a64076fb44b0d248712fb07f405eef7e950ab3f663eca27fee5f471.json
|
|
[
"Andrew Sparrow"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:58 | null | 2016-07-28T14:58:15 |
Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2Fblog%2Flive%2F2016%2Fjul%2F28%2Fcourt-to-rule-in-case-that-could-exclude-corbyn-from-labour-leadership-contest-politics-live.json
|
en
| null |
Corbyn can stay on Labour leadership ballot, court rules - as it happened
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
| null |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/jul/28/court-to-rule-in-case-that-could-exclude-corbyn-from-labour-leadership-contest-politics-live
|
en
| 2016-07-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bccd3b0db4a63ffbcc735a702d3fd26454b378e8d09727a0b2cc5437b8b3011a.json
|
|
[
"Oliver Milman"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:48 | null | 2016-08-25T16:09:13 |
Activists fear the Dakota Access oil pipeline will pollute water and disturb sacred sites. A court is to decide next month if approval violated indigenous rights
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fnative-americans-north-dakota-pipeline-ruling.json
|
en
| null |
Native Americans encouraged as judge delays North Dakota pipeline ruling
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Native American activists have said they are still hopeful they can halt the construction of a controversial oil pipeline that will run from North Dakota to Illinois, after a federal judge said he needed more time to decide whether indigenous rights were violated when the project was approved.
Judge James Boasberg of the US district court said he will make a decision by 9 September on whether to stop work on the pipeline during tribal leaders’ lawsuit against the US army Corps of Engineers for approving the Dakota Access project.
The pipeline will run close to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation in North Dakota and across several rivers, including the Missouri and the Mississippi, that supply drinking water for millions of people.
“Whatever the final outcome in court, I believe we have already established an important principle – that is, tribes will be heard on important matters that affect our vital interests,” said Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault, who has previously said the project would “knowingly poison water”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Actors Susan Sarandon, left, and Riley Keough participate in the rally in Washington DC. Photograph: Paul Morigi/WireImage
The attempt to force a temporary halt to the project came amid vociferous protests on the prairies of North Dakota and outside the court in Washington DC, where tribal members were joined by famous faces, including actors Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley, to decry the 1,000-mile-long pipeline.
Signs at the protest read “We are protectors not protesters” and “Obey your laws”. A petition launched by a number of young native Americans to stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and protect water that is a “crucial part of our lives” has more than 94,000 signatures, including those of actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo.
After months of simmering tensions, protesters, many on horseback, have confronted massed ranks of police in North Dakota in the past week, resulting in dozens of arrests and a shutdown of the pipeline work site. Several thousand people from more than 50 other tribes have joined forces with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe at a protest camp at the construction site.
Energy Transfer, the company behind Dakota Access, has responded by seeking a restraining order against demonstrators, accusing them of trespassing and threatening workers, and by deploying their own armed security guards. Jack Dalrymple, governor of North Dakota, declared a state of emergency due to what he called the “significant public safety concern” raised by the protests.
The pipeline is a $3.7bn project to funnel 500,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to Illinois. The project is expected to be finished by the end of the year but tribal leaders have raised concerns that the pipeline, which will run under the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, will pollute drinking water for millions of people and disturb sacred sites. In total, the pipeline will make 200 river crossings in four states.
Faces of the North Dakota pipeline protest: 'Sacred land is who we are' Read more
Energy Transfer has sought to calm fears by claiming that the pipeline could be quickly sealed off if leaks are detected and has promised “openness, honesty and responsiveness” with landowners. But opponents of the project point out that oil spills are worryingly familiar in North Dakota, with a leak in 2014 causing more than 20,000 barrels of oil to seep into a wheat field and landing the company responsible, Tesoro Logistics, with a $4m cleanup bill.
“Any delay is a win for us, it will give Dakota Access pause and it puts word out that Standing Rock still needs assistance on this,” Angela Bevans, an assistant attorney of Sioux background, told the Guardian.
“We’ve suffered incarceration, massacre and internment. This is just another chapter in the government allowing a private company to take something that doesn’t belong to them just because they can.
“It’s not a matter of whether there will be a spill, it’s when it will happen. Everyone knows what is at stake and we won’t be sacrificed. We are protecting the lifeblood of our people, these rivers are the arteries of Mother Earth.”
'We are protectors, not protesters': why I'm fighting the North Dakota pipeline Read more
Farmers in Iowa have also complained about the potential damage caused by construction of the pipeline to the particularly fertile soils found in the state. They are also unhappy over the use of eminent domain laws. Dakota Access has denied that the pipeline will ruin livelihoods but work has temporarily halted in Iowa to hear the farmers’ case.
Texas-based Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment. In court documents, the company said the Dakota Access pipeline is 45% complete and that a temporary injunction to stop it would have “devastating short and long-term impacts” to the project.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/native-americans-north-dakota-pipeline-ruling
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4785d94c2076e2831e71f9831d58e2262dc0423d34654de0a4a70fae74fb04e6.json
|
|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:08 | null | 2016-08-26T09:32:41 |
Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri says playing in the Champions League for the first time is a gift for everyone involved
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fclaudio-ranieri-leicester-champions-league-gift-for-all-involved-video.json
|
en
| null |
Claudio Ranieri: Leicester in Champions League is a gift for all involved - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday ahead of the English Premier League match with Swansea City on Saturday, Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri says playing in the Champions League for the first time is a gift for everyone involved, including the club, fans and the media. Photograph: Plumb Images
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/26/claudio-ranieri-leicester-champions-league-gift-for-all-involved-video
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/137735d7f29fd0783441be206ae9d4322d29875b7d50f94e3dfc2f0af3eda11b.json
|
|
[
"Chris Whitworth"
] | 2016-08-29T20:52:15 | null | 2016-08-29T20:13:15 |
There is a battle under way over plans for a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline in North Dakota that tribal members fear will pollute local drinking water
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fnorth-dakota-oil-access-pipeline-protest-video.json
|
en
| null |
‘We’re not going home’: inside the North Dakota oil pipeline protest - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
There is a battle under way near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, over plans for a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline. The North Dakota Access pipeline will run just outside the formal boundary of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and tribal members fear it will pollute local drinking water and disturb sacred sites
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/aug/29/north-dakota-oil-access-pipeline-protest-video
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5981741ca5a05c3c066ea507d98c69a8c4a5af812a1ec0e6a66b9e57379a6a10.json
|
|
[
"Harvey Goldstein"
] | 2016-08-26T13:27:22 | null | 2016-08-24T15:59:18 |
Other lives: Statistician known for his pioneering work in agriculture and medicine
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fmichael-healy-obituary.json
|
en
| null |
Michael Healy obituary
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
My friend Michael Healy, who has died aged 92, was one of the outstanding statisticians of his generation, renowned for his pioneering work in agriculture and in medical statistics.
Michael made important contributions to many areas of statistical methodology including experimental design, clinical trials and computational statistics. In the early part of his career he collaborated with Jim Tanner, one of the world’s leading experts on child growth, on a set of clinical standards for children’s growth, skeletal maturity and dental development that are still in use. One fascinating application was the work using athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics to study body shape and its relationship with different sports.
He was born and brought up in Paignton, Devon, the son of George Healy, a GP, and his wife, Enid. Following his education at Bryanston school, Dorset, Michael read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. There he also demonstrated his musical talents and organising abilities by taking over the conducting of an amateur madrigal group. Later in life he was a member of the Bach Choir, the London Orpheus Choir, the London Symphony Chorus and the BBC Symphony Chorus.
He spent the last two years of the second world war, and a year following, at the Admiralty before moving to Rothamsted Experimental Station, the agricultural research centre in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, working as a statistician, from 1947 to 1965. From there he went to head the computing and statistics division at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park, north-west London, until 1977, when he was appointed professor of medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene.
His address as chair of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) medical section in 1978, in which he discussed whether statistics was a science or a technology (the latter being his own view), was a key philosophical marker for the profession and is still widely quoted.
Following his retirement in 1989 he continued to be active as a visiting fellow at the University of London Institute of Education. He was awarded the RSS’s highest honour, its gold medal, in 1999.
In the early 2000s he withdrew from active statistical work, but his fluency in French provided a source of work in translating and editing, which he put to good use for Project Gutenberg, the free digital library.
Michael was one of the most influential, colourful and innovative statisticians of his generation. My own career owes much to his kindness, and this has been echoed by many others.
His wife, Jennifer, died in 1995. He is survived by his son, Columb, his daughter, Jan, his brother, Derek, and four grandchildren.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/24/michael-healy-obituary
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/770f3ba239a960e663cdd8354a8051bf59bb13ef070c951dd18fed95cc1386cd.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T13:00:46 | null | 2016-08-24T23:01:33 |
Actor-turned-Labour MEP hit the headlines in 1987 when his character had the first gay kiss in a British soap opera
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Flord-cashman-eastenders-first-gay-kiss.json
|
en
| null |
Lord Cashman to reprise EastEnders role after 30 years
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Lord Cashman is to briefly reprise his famous role as Colin Russell in EastEnders, 30 years after he first arrived in Walford.
Cashman appeared on the soap for three years from 1986 and generated headlines when his character had the first gay kiss in a British soap opera with boyfriend Barry Clark, played by Gary Hailes.
Show bosses are keeping details of Colin’s return tightly under wraps but his visit is set to raise a big question for Dot Branning (June Brown) when he appears in two episodes next month.
The actor-turned-Labour MEP said: “It was a real joy, indeed a privilege, to return to my old home of Albert Square.
“To be amongst so many friends again, and to be back in the place where 30 years ago I started an amazing journey, an amazing journey which incredibly helped to change the country, and certainly its attitude to lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
“Arguably without EastEnders I would never have gone into politics; I would not have been one of the founders of Stonewall and its founding chair, and I would never have ended up where I am now.
“As Shakespeare would have said by returning to where it all started ‘the wheel has turned full circle’.
“And the exquisite joy of having my scenes with the incredible ‘Dame’ June Brown was a bonus beyond anything else.”
Following his acting career, Cashman became MEP for the West Midlands from 1999 until 2014, when he was appointed to the House of Lords.
He co-founded the LGBT rights charity Stonewall in 1989.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/25/lord-cashman-eastenders-first-gay-kiss
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/191a4385d61b91cd192118dc4df05760acf3d63c66c339d567556f4eac25b31c.json
|
|
[
"Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-29T22:55:13 | null | 2016-08-29T21:13:20 |
Mondelēz CEO says ‘there is no actionable path forward toward an agreement’ that would have created a global chocolate and snack powerhouse
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Foreo-mondelez-hershey-merger-kraft-snacks.json
|
en
| null |
Oreo-maker Mondelēz ends discussions of merger with Hershey
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Oreo cookie-maker Mondelez ended discussions of a possible merger with The Hershey Company on Monday, a combination that would have created a global powerhouse selling some of the world’s best-known chocolates and snacks.
Hershey had said in June that it had rejected a preliminary takeover bid from Mondelez International valued at roughly $22.3bn, according to FactSet. Hershey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A deal would have been subject to the Hershey Trust, the chocolate company’s controlling shareholder.
Hershey shares slid 11% in after-hours trading, to $99. Mondelez shares added 3.4%, to $44.50, in extended trading.
In a statement, Mondelez’s CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, said the company decided “there is no actionable path forward toward an agreement” following additional discussions between the two companies.
Nestlé loses high court battle to trademark shape of KitKat Read more
Mondelēz, based in Deerfield, Illinois, makes Nabisco cookies, Cadbury chocolate and Trident gum. The company was created after a split from Kraft Foods, which has since gone on to combine with Heinz to create the Kraft Heinz Company.
Back in June, the Wall Street Journal had reported that Mondelēz told Hershey it would take the chocolate maker’s name and move its global headquarters to Hershey, Pennsylvania, as part of the deal.
The acquisition would have made the combined company the candy industry’s largest player, according to Euromonitor International, passing the current no 1, Mars Inc.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/29/oreo-mondelez-hershey-merger-kraft-snacks
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9bdc1f63ebad6b577b7e198151aa6340ef6b39aed049c4319258acf0ed8129dc.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:29:21 | null | 2016-08-03T06:00:40 |
Bargains ripe for a revamp from a former chapel in the Kent countryside to a house perched on the Marche hills in Italy
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F03%2Fhomes-in-need-of-renovation-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Homes in need of renovation - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Home: Goldthorpe, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire
The happy news is you can still buy a two-bedroom house in the UK for £30,000. The catch is that this is an area blighted by the collapse of coal mining industry and this cottage has not yet arrived in the 21st century, although the ground floor shower room (the only hygiene option there is) looks relatively new. Once you have removed the antique carpets, rewired, replastered and refitted you’ll rejoice in a dinky retreat with a loft room and a back yard. Hatched.co.uk , 0333 999 7699
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2016/aug/03/homes-in-need-of-renovation-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-03T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8eeff3ac1ee3ff8cc5bf09ff6a6359c1c0500ea402841150bca53a7b55ed10ef.json
|
|
[
"Laura Bates"
] | 2016-08-30T16:52:35 | null | 2016-08-30T15:51:50 |
If you’re a single man scouring the internet for truly instructive advice, read on. For starters, try to think of women as if they were real-life human people
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fheres-how-to-talk-to-a-women-wearing-headphones-without-being-an-idiot.json
|
en
| null |
Here's how to talk to women wearing headphones - without being an idiot
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Another week, another helpful instructive article for the modern single man. This week: “How to talk to a woman who is wearing headphones”, a topic only surpassed in its brilliance by other recent gems such as: “17 killer mistakes a girl should never make on the first date” and “13 little things that can make a man fall hard for you”.
The internet abounds with such guides, most of which might more accurately be re-titled “How to be a complete jackass and ruin all chance you might ever have had of a relationship”, or: “How to personify every outdated gender stereotype about relationship roles in 10 easy steps”.
Glamour magazine’s “13 little things” counselled women to answer the door naked, wait with a cold beer when a man steps out of the shower, sit quietly by his side while he watches his favourite TV show and (my personal favourite) let him “solve your petty work problem”. Excellent advice for aspiring home-help robots or faithful canines; not so much for 21st-century women who don’t despise themselves or want to burn everything.
Metro’s “17 killer mistakes” list included helpful tips for how not to behave on a first date, such as “There is such a thing as too much makeup”, “Don’t mention your parents”, “Let’s not have sex on the first date”, and “Don’t think it’s sexist that we offer to pay the bill”. Women were also advised not to “tell us to order what we feel like, then get a salad from the starters after we’ve just asked for a rump steak”, a variation on the infinite and contradictory rules out there about whether a woman can or can’t eat salad on a date. Thanks internet!
The latest offering – “How to talk to a woman who is wearing headphones” – advised men to attract the attention of said women using much the same approach as an alien trying to blend in without arousing suspicion.
1. Stand in front of her (with 1m to 1.5m between you).
2. Have a relaxed, easygoing smile.
3. Is she hasn’t already looked up at you, simply get her attention with a wave of your hand. Wave your hand in her direct line of vision so she can’t ignore it.”
Swoon. Excuse me while I go take a quick cold shower.
While there may be some women out there who would be delighted at this approach and immediately request marriage, the majority (judging from the response on Twitter), might find it annoying, scary, entitled, or just downright rude. Given the amount of time women already spend fending off unwanted sexual advances, and the fact that many actively use headphones as a deliberate tactic to avoid them, an instructional piece encouraging men to invade our privacy is pretty much the last thing we need.
Yet, apparently, modern daters are in desperate need of guidance. So here’s an alternative list of simple tips on how to talk to/date/generally interact with a woman without being a total idiot.
Try to think about a woman as if she were a real-life human person. If you would find it weird to have someone wave their hand in front of your face with a fixed smile as you walk to work, the chances are she might, too.
Don’t do things to women that you would find annoying if done to you. This includes, but is not limited to, making unsolicited comments about body parts, musing aloud about fornicating with them, or shouting out ratings out of 10.
If paying the bill on a first date is the entire basis for your masculine sense of self, get help. Consider counselling, or have a nice long chat about self-worth with a friend or colleague.
You can’t judge a woman on her weight AND get angry if she orders a salad – that’s just counter-intuitive. Try to work out in advance which sexist stereotype is most important to you, and stick with it.
Remember that judging us on whether or not we want to have sex on a first date is the absolute number one most guaranteed way to turn us on. Women just love those sexist societal double standards. Lots of sex ahead for you.
Acceptable reasons to approach a woman with headphones in: if she’s about to step into a puddle, dog poo or the path of an oncoming car. If she is on fire and has not yet realised it.
Unacceptable reasons to approach a woman with headphones on: anything else. Don’t. Stop it.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/30/heres-how-to-talk-to-a-women-wearing-headphones-without-being-an-idiot
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/af31d825754cec290930db4c3e623805ed35398418035ed709446eb0332172cb.json
|
|
[
"Andrei Lankov"
] | 2016-08-26T13:20:23 | null | 2016-08-23T09:58:02 |
Reaction to diplomat Thae Yong-ho’s escape shows the regime will try anything to discredit dissenters, says NK News
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Faccusations-smear-tactics-thae-yong-ho-north-korea-defections.json
|
en
| null |
Accusations and smear tactics: how North Korea explains defections
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
North Korea responded to the defection of a prominent diplomat and his family last week with typical hyperbole and inconsistency.
First, a spokesman for the government’s Ministry of Truth told newspapers that Thae Yong-ho had been a victim of a South Korean plot. The incident, the official said, was a “typical operation of South Korean intelligence services and part of a plot to bring down North Korea.”
North Korea brands UK-based defector Thae Yong-ho as 'human scum' Read more
But the next day, a different story emerged. The North Korean government was now accusing Thae of raping minors and stealing state money.
They labelled him “human scum”, with the state news agency adding that Thae had “proved [he has] no basic loyalty as a human and no conscience and morality by running away to survive and abandoning the homeland and parents and siblings that raised and stood by him.”
There is nothing new in these attempts to present political “traitors” as morally repulsive – it’s a tactic the regime has used many times before.
More peculiar are inconsistencies in the state’s official response, which echo an earlier attempt by the North Korean government to discredit a high-profile defector, one which led to one of the largest scandals in the uneasy history of relations between Moscow and Pyongyang.
This was the abduction of Yi Sang-gu, a North Korean musician who had been studying in Moscow. Unhappy with Kim Il-sung’s policies, on 16 October 1959 Yi applied for political asylum in the Soviet Union. His chances of success were high, since the Soviet government had previously granted asylum to North Korean officials and intellectuals who had run away from the wave of terror unleashed by Kim after the collapse of the opposition in 1957-58.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Jong-un inspecting a pig farm near Pyongyang. Photograph: Ho Str/AFP/Getty Images
Yi went into in Moscow. After his disappearance, North Korean diplomats rushed to the Soviet authorities and began to feed them stories about Yi. Their claims – and their inconsistency – are reminiscent of what we have heard in the last few days.
MS Kapitsa, who at that time was the deputy head of the First Far Eastern Department, and responsible for North Korea, was visited by Pak Tŏk-hwa, an official at the North Korean embassy in Moscow.
Pak said Yi had broken all contact with the North Koreans and told Kapitsa that he was politically suspicious. He told the Soviets that Yi had been born in South Korea, and that he had also lived in Japan and Manchuria, hoping this would prompt the Soviet authorities to think twice about assisting him. .
Other claims soon followed, including that Yi had been proven to be a Japanese spy and that he was having an affair with a Russian woman whom he wanted to marry despite already having a Korean wife.
Kim Jong-un is no joke, says North Korean defector Read more
Days after his disappearance, on an early afternoon in downtown Moscow, Yi was ambushed by North Korean operatives, beaten and pushed into an embassy car. The next day he was sent back to Pyongyang by plane, never to be heard from again.
Back in Pyongyang, then Soviet Ambassador AM Puzanov met with Pak Sŏng-ch’ŏl, the newly appointed North Korean foreign minister, to object. However Pak provided the Soviet side with yet another story. He said the abduction was intended because authorities in Pyongyang had ordered the Moscow embassy to send Yi home, due to serious “irregularities” in his behaviour. But they allegedly did not expect that their diplomats would kidnap the musician.
This version is remarkably similar to what Kim told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when in 2002 they met to discuss the Japanese citizens who were abducted in the 1970s and 80s. Kim said that those abductions had been carried out by overzealous officials on their own initiative, without any knowledge of the central government.
The tradition of dealing with defections with smears and wild accusations is well established – and so it the tradition of being inconsistent. Even accusing Thae of molesting children is similar to what North Korean diplomats said about Yi almost 70 years ago.
While back then they accused their political opponent of espionage – the worst crime in the eyes of the Soviet officials, who were their target audience – this time once again they were well aware of the claims that would cause the most shock and disgust.
A version of this article first appeared on NK News –North Korean news
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/23/accusations-smear-tactics-thae-yong-ho-north-korea-defections
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b9e6542a7ec7e604d7ff875ed4238fda4f014c52bc81594441712f12a6e7b264.json
|
|
[
"Justin Mccurry",
"Justin Mccurry On Board Flight"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:39 | null | 2016-08-26T09:18:49 |
ANA’s decision to ground its fleet of Boeing 787s, the world’s biggest, expected to result in cancellation of at least 350 flights
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fjapans-biggest-airline-grounds-its-dreamliners-over-engine-problem.json
|
en
| null |
Japan's biggest airline grounds its Dreamliners over engine problem
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Japan’s biggest airline has started grounding its fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners after discovering a problem with the plane’s Rolls-Royce engines, in another setback for the troubled aircraft.
ANA’s decision to replace a key engine part, possibly on all 50 of its Dreamliners, is the latest in a series of glitches to have plagued the fuel-efficient plane since it made its maiden commercial flight – three years behind schedule – in late 2011.
The groundings are expected to lead to the cancellation of at least 350 flights on ANA’s Japanese domestic routes through to the end of next month, according to the Nikkei business newspaper.
The carrier cancelled nine flights on Friday, affecting more than 3,000 passengers and costing the airline an estimated 55m yen (£414,000) in lost revenue.
ANA is the world’s biggest operator of Dreamliners; its domestic rival, Japan Airlines (JAL), operates 30 787s, but they are fitted with a different type of engine.
The problem came to light while ANA and Boeing engineers were investigating the cause of an incident in February, when an ANA 787 had to return to Kuala Lumpur airport after one of its engines overheated. Inspections revealed damage to medium-pressure turbine blades in the aircraft’s Trent 1000 engines.
Rolls-Royce said it had notified other airlines that use the same type of engine, adding that it would make an improved part available by the end of the year.
The firm said it was “working closely with ANA to minimise the effect on aircraft service disruption”.
A spokesman for Boeing in Tokyo said: “We are aware of the situation and are working with Rolls-Royce and ANA to resolve any issues impacting the airplanes in service.”
The Dreamliner has suffered a string of problems in its first few years of service, including fuel leaks, battery fires, a wiring problem, a brake computer fault and a cracked cockpit window.
In the most serious incident in Japan, an ANA Dreamliner was forced to make an emergency landing in January 2013 after a smoke alarm went off in the cockpit.
ANA has already started repairing all of its Dreamliners on international routes after investigators found that the same medium-pressure turbine blades were corroding, possibly due to a design flaw.
The Dreamliner’s commercial debut in October 2011 was supposed to have heralded a new era in commercial flight. The plane, which is made of carbon fibre and other lightweight materials, is 20% more fuel-efficient than conventional airliners and 30% cheaper to maintain, as well as featuring design improvements for more comfortable medium and long-haul flights.
Boeing had received orders for 1,161 Dreamliners as of last month, and has delivered 445.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/japans-biggest-airline-grounds-its-dreamliners-over-engine-problem
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4402c4e0fc47d7712b502cb8d4712d2c4373e540faa70d4e2fada0495296a402.json
|
|
[
"Anushka Asthana",
"Maev Kennedy"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:41 | null | 2016-08-23T08:32:11 |
Aircraft renamed ‘victoRIOus’ due to land at Heathrow, and PM’s spokesperson says there is no cap on honours for medallists
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fteam-gb-return-rio-olympics-victorious-heathrow-champagn-honours.json
|
en
| null |
Team GB return from Rio Olympics on gold-nosed 747
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Team GB will fly in to Heathrow on Tuesday morning, clanking with their scores of medals, on flight number BA2016, a British Airways 747 repainted with a golden nose and renamed “victoRIOus”.
They return home to a chorus of demands that they be weighed down with further honours: nothing less than Dame Laura Trott and Sirs Jason Kenny and Mo Farah will do.
There will be a victory parade in Manchester, and a celebration event in London in the autumn. Meanwhile Theresa May has let it be known that given the achievements of the team, the unofficial limit on the number of honours for sports luminaries in any one year has been torn up, just like the predictions of how many medals Britain would win in Rio.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom Daley, Tonia Couch and Lois Toulson of Great Britain take a selfie with British Airways Captain Steve Hawkins and his crew as Team GB prepare to fly back from Rio. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images for British Airways
The prime minister’s spokeswoman said on Monday there would be no cap on the number of honours that might be distributed, given the “special circumstances” of the Rio triumph.
“There is guidance given by the Cabinet Office year to year on ballpark figures,” she said. “But where there are special circumstances and high numbers of deserving people, the committees in government will look at that. They should be recognising and rewarding great achievements and my goodness we’ve had that in the last two weeks.”
May has been on a walking holiday in Switzerland, but the spokeswoman said she had been following the events in Rio closely, was extremely proud to see the athletes surpass the London 2012 haul, and now wanted to see the country get behind the Paralympics team in the same spirit.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Joyce of Great Britain takes a selfie with British Airways Captain Steve Hawkins. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images for British Airways
“We’ve had an amazing fortnight at the Rio Olympics and we should be looking at the different ways we can recognise and reward the athletes for what they’ve achieved and honours are there to recognise people,” she said.
Before London 2012, the committee that advises on sporting honours was told that in any one year it could recommend just one knighthood, four CBEs, 20 OBEs and 38 MBEs. That quota was abandoned then, and will be again this time.
The team’s 67 medals in Rio included 27 golds, and counting each member of medal-winning teams such as the women’s hockey champions there were 129 medallists. It could be a long, tiring afternoon at Buckingham Palace if all are honoured.
Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the British Olympics Association, has already called for key support staff also to be recognised in official honours. They were the people thanked by many of the athletes moments after their triumph: the doctors and physiotherapists, and the coaches who often looked far more anguished at the side of track or pool than the athletes. Trott heaped praise on her coach, Paul Manning, for “putting up with my crap”.
There is also the question of how to further honour the serial gold medallists. Bradley Wiggins has been Sir Bradley since he was knighted by the Queen in 2013 for his gold at the London Olympics, and so may have to be told to pedal on round to the House of Lords. If he competes and wins in Tokyo in four years’ time, he may have to be given his home county of Lancashire to keep. Farah, meanwhile, has said he is wrestling with the idea of carrying on to the Tokyo 2020 Games.
After media grumbling before the games started about economy flights out to Rio for some of the athletes, British Airways was at pains to ensure their return was in some style. The plane had been loaded with extra champagne for the 320 athletes and support crew, for a flight lasting just over 11 hours.
There was plenty of room on the charter flight, with a seating capacity of 400-600 depending on the configuration. Medal-winners will get seating upgrades.
The plane facts
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/23/team-gb-return-rio-olympics-victorious-heathrow-champagn-honours
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/eb9699c9e0c36251b3ba2c5433189e973770ac6f48fdecf95f1d51361aa6de18.json
|
|
[
"Simon Jenkins"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:23 | null | 2016-08-25T05:00:02 |
Historic buildings possess a cultural vitality. Failing to repair them is a loss to our communal memory
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fculture%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ftimbuktu-grimsby-heritage-restored-revered.json
|
en
| null |
From Timbuktu to Grimsby, heritage deserves to be revered and restored
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
If you demolish a historic building in Timbuktu you commit a war crime. If you demolish one in Britain you apply for retrospective planning permission. What is the difference?
The decision of the international court in The Hague this week to prosecute a former al-Qaida insurgent, Ahmad al-Mahdi, for destroying nine ancient tombs in Mali is deeply significant. For the first time, the concept of war criminality has been extended from killing people to trying to wipe out their cultural heritage.
In 2012 al-Mahdi led a band of jihadis in the systematic destruction of relics of Mali’s ancient culture of pluralism, claiming it as an offence to Islamic fundamentalism. Timbuktu’s three mosques and its mausoleums were the great treasures of Saharan Africa, a culture that flourished at the time of Renaissance Florence. Despite the efforts of their custodians, manuscripts and books dating back to the 13th century were lost. Unesco’s director general, Irina Bokova, called the attack part of “a genocidal project, an attempted annihilation of otherness”. The mayor of Timbuktu said the shrines “belong to the whole world”.
In theory, the definition of a war crime has long gone beyond killing. It embraces torture, rape, the use of certain weapons and the destruction of property. Conventions in 1954 and 1977 specifically extended the protection of international law to “cultural property”, including sites, monuments, museums and art works. A 1999 protocol set out criminal sanctions covering such matters.
Prosecutions were never brought. This was partly for fear of appearing to elevate objects above people, but also because few hands are clean in this matter. No action was taken over the 1993 demolition by Serbs of Bosnian mosques and other historic structures. No action was taken in 1999 over Nato’s senseless bombing of historic structures in Novi Sad in north Serbia. Britain itself has never even ratified the 1954 convention, despite promises as recently as in last May’s Queen’s speech. It is believed the RAF lobbied against doing so.
In other words, the Hague case could open a can of worms – and with luck will do so. One of the most depressing books I have read is Robert Bevan’s The Destruction of Memory. From Cortés in Mexico to Britain’s bombing of historic Lübeck and the retaliatory Baedeker raids in the second world war, Bevan records systematic attacks on heritage targets as integral to military conquest.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ahmad al-Mahdi on trial at the international criminal court in The Hague. Photograph: POOL/Reuters
In case after case - mostly recently the Taliban in Bamiyan and Isis in Palmyra - wiping out the culture of a hated people was a means of subjugating them. Even in peace, communist regimes knew that destroying old buildings played a part in countering the conservative enemy within.
The jihadis’ destruction of Islam’s past may have seemed appallingly systematic. But its effect on the ground was no more appalling than the reckless western, and now Russian, aerial bombardment of urban targets in Iraq and Syria. Some 50,000 bombs and missiles have fallen on these countries since 2003. The tally of civilians killed by such bombs is almost certainly greater than those killed by Islamic State. The cultural devastation cannot be computed. America standing by during the firing and looting of Baghdad’s library and museum during the 2003 invasion was in flagrant defiance of the Hague convention. It makes al-Mahdi’s crime seem almost petty.
Timbuktu’s assiduousness in pursuing its case reflects the complex relationship of all countries to their past. Old places are not simply relics for scholars. Millions visit historical sites because they see them as exemplars of continuity and stability amid change. As Bevan points out, that conquerors so crave their destruction is a measure of their significance.
Irina Bokova: the woman standing between Isis and world heritage Read more
I like old places not because I always find them beautiful – many are not beautiful while some new buildings are. Rather I prefer the display of the old as illuminating the new. It pleases the eye and stimulates memory. It is older quarters of towns that nowadays attract crowds. This applies even where they have been drastically rebuilt. If the 19th century had not restored so many gothic cathedrals and old towns, 21st-century Europe would be immeasurably the poorer.
Historic buildings possess the same cultural vitality as do great sculptures and paintings. We have international laws governing the restitution of art to its owners. The Hague prosecution suggests that we might treat destroyed old buildings the same, protecting them in time of war and restoring them to their cities if damaged afterwards.
Warsaw rebuilt its old square, Dresden its Frauenkirche and the National Trust its fire-damaged Uppark. It is to Unesco’s credit that it has already used local craftsmen to rebuild the shrines smashed by al-Mahdi, even if it cannot recover their books and contents. By prosecuting those who did the smashing, the court greatly strengthens the case for such rebuilding.
Yet a new fundamentalism is emerging, that of “historical authenticity”. Unesco still cannot make up its mind to restore the Bamiyan buddhas, even though parts of them were already copies. Argument is raging over whether the bombed temples of Palmyra should be rebuilt – as conservationists stand ready to do -or left as piles of rubble as obscene monuments to Isis. The future of old Aleppo faces those caring for Syria’s past with a clear choice: to restore as in Warsaw, or to “modernise”.
If a vase is broken we do not leave it unrepaired. Why treat a building or a whole culture more harshly?
Our debt to the past is growing more complicated than either wiping it out or putting up fences and charging for entry. The challenge is constant. In Britain this week, Liverpool is demolishing its earliest cinema, the Futurist, and Grimsby seeks to wipe out the legacy of its maritime dockside. The cause may be development value rather than war. The loss to communal memory is the same.
If a vase is broken or a picture slashed we do not leave them unrepaired. Why treat a building or a neighbourhood or a whole culture more harshly, when we now have the means and the skills to repair them? To retreat into some ideological “truth to materials” or “conserve as found” is elitist, obscurantist and, in the case of jihadi outrages, a glorification of terrorism.
The Hague trial honours the obligation of today’s generation to guard the evidence of the past, at least in times of conflict. In admitting his guilt, al-Mahdi’s lawyer says “he regrets all the acts he committed… and feels pain and a broken heart at what he has done”. Would that all who perpetrate similar destruction, in war or peace, might say the same.
Imprisoning al-Mahdi cannot do much good. Making amends by correcting his destruction is far better. If Timbuktu is any guide, the miseries lately inflicted on Iraq and Syria could yet be turned to recompense and renaissance. When peace returns, we cannot breathe life into dead bodies, but we can redress the murder of memories.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/commentisfree/2016/aug/25/timbuktu-grimsby-heritage-restored-revered
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e0c38589c9aa23f1932dfcccf80953e25f3bb9c8b37ddd6ecd816b2bfeaf1c81.json
|
|
[
"Stewart Lee"
] | 2016-08-28T10:49:40 | null | 2016-08-28T09:00:28 |
The Russian president could teach the Labour leader a thing or two when it comes to managing a photo opportunity
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fwhere-was-vladimir-putin-when-jeremy-corbyn-needed-him.json
|
en
| null |
Where was Putin when Corbyn needed him?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In Edinburgh, where I write this, there is concern that the city’s newly opened branch of the Kremlin-backed news agency Sputnik is intended specifically to destabilise post-Brexit English-Scottish relations. Message to Putin: “Don’t worry, Vladimir baby! We can handle this one ourselves!!”
Nonetheless, let us compare the contrasting media manipulation strategies of Putin’s Russia and, for example, the Labour party, both of them organisations that have, at times, abandoned their leftwing core beliefs in an attempt to adapt to a shifting geopolitical landscape. If last week’s news is to be believed, Russia’s control of media extends as far as hacking staff at the New York Times. As well as the Kremlin getting to see funny cartoons of representational figures holding up signs with writing on them hours ahead of the rest of us, could this hack also mean Russia could plant false stories into American media at source?
There is a long tradition of essentially dishonest photo opportunities being used to cement policy in the public mind
Is Donald Trump, for example, whose rise is fuelling fears of forthcoming global nuclear war, actually a fictional creation of Russian propagandists intended to destabilise the west? Oddly, this is a more comforting proposition than the idea that he really exists.
In the autumn of 2015, it was suggested that Putin’s deliberately penis-shaped submarines, designed specifically to subconsciously exaggerate our perceptions of Russian genitalia, are poking around the transatlantic data cables to ensure the maverick anarcho-superpower’s ability to cut continental Europe off from America. Two campaigns working in opposition might then mean American media were full of Russian lies that we in Europe weren’t actually able to view.
On the other hand, this kind of strategy would be typical of Putin’s propaganda guru Vladislav Surkov, a surrealist artist who, despite dressing like a disgraced Top Gear presenter, uses creatively chaotic double-think to sculpt our perceptions of Russia as determinedly as Richard Dreyfuss mushes mashed potato into mountains in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by David Foldvari.
On the one hand, dope-fiend Russian athletes’ disqualification from the Rio feelgood festival was embarrassing; on the other, it creates the impression of a country of unpredictable law-defying crazies so convincingly Surkov himself may have masterminded it. There’s no way of knowing anymore. Surkov may even have written this. I may actually be him without my even knowing it.
In March 2015, I wrote, for this paper, a silly fantasy about a giant statue of a naked Putin landing in my garden. Reading the below-the-line internet comments later, I realised how thorough Russia’s determination to muddy the waters of opinion was; many of them were clearly generated by almost-literate Kremlin cyber-slaves, rather than by the usual neoliberal trolls taking time off from masturbating over old videos of Toby Young on a rowing reality TV show.
Briefly, I adopted a strategy of writing borderline meaningless gibberish about Russia to try and provoke weird responses from the full-time Kremlin-backed commenters. Indeed, in a column about the Eurovision Song Contest three months later I discreetly included the following irrelevant paragraph: “One may as well give the kosovorotka-marinading wazzocks something incomprehensible to feed to their bewildered brainstems. To me, then, Vladimir Putin is a giant, prolapsed female worker bee that sucks hot ridicule out of langoustines’ cephalothoraxes. Let’s see what crunchy, expansionist lavatory honey this notion causes the parthenogenetic Russian keyboard wendigos to inflate for us this week, in the shadow of Paul McGann and his art gnome.”
The problem here was twofold. Firstly, many Observer readers found this nonsense indistinguishable from my usual writing. (As has been pointed out by contributors many times, I am no AA Gill. Now that man can write!)
And, secondly, many of the pro-Putin below-the-line comments the incoherence provoked were, I suspect, actually placed by sassy readers attempting to parody the usual Kremlin posts.
Consider, for example, this convincingly odd submission from General Dreedle. “Russia is very well doing without your Opra Winfrey western pornography and youre decadent music. More lies about Ukraine which was only the size of a biscuit before transsexual won.”
Sign up to the Guardian's daily email Read more
Whether the supposed Observer contributor General Dreedle is real or not, the fact is Putin’s Russia has taken political propaganda to the next level, motherfuckers! Meanwhile, here at home, Jeremy Corbyn is filmed sitting on the floor of a train.
There is a long tradition of essentially dishonest photo opportunities being used by politicians to cement policy in the public mind. Consider Margaret Thatcher in that tank in 1986; or Michael Dukakis in that tank in 1988; or John Major on that tank in 1991.
But politicians’ photo opportunities don’t only use tanks. In 2006, David Cameron, who went on to ruin Britain for ever, was photographed in Norway hugging a husky, as he launched the lie that he was unleashing the “greenest government ever”. But within a few years, Theresa May would close the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Conservative propagandists would have gone to any lengths to avoid David Cameron being photographed embracing an animal. (Indeed, now I find myself wondering, was Vladislav Surkov himself the unnamed source of the bought biographer Isabel Oakeshott’s Cameron pig-sex-face story? Or is Isabel Oakeshott herself a Kremlin creation? What kind of name is “Isabel Oakeshott”? Has anyone ever really been called that, in real life, ever?)
Putin and the tiger – Russian president's four best photo-ops Read more
But instead of being photographed in a tank like a normal politician, Jeremy Corbyn last week chose to be filmed sitting on the floor of a train. While clearly intended to highlight the scandal of private rail company ownership, the Labour party’s release of the footage represents an entirely foreseeable own goal.
First, it provides the same two blokes that secretly write all the jokes for the comedians on all those shitty TV comedy panel shows with a picture of Jeremy Corbyn sitting on the floor, thus generating loads of pithy one-liners tying together the idea of the number of seats on a train with the number of seats in parliament, ie, “He should have gone and sat in his own back benches, there’s plenty of room there!”
Secondly, as the Corbyn floor film was taken on a train owned by a private company, that company had access to CCTV detailing the circumstances leading up to its creation and it is clearly in its own commercial interests to use that footage to discredit the images, whether the empty seats Corbyn chose to walk by were actually reserved or not.
The right in British politics, backed by business and media, is consolidating an unassailable hegemony. Our left needs to raise its game. If you ever got to see film of Putin sprawled on public transport, every single possible interpretation of the footage would already have been minutely mapped.
Stewart Lee’s new show, Content Provider, is at Leicester Square theatre from 8 November and then touring. See stewartlee.co.uk for details
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/28/where-was-vladimir-putin-when-jeremy-corbyn-needed-him
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/29296b63bab58ed9b52fb9d864e3629989be40dfc3f368501d8c11aa8a7e7d3c.json
|
|
[
"Louise Taylor"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:13 | null | 2016-08-27T18:37:42 |
The Manchester United teenager, who was dropped by England earlier in the week, came off the bench to score the only goal at Hull City in injury time
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fhull-city-manchester-united-premier-league-match-report.json
|
en
| null |
Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford taps in last-gasp winner at Hull
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Marcus Rashford, who was dropped by England earlier in the week, scored an injury-time winner as Manchester United finally overhauled a stubborn Hull City. The 18-year-old, making his first appearance of the season, steered home Wayne Rooney’s cross to spark wild celebrations on the away bench.
José Mourinho maintained his 100% record as United’s manager though not everything is going to plan. Considering the anchoring element of his 4-2-3-1 formation stand a collective 12ft 7in – Marouane Fellaini is 6ft 4in and Paul Pogba an inch shorter – Hull’s rather more averagely built central midfielder, Sam Clucas, looked a little vertically challenged.
No matter: ably supported by Tom Huddlestone (no midget himself) and David Meyler, he held his own surprisingly well with some assured, composed passing. There were moments when Clucas was outmuscled by the more athletic Pogba but generally he proved a big reason why United struggled to trouble Eldin Jakupovic during the first half. Significantly Pogba was never able to dominate play.
Hull City v Manchester United: Premier League – live! Read more
Apart from watching a header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic fly fractionally over his bar following the striker’s impressive connection with Anthony Martial’s average cross, Jakupovic had relatively little to do in Hull’s goal.
Neither did David de Gea but that seemed little consolation to Mourinho as he paced his technical area, shaking his head. With his hands tucked deep into the pockets of the overcoat he had sensibly worn on an extremely damp, Humberside evening, United manager’s cut an increasingly fractious figure.
The rain was lashing down when, in the wake of Fellaini being booked for a foul on Adama Diomandé, Robert Snodgrass stepped forward to hit a free-kick from almost 30 yards. As it curled in, De Gea remained motionless and must have been mighty relieved to see it brush the outside of a post.
Shortly afterwards, Huddlestone’s wonderful long pass sparked a home counterattack that concluded with Andrew Robertson crossing and Luke Shaw intercepting quite brilliantly as Snodgrass prepared to pounce at the far post. Unfortunately the winger ended up colliding with the upright and required lengthy treatment before resuming.
Leicester survive late scare against Swansea to secure first win of season Read more
Mourinho must have hoped he might not be able to continue as Snodgrass was a big reason why Shaw was not able to attack in his customary fashion from left-back. With Antonio Valencia, the visiting right-back, similarly stifled things were proving rather less straightforward than United may have anticipated.
When Juan Mata dodged Robertson to deliver a cross Jakupovic could only parry, the hitherto anonymous Wayne Rooney looked set to score from six yards. Instead Curtis Davies – magnificent in central defence – somehow chested the ball off the line.
Rooney was left to, forlornly, appeal for what would have been an extremely harsh handball penalty against the defender on what was proving a trying match for the England captain. With Meyler and co frequently cramping his style and leaving him precious little room for manoeuvre, Rooney often had nowhere to turn.
Although United had plenty of possession and Hull’s attacking game could not exactly be described as ambitious, Phelan must have been delighted by the way his team were containing their guests with Davies’s minding of Ibrahimovic emblematic of this collective smothering. Even better, they did, albeit sporadically, menace on the counterattack and Abel Hernández had De Gea diving to save a dangerous header.
Shay Given’s own goal gives dominant Everton victory over Stoke Read more
The second half had barely begun before Snodgrass, completely unchallenged, collapsed near the dugout, a leg having apparently giving way under him. Considering he only returned from 16 months out with a serious knee injury last spring this was not a happy sight. Having manipulated his knee, Hull’s physiotherapist helped him to his feet but the consoling arm he put around the winger, who was immediately replaced Shaun Maloney, could be construed as another bad sign.
Without Snodgrass to worry them – and with Fellaini arguably lucky not to have received a second booking for what looked suspiciously like a clearcut case of defiance – United began to settle.
Yet still Jakupovic, who earlier comfortably gathered a disappointing Rooney header, remained untroubled. By half-time the news had filtered through Cardiff had accepted Hull’s £5 bid for their goalkeeper, David Marshall but Phelan’s current No1 should count himself hard done by is he were dropped.
Recognising that things were still not quite right, Mourinho replaced Martial with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and the newcomer’s passing immediately helped bring the best out of Ibrahimovic. That said United’s lone striker had already done more than most to raise the tone, one glorious volleyed backheel flick which found Mata offside lingering in the memory.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/hull-city-manchester-united-premier-league-match-report
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fc17b0749a2b1bee6d97d6363a1fca332c0ade5e0ea6fd7960062bad6c8c30aa.json
|
|
[
"Lee Bey"
] | 2016-08-26T13:20:36 | null | 2016-08-17T06:44:51 |
Long before Columbus reached the Americas, Cahokia was the biggest, most cosmopolitan city north of Mexico. Yet by 1350 it had been deserted by its native inhabitants the Mississippians – and no one is sure why
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcities%2F2016%2Faug%2F17%2Flost-cities-8-mystery-ahokia-illinois-mississippians-native-americans-vanish.json
|
en
| null |
Lost cities #8: mystery of Cahokia - why did North America's largest city vanish?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In its prime, about four centuries before Columbus stumbled on to the western hemisphere, Cahokia was a prosperous pre-American city with a population similar to London’s.
Located in southern Illinois, eight miles from present-day St Louis, it was probably the largest North American city north of Mexico at that time. It had been built by the Mississippians, a group of Native Americans who occupied much of the present-day south-eastern United States, from the Mississippi river to the shores of the Atlantic.
Cahokia was a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city for its time. Yet its history is virtually unknown by most Americans and present-day Illinoisans. It is one of many stories that have been bypassed in favour of the shopworn narrative – reinforced in literature and a century of American cinema – of Native Americans as backward and primitive.
“A lot of the world is still relating in terms of cowboys and Indians, and feathers and teepees,” says Thomas Emerson, professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois. “But in AD1000, from the beginning, [a city is] laid on a specific plan. It doesn’t grow into a plan, it starts as a plan. And they created the most massive earthen mound in North America. Where does that come from?”
Its mix of people made Cahokia like an early-day Manhattan, drawing residents from throughout the Mississippian-controlled region: the Natchez, the Pensacola, the Choctaw, the Ofo. Archaeologists conducting strontium tests on the teeth of buried remains have found a third of the population was “not from Cahokia, but somewhere else”, according to Emerson, who is director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. “And that’s throughout the entire sequence [of Cahokia’s existence.]”
The Native Americans at Cahokia farmed, traded and hunted. They were also early urban planners, who used astronomical alignments to lay out a low-scale metropolis of 10-20,000 people, featuring a town centre with broad public plazas and key buildings set atop vast, hand-built earthen mounds. The largest of these mounds was 100 feet tall and covered 14 acres – and still exists today.
But rather than developing, like London, into a modern metropolis, Cahokia is more like the fabled lost continent of Atlantis. Having become a major population centre around AD1050, by 1350 it was largely abandoned by its people – and no one is sure why. Neither war, disease, nor European conquest drove Cahokia’s residents from their homes. Indeed, the first white man to reach these lands, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, didn’t do so until 1540.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pilgrimage city: Cahokia is thought to have been dedicated to spiritual meetings and ceremonies. Illustration: Alamy
The mound-building Mississippians dominated a great portion of the eastern half of the present-day United States between 1000 and 1500. Many of their villages were established near trade routes or sources of water and food – but Cahokia was different.
Though rich in timber, deer and fish from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, the land was flood-prone – so why build there? According to Emerson, the most likely explanation is that Cahokia was planned and constructed to double as a “pilgrimage city”, where all Mississippians could gather for religious events.
“It might’ve been a good area to explore but not so good to live in,” Emerson says. “But then something changed around AD1000, and it becomes this major centre. Most of the change has nothing to do with the economy, but what we broadly call religion.”
Not unlike postwar America suburbs such as Levittown, Pennsylvania or Park Forest, Illinois, the Mississippians planned and built Cahokia – having successfully predicted that a population would flock to it. They created a city that was between six and nine square miles in area, with 120 earthen mounds inside its rough borders. The mound-building would have been backbreaking work, with the Mississippians digging up, hauling and stacking 55 million cubic feet over the course of a few decades, using no more than woven baskets to transport all that earth.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arrowheads and other ancient Mississippian artefacts found at Cahokia. Photograph: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
Cahokia’s largest mound (later called Monk’s Mound, after the French Trappists who tended to its terraced gardens in the 1800s) was the site of a sizeable building in which Cahokia’s political and spiritual leaders met, according to archaeologists. Surrounded by a wooden palisade almost two miles in circumference, the town centre was where residents, pilgrims and leaders worshipped and held ceremonies.
Most of the Mississippians lived on the other side of the palisade in rectangular, single-room homes about 15 ft long and 12 ft wide, with wooden-post walls covered with mats and a thatched roof. Far from being a collection of villages or campsites, the homes were linked by courtyards and pathways, forming shared physical connections not unlike contemporary streets. The habitants even plotted an east-west road that is essentially the route from the area to St Louis today.
‘Its decline is a mystery’
During its prime, Cahokia would have bustled with activity. Men hunted, grew and stored corn, and cleared trees for construction. Women tended to the fields and homes, made pottery, wove mats and fabrics, often performing work and social activity in the small courtyards and gardens outside each grouping of homes.
Sacred meetings and ceremonies – the city’s purpose – took place on the plazas and in buildings inside the palisade. “There was a belief that what went on on Earth also went on in the spirit world, and vice versa,” says James Brown, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Northwestern University. “So once you went inside these sacred protocols, everything had to be very precise.”
The Mississippians oriented Cahokia’s centre in a true east-west fashion, using site lines and the positions of the sun, moon and stars to determine direction accurately. West of Monk’s Mound, a circle of tall posts used the position of the rising sun to mark the summer and winter solstices and the spring and fall equinoxes. The posts were re-erected and dubbed Woodhenge by archaeologists who began researching the area in 1961.
Excavations since the 60s have yielded fascinating information about this ancient city. Scholars have found artistic stone and ceramic figurines; Brown was part of team that discovered a small copper workshop adjacent to the base of one of the mounds. “Inside was a fireplace with coals, where copper could be pounded out and annealed,” he says. “They pounded it out, heated it to allow the crystals in the cooper to realign, and when they quenched this in water, you’d have something that resembled an ornament, a bead.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Cahokia site covered an area of nine square miles. Illustration: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
Archaeological work has also discovered a mound containing mass burials. While the extent of it is debated, it appears the Mississippians may have conducted ritual human sacrifices, judging by what appears to be hundreds of people, mostly young women, buried in these mass graves. Some were likely strangled; others possibly died of bloodletting. Four men were found with their heads and hands cut off; another burial pit had mostly males who had been clubbed to death.
Apparently what happened in Cahokia left a bad taste in people’s minds Thomas Emerson
The people of Cahokia themselves may have both doled out and received a lot of this violence, since researchers have found no specific evidence of warfare or invasion from outsiders. Emerson says he has excavated other Native American sites that were filled with arrowheads left behind by war; by comparison, at Cahokia there were almost none. “It’s interesting,” he adds. “At Cahokia the danger is from the people on top; not other people [from other tribes or locations] attacking you.”
But William Iseminger, archaeologist and assistant manager at Cahokia Mounds, points out there must have been some continuing threat to the city, whether from local or distant sources, that necessitated it being built and rebuilt four times between 1175 and 1275. “Perhaps they never were attacked, but the threat was there and the leaders felt the need to expend a tremendous amount of time, labour and material to protect the central ceremonial precinct.”
The story of Cahokia’s decline and eventual end is a mystery. After reaching its population height in about 1100, the population shrinks and then vanishes by 1350. Perhaps they had exhausted the land’s resources, as some scholars theorise, or were the victims of political and social unrest, climate change, or extended droughts. Whatever, the Mississippians simply walked away and Cahokia gradually was abandoned.
Tales of Cahokia don’t even show up in Native American folklore and oral histories, Emerson says. “Apparently what happened in Cahokia left a bad taste in people’s minds.” The earth and the mounds provide the only narrative.
Lost cities #9: racism and ruins – the plundering of Great Zimbabwe Read more
As archaeological studies here continue, Monk’s Mound is now the centrepiece of the 3.5 square-mile Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1982), which includes 2,200 acres of land, 72 surviving mounds, and a museum. The US National Park Service is considering whether to take the area and nearby surviving mounds under its wing.
Federal designation could bring Cahokia additional recognition and tourism. Currently about 250,000 people visit the site every year; by comparison, the rather more modern, Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway Arch in St Louis attracts four million visitors annually.
“Cahokia is definitely an underplayed story,” Brown says. “You’d have to go to the valley of Mexico to see anything comparable to this place. It’s a total orphan – a lost city in every sense.”
Share your own stories of other ‘lost cities’ throughout history in the comments below. Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join in the discussion
|
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/17/lost-cities-8-mystery-ahokia-illinois-mississippians-native-americans-vanish
|
en
| 2016-08-17T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/94d41b3886c0166b2f9add467d84133740311cc0806e9b0e70da2bcc0eccd8c4.json
|
|
[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-28T08:51:57 | null | 2016-08-28T08:27:54 |
Hawthorn reclaimed their spot in the AFL’s top four with a thrilling one-point win over Collingwood at the MCG
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fafl-round-23-sunday-roundup.json
|
en
| null |
Hawthorn secure top four spot after late drama against Collingwood
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Hawthorn reclaimed their spot in the AFL’s top four with a thrilling one-point win over Collingwood at the MCG. The Hawks, chasing a fourth straight premiership, needed to win or draw their final game of the regular season to secure a coveted double chance in the finals, and they will now face rivals Geelong in a qualifying final, having dramatically beaten the Magpies 17.10 (112) to 17.9 (111).
Collingwood, who were a man down in the second half following James Aish’s hamstring injury, booted four consecutive goals to hit the front with a tick under three minutes remaining. Jack Fitzpatrick, called into the Hawks’ side following ruckman Jon Ceglar’s season-ending knee injury, was the unlikely hero, bursting through the middle and unloaded a bomb from over 55 metres out to level the scores.
Swans clinch minor premiership, Cats hammer Demons in Roos' final game Read more
A behind from Paul Puopolo then put them in front and the Magpies ran out of time. It was the sixth time this year Hawthorn have won by nine points or less. The Hawks trailed by 16 points in the second quarter and were outplayed for much of the contest.
Small forwards Cyril Rioli and Luke Breust led a spirited comeback and a snapped goal from veteran Jordan Lewis gave Hawthorn a 12-point buffer at three-quarter-time. The Magpies continued to fight in front of a crowd of 52,968, levelling the scores early in the fourth term.
The Hawks steadied thanks to clutch goals from James Sicily, Billy Hartung and Shaun Burgoyne, only for Collingwood to rally again. Rioli and Breust booted a combined six goals but their pressure as defensive forwards was just as influential, while Hartung and Burgoyne were among a handful of Hawks to lift after half-time.
Coach Alastair Clarkson will be relieved his team finished in the top four as history suggests their premiership hopes would have been dashed otherwise.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nick Riewoldt took a season-high 21 marks and booted nine goals as St Kilda wrapped up their season with a win over Brisbane. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP
A Nick Riewoldt masterclass saw St Kilda finish their 2016 AFL season on a high, defeating Brisbane by 58 points at Etihad Stadium. Riewoldt took his usual aerial dominance to the next level on Sunday, kicking nine goals as the Saints blew Brisbane away in a 25.11 (161) to 15.13 (103) victory.
The veteran skipper took a season-high 21 marks and equalled his career-best goal haul, transforming the near-meaningless match to a spectacle. Despite the size of the defeat, the Lions avoided the wooden spoon after tallying a decent score of their own.
Brisbane started the day just half a per cent above bottom-placed Essendon, whose defeat of Carlton on Saturday had put last place – and the selection of the coveted No1 draft pick – in doubt. Riewoldt’s seventh goal had the Lions in last place on the live ladder but late goals to Brisbane meant the AFL strugglers in fact improved their percentage.
The loss could end coach Justin Leppitsch’s time at the club. In three seasons, Leppitsch has mustered just 14 wins, with season 2016 the worst in the merged club’s 20-year history. Leppitsch will find out if his future remains at the club he won three premierships at as a player after a Lions board meeting this week.
In a half-time huddle positioned within earshot of the travelling cheer squad, Brisbane captain Tom Rockliff (37 disposals) delivered an impassioned plea to his team-mates, pointing to his shirt and 200-gamer Daniel Merrett. The bruising defender, whose milestone coincided with his last AFL match, enjoyed the Lions’ best moment of the day, kicking a goal that every Brisbane player on the ground saluted.
But St Kilda had too many routes to goal for Brisbane, finishing with 11 goalkickers and their biggest score of the year. Jack Lonie and Josh Bruce joined in the romp with three goals apiece, while David Armitage gathered 30 touches in game 150.
The Saints will be pleased with a 12-10 season – their first positive return in four years – but they’ll also wonder what might have been. Alan Richardson’s side miss the finals on percentage alone. Huge losses to West Coast (103 points), Adelaide (88) and Sydney (70), as well as a round 19 loss against finals rivals North Melbourne mean St Kilda end the season stranded in ninth.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/28/afl-round-23-sunday-roundup
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/afe31f6dc0c0c1c44a657f140e345b484c6634aca6bbc061bc971dc61feb5c06.json
|
|
[
"Suzanne Goldenberg",
"Bill Mckibben"
] | 2016-08-30T04:57:36 | null | 2016-05-03T19:00:06 |
The Middle East, north Africa, central Asia and south Asia due to suffer biggest economic hit from water scarcity as climate change takes hold, report finds
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Fmay%2F03%2Fclimate-change-water-shortage-middle-east-asia-africa-world-bank.json
|
en
| null |
Global water shortages to deliver 'severe hit' to economies, World Bank warns
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Water shortages will deliver a “severe hit” to the economies of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa by the middle of the century, taking double digits off their GDP, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.
By 2050, growing demand for cities and for agriculture would put water in short supply in regions where it is now plentiful – and worsen shortages across a vast swath of Africa and Asia, spurring conflict and migration, the bank said.
Water shortages could strip off 14% of GDP in the Middle East and nearly 12% of GDP in the Sahel – without a radical shift in management, according to the bank’s projections.
Central Asia could lose close to 11% of GDP and east Asia about 7% under business-as-usual water management policies, according to a new report.
Taking into account all regions, the mid-range toll of water shortages on GDP was about 6%.
“There is a severe hit on GDP,” said Richard Damania, lead environmental economist for the Bank and author of High and Dry: Climate Change, Water and the Economy.
Global water scarcity impact on GDP. Photograph: World Bank
Governments have grown increasingly concerned about the threat to water supply because of a combination of climate change and increasing demand.
Barack Obama invited business leaders to the White House last March for a business summit aimed at protecting California from the next drought – by mobilising investment in data and other technologies that would promote more efficient use of water.
The biggest economic hit due to water deficits were expected to occur in the Middle East, north Africa, central Asia, and parts of south Asia, the report found. There would be virtually no impact on the economies of North America and western Europe.
Much of the world faces a hotter and drier future under climate change, according to scientists. Rainfall – including the monsoons that fortify agriculture in south Asia – will become more unpredictable. Storm surges could contaminate freshwater reservoirs.
But there will also be pressure on water supply from rising populations – especially in cities – and increased demand from agriculture. “It turns out that economic growth is a thirsty business,” Damania said.
Some cities could see water availability drop by two-thirds by 2050, the report found. Water shortages could have rebounding effects on food production, public health, and household incomes – with families forced to pay more for a basic necessity.
But, the report said, encouraging more efficient use of water could make a big difference in the mid-century economic scenarios for regions threatened by water shortages.
In some countries, about two-thirds of water is lost to old and leaky pipes.
Good water management policies would add more than 11% to the GDP of central Asian countries and blunt the impact of water shortages in the Middle East, the report found.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/climate-change-water-shortage-middle-east-asia-africa-world-bank
|
en
| 2016-05-03T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/42083de172a18c3fb62fe3045bc4e5caa78f0db0d2d2c771beeda153a74fde9a.json
|
|
[
"Jamie Doward"
] | 2016-08-27T20:51:02 | null | 2016-08-27T19:15:11 |
The ball game, which can be played by the severely disabled, first appeared at the Games in 1984 and is growing fast
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fteam-gb-boccia-players-hope-for-paralympics-boost.json
|
en
| null |
GB boccia players hope to raise sport’s profile at Paralympics
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It is a sport many have never heard of, but it’s one that offers a lifeline for those who can find a club.
Boccia – pronounced bot-cha – was designed to enable severely disabled athletes to participate in sport and has become one of the fastest-growing Paralympian activities.
“We’ve seen a definite boom since the London Paralympics,” said Marc Scott, club development officer with Boccia England. “But it’s not well known across the general public. If you go up to somebody on the street and asked them what boccia is, they wouldn’t have a clue.”
First played at the 1984 Paralympics, the sport now boasts 61 clubs affiliated to Boccia England, up from 40 in 2012. But its profile suffers because it is the only sport for which there is no Olympic equivalent, and its players do not enjoy the recognition of some Paralympians. But before next month’s Paralympics – to which Team GB will be sending a full quota of 10 b boccia players – and before national boccia day on 17 September, there are calls for the game’s profile to be raised so that more severely disabled people can play.
In boccia, players must propel balls as close as possible to the jack on a court measuring 12.5 metres by six. If a player is unable to throw or kick the ball, they can use a ramp. Those unable to release the ball with their hands use a device that they can point with their head.
“As with all sports there is a cost, but with disability sports the cost increases,” Scott said. “There is specialist equipment, there are few manufacturers, and the cost is high. Access to starting up and playing boccia is significantly more than, say, if you want to set your child up to play at a local football club.”
A decent set of balls costs £300, while a ramp can set a player back as much as £3,000. This can be well beyond the reach of many people with severe disabilities.
“We’re talking about people who are quadriplegics or have cerebral palsy who are based in powerchairs,” Scott said. “Boccia is the only sport they can play. It’s the only one that allows participants across the globe to take part in a sport.”
Former England rugby international Alastair Hignell, a trustee of the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity, which campaigns on disability issues, agreed: “The Paralympic Games will no doubt trigger much debate about how disabled people engage with sport. A disability is something you can be born with or acquire later in life. Boccia can be played by anyone, including those with conditions limiting mobility or exertion, yet all too often it is not made available by local sports providers.”
A YouGov poll suggests that 61% of disabled people would like to do more sport or exercise. But earlier research found that 41% of disabled people said there were no opportunities for them to participate.
“The benefits of sport to disabled people – including the benefits to mental health and a full social life – are the same as for everyone else,” Hignell said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/27/team-gb-boccia-players-hope-for-paralympics-boost
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7813ca47282cfe0380c68b50539a4279f97b2a06baf78aa3a86b5215b13793dc.json
|
|
[
"Helen Davidson"
] | 2016-08-27T10:51:18 | null | 2016-08-27T10:43:50 |
The Labor party has won the Northern Territory election, and could have a comfortable majority against the scandal plagued Country Liberal party
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Faustralia-news%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fnorthern-territory-election-labor-country-liberal-party-results-live.json
|
en
| null |
Northern Territory election results: Labor wins majority - live
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
06:02
Good evening and welcome to live coverage of the Northern Territory election. A little late to start, my apologies, but we’re here for a good time not a long time, right?
I’ll take you through results as they come in, as well as the context - and scandal - which explains it all.
Ben Raue will chip in from the Tally Room with the numbers and predictions.
If you’re familiar with NT politics, let’s get going. If you’re not then, well, you’re in for a bit of an education.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/aug/27/northern-territory-election-labor-country-liberal-party-results-live
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d9b90c02cb062475f1fbf3d22535be76bb72e519f4a0c1779aa708efaa9eb9e2.json
|
|
[
"Anna Tims"
] | 2016-08-26T13:28:49 | null | 2016-08-19T06:00:09 |
He has been sent numerous demands for payment, ranging from £450 to more than £2,000, and many figures in between
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F19%2Fnpower-energy-billing-issue-your-problems.json
|
en
| null |
Npower does not have the energy to sort my partner’s billing issue
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
My partner has been plagued with problems with npower for two years now, following an erroneous transfer.
He has received at least 40 letters, none of which give him a clear statement of what is owed for when. Instead he has been sent apology letters, write-off letters, demands for payment and threats to disconnect. He has been sent 28 different demands for payment, ranging from £450 to more than £2,000, and many figures in between.
There is no pattern to the sums – they have risen and fallen without explanation. He has also received five letters from debt collection agencies. ES, London
Npower explains that another supplier mistakenly took over one of the two supplies to the property.
“Unfortunately, we had a considerable delay reclaiming the account which we then back-billed,” says a spokesperson.
The company says your partner owes £1,263 because he hasn’t made a payment for eight months – unsurprisingly, since he has not received a coherent bill – and it is willing to set up a repayment plan. It will also pay compensation, as directed by the ombudsman, to whom you also complained.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/19/npower-energy-billing-issue-your-problems
|
en
| 2016-08-19T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2df90b12befc0f311caa0dd3c38f3af38d7be0311878ca30bdbb87f08e6c44bb.json
|
|
[
"Alvaro Barrientos Ap"
] | 2016-08-28T16:51:59 | null | 2016-08-28T10:45:29 |
A hooded man with a colourful outfit known as the Cipotegato acknowledges the crowd after running through the streets
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Fpicture%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Feyewitness-tarazona-spain.json
|
en
| null |
Eyewitness: Tarazona, Spain
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A hooded man with a colourful outfit known as the Cipotegato acknowledges the crowd after running through the streets
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2016/aug/28/eyewitness-tarazona-spain
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6b2e23534011f7e18b76cd05cc1da11fdb09541abc2fbfef36a11a9a2423b0f7.json
|
|
[
"Associated Press In Ankara",
"Ranj Alaaldin"
] | 2016-08-26T13:16:28 | null | 2016-08-26T09:10:35 |
State-run news agency says 11 dead and dozens wounded in attack blamed on Kurdish militants in Cizre near Syrian border
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fturkey-bomb-blast-cizre-dead-explosion-police-headquarters.json
|
en
| null |
Turkey: deadly truck bomb hits Cizre police checkpoint
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
An attack with an explosives-laden truck on a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey has killed at least 11 police officers and wounded 78 other people.
The state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Kurdish militants were responsible for the attack on a checkpoint about 50 metres from a police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Şırnak province that borders Syria.
Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck, while the three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion. The health ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was the latest in a string of bombings targeting police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) for those attacks.
Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after the collapse of a fragile two-year peace process between the government and the militant group. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since.
Turkey and US unite to oust Isis and curb Kurds Read more
Turkey has also seen a rise of deadly attacks that have been blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in south-east Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, which killed 44.
Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake a key Isis-held town.
Since hostilities with the PKK resumed last summer, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to the Anadolu Agency. Human rights groups say hundreds of civilians have also been killed.
The PKK is considered a terror organisation by Turkey and its allies.
The attacks on police came as the country was still reeling from a violent coup attempt on 15 July that killed at least 270 people. The government has blamed the failed coup on the supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen and has embarked on a sweeping crackdown on his followers.
On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy of vehicles carrying Turkey’s main opposition party leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in the north-east, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/turkey-bomb-blast-cizre-dead-explosion-police-headquarters
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/06ce47905fe3c5e8abaa395f0503cb4f673e8714ded473a46cfdf909247255ba.json
|
|
[
"Roy Greenslade"
] | 2016-08-30T12:50:25 | null | 2016-08-30T12:24:33 |
Conservative website moves from the fringe into the media spotlight now that its chairman is acting as chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign team
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2Fgreenslade%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fbreitbart-takes-centre-stage-as-donald-trump-embraces-the-alt-right.json
|
en
| null |
Breitbart takes centre stage as Donald Trump embraces the alt-right
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In Britain, rightwingers love to poke fun at the left for its myriad splits. In the United States, the major political splits are on the right.
The latest manifestation is the so-called alt-right, a loose conglomeration of populist, nationalist, racist and conspiracist groupings that view themselves as an alternative to mainstream political conservatism.
This fringe has replaced the tea party movement as the Republican party’s major rightwing bugbear. It has emerged into the media spotlight courtesy of Donald Trump following his appointment of one of alt-right’s supposed champions, Stephen Bannon, as chief executive of his campaign.
Bannon - a former adviser to Sarah Palin - chairs Breitbart News, which has the dubious honour of challenging Fox News’s status as America’s most influential conservative media outlet.
After Hillary Clinton denounced Trump last Thursday for cosying up to the alt-right by engaging Bannon, the New York Times ran a piece saying “Breitbart News has arrived”.
According to the article, the website “is now an increasingly powerful voice, and virtual rallying spot, for millions of disaffected conservatives” and on Facebook, it rivals the audiences for the Washington Post and Yahoo.
Known simply as Breitbart, the NY Times pointed to it being “an outsize source of controversy — for liberals and even many traditional conservatives — over material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist.”
In a separate article, the paper said the site “gained prominence by breaking news about a series of scandals involving liberal politicians, bureaucrats and organisations, and by relentlessly pushing those stories.” It continued:
“The website is loathed by many liberals, moderates and establishment Republicans who say it stokes a partisan atmosphere and misleads readers in order to escalate what they see as non-issues.”
It was among the first news outlets to disseminate unsubstantiated rumours that Clinton has health problems.
Last month, Milo Yiannopoulos, the site’s tech editor, was banned from Twitter after inspiring a sustained online harassment campaign against black actor Leslie Jones.
But, as the New York Times has argued, it is willingness of the site’s contributors to embrace viewpoints considered far outside the bounds of respectable political discourse that is the source of its success
It is noticeable that various alt-right groups, such as white supremacist websites, link to Breitbart’s coverage.
But there have been splits within Breitbart. In March this year, the Guardian reported on one major internal revolt when some of its writers resigned in protest at the company’s treatment of Michelle Fields.
She was the Breitbart reporter who claimed to have been assaulted by Trump’s then campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. She complained that the company had not stood behind her, prompting several resignations from sympathetic colleagues, including editor-at-large Ben Shapiro.
Other staff members quit on the grounds that “Bannon had turned a website founded on anti-authoritarian grounds into a de facto propaganda outlet for Mr Trump.”
There is a London division, which was launched in February 2014. At the time it was headed by James Delingpole. Now the editor is Raheem Kassam, a former executive editor of The Commentator, which is linked to the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society.
Among the London-based contributors have been Nigel Farage, Mary Ellen Synon and Katie Hopkins.
Clearly, Breitbart in Britain has yet to take centre stage as it has in the States. But the Brexit vote does suggest that its ideas have informed a constituency that, in so many ways, hold views similar to the legions who support Trump and, by extension, the alt-right.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/aug/30/breitbart-takes-centre-stage-as-donald-trump-embraces-the-alt-right
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b69d02aeb19cd3ad0d57e9f1974cfedd4fbdebf642ca1d1670c9be226fe42f8b.json
|
|
[
"Nick Fletcher"
] | 2016-08-31T10:55:29 | null | 2016-08-31T10:18:03 |
Analysts say case for HSBC breakup has rarely been stronger
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2Fmarketforceslive%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fftse-slips-but-hsbc-climbs-on-break-up-talk.json
|
en
| null |
FTSE slips but HSBC climbs on break-up talk
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Leading shares are edging lower on the day but still look like posting a more than 1% gain for the month.
Banks are among the main gainers, boosted by a number of positive economic signals from the UK despite the Brexit vote, the latest being consumer confidence figures.
So Barclays is 4.1p better at 173.25p while Lloyds Banking Group has been lifted 0.82p to 59.68p. HSBC, 10.7p higher at 568.2p, has also been helped by Deutsche Bank analysts raising their target price from 514p to 525p, albeit with a hold rating.
The analysts believe the bank may benefit from being broken up, saying the costs of running a global business appear to outweigh the benefits. They said:
The announcement of a $2.5bn share buyback at HSBC’s interim results surprised market consensus that had been factoring in the prospect of a dividend cut. In this report we lay out a “Capital Map” for the HSBC Group that shows clearly where the group allocates capital geographically, what the returns generated on that capital are & what the cash dividend paying capability is of each operating company up to the group. This we believe not only helps shed greater light on the sustainability of group dividend but illuminates the areas where the group still has large sums of capital allocated inefficiently. We believe our “Capital map” exercise also sheds greater light on the cost of “being HSBC”. Our analysis identifies two clear costs: 1) capital trapped in subsidiaries making sub-cost of equity returns but viewed as essential to generating group-wide synergies (e.g. GBM in the US); 2) the cost of group centre (we estimate this alone is around 2-3% drag on group return on equity). At present we believe there is little compelling evidence that the benefits of running a global HSBC are outweighing these costs. Whilst this remains the case it is hard to see HSBC’s shares out-perform peers with cleaner and less complex business models. The estimated S$4.5bn annual bill for [the holding company] that we estimate in this report plus the capital trapped making sub-par returns in subsidiaries to generate the “network effect” raises more fundamental questions for HSBC. Unless this bill comes down meaningfully in the coming years, or “network” related revenues increase, it remains a considerable drag on group returns, and thus valuation. It may not be the right moment for HSBC to consider a wholesale breakup of the group into 3-4 separate companies – some Hold Co / central costs would undoubtedly trickle down into the separate business. Indeed there may never be a perfect time, given the risks and frictional costs involved. However, we struggle to think of a time in recent history when the case for a breakup of HSBC has been stronger.
Ironically a report in a German newspaper that Deutsche Bank was considering a merger with rival Commerzbank has also helped lift the banking sector.
Housebuilders are also higher after Nationwide said house prices rose in August. Berkeley Group, likely to be ejected from the FTSE 100 at today’s reshuffle in favour of miner Polymetal International, is 81p better at £26.76 and Persimmon has put on 7p to £18.40.
Overall the FTSE 100 is down 10.43 points at 6810.36, with mining groups pushing the index lower as the strength of the dollar continues to weigh on commodity prices. Fresnillo has fallen 52p to £16.38 and Anglo American is down 215p at £71.45.
Elsewhere equipment rental group HSS has slumped 5p to 80p despite a 13.5% rise in half year revenues, as analysts worried about lower operating margins. Investment group Toscafund wants rival Speedy Hire to merge with HSS. Peel Hunt said:
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2016/aug/31/ftse-slips-but-hsbc-climbs-on-break-up-talk
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c30ef852970ba9c8eff468cb2b74ca941cd39f51b6899bcb64a4d3c5def58acf.json
|
|
[
"Nicola Davis"
] | 2016-08-27T12:58:56 | null | 2016-08-10T18:00:15 |
Protein variations could provide explanation as to why some brain tissues are vulnerable and help predict an individual’s risk of developing the disease
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Faug%2F10%2Fnew-research-hints-at-pattern-of-alzheimers-spread-in-the-brain.json
|
en
| null |
New research hints at pattern of Alzheimer's spread in the brain
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Scientists say that they have discovered a possible explanation for how Alzheimer’s disease spreads in the brain.
Alzheimer’s is linked to a buildup of protein plaques and tangles that spread across particular tissues in the brain as the disease progresses. But while the pattern of this spread is well-known, the reason behind the pattern is not.
Now scientists say they have uncovered a potential explanation as to why certain tissues of the brain are more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease.
The vulnerability appears to be linked to variations in the levels of proteins in the brain that protect against the clumping of other proteins - variations that are present decades before the onset of the disease.
Hope for Alzheimer's treatment as researchers find licensed drugs halt brain degeneration Read more
“Our results indicate that within healthy brains a tell-tale pattern of protein levels predicts the progression of Alzheimer’s disease through the brain [in those that are affected by the disease],” said Rosie Freer, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and first author of the study.
The results could open up the possibility of identifying individuals who are at risk of developing Alzheimer’s long before symptoms appear, as well as offering new insights to those attempting to tackle the disease.
Charbel Moussa, director of the Laboratory for Dementia and Parkinsonism at Georgetown University Medical Center said that he agreed with the conclusions of the study. “It is probably true that in cases of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s we may have deficiencies in quality control mechanisms like cleaning out bad proteins that collect in the brain cells,” he said, although he warned that using such findings to predict those more at risk of such disease is likely to be difficult.
But others are less convinced by the results. “This might be part of the explanation as to why Alzheimer’s disease kills some cells and not others, but it is undoubtedly a complex problem and this is only part of the answer to that problem,” said John Hardy, professor of neuroscience at University College London. “This paper has only looked at a few brain regions and really only at a few cell [types],” he added. “So it points towards the idea that there is an intrinsic reason for selectivity but it does not really prove it.”
GM worm study provides 'powerful first step' towards preventing Alzheimer's Read more
Published in the journal Science Advances by scientists from the University of Cambridge, the research involved the analysis of data relating to more than 500 brain tissues from six healthy individuals, aged between 24 and 57 years of age.
The team looked at the levels of a family of molecules known as mRNA, that are encoded by genes and which are required to produce proteins. From this analysis, the researchers found that they were able to predict the levels of proteins across the brain, allowing them to map the levels of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists found that regions of the brain with higher levels of proteins prone to clumping in plaques and tangles corresponded to regions that generally show early evidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
The team also found a link between the susceptibility of regions to Alzheimer’s disease and levels of a group of proteins that are known to affect the clumping of those that form plaques and tangles.
The scientists found that the “vulnerability map”, produced by looking at the levels of these proteins in the brains of healthy individuals, is consistent with the map of how Alzheimer’s progresses.
Alzheimer's researchers find molecule that delays onset of disease Read more
That, the researchers say, suggests that the vulnerability of particular tissues to Alzheimer’s disease could, in part, be down to a combination of higher levels of plaque and tangle-forming proteins and problematic levels of proteins that affect their clumping.
The scientists say the findings could lead to new ways to predict an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
“Although we all have these patterns, in some people the patterns are more extreme, and in some others are less. Those in which the imbalance is greater, are more at risk,” said Michele Vendruscolo, co-author of the research, although he stresses that research to back up the suggestion has yet to be carried out.
Dr David Reynolds, chief scientific officer at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “These findings suggest that our susceptibility to Alzheimer’s may not only be dictated by abnormal changes in the brain, but by how our brains are hardwired to react to those changes.”
“Understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin susceptibility to diseases like Alzheimer’s has the potential to open the door to new treatment and prevention approaches,” he added. “Building a complete picture of the biology driving a complex disease like Alzheimer’s gives scientists the best chance of developing effective treatments against it.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/new-research-hints-at-pattern-of-alzheimers-spread-in-the-brain
|
en
| 2016-08-10T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/71269f61c8b555d1742967ce883ef68d2d3b1e909130fddbe4a313f9e6c79cb9.json
|
|
[
"Mark King"
] | 2016-08-28T02:59:23 | null | 2012-10-05T00:00:00 |
Lloyds spokeswoman acknowledges a 'systems error' but cannot say how many customers are affected or when it will be resolved
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2012%2Foct%2F05%2Flloyds-halifax-customers-unable-withdraw-money-systems-error.json
|
en
| null |
Lloyds TSB and Halifax customers unable to access to cash
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Millions of bank customers are unable to access their cash following IT troubles at two separate banking groups.
Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Co-operative and Smile customers have reported being unable to access their accounts, withdraw money or make purchases in stores.
The latest glitch comes hot on the heels of a high profile IT issue at Royal Bank of Scotland in June which left millions of NatWest, Ulster Bank and RBS accountholders without cash.
The Co-op and Smile have 6.5 million banking customers, of whom 1.5 million hold current accounts. Many transferred to the banking groups following disruption to services at RBS and NatWest.
Lloyds TSB customers have taken to Twitter to complain about the service disruption. @SaladUK wrote: "My card was declined just now, it said 'Card declined' on the ATM but my internet banking is working. What's going on?."
@OliviaCreaven complained: "#LloydsTSB this is disgusting! No access to any money just before the weekend!!!! Sort it out."
Co-op customer Jane Morley (@jm3twink) tweeted: "Just had a panic as couldn't draw cash out but phoned bank & all Smile systems are down."
A Lloyds TSB spokeswoman acknowledged there was an issue but could not say how many customers were affected, what the cause was or how long it would take to resolve.
The Lloyds TSB Twitter account has tweeted: "We're experiencing some intermittent problems at present & are working to resolve this as quickly as possible", later adding: "We're sorry that customers are experiencing problems with some of our services, we're looking into this & will update you as soon as we can."
Halifax issued a statement saying: "We're sorry that customers are experiencing problems with some of our services, we're looking into this & will update you as soon as we can."
Customers of RBS and NatWest had their ordinary banking services back up and running within days, but the chaos affected Ulster Bank customers for a month.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/05/lloyds-halifax-customers-unable-withdraw-money-systems-error
|
en
| 2012-10-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0f765987527900ebd359afb86c0ba5db8375f03d7b65c44117f5feba8021a642.json
|
|
[
"Ian Birrell"
] | 2016-08-29T18:50:17 | null | 2016-08-29T17:19:00 |
As pressure on the health service grows, an income-based levy could start the funding debate it needs
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fnhs-ringfenced-tax-remedy.json
|
en
| null |
The NHS is ailing. Is a ringfenced tax the best remedy?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Doctors and their vociferous unions do like to complain, posing as protectors of the National Health Service while they dig in hard to protect their patch. But that does not mean their views should be discounted. The British Medical Association has claimed the workload of family doctors is endangering patient safety, with too many consultations leading to truncated appointments. They are right to raise the alarm.
Former minister calls for new tax to save NHS and social care Read more
General practitioners are the gatekeepers of our health system, sweeping up wider problems such as poor social care and mental health provision. They are seeing fast-rising numbers of patients, many elderly or disabled and with highly complex conditions, yet they are forced to rush consultations when seeing up to 60 sick people a day. A rule saying appointments should last a minimum of 10 minutes was scrapped three years ago; little wonder sessions in their surgeries can feel rather hasty and rudimentary.
Given the pressures on the NHS, both financial and medical, the BMA’s call for a ceiling of 25 consultations a day is unlikely to be heeded. As ever, the NHS is in crisis. Spending is still rising, but ministers want an unrealistic £22bn slashed in efficiency savings. There is room for more competition, better procurement and smarter use of technology, but already most hospitals are running deficits. Junior doctors are in revolt. And Britain needs to spend £5bn a year more to match average medical staff levels in other rich nations.
The NHS survived its busiest June on record, with emergency admissions up 4.7% on last year – partly a reflection of patients unable to see GPs. It remains a remarkably efficient institution. Yet there is a limit to how far it can stretch given an ageing society, growing population and health inflation eating away at extra cash. Ministers proclaim the sixth biggest funding increase in its history – yet this equates to less than one day’s running costs in real terms, according to the King’s Fund thinktank.
Clearly something has to give if there is over-demand from patients and under-supply of services. Since there are restrictions from a free service, reluctance to raise taxes and lack of appetite for more structural reform, the only solutions are rationing or reductions in quality. Already we see waiting lists lengthening – although they are far improved from the day in 2002 when Downing Street declared “the tanker has been turned” with an end to delays lasting more than 15 months. Yet the stresses will only worsen if sticking-plaster solutions are applied.
Although it is never popular to point this out, the NHS performs worse than many competitors in its core task of treating people. Even a study by the Commonwealth Fund often quoted by defenders of the status quo, which found the UK doing best among 11 nations on several indicators, found its main flaw was a poor record in actually keeping people alive. A patched-up, politically muddled service has led to appalling patient safety scandals and comparatively poor results on key indices from cancer survival and stroke death rates through to infant mortality.
Those arguing for higher taxes believe the public would back them if the money was poured into hospitals and care homes
Yet Westminster remains locked in sterile political debate. The Tories, terrified of being seen as hostile to an admired public service, parrot devotion to a creaking institution invented by postwar socialists to treat very different needs. Labour underscores its irrelevance when even the “moderate” candidate in its leadership battle seeks a “100% publicly funded NHS” – a silly suggestion that would cause collapse in many services and is out of step with other European systems. Even Ukip, hostile to all the foreigners working so hard in our health and care services, professes devotion to this sacrosanct system.
Now at last there is a ray of light through the gloom. Dan Poulter, a former health minister who combines parliamentary duties with part-time work as a doctor, has called for a dedicated new tax to ensure there is secure, long-term funding for health and social care (a sort of National Insurance). As he rightly says, an income-based levy would ensure people saw precisely how their money was spent, stripping away any illusions that the NHS is a free service. This would at last promote more sensible discussion about how to fund increasing numbers of sick, obese, elderly and disabled people at a time of astonishing scientific advances.
This is not a new idea. Treasury mandarins hate hypothecated taxes, and George Osborne rapidly ruled out the idea when it was floated a couple of years ago; but there is some support for the proposal in all main parties. Already the nation spends 9.9% of GDP on healthcare. Those arguing for higher taxes believe the public would back them if the money was poured into hospitals and care homes, while those seeking new patient payments or a social insurance system think they could win over an electorate sceptical of handing more cash to the state.
As we have seen distressingly often in recent years, healthcare failures fall with often fatal consequences on the most vulnerable patients. We need serious debate over the cost, delivery and funding of a modern health system. If our new prime minister wants to show commitment to progressive social justice, she should pick up Dr Poulter’s prescription. We can keep bandaging up the body, but it would be far better to find a proper cure.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/29/nhs-ringfenced-tax-remedy
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cfc6ccbde5ea6527c27c9023bc61df0fe29f36fe5b065059e9b55c8e921a154c.json
|
|
[
"Megan Carpentier"
] | 2016-08-26T13:16:56 | null | 2016-08-25T13:32:12 |
After two House terms, the Democrat and war veteran is looking to win a Senate seat from the Republicans. On the trail in Illinois she talks about her double amputation, living on food stamps and why she’s not worried about GOP attacks
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ftammy-duckworth-senate-race-illinois-profile.json
|
en
| null |
Tammy Duckworth shows her strength in Senate fight: 'These legs don’t buckle'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
When Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth stands in front of crowds – despite the fact that doing so is painful – she does so on two titanium legs, her feet encased in ladylike flats.
When she sits in her wheelchair, you can see that one prosthetic’s socket has a camouflage print, and the other an American flag.
Duckworth could probably use her congressional health insurance to pay for the most state-of-the-art cosmetic prostheses for the two legs she lost in combat during the Iraq war. But like the men and women who preceded her, surrounded her and succeeded her in recuperating from combat-related injuries at the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington DC, she uses the frequently criticized and sometimes woefully inadequate veterans’ healthcare system.
“I’m glad that people know my military service,” Representative Tammy Duckworth told the Guardian over a paper plate of barbecued rib tips. “But, like this nation, we are more than our military. And the rest of our story is the same as the rest of my story.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tammy Duckworth at a campaign event in Danville, Illinois, last weekend. Photograph: Kristen Norman for the Guardian
Duckworth’s late lunch came in Danville, Illinois, at the end of her third campaign stop of the day on what she called a “southern swing” through the state.
After almost four years in the House, she is running this time for a seat in the Senate against Republican Mark Kirk, and is favored to win the race – FiveThirtyEight called Illinois “one of the two most likely [Senate] seats to flip this year”. .
Like this nation, we are more than our military. And the rest of our story is the same as the rest of my story
Many voters already know the most visible part of her story, which she also told on the final night of the Democratic national convention before Hillary Clinton accepted her nomination. While working on her PhD, Duckworth was called up from the reserves during the Iraq war and, though technically women weren’t yet allowed in combat, was piloting a helicopter that was shot down. She was severely injured and became the first female double amputee of the war.
During a stop at the Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, a majority African American church in Champaign, after she shook hands before services began and swayed to the music of the gospel choir, she talked to the congregation about that day in 2004.
Women poised to lead Democratic return to power in the Senate Read more
“We got hit by a grenade, a rocket propelled grenade, blew up in my face. I made the call, ‘We’ve been hit’, but we were flying just north of the Euphrates river, over big palm trees, far as you can see,” she explained. “I said, ‘Oh, God, I need a place to land.’ And, like a miracle, an opening opened up, in the middle of a big palm grove. It shouldn’t have been there. But it was there. It was just large enough for us to land our aircraft.
“As I lay bleeding, waiting to be rescued, the lowest person on my aircraft, the youngest, lowest ranking kid from Peoria – a Specialist, E4, my rear gunner – stood and protected us while a sergeant, the next lowest ranking person, came and carried me to safety. And I woke up 11 days later – but I woke up.”
Duckworth lost both her legs in the attack, and nearly lost her right arm except, as she explained it, for two twists of fate (or, as she prefers, gifts from God): “The only vascular surgeon in the entire Middle Eastern theatre happened to be on a three-day rotation in Baghdad ER” the day she was shot down. It took 13 hours of surgery and, quite literally, an 11th-hour blood donation from four members of her unit with the same blood type to save her arm.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tammy Duckworth, while serving with the Illinois Army National Guard, sitting in a helicopter during her tour of duty in Iraq. Photograph: AP
“I get up every single day trying to repay a debt that I can never repay. Never. And I will work hard. Because I don’t know why I was saved. I don’t know,” she said.
But before that day in Iraq, Duckworth said that there were other “earthly angels” whose help saved her during one of the other most difficult times in her life: her family’s descent from the middle class and into poverty.
“My daddy had lost his job when I was in middle school and, by the time I was in high school, four years later, we had gone through everything and we were down to our last $10,” she told Pilgrim Missionary attendees.
For many Americans after the Great Recession, Duckworth’s is probably too familiar a story. In Champaign, where she was speaking, unemployment remains higher than the national average and they are still losing manufacturing jobs, just like they were in the early 1980s (when it first hit 9%).
I get up every single day trying to repay a debt that I can never repay. Never
Back then, Duckworth’s family ended up living in a pay-by-the-week motel room and came to rely on food stamps, which her parents struggled to make last the month. “I remember to this day at the grocery store, we would go and count out the last five brown $1 food stamps – I still remember the color,” she said, to murmurs of recognition from some of the older members of the congregation. “We’d use the food stamps we had for baloney and some white bread, praying it would last the week, until Monday next week.”
But, she said, her high school English teacher helped fill in the gaps for her and for others at her high school, where 60% of students were on some sort of public assistance. “He would keep a bunch of us kids after school long enough that he’d say, ‘Aw, kids, I’m so sorry that I kept you extra, for extra work. Here’s 10 bucks, go to Taco Bell, two for 99 cents, get something to eat before you go home’ … That public school teacher, reached into his public school teacher’s salary pocket, and he fed us.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tammy Duckworth talks with Dixie Payne, Carolyn Hixon and Gwen Frattick in Danville on Sunday. Photograph: Kristen Norman for the Guardian
“And I’d bring one of my tacos home to my daddy, and I would lie to him and say ‘Oh, Daddy, I wasn’t hungry. I only ate one’ because I knew he wouldn’t eat,” she added. “And to see the look on my daddy’s face, this man who was a veteran of three wars, although he was in France for the Korean war, who had served his country for 20 years, who came from a family that served this nation in uniform going back to the revolution – I am a daughter of the American Revolution on my daddy’s side – for him to have to accept the lie of his daughter so he could eat that one taco, and so we could keep on going.”
The story of her upbringing, and of her father brought low by a late-in-life layoff, was one to which she returned at the Vermilion County Young Democrats’ rally later that day in Danville, which was organized to help promote local charities – from diaper donations to a rape crisis center, and from a food bank to a local domestic violence shelter – impacted by state budget cuts.
“I grew up a daughter of a United States Marine, a daughter of a man so proud to be an American” she told the crowd. “But then, when he was in his 50s, my dad lost his job, like so many wonderful families across this great state right now.”
“And no one would hire him because they said he was overqualified and had too much experience,” she added, waving her cane for emphasis. “But you know what those are code words for, right? ‘You’re too old.’” Heads, some of them grey, nodded from benches set up under the trees.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tammy Duckworth takes a photo with students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. Photograph: Kristen Norman for the Guardian
Later, over the rib tips, she explained why her background – both the poverty she experienced as a teenager, and then paying her way through college with grants, student loans and part-time jobs before joining the military – resonates with her would-be constituents. “That’s a different between Mark Kirk and myself,” she said. “He’s been 10 years as a chief of staff, 10 years as a congressman, six years as a senator, so, he’s a symbol for people who’ve lost touch with the state. He doesn’t travel the state, he’s not gone anywhere in Illinois, if he does, he cancels events and then does one thing and leaves.
“I think when we talk about people who need a little extra help, I talk with folks about the fact that we’re all one bad accident, one bad diagnosis away from potential bankruptcy,” she added. “The wheelchair and the prosthesis give me a soapbox to stand on. If it helps me get my message across, I’m glad, then we need to talk about what we need to do for this country.”
I lived the challenges that they’re going through, and I get it on a very deeply personal level
The economic anxiety into which the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is said to have tapped is real in Illinois, explained Duckworth – but his solutions are wrong. “As I traveled the state, I was in Granite City, Illinois, our steelworkers were laid off two days after Christmas,” she noted. “Here in Danville, people hear of an economic recovery, but they’re not feeling it.” (The unemployment rate was 7.1% in June.) “In Bloomington, Illinois, we lost a Mitsubishi factory, after they took a decade of tax credits and tax holidays. When [the credits] ran out, they left: 2,000 jobs there. Peoria: Caterpillar is building a factory in Malaysia.”
“I understand the challenges they’re facing, because I’ve faced them myself.”
Then, a man walked up and interrupted Duckworth – the second of three former military men who asked for a minute of her time in Danville. “I just want to say from an army veteran …”
“Hooah,” Duckworth said, an expression of mutual recognition among members of the US army (which is distinct from the Marine Corps’ “Oo-rah”).
“Hooah” he replied. “Great speech.”
“Thank you, what’d you do in the army?” she asked, as she asked every military man who spoke to her over the course of her day of campaigning.
“Infantry,” he said.
“Alright, I love grunts.”
“Eleven bang bang,” he said, a self-deprecating way of referring to infantry men.
“Gotta have someone who jumps out of my helicopter,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Good to see you, man.”
“Good to see you,” he replied, and walked off.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tammy Duckworth greets parishioners at the Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Champaign, Illinois. Photograph: Kristen Norman for the Guardian
She returned to the point she was making. “I lived the challenges that they’re going through, and I get it on a very deeply personal level,” she continued. “I know what it’s like to have to rely on food stamps. I know what it’s like to have student loan debt, because I still have student loan debt. I know what it’s like to wait for an appointment at the VA, and I choose that.”
“I get what they’re going through because I’ve lived it, or I’m living it,” she added “And so I think that allows them to understand better what motivates me and what I’m going to do for them. If you’re out of touch, and you’re not going to small events like this as a senator and you’re not putting the miles on the car, then you don’t hear from people who are struggling, who are hurting, who have hopes and who have dreams.”
While she spoke, from the other side of the parking lot, a tracker with the conservative America Rising Pac, positioned himself to get a shot of the congresswoman eating. “The tracker is filming me eating barbecue,” she grumbled. “So you know that’s going to be on a commercial somewhere, me with, like, a piece of barbecue in my mouth.”
America Rising is not the only conservative group gunning for Duckworth: the Independent Voice for Illinois Super Pac, which gets money from a variety of conservatives in and out of the state, began airing television ads in July attacking Duckworth for her positions on refugee resettlement and the Iran nuclear deal.
And though conservatives have long gone after Democratic veterans on the basis of their foreign policy positions and questioned their patriotism, Duckworth said to bring it on.
“Do the attacks come? Yes, they do,” she said. “These legs are titanium. They don’t buckle. Go ahead, take a shot at me. There’s nothing you can do to me now that will ever be as bad as that day in Iraq. I’m tough enough for it. I am.”
This article was amended on 26 August 2016 to clarify that ‘Eleven bang bang’ is a self-deprecating term for infantry men. It is not a derogatory term.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/tammy-duckworth-senate-race-illinois-profile
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0c4e9bed51b89f4f61e1c41ac66a2ec5b47663e61b52466a57501a475d6b05a2.json
|
|
[
"Nicola Davis"
] | 2016-08-26T18:58:48 | null | 2016-07-13T10:52:06 |
First image shows JunoCam has survived first pass through planet’s extreme radiation environment, raising hopes for many more high-resolution pictures
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Fjul%2F13%2Fnasas-juno-probe-sends-back-first-images-of-jupiter.json
|
en
| null |
Nasa's Juno probe sends back first images of Jupiter
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has sent back its first image since scientists pulled of a nail-biting manoeuvre put it into orbit around Jupiter last week.
A rather fuzzy scene, the picture shows Jupiter part-illuminated by the sun, its giant red spot clearly visible. Also visible, as bright dots in the scene, are three of its four Galilean moons, Io, Europa and Ganymede.
The Juno probe: unearthing Jupiter’s past - podcast Read more
The photograph was taken by the spacecraft’s JunoCam on the 10th July, when it the basketball court-sized probe was 4.3 million kilometers from the gas giant. With Juno on a 53 day orbit, the distance between it and Jupiter is currently increasing with the spacecraft’s next closest approach to the planet expected at the end of August.
That, the researchers say, will allow the JunoCam to snap the first high-resolution images of the planet.
“This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter’s extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We can’t wait to see the first view of Jupiter’s poles.”
The Juno spacecraft was launched in August 2011, and reached Jupiter last week after 1.8 billion mile journey. Once it has completed two 53-day orbits, in October Juno will be re-positioned into a 14 day orbit, allowing the spacecraft’s scientific instruments to collect a wealth of data about the planet. The mission will offer scientists a chance to peek beneath the Jupiter’s clouds and, it is hoped, unpick a host of puzzles, from the nature of Jupiter’s core to the makeup of its atmosphere.
Juno will spend around 20 months studying the gas giant after which Juno will end its mission by crashing into Jupiter.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/13/nasas-juno-probe-sends-back-first-images-of-jupiter
|
en
| 2016-07-13T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e6d82922796523700dd4a696f85e24bbfd1009a4a2a9e8604a19c2b2863243e2.json
|
|
[
"Daniel Taylor"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:14 | null | 2016-08-27T17:20:09 |
After homophobic and sexist tweets from his non-league days led to an FA charge, the Burnley striker has now been called to account for a post from 2014 when he was at Hinckley
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fandre-gray-fa-charge-i-hate-lightys.json
|
en
| null |
Andre Gray’s FA charge sheet grows with 2014 ‘I hate lightys’ tweet
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Football Association’s charge sheet against Andre Gray has been extended to include another potentially offensive message on the Twitter account that has left the Burnley striker facing the possibility of a considerable ban.
Gray has already been charged because of a number of homophobic and sexist slurs made from 9 January to 11 March 2012 but it has now emerged the FA is also taking disciplinary action against a post from July 2014, when he was a player at Brentford, that begins: “I hate lightys!”
Andre Gray charged with misconduct by FA over homophobic tweets from 2012 Read more
“Lighty” is slang, often used in a derogatory sense, to describe a light-skinned person of mixed race and the FA’s disciplinary department has included that in the case against the striker, whose 24 goals last season helped Burnley win promotion to the Premier League and led to him being named the Championship’s player of the year.
Gray has until 6pm on Wednesday to respond to the FA’s charge of improper conduct and the “aggravating factor” that his comments refer to “sexual orientation and/or gender and/or colour and/or race”.
The statutory punishment for abuse of this nature on the pitch would be five matches but that does not apply to online comments and Chris Stokes, the Coventry City defender, received a one-match suspension after using the term “bunch of faggots” on Twitter while watching Chelsea’s Premier League match with Tottenham Hotspur on 2 May. Stokes, who admitted breaching FA rules, was also ordered to attend an FA education course, fined £1,000 and warned about his future conduct. However, Gray’s case is considered significantly more serious because of the sheer volume of tweets and their extreme wording. One read: “Is it me or are there gays everywhere? #Burn #Die #MakesMeSick”.
Gray deleted his Twitter account on Saturday. The 25-year-old, who was playing for non-league Hinckley United in 2012, apologised last weekend in a statement saying he had “worked incredibly hard to completely transform my life since that time”.
Gray has admitted being involved in gangs in Wolverhampton when he was younger but described himself as a changed man. “The tweets were posted four years ago when I was a completely different person to the man I am now. I was at a very different point in my life back then – one that I’ve worked hard to move on from.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/andre-gray-fa-charge-i-hate-lightys
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b5996709ffaf5ac6f1f2a50b5f60cc78fa7470e7e8575f440a9db6ef2ae791b0.json
|
|
[
"Samuel Gibbs"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:52 | null | 2016-08-25T11:08:38 |
Microsoft’s Anniversary update causes ‘blue screen of death’ and forced reboot when e-readers are connected, users report
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fwindows-10-computers-crash-when-amazon-kindles-are-plugged-in.json
|
en
| null |
Windows 10 computers crash when Amazon Kindles are plugged in
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Dozens of Microsoft Windows 10 users are reporting that their computers crash when plugging in Amazon Kindles.
The issue appears to be caused by the recent Windows 10 Anniversary update. Users of Amazon’s Paperwhite and Voyage attempting to either transfer books or charge their devices via USB are seeing their various Windows 10 laptops and desktops locking up and requiring rebooting.
Pooka, a user of troubleshooting forum Ten Forums said: “I’ve had a Kindle paperwhite for a few years no and never had an issue with connecting it via USB. However, after the recent Windows 10 updates, my computer BSOD’s [blue screen of death] and force restarts almost as soon as I plug my Kindle in.”
On Microsoft’s forums, Rick Hale said: “On Tuesday, I upgraded to the Anniversary Edition of Windows 10. Last night, for the first time since the upgrade, I mounted my Kindle by plugging it into a USB 2 port. I immediately got the blue screen with the QR code. I rebooted and tried several different times, even using a different USB cable, but that made no difference.”
Another forum user, Tuscat, who found the issue affected both an HP laptop and a Dell desktop said: “It’s pretty frustrating because I need to transfer some PDFs to the Kindle for my son’s school classes.”
The issue appears to be affecting regular Windows 10 Anniversary update users and those on Microsoft’s Insider programme for pre-release software testing.
If left plugged into the computer, some users are reporting the Kindles appear as normal once Windows 10 reboots, but if the Kindle is removed and reinserted or the computer is rebooted, the problem occurs again.
Another user, SeanHsi, said: “If I want to plug in my Kindle Voyage, I do it before the OS of my laptop is awake. For example: plug in Kindle before booting the computer or plug in Kindle when the laptop is sleeping. Then the Kindle will work fine with non-blue-screen Win 10 AU after the computer is active.”
Others have not been so lucky and have found that nothing helps with the crash. Some have suggested that plugging in the Kindles when the computer is either asleep or booting up can allow them to be used or charged without prompting the Windows 10 blue screen of death crash. Precisely what is causing the issue in the Anniversary update and permanent fix to solve user frustrations have yet to be found.
This is the second high-profile issue with Microsoft’s latest big update to Windows 10. The Anniversary update brought notification improvements, enhancements to Microsoft Edge and Cortana, as well as usability changes across the board, which were generally well-received.
But it also brought with it a bug that broke users’ webcams, rendering them inoperable even when using Microsoft-owned Skype for video chat. Microsoft apologised and said a fix for those issues, which affects many popular webcams using either MJPEG or H.264 video formats, is expected in September.
Microsoft has not replied to request for comment.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/windows-10-computers-crash-when-amazon-kindles-are-plugged-in
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/44328bf20de26b61d41fb0e99255439a7b7e997208449517f37a115ea5715846.json
|
|
[
"Sarah Marsh",
"James Walsh",
"Guardian Readers",
"Martin Belam",
"Elena Cresci"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:19 | null | 2016-07-28T13:00:03 |
What do you think of how the media reports terrorism? Catch up on our live debate on this topic
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2Flive%2F2016%2Fjul%2F28%2Fhow-should-the-media-cover-terror-attacks-live-debate.json
|
en
| null |
How should the media cover terror attacks? Readers' views
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
08:46
I’ve been one of several journalists running some of the Guardian’s main twitter accounts during a couple of the recent attacks, and it is a real test of how you phrase your reporting. You also end up doing it in an atmosphere of intense speculation and under intense scrutiny.
As an example, with the Reutlingen stabbing, as the news was just breaking I sent a tweet out about it, and described it as an “incident”. Someone picked up one that and said it was “telling” that the Guardian had only used the word “incident” rather than calling the attack out for what it was. But at the time, I had literally only seen two paragraphs of agency copy describing what Bild was reporting had happened. In that situation it is right for a news organisation to exercise caution – I couldn’t be sure how many victims there were and if there were fatalities. You sometimes get reports that there has been a bomb and one person has been killed. It’s inaccurate to call that a murder if the only person who dies is the bomber.
And all the time you’ve got people @-messaging you that you are doing it wrong, or serving an agenda, or displaying bias. With one tweet about the Iranian background of one of the recent attackers, the replies criticised the Guardian for being racist to even mention it, and other people criticised the Guardian for trying to suppress information that he was an ISIS fighter.
It is right, of course, that people scrutinise what we do, and that we report accurately. But that doesn’t always mean reporting what people want to hear. If a police chief in a press conference says “There is no evidence yet this was linked to Islamic terrorism” and we report that verbatim on Twitter, I can guarantee the replies to a tweet like that will be a mass of people saying “Guardian, why are you deliberately downplaying this. It is obviously Islamic terrorism” when all we are doing in that instant is reporting what is said, not analysing.
The constant barrage of messages back criticising what you’ve written does have an impact. I sometimes press the tweet button with a heavy heart knowing that simply stating a headline is going to unleash a wave of critics. You are trying to tell an uncertain story as succinctly as possible in a limited amount of characters, but you know that every word choice is loaded with meaning for certain sections of the audience.
And it is difficult to report calmly in these situations. I know we aren’t the most popular profession on social media, but journalists are only human. The point of terrorism is to make you think that it could happen to you. While I’m busy reporting on a mass shooting in Munich I can’t help but think that I’ve got a trip there booked for October for my wedding anniversary. When I’m looking at the aftermath of an attack like in Nice, I can’t help but think that only a few weeks ago I was at the fanzones for Euro2016 that could easily have made a similar target to that Bastille Day crowd.
And as my colleague Elena Cresci pointed out earlier - you end up having to watch a lot of footage that in all honesty you’d rather not see, while trying to pick out the background details from Google StreetVIew to verify that the footage is from where it claims to be. You don’t want to be the reporter who makes a mistake, but that means re-watching and re-watching scenes of graphic violence.
I’ve mixed feelings about the French media plans not to show pictures of terrorists. I can see the logic, but I feel it is logic rooted in a time before social media. Major media companies deliberately not publishing material they have that will still be freely available on social media only plays into a narrative of media conspiracy that would benefit many different types of extremists.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/live/2016/jul/28/how-should-the-media-cover-terror-attacks-live-debate
|
en
| 2016-07-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/146bbbbd7f422c0cbd5261e102eaaaf89a941935eff7240e810ca60eeb63eb5b.json
|
|
[
"Ben Jacobs"
] | 2016-08-28T10:51:49 | null | 2016-08-28T10:00:29 |
At Joni’s Roast and Ride, the Republican nominee mixed with hog-riders and hog-eaters. In rare harmony, the party bigwigs loved him just as much as the grass-roots voters
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fdonald-trump-iowa-republican-red-state.json
|
en
| null |
Welcome to Iowa, where Trump's purple patch could turn a blue state red
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In November 2015 Donald Trump proclaimed to a crowd of Iowans: “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” Two months later he lost the Iowa Republican caucus. Almost a year on he may win the Hawkeye State in the presidential election.
Republicans have only won Iowa once since Ronald Reagan – in 2004, when George Bush eked out a win by 10,000 of more than 1.5 million votes. And yet, among the traditional battleground states, Iowa has become perhaps Trump’s best hope of a win. While national polls show the Republican far behind his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, recent Iowa polls have the candidates neck and neck.
Trump’s strong position is in part due to the fact that unlike in other swing states, the Iowan Republican establishment has rallied conclusively behind him.
On Saturday at the Roast and Ride, a fundraiser featuring pork sandwiches and motorcycles held on behalf of the freshman senator Joni Ernst, every major Iowa Republican was present. All three US representatives and both senators rallied behind Trump. So did Terry Branstad, the longest-serving governor in American history.
Donald Trump politicizes death of Dwyane Wade's cousin Read more
With Trump only midway through a speech that touched on hot issues such as immigration policy and his attempt to appeal to African American voters, things almost became awkward: Branstad, Ernst, congressman Steve King, lieutenant governor Kim Reynolds and state party chair Jeff Kaufmann all gathered awkwardly behind the candidate, squeezing in for a photo opportunity.
As Kaufmann told the Guardian, this rare embrace of a candidate who blew the establishment to pieces in primary season and has not dialed down his rhetoric or style since came about thanks to Iowa’s vulnerable status as the state that kicks off each presidential election.
“As a first-in-the-nation state,” Kayfmann said, “our folks are discerning and even our officeholders dig a little bit deeper.”
However the real fuel for Iowa Republicans’ love for Trump is to be found in the strong ties between the candidate and Branstad. The governor has long been an enthusiastic supporter and has stumped the state on the billionaire’s behalf. Furthermore, Trump’s Iowa campaign director is Branstad’s son, Eric, a veteran operative who during the caucuses led a bipartisan advocacy campaign on behalf of the renewable fuels industry. In Iowa at least, as election day approaches, Trump can count on the party machinery going into fully into gear.
This is not to say Iowa Republicans are unfamiliar with intra-party conflict, and a vocal “NeverTrump” contingent is to be found among those who supported Ted Cruz, the victor of the caucuses. But it receives no establishment support. Even congressmen in swing districts are happy to appear with Trump.
In contrast, Democrats are off the pace they set in the past two election cycles, regarding organizational goals like absentee ballot requests and thanks to lingering bad blood from the caucuses, when many supporters of Bernie Sanders felt the state party chair, Andy McGuire, tilted the scales on Clinton’s behalf. There is open campaigning to replace McGuire after the presidential vote.
Blue collar, white voter … red state?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A man and child wait for Trump to speak. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters
In recent decades Iowa has seen almost no demographic change. Ninety-one per cent white, it was one of a handful of states where Barack Obama won a majority of white voters four years ago. But many of the blue-collar white voters who have traditionally voted Democratic in the eastern part of the state are increasingly attracted to Trump.
In fading factory towns like Dubuque and Waterloo, long bastions of Democratic support, Trump’s anti-free trade and anti-immigration message is increasingly finding an audience.
In the suburbs of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, meanwhile, he is not losing many moderate Republicans – mostly because such areas are home to significant numbers of evangelical Christians, to whom Clinton is simply anathema. If such voters do not vote for a third party candidate or stay home, Trump will be their man.
New Trump supporters have however presented new challenges. Traditionally, Republican operatives scorn Democratic campaigns, which tend to be based on hiring hundreds of staffers to go door to door, getting marginal voters to sign up for absentee ballot requests. Republican voters have been far more consistent, meaning the party’s campaigns have instead focused on tapping into networks of social conservatives, in particular home-schoolers.
Now, with social conservatives less enthusiastic about Trump than other Republicans, the Trump campaign’s efforts in Iowa must become non-traditional – in effect, Democratic-style efforts meant to turn out former Democrats.
This shift has been buoyed by what Kauffman, the Republican Iowa state chair, sees as a “resurgence of rural populism”. Iowa has a long and bipartisan history of rabble-rousing, going back to the 1890s. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, farmers held dramatic strikes and even kidnapped a judge who presided over foreclosures. In parts of the state, martial law was declared. That tradition had receded, but Kaufmann has seen Trump hauling it back to the surface.
Turned off by Trump: Republican mega-donors focus on congressional races Read more
Republican gains are borne out in registration figures. Since November 2012 Democratic voter registration in Iowa has fallen by 15,000. In the same time Republicans have picked up almost 20,000 voters. This effort has been helped by two strong midterm results, eradicating the Democratic bench and leaving the party holding only one of the state’s four congressional seats.
In the shifting political math of 2016 all this makes Iowa far more winnable for Trump than many traditionally more competitive states. Accordingly his campaign has committed significant resources. It is expected that Trump will campaign in the state three or four times a month until election day. Saturday’s Roast and Ride was a taster.
Even if this is not enough, and Trump loses Iowa, the coalition he has built may point to a long-term shift which will make the state less purple and more red. As Kaufmann said, win or lose: “I think we have the ingredients for a realignment.”
That was a statement with which one well-connected Democrat agreed, though he did not want to attach his name to such an opinion. As he said mournfully this weekend: “Increasingly, it seems like it is a Republican state and they just let Democrats live here.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/28/donald-trump-iowa-republican-red-state
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/899c211c864224b128a9425cdfded0c9e3f38f5f7d810cff2f69815004dc3c32.json
|
|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:21 | null | 2016-08-27T17:51:31 |
Tottenham Hotspur drew 1-1 against Liverpool at White Hart Lane on Saturday.
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fjurgen-klopp-four-points-after-three-games-is-not-what-i-wanted-video.json
|
en
| null |
Jürgen Klopp: 'Four points after three games is not what I wanted' - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Tottenham Hotspur drew 1-1 against Liverpool at White Hart Lane on Saturday. James Milner scored for Liverpool in the 42nd minute with Danny Rose equalising for Tottenham Hotspur in the the 72nd minute
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/27/jurgen-klopp-four-points-after-three-games-is-not-what-i-wanted-video
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/40d78705dd14cdc80a3ab8618a1be7a6795b87682817c6c8a411ed9f167a7399.json
|
|
[
"Martin Love"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:48 | null | 2016-07-31T05:00:26 |
A radical new design brings multiple benefits to the humdrum city slicker, says Martin Love
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2F2016%2Fjul%2F31%2Fcanyon-commuter-8-bike-preview-observer-martin-love.json
|
en
| null |
Canyon Commuter 8.0: bike preview
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It seems incredible that the basic ingredients of a bicycle – frame, wheels, saddle and bars – can be almost infinitely reworked to produce dynamic bikes of endless variety. Take a look at this one. It’s the new Commuter 8.0 from Canyon. The German firm, based in Koblenz and set up in 1985, has always championed cutting-edge design. But doing away with the traditional headset to create a ‘cockpit’, in which the handlebars, stem and lights all form a single unit, seems drastic even by its standards. It gives the bike a weird ‘neckless’ look. It looks like its lines were inspired by a hyena. However, it rides brilliantly and handling is ferociously direct. It benefits from a greaseless silicon belt drive, and a low-maintenance gear hub saves you money and hassle in the long term. Internal cabling and seamless welds also help create its clean and simple look. It comes in this ‘espresso’ colour or a cool grey. A powerful dynamo supplies electricity through clever contacts in the dropout points, which means your lights will never dim. It’s bright stuff! (canyon.com)
Price: £1,749
Frame: aluminium
Gears: Shimano Alfine 11 speed
Weight: 11.8kg
Wrong side of the tracks
Fans of the oval ball enjoyed Jack Whitehall’s take on the complicated rules of scrumming, hooking and being a total flanker. Now he’s getting ready for Rio with his unique take on what it takes to be a track cyclist. In this video he is joined by track legends Bradley Wiggins and Becky James…
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ready to ride: Jack show’s he’s a track master…
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166
|
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/31/canyon-commuter-8-bike-preview-observer-martin-love
|
en
| 2016-07-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7c231227384e5fb3c97ab34a5903ebbf53b205889cc7a65db4ec10a711ac6c40.json
|
|
[
"Robin Mckie"
] | 2016-08-28T10:57:18 | null | 2016-04-23T23:05:01 |
Approval for modified crops in America adds to confusion in UK on new-tech foodstuffs
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Fapr%2F24%2Fcrispr-gene-edited-food-us-decision-mushrooms-corn.json
|
en
| null |
US moves to sell gene-edited mushrooms fuel doubts over British ban on GM imports
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
American regulators have allowed the cultivation and sale of two crops modified with the gene-editing technique known as Crispr. The crops – a white button mushroom and a form of corn – are the first Crispr plants to be permitted for commercial use in the US.
The move is a boost for new technology in the creation of foodstuffs, but is expected to worsen the considerable confusion in Britain over the use of gene-editing in agriculture and the importing of crops created using such technology.
A committee of European commission regulators was expected to report last month on whether gene-edited crops should be classed as genetically-modified organisms or should be freed from the severe restrictions concerning GMOs in Europe. At the last minute it announced a delay in its verdict – to the dismay of many UK scientists.
“The committee knew it would be highly controversial, no matter what decision it made, so they have kicked the issue into the long grass, and that is very damaging,” said crop scientist Professor Huw Jones of Aberystwyth university.
“Researchers and plant breeders in the UK simply do not know whether it is worth investing time and money in creating novel foods using gene-editing, despite its enormous potential. At the same time the US has given clear signals of approval to its scientists.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Button mushrooms can now be ‘edited’ in the US. Photograph: Alamy
Gene-editing is the biological equivalent of the find-and-replace function on a word processor. First, it locates a gene to be edited, then it makes the necessary change, either by deleting or repairing it. This has made genetic modification a dramatically simpler process. Instead of inserting a completely new gene from another organism into a plant’s chromosomes – genetic modification – the new technique merely fiddles with the crop’s existing DNA to create novel strains. As a result it is virtually impossible to differentiate between a crop strain created by traditional breeding techniques and those involving gene-editing.
Several gene-editing techniques have been developed, but Crispr is now rated the most promising. Most scientists believe gene-editing could play a major role in improving crop yields, though the green movement disagrees. Its activists have trashed trials of GM plants, and consider gene-editing to be very similar. They say crops created in this way should be kept within the EU’s highly restrictive GM regulatory framework.Such an interpretation has been rejected in the US, where the button mushrooms have been gene-edited to resist browning on the shelf, and the corn – known as a waxy corn hybrid – has been altered to improve yields.
Crispr holds great promise for maintaining the world’s ability to produce an abundant and healthy food supply Neal Gutterson, DuPont Pioneer
“As an advanced plant-breeding tool, Crispr holds great promise for maintaining the world’s ability to produce an abundant and healthy food supply,” said Neal Gutterson of DuPont Pioneer, creator of the gene-edited corn.
In Britain, scientists have developed a number of promising plant strains but still do not know if they will be treated as GM crops, effectively blocking their cultivation. Examples include research at the John Innes Centre, outside Norwich, where scientists have created barley that can make its own ammonium fertiliser – a major bonus for nations with poor soil – and another group has developed a beetroot that can produce L-Dopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease. Both groups are still waiting to hear from the European commission if commercial cultivation of their products will one day be allowed.
It is also not clear whether importation of products such as gene-edited corn will be allowed into Britain or the rest of Europe, because the commission has not decided whether it is to be rated a GM crop or not. This could trigger awkward problems with food labelling in coming years.
“It is very frustrating that we have no guidelines whatsoever from the European commission, despite the length of time it has had to consider what is, after all, an enormously important issue,” said Penny Maplestone, chief executive of the British Society of Plant Breeders.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/24/crispr-gene-edited-food-us-decision-mushrooms-corn
|
en
| 2016-04-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7fda713929fd9f9391c07bf40855a9eafff4dd23a7293ed8f53a91c01571961b.json
|
|
[
"Anatole Kaletsky",
"Joseph Stiglitz",
"Larry Elliott"
] | 2016-08-26T13:12:45 | null | 2016-08-22T07:09:31 |
The EU referendum vote will not turn back the economic tides driven by globalisation – over time, with help from Brussels, public opinion will shift
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Fking-canutes-lessons-for-brexit.json
|
en
| null |
King Canute's lessons for Brexit
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The legend of King Canute describes how an early Anglo-Scandinavian king showed his subjects the limits of royal power. Canute set his throne by the sea and commanded the rising tide to turn back. When the sea rose as usual and soaked Canute, he told his courtiers: “Now let all men know how empty is the power of kings.”
The British prime minister, Theresa May, whose motto is “Brexit means Brexit”, seems to believe that Canute’s message was about democracy, not astronomy: he should have held a referendum. Though May opposed the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, she now has a new mantra: “We will make Brexit a success because people voted for it.”
This is nonsense. If Britain becomes the only European country apart from Russia to exclude itself from the EU single market, it will not succeed economically, regardless of how people vote. Democracy would not have prevented the ocean tides, driven by gravity, from drowning Canute if he had stayed on his throne, and a referendum will not turn back the economic tides driven by globalisation.
Businesses understand this. That is why Britain now faces what economists call “radical uncertainty”, a situation where risks cannot be rationally quantified, making changes in interest rates, taxes, and currency values largely ineffective. As the Bank of England has noted, many investment and hiring decisions will now be delayed until Britain’s trading terms are clarified. If Brexit goes ahead, this will take many years.
As Britain’s economy sinks into recession, and the government’s promises of a quick “successful Brexit” prove unrealistic, public opinion will shift. May’s small parliamentary majority will come under pressure, not least from the many enemies she made by purging all of former prime minister David Cameron’s allies from office. The main decisions on Brexit will therefore be made not in London but in Brussels and Berlin.
In making these decisions, European leaders must answer two questions: should Britain keep the main benefits of EU membership if it rejects EU rules and institutions? And should some of these rules and institutions be reformed to make the EU more attractive to voters, not just in Britain but throughout Europe.
The answers to both questions are obvious: “No” to the first; “Yes” to the second.
EU leaders should present a clear choice: either Britain remains an EU member after negotiating some additional reforms to satisfy public opinion; or it disengages completely and deals with the EU on the same basis as “any country in the World Trade Organisation, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe”, which is how Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies describes the most plausible alternative to full membership.
By making exit conditions non-negotiable, while offering room for manoeuvre on the terms of continuing membership, Europe could shift attention to the second, constructive question: Can voters be persuaded to feel positive again about the EU?
Addressing this question seriously would focus attention on the many tangible benefits of EU membership beyond technocratic abstractions about the single market: environmental improvements, rural subsidies, financing for science, infrastructure, and higher education, and the freedom to live and work throughout Europe.
By excluding spurious intermediate options such as the “Norwegian” or “Swiss” models – which May has, in any case, rejected, because they imply free movement of people – the EU could make Brexit’s economic implications unequivocally clear. London would cease to be Europe’s financial capital because regulations would be deliberately changed to shift business activities into EU jurisdictions. For the same reason, many UK-based export industries would become non-viable.
Brexit means Brexit … but the big question is when? Read more
Facing this prospect, businesses on both sides of the English Channel would be impelled to campaign openly for Britain to keep full EU membership, instead of quietly lobbying for special deals for their own sectors. The media might even point out the constitutional absurdity of a representative democracy treating a narrow referendum majority as permanently binding on parliamentary decisions.
Hardcore nationalists might pay no attention, but enough marginal Eurosceptics would probably reconsider their positions to flip the 52%-48% Brexit majority the other way.
The reversal of public opinion would become near-certain if European leaders genuinely heeded UK voters’ message, not by facilitating Brexit, but by recognising the referendum as a wake-up call for EU reform.
Suppose EU leaders invited the British government to negotiate on the policies that dominated the referendum and are also fueling resentment in other European countries: loss of local control over immigration; the transfer of power from national parliaments to Brussels; and erosion of social models that depend on strong bonds of citizenship and generous welfare states.
Imagine, for example, that EU leaders endorsed Denmark’s recent proposal to allow national governments to differentiate between welfare payments to citizens and recent immigrants, or that it extended to all of Europe the Swiss plan for an “emergency brake” against sudden immigration surges. Imagine them easing the counterproductive budget and banking rules that have suffocated southern Europe. Imagine, finally, that the EU acknowledged that centralisation of power has gone too far and formally ended the drive for “ever closer union”.
Such reforms are considered unthinkable in Brussels, because they would require treaty changes and could be rejected by voters. But voters who opposed previous EU treaties for centralising power would almost certainly welcome reforms that restored authority to national parliaments. The real obstacle to reform is not the difficulty of treaty change; it is the bureaucracy’s resistance to ceding power.
The European commission remains obsessed with defending the acquis communautaire, the collection of powers “acquired” by the Union, which EU doctrine dictates must never be returned to nation states. Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president, and his chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, have even welcomed Brexit as a chance to “strengthen the acquis” by centralising power even more.
Juncker, like May, should recall King Canute. The tide of national democracy is rising across Europe, and slogans about “ever closer union” will not reverse it. European leaders must acknowledge reality – or watch Europe drown.
• Anatole Kaletsky is chief economist and co-chair of Gavekal Dragonomics, and a former columnist at the Times, the International New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of Capitalism 4.0, The Birth of a New Economy, which anticipated many of the post-crisis transformations of the global economy.
© Project Syndicate
• This article was amended on 22 August 2016 to reflect the fact King Canute was an Anglo-Scandinavian king, not an Anglo-Saxon king.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/22/king-canutes-lessons-for-brexit
|
en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a8a829493f5457d8af32771d7817008d2d58eea5a9fe022f032529f6cc7f291a.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T18:52:10 | null | 2016-08-26T17:58:03 |
Editorial: Like the earthquake in central Italy this week, London’s most famous disaster had effects on local people that lasted for years afterwards
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fthe-guardian-view-on-the-great-fire-anniversary-an-enduring-trauma.json
|
en
| null |
The Guardian view on the Great Fire anniversary: an enduring trauma
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Everyone knows in theory that earthquakes wreak appalling human and neighbourhood damage, wherever they occur. Yet those of us fortunate enough to live in a part of the world not generally threatened by them can become complacent. Humanity is indivisible, yet it can sometimes take an event close to home, even in the global media world, to lay bare the fear, loss and trauma of an unexpected catastrophe, after which nothing can be quite the same for a generation of survivors.
The Italian earthquake is such an event. Not only was it geographically near to Britain. It also took place in a place familiar to many British summer visitors to the Apennines. The suddenness of Wednesday’s earthquake, and the scale of nighttime destruction and death in Amatrice and the surrounding area will be eclipsed by much worse events in other parts of the world. But this is not a competition. The deaths of at least 267 people, the collapse of so many beautiful buildings and the long painful aftermath which now begins cut to the heart with an unusual directness.
Britain may have suffered few earthquakes, but it is not immune to unexpected death and destruction. The deaths along the coasts in recent days have been a reminder of that. Next week also marks the 350th anniversary of the start of the Great Fire of London. The fire of 1666 is such a famous event in British history and sits so snugly within the traditional narrative of the island story that it can require an imaginative leap to comprehend quite how shocking and disastrous it really was, especially in its impact on what was then a small country with only one really large city.
Yet the bare statistics of the Great Fire are terrible by any standard. Around 13,200 London houses were burned down between 2 and 5 September 1666. Some 80,000 people were made homeless. Eighty per cent of London within the medieval walls was destroyed, including 86 churches, headed by St Paul’s cathedral. The silver lining, a large one, was that human casualties were low; perhaps fewer than a dozen deaths. No firefighter perished, and most people had time not just to evacuate their houses, but to remove many of their belongings too.
An anniversary exhibition at the Museum of London helps bring the fire scarily alive. It also underlines that the impact of disasters endures for years. The traditional narrative about post-1666 focuses on Christopher Wren’s magnificent buildings. It does not dwell so much on the thousands of homeless who lived in tents outside the city for months and years after the fire. Or on the fact that, though appeals were generously supported, the lord mayor of London stole a lot of the money for himself. Great disasters can bring out the best in human beings as well as the worst, now as then, wherever they occur.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/26/the-guardian-view-on-the-great-fire-anniversary-an-enduring-trauma
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/00551f68d10b8a40f799e6adff8a17f9e1fae0282a245f9129cbe8ccad4b5a9a.json
|
|
[
"Reuters In Libreville"
] | 2016-08-28T18:51:59 | null | 2016-08-28T17:02:53 |
Spokesman for incumbent Ali Bongo Ondimba declares victory and also attacked rival Jean Ping of ‘massive fraud’ during Saturday’s vote
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fboth-sides-in-gabon-presidential-election-claim-victory-ahead-of-count.json
|
en
| null |
Both sides in Gabon presidential election claim victory
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Supporters of Gabon’s president and his chief rival have both said they expect to win an election that has proved to be the most serious challenge yet to the Bongo family’s half-century rule.
The rival, Jean Ping, 73, traded accusations of fraud that raised the prospect of increased tension in the wake of an uncharacteristically bitter campaign.
Ping distributed figures showing him easily beating incumbent Ali Bongo Ondimba in Saturday’s vote.
“The general trends indicate we are the winner of this important presidential election,” Ping told reporters and a large crowd of cheering supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in the capital, Libreville.
“Despite numerous irregularities ... you have managed to thwart this regime’s congenital traps of fraud.”
Bongo, 57, who first won election after his father Omar died in 2009 after 42 years as president, has benefited from the power of incumbency as well as a patronage system lubricated by oil largesse.
Hours before Ping’s announcement, Bongo’s spokesman made a similar declaration, claiming that the president was poised to win another term in office.
He said “massive fraud” had been observed during the vote, particularly in polling stations in opposition strongholds.
A statement released by the interior ministry acknowledged irregularities but offered little detail.
“The elections were calm and without major conflict ... In spite of fraud noted in some polling stations, the process is satisfactory and positive for all of the observers,” it said, adding that official results would be announced on Tuesday.
An oil producer with a population of less than 2 million, Gabon is one of Africa’s richest countries but declining oil output and falling prices have resulted in budget cuts and provided fodder for opposition claims that average people have struggled under Bongo’s leadership.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/both-sides-in-gabon-presidential-election-claim-victory-ahead-of-count
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/68c2196a6baddff96e5d529e65373dda5917c4c58df145891451b694b0283a2b.json
|
|
[
"Ben Jacobs"
] | 2016-08-31T12:53:02 | null | 2016-08-31T11:15:35 |
The Republican nominee will need to balance his hardline rhetoric from the primary with the need to win Latino voters in November
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fdonald-trump-immigration-speech-2016-election.json
|
en
| null |
Trump's balancing act: what to expect from his immigration speech today
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Immigration has been one of Donald Trump’s signature issues since he announced his presidential campaign in June 2015. From the moment he got off the escalator at Trump Tower in New York and spoke about Mexico deliberately sending criminals and “rapists” to the United States and the need to build a wall on the southern border, Trump hasn’t stopped talking about immigration.
But in his Wednesday speech on the topic in Phoenix – which will follow his surprise visit to Mexico – Trump will need to balance the hardline rhetoric he used throughout the Republican primary with the need to win a general election in November.
Trump rode his hardline stance to victory in the primary. While his rivals refused to categorically rule out a path to legal status for any of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, Trump talked about “a deportation force” to remove all of them within 18 to 24 months.
However, the Republican nominee never worked out his plan in detail. The Trump campaign has long divulged little on its actual policy, save a set of proposals dating back to August 2015. At almost every rally, Trump pledges that he will “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”, but he has rarely gone into more detail.
But, facing a general election where he has major deficits in the polls and is deeply reviled by Latino voters, the Republican nominee has begun what he called a rhetorical “softening” in recent weeks, raising questions about whether he was ever sincere in his hardline stance.
In the past week and a half, Trump seemingly endorsed a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, only to reverse himself in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The back and forth prompted conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh to admit “I never took him seriously” on immigration. Further, he announced late Tuesday night that he would meet with Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto before the speech on Wednesday to discuss immigration.
The ongoing furor has raised the stakes around Trump’s speech on Wednesday night and stoked outrage about an apparent flip-flop. In a speech in Iowa on Saturday, Trump spoke about details from his August 2015 plan that had gone almost unmentioned since, including the implementation of E-Verify (an online system that allows businesses to screen employees’ work eligibility) nationwide as well as an exit-entry tracking system to prevent visa overstays. However, Trump dismissed the question of what to do with the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, instead blaming the media: “In recent days, the media – as it usually does – has missed the whole point on immigration,” he said. “All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million or more people here illegally.”
Trump surrogates: Republican's position on immigration has not changed Read more
Mark Krikorian, a leading immigration hawk and head of the Center for Immigration Studies, bemoaned the fact that Trump has spent a “week and a half meandering” on immigration. Krikorian, who has met with Trump on the issue, said this “was especially absurd given that it’s a core, key issue. He’s running as ‘Mr Immigration Control’.”
Krikorian told the Guardian he thought that Trump can only end up in the place where he actually started, “focusing on enforcement tools like E-Verify and tracking for visa holders”.
The vocal immigration hawk thought “the question of what happens to illegal immigrants is secondary; [the] primary question is how we stop another 12 million people from coming here.” He noted that Trump was on record saying that some form of “amnesty” would always happen but that “a politician has no business talking like that and that’s the one most important thing that I am looking to not see, is some kind of guarantee or commitment of amnesty.” But he said that he was far less concerned about the wall, which “as a policy matter is not that important”.
In the meantime, those on the right worried about a rhetorical softening did find some comfort from an interview that Trump’s son, Donald Jr, gave to CNN on Tuesday, in which he said that his father’s stance on undocumented immigrants was still the same and that all 11 million had to leave the country. But as longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone once said: “No one speaks for Donald Trump but Donald Trump.”
The Republican nominee is scheduled to give his immigration speech at 6pm local time at the Phoenix Convention Center on Wednesday.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/31/donald-trump-immigration-speech-2016-election
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6283b1ff42555ebc4ce0ff92868c8e842ea6fd794c6f50288700e7a520d893ed.json
|
|
[
"Katie Allen",
"Larry Elliott",
"Larry Elliott Economics Editor",
"David Blanchflower"
] | 2016-08-28T08:54:57 | null | 2016-08-04T17:55:32 |
Bank’s monetary policy committee unveils a four-point plan to mitigate the impact of the EU referendum vote
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F04%2Fbank-of-england-cuts-uk-interest-rates.json
|
en
| null |
Bank of England cuts interest rates to 0.25% and expands QE
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the first time in more than seven years and warned high-street lenders to pass on cheaper borrowing costs to customers, in a bigger-than-expected package of measures designed to prevent a post-Brexit recession.
Bank of England cuts interest rates to 0.25% - live updates Read more
The Bank cut official interest rates to a new record low of 0.25% from 0.5% and signalled they would be reduced further in coming months as the economic fallout from the vote to leave the EU becomes clearer. The move will bring relief to borrowers but has already angered savers who have been getting low returns for years thanks to rock-bottom interest rates.
Desperate to ensure the cut is felt by households and businesses in the real economy, the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, took a tough line with commercial banks, telling them they had no excuse not to pass the lower official borrowing costs onto customers.
As part of a four-point package, Carney unveiled additional funds for banks to cushion the blow to their profitability from lower interest rates. He personally called bank bosses after Thursday’s announcement to make it clear the Bank wanted to see the full benefits of its anti-recession strategy felt by households and businesses.
Carney used a press conference to argue that a range of measures was needed now to limit job losses and support growth in the UK economy as it went through “regime change” following the decision to leave the EU. The Bank’s forecasts were for a slower earnings growth and for 250,000 job losses, even with these stimulus measures.
Early economic indicators suggest confidence among businesses and households slumped after the June referendum and that a slowdown in spending threatens to tip the UK into recession.
Carney rebuffed suggestions the Bank was over-reacting to the Brexit vote and implied the UK would fall into recession without the new measures. “There is a clear case for stimulus, and stimulus now, in order to have an effect when the economy really needs it,” he said.
Reacting to early economic indicators suggesting demand and output had slowed across all parts of the economy since the June referendum, the Bank announced:
• A cut in official interest rates to 0.25%, the first such move since March 2009;
• Plans to pump an additional £60bn in electronic cash into the economy to buy government bonds, extending the existing quantitative easing (QE) programme to £435bn in total;
• Another £10bn in electronic cash to buy corporate bonds from firms “making a material contribution to the UK economy”;
• As much as £100bn of new funding to banks to help them pass on the base rate cut. Under this new “term funding scheme” (TFS) the Bank will create new money to provide loans to banks at interest rates close to the base rate of 0.25%. The scheme will charge a penalty rate if banks do not lend;
• The growth forecast for the UK for next year was slashed by an unprecedented amount. Growth would come to a near-standstill over coming months and be much weaker in 2017 and 2018 than predicted before the Brexit vote.
UK interest rates UK interest rates.
The Bank’s intervention to shore up confidence was welcomed by the chancellor, Philip Hammond. He also appeared to respond to repeated assertions from Carney and others that monetary policy had limited power to solve Britain’s economic problems and that action from government was needed. The chancellor, hinting at action from the Treasury in his Autumn Statement later this year, wrote to Carney saying: “Alongside the actions the Bank is taking, I am prepared to take any necessary steps to support the economy and promote confidence.”
Hammond also sought to reassure households and business owners that the government and the Bank had the tools needed to support the economy.
Echoing that, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), chaired by Carney, indicated there was more easing to come this year and that it stood ready to expand the credit measures. Minutes from the MPC’s meeting said that if economic news proved consistent with the Bank’s latest forecasts then “a majority of members” expected to support a further interest rate cut, potentially taking official borrowing costs as low as 0.1%. Carney said he was strongly opposed to negative interest rates.
But the minutes also indicated that the policymakers were not unanimous on the whole stimulus package. All nine members backed the new TFS scheme and the rate cut. The additional QE was backed by six committee members but opposed by Kristin Forbes, Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale. Forbes also voted against the other eight members on the plan to buy corporate bonds, given she was “particularly concerned about excessive stimulus at this stage”.
The Bank’s own forecasts, published in its quarterly inflation report alongside its interest rate decision, predicted there would be virtually no growth in the economy in the second half of this year. The outlook for the coming two years was also cut.
Growth this year was forecast at 2%, unchanged from May’s outlook after a much stronger than expected second-quarter growth figure made up for a slowdown after the EU referendum. For 2017, the Bank’s growth forecast was cut to 0.8% from the 2.3% predicted in May. For 2018 it was cut from 2.3% to 1.8%.
That cumulative downgrade to growth prospects - 2.5% over three years - was the biggest between inflation reports since they were launched in 1993. Matthew Whittaker, economist at the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said that if the Bank’s forecasts proved correct the economy would be £45bn smaller in 2018 than the MPC had expected just three months ago.
The interest rate decision was largely as expected among City analysts but some were surprised at the scale of additional measures. The pound fell sharply against the dollar and euro after the Bank’s announcement but the FTSE 100 share index rallied.
Hetal Mehta, economist at Legal & General Investment Management, commented: “The overall package is broad-based – almost a ‘kitchen sink’ approach – and should mitigate the negative impact on banks from ultra-low interest rates.”
But economists also questioned how much effect the package would have when there was so much uncertainty about the UK’s future trading relationships.
Credit ratings agency Fitch said the Bank’s package was a “proactive policy response” to the EU referendum. “But it is only likely to cushion, rather than fully offset, the shock to UK growth that June’s Brexit vote will cause,” it said.
Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank, said the BoE had “applied its much-vaunted sledgehammer”.
“But for all the ammunition which the BoE has expended, we continue to question how much relief it can provide to counter what is an uncertainty, not a monetary, shock.”
Whittaker agreed, saying: “On the severe near-term economic cooling associated with the post-referendum uncertainty, the Bank can help. But longer-term, our economic performance rests on the post-Brexit picture on trade, competition and – crucially – productivity.
“Influencing those outcomes largely rests with Downing, not Threadneedle, Street,” he said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/04/bank-of-england-cuts-uk-interest-rates
|
en
| 2016-08-04T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4619b11ee3c0300041255c20313c69b65dfa391b88b9f9d355123e295c54908f.json
|
|
[
"Michael Williams"
] | 2016-08-29T16:52:26 | null | 2016-08-29T11:01:38 |
Somerset’s Tim Groenewald fails to hold a catch during the Royal London One-Day Cup semi-final against Warwickshire
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fpicture%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fsport-picture-of-the-day-groenewald-gives-it-a-whirl.json
|
en
| null |
Sport picture of the day: Groenewald gives it a whirl
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Somerset’s Tim Groenewald fails to hold a catch during the Royal London One-Day Cup semi-final against Warwickshire
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/picture/2016/aug/29/sport-picture-of-the-day-groenewald-gives-it-a-whirl
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4a80b3ec4d4be9eb74ba3a630fae22528f4e07ef7b6dd2f30f8f477db799fbb7.json
|
|
[
"Agence France-Presse In Berlin"
] | 2016-08-28T10:51:53 | null | 2016-08-28T10:24:26 |
BAMF says healthy economy and refugee services improvements means country is well placed to absorb new arrivals
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fgermany-300000-refugees-2016-bamf.json
|
en
| null |
Germany expects up to 300,000 refugees in 2016, official says
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Germany expects up to 300,000 refugees to arrive this year, less than one-third of the total during 2015’s record influx, the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) has said.
BAMF chief, Frank-Jürgen Weise, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper Germany’s healthy economy and improvements to refugee services over the last year meant the country was well placed to absorb new arrivals, particularly as their numbers have dropped off. “We are preparing for between 250,000 and 300,000 refugees this year,” he said. “We can ensure optimal services for up to 300,000. Should more people arrive, it would put us under pressure, then we would go into so-called crisis mode. But even then we would not have conditions like last year.”
'It took on a life of its own': how one rogue tweet led Syrians to Germany Read more
Nearly 1.1 million refugees arrived in Germany, Europe’s top economic power, last year, putting enormous strain on the country’s bureaucracy to process claims and testing confidence in Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition government.
The closure of the so-called Balkan migrant trail and a EU deal with Turkey to keep refugees from reaching Greece – a main entry point into the bloc – has driven down arrivals from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Weise said his agency had made major strides in working through a large backlog in asylum claims but that it would not manage to clear the remaining 530,000 cases by the end of the year. He said integrating those allowed to stay in Germany into the labour market would be a lengthy and costly process.
Weise was upbeat about the long-term prospects. “We can do it,” he said, echoing Merkel’s rallying cry during the crisis. “A lot of what was going badly in the beginning [one year ago] we’ve eventually managed to do pretty well. And the economy in Germany is so good, thank God, that we can afford it.”
Public sentiment is nevertheless sharply divided when it comes to Merkel, who has not yet said whether she would stand for a fourth term in a general election expected next September or October. Bild am Sonntag cited a poll by independent opinion research group Emnid showing 50% of respondents opposed another four-year term for Merkel, while 42% said they wanted her to stay in office.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/germany-300000-refugees-2016-bamf
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9920a85fff227516ca60faa3742ab092861ab94dc9c09bfb5ee5ecf72acfa79f.json
|
|
[
"Jana Kasperkevic"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:41 | null | 2016-08-25T12:30:11 |
Hedge funds faced a net outflow of $55.9bn this year, as losses and exorbitant fees are compelling investors to take out more money than they put in
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fhedge-fund-investors-withdraw-losses-fees.json
|
en
| null |
Hedge funds see investment exodus amid faltering performance
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
If money talks, then one of the things it has been saying this summer is that investors are no longer interested in hedge funds. Investors withdrew $25.2bn from hedge funds in July, according to eVestments. This is the largest monthly redemption since February 2009, when investors redeemed $28.2bn.
This news comes after investors withdrew $23.5bn in June. Overall, in 2016, hedge funds faced a net outflow of $55.9bn. According to Peter Laurelli, vice-president and global head of research at eVestments, 2016 could become the third year on record when investors took out more money than they put in.
The main reasons why investors are taking their money elsewhere? Poor performance.
“Investor redemptions from the industry continue to be driven by mediocre performance. Funds producing losses in 2015 are by far the primary source of outflows throughout the year into July,” Laurelli wrote in his report. “Additionally, in both June and July, redemptions have accelerated from within funds producing losses in 2016. Funds reporting the 10 largest outflows in July have returned an average of -4.1% year to date, with average losses of -5.3% concentrated in the first quarter.”
Laurelli pointed out that some hedge funds were doing well – especially those who produced higher returns for their investors.
“The 10 largest allocations in the last two months have gone to funds which have produced an average return of nearly 7% this year, and produced positive returns on average in 2015,” he wrote. “That we are forced to illuminate positive sentiment in the proverbial ashes, only illustrates the difficulty faced by many.”
In 2016 hedge funds have delivered returns of 1.2% industrywide, while S&P 500 delivered returns of about 7.6%, according to Bloomberg.
The trouble for hedge funds started in 2015, when over the last three months, investors globally withdrew more money than they put in, according to Hedge Fund Research. The research firm also reported that 979 hedge funds closed last year – most since 2009.
The industry is expected to shrink further this year. According to Blackstone Group president Tony James, the industry might lose as much as 25% of assets this year.
“It’s kind of a day of reckoning that we face here,” James said during a May interview with Bloomberg TV Canada. “There will be a shrinkage in the industry and it will be painful. That’s going to be pretty painful for an awful lot of places.”
BlackStone is the world’s largest discretionary hedge fund investor. In the second quarter of 2016, the firm allocated $68.6bn to hedge funds.
Despite the faltering performance and the varying investors, hedge fund compensation remains high. According to James, the hedge fund fees are “hard to justify these days”.
Top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn in 2015 – more than some nations Read more
Hedge-fund managers typically charge a 2% management fee on the assets they manage as well as an incentive fee, which is usually 20% of the profits. Last year, the world’s top 25 hedge-fund managers earned $13bn. That’s more than the entire economies of Namibia, the Bahamas or Nicaragua.
— Janus Capital (@JanusCapital) Gross: Hedge fund fees exposed for what they are: a giant ripoff. Forget the 20 - its the 2 that sends investors to the poorhouse.
James is not the only one to voice displeasure over hedge-fund fees. Warren Buffett, world’s third richest person, described the fees as an unbelievable compensation scheme. And Bill Gross, portfolio manager at Janus Capital, described the 2-and-20 fees as “a giant ripoff”.
“If markets only provide 3% or 4%, they are taking more than half of the money that the investor gives them in terms of the annual profits,” Gross told Bloomberg. “Things have to change and people have to wake up [and realize] that it’s a different world now.”
His comments came just days after that Tudor Investment, one of the oldest and most expensive hedge funds, informed its clients that it was cutting fees for one share class from 2.75% of assets and 27% of profits to 2.25% and 25%.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/25/hedge-fund-investors-withdraw-losses-fees
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/259170bdd03f637ca214faa0d76f37692e7943c762ab9472a0e02b5f4cd1dff3.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T13:21:07 | null | 2016-08-25T17:01:51 |
Great Britain’s Simon Yates clinched his first grand tour stage victory with a late attack on stage six of the Vuelta a España
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fvuelta-a-espana-simon-yates-claims-maiden-victory-on-stage-six.json
|
en
| null |
Vuelta a España: Simon Yates claims maiden victory on stage six
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Great Britain’s Simon Yates clinched his first grand tour stage victory with a late attack on stage six of the Vuelta a España.
The 24-year-old Bury-born Orica-BikeExchange rider, who sat out this year’s Tour de France as he was serving a four-month ban for a “non-intentional” anti-doping rule violation, surged clear with four kilometres remaining and finished 20 seconds clear of Luis León Sánchez (Astana).
The peloton, containing Colombian race leader Darwin Atapuma and the grand classification contenders, including Team Sky’s Chris Froome and Movistar pair Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana, were 29 seconds behind Yates.
Sport picture of the day: Italy earthquake tribute at La Vuelta Read more
BMC Racing’s Atapuma remains in the red jersey, with Valverde 28 seconds behind and Froome a further four seconds back, while Quintana and Yates’ team-mate Esteban Chaves are both 38secs adrift.
Yates clawed his way into the top 10 and to within one minute 28 seconds of Atapuma as he added another memorable afternoon to the Yates family’s stellar year on the bike.
Twin brother Adam finished fourth at the Tour de France and became the first Briton to win the white jersey for the best young rider.
Simon Yates was forced to watch his brother’s exploits from a distance as he sat out the race due to a doping ban which came after the team doctor failed to properly apply for a medical exemption for his asthma treatment, but he put that behind him by taking victory at the end of the 163.2km stage from Monforte de Lemos to Luintra in Galicia.
Yates told Eurosport: “We really set it up well. I managed to take my opportunity at the finish. It wasn’t planned we just wanted to make it a hard race. It was a pretty crazy day with a lot of twists and turns. I timed my attack to perfection.”
It took over 50km for the day’s break to form and, when it did, the presence of José Mendes (Bora-Argon18), who started the day 2mins 51secs down on Atapuma, ensured it was never able to build up too big of a lead.
Omar Fraile (Dimension Data) attacked on his own after the day’s sole categorised climb with under 50km to go, but was caught with 19km left by Mathias Frank (IAM Cycling), Jan Bakelants (AG2R - La Mondiale) and Andrey Zeits (Astana).
Frank then went solo and led until Yates, following a late attack from Movistar’s Dani Moreno off the front of the peloton, surged clear with less then 4km to go.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/25/vuelta-a-espana-simon-yates-claims-maiden-victory-on-stage-six
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fedfd803aca3df12ed9afdac3b134380ad41a03660a54a23ffbfc9515e77a10a.json
|
|
[
"Julia Carrie Wong"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:45 | null | 2016-08-23T18:18:23 |
Just weeks after the augmented reality game Pokémon Go shot to the top of the app charts, millions of people are no longer using it, according to a report
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fpokemon-go-active-users-down-augmented-reality-games.json
|
en
| null |
Pokémon No: game's daily active users, downloads and engagement are down
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Just weeks after the augmented reality game Pokémon Go shot to the top of the app charts, millions of people are saying “Pokémon No”, according to an analysis from Axion Capital Management published by Bloomberg News.
The game’s daily active users, downloads, and engagement are all on the decline, according to the charts published by Bloomberg.
Niantic cracks down on Pokémon Go cheats with lifetime bans Read more
Daily active users have fallen from around 45m to around 30m since the peak in mid-July.
The report said the figures should “assuage” the Pokémon woes of investors concerned that the game was pulling users away from other popular apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
A spokesman for Niantic, the company behind the game, said it “has not released any official numbers regarding downloads or players on Pokémon Go”, a spokesman for the company behind the game said.
The hit game became an instant global phenomenon upon its release in July 2016. The augmented reality game turns the outside world into a gamer’s playground, overlaying reality with the cute and cheerful cartoon characters. Users walk around seeking out Pokémon and capturing them by chucking balls at them.
The instant popularity proved challenging for the servers of Niantic Labs and lucrative for Nintendo, which is a partial owner of the Pokémon Company. Players have already spent more than $250m on in-app purchases, according to a report by CNBC.
One man in New Zealand quit his job to become a full-time Pokémon hunter, while law enforcement officials became concerned that would-be robbers might use the game’s features to lure unsuspecting players into danger.
The game was credited with encouraging healthy exercise by some, while others objected to its use in inappropriate locations – such as the US Holocaust Museum.
On 21 July – two weeks after the 6 July release in the US – analytics company Survey Monkey declared that the game had already peaked, releasing charts showing that daily active users, downloads, and consumer interest were already trending down.
“Previous blockbuster titles Candy Crush and Draw Something took months to gain momentum, gather tens of millions of users, and hit peak usage,” Survey Monkey blogger Robbie Allen wrote. “Pokémon Go achieved the same thing in a single week.”
Niantic is in the process of releasing an update to the game for Android and iOS devices, according to a post on its Facebook page. The update will include a new feature called “Pokémon Appraisal” and the post promises “several new and exciting features to come in the future of Pokémon Go”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/23/pokemon-go-active-users-down-augmented-reality-games
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9b65c5c81c3f156f12a37c55e1b1448c584a4e98f8cd8d142ea9ac4f371e1121.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-28T16:52:02 | null | 2016-08-28T16:32:01 |
John McEnroe has ended his coaching partnership with the Canadian Milos Raonic before the US Open due to his media commitments
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fjohn-mcenroe-leaves-coach-milos-raonic-us-open.json
|
en
| null |
John McEnroe and Milos Raonic end coaching partnership before US Open
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
John McEnroe has ended his coaching partnership with Canada’s Milos Raonic ahead of the start of the US Open.
McEnroe joined Raonic’s team as a coaching consultant for this summer’s grass-court season but came under scrutiny commentate on his player’s matches at Wimbledon.
Raonic, whose primary coaches are Carlos Moya and Riccardo Piatti, reached his first grand slam final at SW19 with the American by his side, before losing to Andy Murray.
But McEnroe has said his media commitments with ESPN mean he and Raonic have decided to part ways.
Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic finding his voice with help of John McEnroe Read more
“It ended up becoming an issue at Wimbledon,” McEnroe said.
“He’s got a great team around him. I think it’s best and easiest at this point. This week I was with him, but having thought about it, and for Milos’s sake, for ESPN and my sake, I think it’s best that we stop right now doing what we’re doing.
“So when the US Open starts on Monday, he’s got his people. I’m pulling for him and want him to do well.
“I’d love to see all the guys play their best because I think it’s better for tennis. But it’s best to sort of separate at this stage. It will just make life easier for everyone.”
McEnroe was unsure whether the partnership might resume after the US Open, where Raonic plays Germany’s Dustin Brown in the first round on Monday.
“If Milos wanted to come for a week in October, November and work, that would be to me, like, an incredible thing,” McEnroe said.
“So I’m open to the possibility of it. But I think at this particular time it makes life easier not to continue it. I’m not sure, would be the honest answer.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/28/john-mcenroe-leaves-coach-milos-raonic-us-open
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/be6942d5931aca9b827244e9beee628f552e6f7d120a4f9abc2652a58ca27caf.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:30:19 | null | 2013-02-06T17:38:33 |
Find out how to legally change your name, what services are free and what you need to pay for
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2013%2Ffeb%2F06%2Fchanging-your-name-dos-and-donts.json
|
en
| null |
Changing your name: the dos and don'ts
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Changing your name, by marriage, civil partnership, deed poll or after divorce – can be expensive and onerous. Here's how to avoid the pitfalls and keep costs down:
Changing your name after marriage or a civil partnership
Your marriage or civil partnership certificate does not in any way indicate the surname you'll have after the ceremony, yet you can use it to prove you have changed your name.
To change your surname to your spouse or civil partner's surname (or to double-barrel your joint surnames) on your passport or driving licence you need to fill in the relevant forms requesting the change and present your marriage certificate.
Financial institutions, such as banks and building societies – should also accept your marriage certificate as proof you have taken your partner's surname if you are a married woman or civil partner.
This is not always the case if you are a married man taking your wife's surname or if you are double-barrelling or meshing your surnames. If one of these situations applies to you, you may prefer to change your name by deed poll (which should always be acceptable proof).
If you wish to travel on honeymoon under your new name, you can change the name on your passport up to three months before the ceremony, using form Passports for newlyweds and civil partners (pdf).
Changing your name by deed poll
A "change of name deed poll" is simply a document that contains the following three declarations:
• I am abandoning my previous name.
• I will use my new name at all times.
• I require all persons to address me by my new name only.
You must sign and date this declaration in both your old and your new name. Your new name must contain both a forename and a surname and be pronounceable, as well complying with other common sense restrictions specified by the Home Office. Two witnesses, who aren't related to you, must also sign your deed poll and give their name, occupations and addresses.
You can prepare it yourself using the legal phrases shown in Ministry of Justice form LoC020, or pay a solicitor or specialist agency to help you.
The biggest agencies charge about £35, although the UK Deed Poll Office and the Legal Deed Poll Service charge less than £15, and you can get a free template from Free UK Deed Poll, which is accepted by the DVLA, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, the Co-operative Bank, First Direct, HSBC, CallCredit and Nationwide.
If you go for the DIY option, create the declaration then print off a few copies on good quality paper or parchment paper and get them witnessed and signed. Present this document to all relevant government authorities and financial institutions as you would a marriage certificate.
For extra security, you can get your deed poll witnessed in front of a solicitor for a set "oath fee" of £5.
If you are changing your child's name by deed poll it is more complex, so it may be worth going to a specialist agency or lawyer. If you want to do it yourself, everyone who has legal responsibility for the child should give their consent to the change in an accompanying letter, and if the child is aged 16 or 17 he or she should also give consent. To change a child's forename before their first birthday you must apply to the General Register Office.
For more information, consult your local Citizens Advice bureau.
Changing your name after divorce
All you need to revert your ID and bank accounts back to your maiden name after you divorce is your decree absolute and your marriage certificate. Alternatively, you can change your name by deed poll and present this document instead.
Cut your costs
To change the name on your passport, you have to renew it, which costs £72.50. However, it is legal for you to use a passport in your previous name until it expires. Just remember the name on any airline tickets must match the name on your passport or you may not be allowed to travel.
By contrast, you must immediately change your name on your driving licence – which costs nothing using form D1 – and you can be fined up to £100 if you fail to notify the DVLA of a name change.
It's also important to update your details (for free) on the electoral roll or you may be turned down for credit in your new name. Use the voter registration form.
Be wary of any company which offers to change your name for a fee. For example, if you own a property, many solicitors will try to charge you to register a name change at the Land Registry, but you can do it yourself for nothing.
Similarly, it shouldn't cost you a penny to notify banks, doctors, dentists, employers, nurseries, schools, HMRC, insurance companies, TV licensing, local councils, PayPal, utility companies, loyalty card schemes and the police (if you have a criminal record).
When you send your original documents in the post, obtain a free certificate of posting from the post office, as then you are entitled to claim up to £46 compensation in case it is mislaid in transit. It costs £9.25 to replace a marriage or civil partnership certificate (although extra copies usually cost less if you request them at the ceremony).
Cheques in your old name
If you receive a cheque made out to your previous name, most banks will let you cash it as long as you present it with documentation proving you used to hold that name.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/feb/06/changing-your-name-dos-and-donts
|
en
| 2013-02-06T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bf63ba9d9c4113cd6d1142a47c7d0be43c1cea4d3685defe3c4a15e0e69a0024.json
|
|
[
"Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-29T20:52:28 | null | 2016-08-29T20:01:38 |
Joey Bosa ended his month-long holdout on Monday when he signed a four-year contract with the San Diego Chargers
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fjoey-bosa-contract-san-diego-chargers-hold-out.json
|
en
| null |
Joey Bosa ends stand-off with San Diego Chargers and signs rookie contract
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Joey Bosa ended his month-long holdout on Monday when he signed a four-year contract with the San Diego Chargers.
The team announced the signing five days after the two sides went public in their nasty spat over payment of Bosa’s $17m signing bonus and whether the contract would have offset language. The signing also came a day after San Diego’s defense played poorly in a 23-10 exhibition loss at Minnesota.
Colin Kaepernick's anthem protest is all the more brave due to his career slump Read more
“We look forward to having Joey join us and getting him prepared as quickly as possible for the 2016 season,” said the Chargers’ general manager, Tom Telesco.
The Chargers threatened last Wednesday to reduce their offer to Bosa under the assumption he wouldn’t be ready to play a full season. Bosa, the No3 overall pick out of Ohio State, was the last rookie to sign. There was no immediate indication of what led to the deal getting done.
The Chargers released a statement last Wednesday saying they had given Bosa’s agents their best offer and that it was rejected. One of Bosa’s agents, Brian Ayrault, then released a statement saying the team had manipulated the facts and that going public would not strengthen the team’s relationship with the player.
The rhetoric accelerated earlier this month when Cheryl Bosa, Joey’s mother, posted a remark directed at the Chargers on Facebook. In a reply to someone frustrated by the impasse, she wrote: “It bums me out for him so much. Wish we pulled an Eli Manning on draft day.”
On Thursday, Cheryl Bosa retweeted an article critical of the Chargers and added the comment, “The Chargers were petty and terrible even before they tried to stiff Joey Bosa.”
Bosa’s father, John, is a former first-round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins. He held out for 41 days as a rookie.
The Bosa spat came amid the Chargers’ push for a ballot initiative that will ask voters for a $1.1bn subsidy via an increase in the hotel tax to help pay for a new stadium and convention center downtown.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/29/joey-bosa-contract-san-diego-chargers-hold-out
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8cc3d31a29ea178cf6236cdd9f59a0da9f270ce1ba25b1fbd67e4e90ef06644e.json
|
|
[
"Sarah Butler"
] | 2016-08-27T16:54:51 | null | 2016-08-27T15:00:06 |
After 88 years, the retailer is about to shut up shop, leaving thousands jobless, a £571m pension deficit and big holes on the high street that may never be filled
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fbhs-shuts-what-will-take-its-place-on-high-street.json
|
en
| null |
After BHS closes its doors, what will take its place?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
BHS will close the doors on its last 22 stores for the final time on Sunday, 88 years after the retailer opened for business as an affordable general store in Brixton.
When it has packed up what’s left on the racks of slippers, cardigans and dresses aimed at value-conscious shoppers, the last of the department store’s once 11,000-strong workforce will be made redundant. By summer bank holiday Monday, they will be jobless.
As they pick up final pay cheques, some will no doubt be pondering the role of former owner Sir Philip Green – currently luxuriating off the coast of Italy on his brand new £100m super yacht – in their predicament. Most will be hoping that Green will honour his promise to “sort” the BHS pension fund, currently more than £571m in deficit and heading for the pensions lifeboat, meaning that members will have to take a 10% cut in the benefits they had expected.
But it’s not only the staff who will be left high and dry by the collapse of BHS, which went into administration in April, little more than a year after Green sold the 170 stores for £1 to a group of inexperienced and unknown entrepreneurs led by former bankrupt Dominic Chappell.
The demise of the department store, the biggest retail failure since Woolworths in 2009, will leave gaping holes in struggling high streets and shopping centres across the country where the department store’s large shops were once a major draw.
Many communities will be hoping that the end of BHS will mark a chance for revival as its neglected and now dowdy stores have a chance of being replaced by more vital and fashionable brands. Some locals – in towns like Romford – are actively campaigning to attract chains like John Lewis, Primark or Zara.
Primark and Sports Direct are expected to take a handful of stores each, while Zara, Poundworld, Wilko and H&M are all in talks to take a few outlets. Ikea, Decathlon, Dunelm and Go Outdoors may also use former BHS sites as a chance to experiment with smaller high-street ventures.
It’s not clear if the BHS brand will disappear altogether from the UK. The online store, which was bought by a Qatari firm, along with the BHS brand name and international business, currently says it will be reopening for business this autumn.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir Philip Green sold the 170 BHS stores to former bankrupt Dominic Chappell for £1. Photograph: PA
Property firms Savills and CBRE, which are advising on the BHS disposals, are thought to have concluded deals on about a quarter of the sites. Administrator Duff & Phelps recovered at least £22.5m from landlords by surrendering the leases on BHS’s Manchester, Brighton and Milton Keynes stores to their landlords, according to trade journal Estates Gazette.
Primark is already trading in the former BHS store in Fosse Park, Leicester, and has confirmed it will be moving into the Llandudno site. BHS’s flagship Oxford Street store in London will be converted into the first outlet for Polish retailer Lubianiec Piechocki i Partnerzy (LPP).
But property experts believe that it could take years for some BHS branches to find new occupiers.
It took about three years for the majority of Woolworths’ 800 stores to find new occupiers after it went bust, according to independent retail consultant Graham Soult, who has toured the country cataloguing the fate of the chain’s outlets. About four, including the one on Margate high street, are still empty seven years on.
Soult points out things are likely to be more difficult for BHS, partly because of the large size of its branches but also as a result of a tougher business climate in which retailers are closing stores as shoppers switch to buying online. He adds: “It’s also tougher partly because of Woolworths’ demise. Many retailers used that to plug the gaps in their portfolio.”
Will Thomas of retail property consultancy KLM believes 15% to 20% – or about 33 BHS stores – are likely to be very difficult to shift. “It is quite an obsolete portfolio. BHS hasn’t really kept up with the fashions and retail pitches have moved away from its stores. In many locations, it is really the last store in town and not attractive to many,” he says.
More than a decade of underinvestment means that many branches will require major refurbishment, including the removal of asbestos, which could cost up to £500,000 per store.
With little demand for the average 45,000sq ft stores BHS occupied, many branches are likely to be divided up in the same way that former C&A outlets were split to house shops including Zara, Primark and New Look.
Extensive upper floors, once used for stock rooms, staff canteens and managers’ offices, are likely to be even trickier to deal with. Most retailers are now more efficient and don’t need such large backroom areas, so upper floors may have to be redeveloped as gyms, homes or separate office space.
That’s not so attractive for local authorities, which receive much lower business rates from such uses, according to Thomas. But he says: “These stores are just too big for most retailers’ requirements.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sports Direct is expected to buy a handful of sites. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
At least one former BHS – Ealing – has already been sold for redevelopment into residential properties in a controversial £10m deal involving former owner Green’s son-in-law, Brett Palos.
Even if stores do find new retail occupants, that offers little hope for BHS staff being laid off this weekend. If the business had been sold as a going concern, they could have transferred to the new owners and stayed in work. Now they must hit the jobcentre.
John Hannett, general secretary of shopworkers’ union Usdaw, says: “This weekend marks the end of BHS, as the remaining staff go through the difficult and heartbreaking task of dismantling stores that many of them have been in for most of their working lives. Wherever the blame lies for the demise of this once great British retailer, it certainly is not with the staff, who are paying a high price for corporate decisions that have led us to where we are today.
“Sir Philip Green needs to honour the two promises he made to BHS staff and pensioners after the company went into administration. Firstly, to offer employment within the Arcadia Group to the blameless, dedicated and loyal staff who suddenly find themselves unemployed. Secondly, to ‘sort’ the pension scheme. We are stilling waiting to hear the details of what he proposes.”
KEY PLAYERS
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir Philip Green is still in discussions about his contribution to the £571m pension deficit.
Sir Philip Green
The billionaire former owner of BHS is currently on his new 295ft yacht Lionheart off the coast of Italy. He’s still in discussions with the pension regulator about his potential contribution to the £571m pension deficit, most of which was built up during his tenure. Two weeks ago, the billionaire reacted angrily when a Sky News reporter took a water taxi out to his yacht – which was then moored off the Greek coast – to ask questions about BHS. He refused to answer and later, in port, threatened to call the police, lunged for the camera and shouted: “That’s going in the fucking sea.”
Darren Topp
The former BHS chief executive is currently on a cycling holiday in the UK after finishing assisting administrators at the end of June. Topp, who told MPs that Chappell had threatened to kill him after he accused the entrepreneur of theft from the company, says he is taking time out before looking for a new job.
Lord Grabiner
The former chairman of Green’s Arcadia Group was described by MPs as the “apogee of weak corporate governance”. He is still a working QC and was recently involved in Guys Hands’s abandoned £1.5bn lawsuit against Citigroup over the ill-fated £4.2bn takeover of EMI.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/27/bhs-shuts-what-will-take-its-place-on-high-street
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c07bafd2407a9e2e6d8602ba7658a809154f09f575d2f2da324f59fd3c09b32f.json
|
|
[
"Julie Armstrong"
] | 2016-08-29T04:49:49 | null | 2016-08-29T04:30:51 |
Country diary: Crewe Green, Cheshire This one has had a lucky escape; with more than half of its wings gone, it’s surprising it can fly at all. Butterflies may look ethereal and fragile, but they are survivors
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fmeadow-brown-butterfly-survival-country-diary.json
|
en
| null |
Lessons from a meadow brown butterfly
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A flock of starlings lift up from the damp grass and swerve in the harebell blue sky as I cycle by. It’s a mellow morning with a hint of a breeze. Ox-eye daisies and buttercups adorn the hedgerows, nodding their heads. There are big clouds of feathery white meadowsweet; I can smell its marzipan scent. To my left and right, jackdaws are flying over open fields drenched in light, the sun buttering their edges. A plaintive, cat-like mewling: a buzzard is circling.
The university grounds are practically deserted. I freewheel across the bridge. Below, the rippling brook glints like tiny pieces of bottle-green glass. Midges skim the surface and an iridescent dragonfly. There is a wasps’ nest in the far bank.
Country diary: Wenlock Edge: On watch with the gatekeeper butterfly Read more
When I reach the conservation area I get off my bike and push it along the track worn through the trees, a short cut. I wave to Don, one of the porters, taking a tea break, and stop for a chat. We are distracted by chocolate-orange, tatty wings zigzagging tipsily between branches and leaves. It’s a meadow brown butterfly, Maniola jurtina. The butterfly’s eye spots puzzle birds, tricking them into pecking its wings rather than a vital organ in the abdomen, so it’s less likely to be eaten, explains Don. This one has had a lucky escape; with more than half of its wings gone, it’s surprising it can fly at all. Butterflies may look ethereal and fragile, but, we agree, they are survivors.
We watch the meadow brown flutter towards the greenhouse. It alights on the honeysuckle looping and twining its perfume round a tree trunk, spiralling clockwise towards the light. The red berries are food for bullfinches and thrushes, while the ivory-pink, trumpet-shaped flowers are nectar-rich nourishment for butterflies: “flowers that fly and all but sing”, according to the poet Robert Frost.
As Don saunters over to the mail room, I lock my bike in the shed, thinking I’m glad we took time out to celebrate the here and now – a lesson to be learned for when term starts and the days are not so leisurely.
Jonathan Elphick gives this year’s William Condry memorial lecture (thecondrylecture.co.uk) on the Birds of North Wales at Tabernacle/MoMA, Machynlleth, 1 October, 7pm for 7.30. £5 including refreshments (no need to book)
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/meadow-brown-butterfly-survival-country-diary
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/333e5e9e469fde0748de52a1d2299ab0c8a6560897c1e1ef600b8a29f88cb0ea.json
|
|
[
"Kevin Rawlinson"
] | 2016-08-29T06:49:48 | null | 2016-08-29T06:00:54 |
Campaigners say College of Policing should explain its work with country accused of numerous human rights abuses
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flaw%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fbritish-police-criticised-for-lack-of-transparency-in-bahrain-training-deal.json
|
en
| null |
British police criticised for lack of transparency in Bahrain training deal
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
British police have been criticised for refusing to release details of an international deal to train security officials from Bahrain, a country accused of a litany of human rights abuses.
Human rights campaigners have said the College of Policing (CoP), which sets standards for UK officers and offers worldwide training courses, should be compelled to explain their work in countries with poor records on civil liberties.
The concerns come less than two months after MPs criticised the “totally unacceptable” opacity around the college’s provision of training to Saudi Arabia.
Role of UK police in training Bahrain’s forces ‘ignores abuses’ Read more
The body was set up by the prime minister, Theresa May, during her time at the Home Office and provides the courses in accordance with Foreign Office guidance.
Last month, members of the home affairs select committee said greater transparency was needed, and criticised the then foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, for avoiding the public scrutiny of deals with unsavoury regimes.
“The Foreign Office should not hide behind any relationship with foreign governments under the guise of ‘commercial sensitivity’,” they said. However, human rights groups have now claimed the CoP continues to cite similar concerns in refusing to divulge details of its dealings with Bahrain.
In a recent response to a freedom of information request submitted by the campaign group Reprieve, the college gave a broad outline of the courses it had offered officials from the country’s interior ministry each year since 2013 and confirmed it had seconded staff to Bahrain in that time.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Theresa May leaves after addressing the College of Policing conference near Hook in Hampshire. Photograph: Oli Scarff/PA
But it refused to go into “details of the specific nature of [its] work” with the country, which has been accused of using torture to extort confessions from prisoners. The college cited concerns over “commercial interests”, “international relations” and “law enforcement” – all exemptions allowed for by freedom of information laws – as justification.
It also gave the top-line amounts of money it has received for providing training to foreign countries, confirming half of the £8.6m it made between 2013 and 2015 came from countries in the Middle East and north Africa, but refused to offer a more specific breakdown.
The college refused to say which countries had paid which sums, citing fears around preserving international relations and commercial interests.
“The college’s culture of secrecy around international training must end now,” said Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve’s death penalty team.
“[It] must come clean about its business in Bahrain, where prisoners like Mohammed Ramadan face execution for ‘confessions’ obtained under torture, and the human rights situation gets worse by the day.”
Ramadan is an opponent of the government who was sentenced to death for his alleged part in the killing of a policeman. It has been claimed he was arrested without a warrant and tortured. While Ramadan did not confess, his alleged accomplice did, leading to Ramadan’s condemnation.
Foa added that Reprieve had found the CoP was “teaching CSI skills that it admits could lead to suspects being arrested and tortured” in Saudi Arabia.
UK ditches plan to bid for £5.9m Saudi Arabia prisons contract Read more
Reprieve’s criticisms were echoed by the campaign group Index on Censorship, which said it was “extremely worried” about the secrecy surrounding the relationship with Bahrain.
Index’s deputy chief executive, Rachael Jolley, said the country’s “record on human rights and openness should be challenged by the UK government”.
She added: “Index agrees with the home affairs select committee’s recent recommendation that: ‘To ensure that there is proper transparency and accountability, the college must be open about the nature of the international work that it provides.’”
Jolley said the Foreign Office and CoP should be required to get a written guarantee that training will not aid operations “deemed unethical by the UK government”.
“Bahrain is a country that has previously ordered the 15-day detention of a poet, and which last year stripped 72 people of their citizenship – including journalists and bloggers – for simply voicing their criticism of the current regime,” she said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest At a march in A’ali, southwest of the capital of Manama, Bahraini anti-government protesters chant for democratic freedom. Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP
“Rajab is currently facing prison on charges of spreading ‘false or malicious news, statements, or rumours’, evidence of which includes a retweet of an Index tweet; ‘offending a foreign country’ through tweeted criticism of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Yemen; and ‘offending a statutory body’ by condemning conditions in the country’s notorious Jau prison.”
Earlier this month, the Observer revealed that an agreement signed by the CoP and Bahrain’s interior ministry set out the commercial ground on which their relationship would be built but omitted any mention of human rights issues.
A Foreign Office spokesman repeated the statement given to the Observer, saying: “It is not good enough to merely criticise other countries from the sidelines. Only by working with Bahrain are we able to bring about the changes we would like to see in the country.
“The UK is working closely with the government of Bahrain to provide extensive reform assistance focused on strengthening human rights and the rule of law. We see this support as the most constructive way to achieve long-lasting and sustainable reform in Bahrain.”
The spokesman added: “While it will take time to see the full results of much of this work, the UK is having a direct impact on areas of concern.”
The college of policing said it submits all proposals for international work to a government body that considers human rights issues before giving the go-ahead.
“There are a number of reasons why we do not disclose details about overseas training or costs, where to do so could expose vulnerabilities that can be exploited by criminals or put at risk British citizens deployed overseas,” a spokesman said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/aug/29/british-police-criticised-for-lack-of-transparency-in-bahrain-training-deal
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0b6ae50d4517382b0f359169677ccda39b79469902930f376328503cd45905e7.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-29T04:49:52 | null | 2016-08-29T03:20:46 |
Economy minister Sigmar Gabriel warns UK must take responsibility for vote that has left Europe as an ‘unstable continent’
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fuk-must-pay-for-brexit-or-eu-is-in-deep-trouble-says-german-minister.json
|
en
| null |
UK must pay for Brexit or EU is in 'deep trouble', says German minister
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel has said that Britain must not be allowed to “keep the nice things” that come with EU membership without taking responsibility for the fallout from Brexit.
As Theresa May called a cabinet meeting to discuss the UK government’s Brexit strategy on Wednesday, Gabriel warned if the issue was badly handled and other member countries followed Britain’s lead, Europe would go “down the drain”.
“Brexit is bad but it won’t hurt us as much economically as some fear – it’s more of a psychological problem and it’s a huge problem politically,” he told a news conference.
One month on, what has been the impact of the Brexit vote so far? Read more
The world now regarded Europe as an unstable continent, said Gabriel, who is the deputy to chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s governing coalition.
“If we organise Brexit in the wrong way, then we’ll be in deep trouble, so now we need to make sure that we don’t allow Britain to keep the nice things, so to speak, related to Europe while taking no responsibility,” Gabriel said.
Since Britain’s 23 June referendum vote to leave the European Union, all eyes have been on Germany to indicate a way out of danger for the 27 members who will remain.
In an interview with German broadcaster ARD on Sunday, Merkel said: “We all agree in the European Union that Britain’s exit, the result of the referendum, has a big impact.
“Rather than rushing into activities, we should perhaps first take time to think about what we, as the 27 countries, must do better,” she said, adding that this was the direction that talks with partner countries were going in.
On Wednesday, Merkel said remaining member states must listen to each other carefully and avoid rushing into policy decisions.
“If you do it wrong from the beginning and you don’t listen – and act just for the sake of acting – then you can make many mistakes,” the conservative German leader said.
Brexit Armageddon was a terrifying vision – but it simply hasn’t happened | Larry Elliott Read more
Merkel has met a number of other European leaders during the past week to prepare the ground for a 16 September EU summit in Bratislava aimed at shoring up the battered bloc.
A British government spokesman said in mid-August that prime minister Theresa May will not begin formal divorce talks with the EU before the end of the year.
EU leaders are refusing to countenance a “Europe a la carte” by letting Britain select the parts of its future relationship that it may like, such as access to the bloc’s single market of 500 million consumers, while dispensing with EU principles such as the free movement of people.
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/29/uk-must-pay-for-brexit-or-eu-is-in-deep-trouble-says-german-minister
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d100544284b19584b652572c2b91bc3df4b9f6bbafcfe9fb8ac17a99b7dcccfc.json
|
|
[
"Matthew Weaver",
"Anushka Asthana",
"Michael White"
] | 2016-08-31T10:50:32 | null | 2016-08-31T09:17:17 |
Former chancellor and Tory grandee urges Theresa May not to get distracted as cabinet weighs up Brexit scenarios
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fbrexit-talks-pm-warned-not-to-try-to-negotiate--unnegotiable-nigel-lawson.json
|
en
| null |
Brexit talks: PM warned not to try to 'negotiate the unnegotiable'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The former chancellor Nigel Lawson has urged the UK government not to waste time trying to secure an “unnegotiable” special trade deal with the European Union - one of the options being considered at Wednesday’s cabinet away day at Chequers on the meaning of Brexit.
The Conservative grandee and Eurosceptic urged the prime minister, Theresa May, to “get on” with the formal process of leaving the EU without getting distracted by unnecessary trade bargaining.
Interviewed on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lawson said: “As soon as you stop wasting time trying to negotiate the unnegotiable – some special trade deal with the European Union – it is possible to have a relative quick exit.”
Civil servants have been asked to assess the impact of a number of Brexit scenarios, including full membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), an option that would involve lengthy and tailored negotiations about Britain’s access to the single market.
Lawson said: “Don’t go after this will-o’-the-wisp of a special trade deal with the European Union, which they will never give us, because other countries will ask for special deals of theirs.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chequers in Buckinghamshire, the PM’s country retreat. Photograph: Roy Mathers/Alamy
His comments came as May gathered the first cabinet after the summer break at the prime minister’s country retreat in Buckinghamshire, where ministers will brainstorm various options around Brexit.
May has asked cabinet members to set out ways in which an EU exit can be made successful in their areas and charged them with coming up with a positive vision. The team will also discuss the government’s industrial strategy and progress on social reform that May spoke about before entering Downing Street.
The prime minister will chair the first meeting of the social reform committee on Thursday, with housing and racial disparity on the agenda.
The Chequers meeting will start as a governmental cabinet before pushing into a political session over lunch, when civil servants will be asked to leave the room. That will offer the chance for ministers to discuss the party conference and how to capitalise on the news that 50,000 people have joined the Conservatives since May became prime minister.
A Downing Street briefing before Wednesday’s session talked about Tory unity “while Labour tears itself apart with splits and break-off groups”. However, Brexit is already starting to highlight divisions between ministers at cabinet level and below. Some, such as Lawson, are gunning for a “hard Brexit” in which border control is the top priority even if it carries an economic cost.
Others are pushing for “soft Brexit” involving better access to the single market even if this means fewer curbs on immigration.
The former business minister Anna Soubry, who is backing Open Britain, the relaunched remain campaign Britain Stronger in Europe, put the case for continuing access to the single market and the free movement of labour.
“For me the priorities are first of all access to the single market. It is absolutely critical for British business,” she told Today. She added: “I’m concerned about plans to curb immigration. We haven’t had a proper debate about immigration.”
Soubry suggested the remain campaign had failed to put the positive case for immigration in the run-up to the referendum. “People like me believe in the positive sides of immigration and we haven’t made that case and we now need to explain why it is not just good for economy and British business, which would be absolutely stumped without a great pool of migrant labour which it can rely on, but also the other benefits that immigration over centuries has brought to our country.”
She also urged the government to abandon its manifesto pledge to cut immigration.
She said: “I believe in the free movement of labour from the EU. It has benefited our country, especially business ... whether it is people who are picking fruit, whether it is people who are relying on highly qualified engineers or other experts working in British business. British business could not survive without access to that free movement of labour.”
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/31/brexit-talks-pm-warned-not-to-try-to-negotiate--unnegotiable-nigel-lawson
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1ade1e8356696940740191ba0099c2a902efab9ceecac84c1df9210b1cb0eadd.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Sport"
] | 2016-08-30T20:52:50 | null | 2016-08-30T19:58:40 |
Arsenal have announced the signing of defender Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia.
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Farsenal-complete-signing-shkodran-mustafi.json
|
en
| null |
Arsenal complete signing of defender Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Arsenal have announced the signing of defender Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia.
The central defender, 24, arrives after Arsène Wenger’s near summer-long pursuit, and shortly after Calum Chambers’ loan departure to Middlesbrough.
Arsenal earlier on Tuesday secured the signing of Lucas Pérez from Deportivo La Coruna, so Germany’s Mustafi becomes their sixth summer recruit after Granit Xhaka, Rob Holding, Takuma Asano - who has already joined Stuttgart on loan - and Kelechi Nwakali.
“He is at the right age,” Wenger told the club’s official website. “He has good experience.
“He is a very focused player who can play with the ball as well. We have taken a great player but have prepared well for the future.”
More to follow...
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/30/arsenal-complete-signing-shkodran-mustafi
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d8133d3910c5acb01f523be458be60c22b99cc98ec54e4740f40476b1c5194d7.json
|
|
[
"Patrick Barkham"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:48 | null | 2016-08-12T06:00:15 |
Four-tuskers, hoe-tuskers, shovel-tuskers are all wiped out – now only a fragment of this keystone species remains
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F12%2Felephants-are-the-end-of-a-60-million-year-lineage-the-last-of-the-megaherbivores.json
|
en
| null |
Elephants are the end of a 60m-year lineage - last of the megaherbivores
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
If, just 800 generations ago, we took a summer holiday to Crete, Cyprus or Malta, we would have found familiar-looking islands, filled with the flowers and birds we can enjoy today. But bursting through the scrub would’ve been one surprise: a pygmy elephant, one metre high, one of many different elephant species that once roamed every continent apart from Australia and Antarctica.
The 20,000-year-old pygmy elephants of the Mediterranean islands may appear as fantastical as the woolly mammoths which still ambled across one Alaskan island just 5,600 years ago. But these animals’ lives, and deaths, take on a new pertinence today. They lived a blink of an eye ago in evolutionary time and shared the planet with modern humans. And the fate of these lost elephants, warns Prof Adrian Lister, paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum, is analogous to the troubled future facing their close relatives, the African and Asian elephants threatened with obliteration today.
“People are more likely to drive things to extinction on islands than on the mainland,” says Lister. “One of the problems with living elephants is not just that their numbers are going down and down but that their populations are very fragmented. We call it islandisation. National parks are islands today. If you’re a population of 50 elephants on a national park in Nepal, surrounded by agricultural land, you may as well be on an oceanic island in terms of population size and genetic diversity.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Platybelodon grangeri were shovel-tusked elephants that lived in China 15 to 11 million years ago. They stood little taller than a human. Illustration: Jennie Webber
When humans spread beyond Africa, they shared the planet with 42 species of terrestrial mammal weighing more than a tonne. Now only elephants, hippos and rhinos survive. The two contemporary elephant species (some scientists now say the African elephant is two distinct species, the savannah elephant and forest elephant, although debate still rages) are the last representatives of the megafauna, or megaherbivores, who have played an enormous part in shaping life on earth for far longer than Homo sapiens.
Ecologists define elephants as a “keystone species,” without which ecosystems would be dramatically different.
Today’s elephants belong to a lineage stretching back 60 million years, members of the order of Proboscidea – spectacular trunked mammals. They include what may have been the largest land mammal of all time, the dinosaur-dwarfing, 12-tonne Palaeoloxodon namadicus. There were “hoe-tuskers” and “shovel-tuskers”, such as Platybelodon grangeri, which were depicted by 20th century paleontologists lowering their huge shovel-like trunks into swamps to feast on marsh plants. More recently, studies of Platybelodon molars found in China’s Linxia Basin suggest they grazed rather more like the elephants we know, clamping their shovels around trees to strip off leaves and bark.
Our understanding of ancient elephants is not merely derived from old bones or teeth but footprints too, which provide a peek into their social world. The seven-million-year-old tracks of 13 four-tusked elephants, Stegotetrabelodon syrticus, were uncovered in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates. Prints of a solitary male travelling in a different direction were also discovered, indicating that different individuals pursued social or solitary existences, just as elephants do today.
Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of the world's elephant population Read more
Asking if Ross MacPhee has a favourite megaherbivore is “like asking me whether I love all my children,” says the curator and professor at the American Museum of Natural History (if pushed, he prefers the Megalonyx and Megatherium, ungainly giant sloths who lack any comparable modern ancestors and so their long and successful existence on the planet remains a mystery). MacPhee studies extinction, and human species’ role in the disappearance of so many historic elephants, from the woolly mammoths to the older, shaggy-coated mastodons of North America, is a contentious subject.
“Most people in my line of work agree that most of these losses were due to human actions – that humans intensively hunted these animals,” he says. But it wasn’t just Homo sapiens: most pygmy elephants disappeared from Mediterranean islands before any evidence of human occupation and woolly mammoths in far North America disappeared before people turned up. This month, new research precisely dates the disappearance of woolly mammoth from St Paul’s Island, Alaska, at 5,600 years ago. They died of thirst – because rising seas shrank the island and reduced fresh water supplies. Humans didn’t reach St Paul’s until 1787.
The bevelled front tusk of the Platybelodon grangeri protruded from the front of the mouth. Its use has been the cause of much debate among palaeontologists Photograph: American Museum of Natural History
“People who don’t like the idea that humans did it all want to believe that it was climate change,” says MacPhee. “It’s plausible that climate change could have an impact but the trouble is that all these extinctions weren’t at the same time. Why didn’t all the elephants go at the same time like the dinosaurs did 66 million years ago? It wasn’t so much that climate change caused extinction as caused population collapses. Climate change kind of beat the crap out of these elephants. Finally humans showed up and wiped out whatever remained. I don’t personally believe that humans can have been responsible at all times and neither could the climate.”
Today’s Asian elephant can be regarded as the oldest of the surviving Proboscideans, originating in Africa before the African elephant. “You could call it the original African elephant,” laughs Vivek Menon, chair of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group. Across the world, and not just in Asia and Africa, elephants are celebrated in culture, a staple of stories for children, a rich and mighty symbol. Even scientists don’t always object to our relentless anthropomorphism of these global citizens. “The elephant is a near person,” says Menon. “Its compassion, its memory – this is a remarkably intelligent beast. As a scientist, I know that elephants come very, very close to us.”
What is less widely recognised in modern-day elephants is their talent for engineering or reshaping landscapes. Such mighty beasts always have: when the fruits of the Osage orange, a North American tree, drop to the ground, nothing eats them. The tree is one of many ecological anachronisms. Its fruit evolved to be crunched and dispersed by the mammoths and mastodons that once tramped the continent; now they have vanished, the tree struggles to spread through the landscape.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The carcass of the world’s most well-preserved baby mammoth, named Lyuba, who fell into a mud-hole and died in Siberia 41,000 years ago. Rising temperatures, changing vegetation and the spread of humans all contributed to the extinction of the woolly mammoth. Photograph: Aaron Tam/AFP/Getty Images
Ecologists define elephants as a “keystone species,” without which ecosystems would be dramatically different. Just like their ancestors, African elephants disperse large quantities of seed over long distances: in Congo, scientists found forest elephants disperse 345 seeds per day from 96 species, typically more than 1km from parent trees. They convert forest to scrub, damaging trees and opening up areas to smaller herbivores or sun-loving lizards, which has also been shown to help lions catch prey. Elephants’ browsing of plants can reduce the fuel loads and the intensity of wildfires. Their defecation returns nutrients to the soil more quickly than seasonal leaf loss and decay.
Being forced into smaller “islands” of protected land has caused elephants to damage some African woodlands. A decade ago, there was fierce debate in South Africa over restarting “conservation” culls to save forest habitat. Zoologist Dr Christopher O’Kane, fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, compared the browsing impact of elephants and impala and found that the long-term impact of a reasonable density of impala had a similar impact to a reasonable density elephants – culling impala could save as much woodland as culling elephants. “We don’t really need to cull elephants and no one is going to do it for the foreseeable future but it may rear its head again,” says O’Kane. “In a perfect world, the African elephant needs a lot more space than it has.”
There are big differences between elephant species but also big cultural differences in how they are viewed. In Asia there is a long tradition of taking Asian elephants into captivity and training them. The elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh is, appropriately enough, a remover of obstacles. Elephants are prayed to every day. “It is extraordinarily helpful that our grandmothers taught us to revere the elephant,” says Menon. Despite elephants killing more than 400 people in India every year – “this is not badgers we’re talking about,” says Menon – here there are no suggestions it should be culled. The biggest challenge in conserving the Asian elephant? “Land – nothing else,” says Menon. “As Mark Twain said, ‘buy land, they are not making it anymore’. An elephant is a nomad, it has to move, you can’t settle it. There are 1.26 billion people in India and a large-bodied animal that needs to move.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A herd of wild elephants along with newborns cross a tea garden in Sonitpur district of Assam, about 300km from Guwahati city, India. Photograph: STR/EPA
Conservation scientists have identified 101 “corridors” in India along which elephants move between core habitat, where they can feed and breed. Elephants have tramped these routes for generations but as they are blocked – by houses, roads, railways and other linear developments – so human-elephant conflict arises. “We need to secure the 101 corridors from developmental activities,” says Menon.
As human populations rise in elephants’ territory, the ability of people to share land with another big mammal will be tested more than ever, regardless of whether the poaching epidemic is quelled. There are some smart small ways to manage local conflict: scientists are helping African farmers deploy bees to prevent (bee-fearing) elephants damaging crops. Ultimately, however, scientists such as MacPhee and O’Kane say the elephant’s future will come down to numbers – of people, as well as elephants.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Modern elephants are heavily dependent on humans for their survival. Here a baby elephant stands close to his mother in the elephant enclosure at Wuppertal Zoo, Germany. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
The fossil record provides a dramatic picture of how the pygmy elephants, straight-tusked elephants, woolly mammoths and mastodons disappeared from the northern hemisphere as the last ice age ended. Adrian Lister detects many parallels between this period of natural warming and the anthropogenic climate change of the modern age. “You get mass extinctions when you get a coincidence of factors. This is the lesson for today,” says Lister. “What is really punishing these animals – global warming, pollution, habitat destruction – is a terrible synergy of different drivers which is threatening biodiversity today.”
We don’t know how our relatives, a few hundred generations ago, took the loss of the elephants they helped drive to extinction. We see ourselves as civilised superiors and yet demonstrate no greater restraint as scientists tell us we are causing a sixth great extinction, a wiping out of non-human life on earth. Tragedy beckons for many million less visible forms of life if we can’t save the most visible. Will the last members of the great elephant family survive? If they don’t, we only have ourselves to blame.
Elephants on the path to extinction - the facts Read more
• This article was amended on 12 August. An earlier version stated that Palaeoloxodon namadicus weighed 24 tonnes; in fact they were more likely just a slender 12 tonnes.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/12/elephants-are-the-end-of-a-60-million-year-lineage-the-last-of-the-megaherbivores
|
en
| 2016-08-12T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c8454f8ad01c6019a449f5dedbb50e8dcc47dde3d0409c984c6538b294ae5ab0.json
|
|
[
"Paul Campbell"
] | 2016-08-26T13:21:44 | null | 2016-08-20T09:00:00 |
Featuring a man throwing his food over his face, a gymnastic falling to the ground, two baseball players with sore hands and a genius running from a bee
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F20%2Fgifs-giving-simone-biles-conor-mcgregor-novak-djokovic.json
|
en
| null |
The gifs that keep on giving: Simone Biles, Conor McGregor, hugs and headers
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Featuring a man throwing his food over his face, a gymnastic falling to the ground, two baseball players with sore hands and a genius running from a bee
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/20/gifs-giving-simone-biles-conor-mcgregor-novak-djokovic
|
en
| 2016-08-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/15e19e5b4e761867a12a83994da2deffbc5c355678b2d31ad7f9856be363742d.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T13:25:27 | null | 2016-08-22T16:43:04 |
Temperatures in south could reach low-30s by midweek but could be 10 degrees cooler in rain-hit north
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Fsouth-east-uk-set-for-heatwave-as-parts-of-north-face-floods.json
|
en
| null |
South-east UK set for heatwave as parts of north face floods
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
South-east England is set for more hot weather while parts of the north are on flood alert.
Following heavy rain in North Yorkshire, water has been gushing on to roads from White Scar Caves in Ingleton, in the Yorkshire Dales national park. Video footage from the scene shows cars driving slowly through deep floodwater.
On Wednesday and Thursday in the south-east and East Anglia, temperatures could reach the low 30s, the Met Office said.
Its spokesman Grahame Madge said: “There is a front that will be straddling the UK and temperatures to the south-east of that front will be much warmer. The next few days in the south-east and the home counties are going to be very warm, but it is a different picture a bit further north. That is where the front will have an impact.”
Temperatures further north will only reach into the low 20s, with up to 21C expected in Edinburgh on Thursday and 20C in Belfast on Wednesday.
“It is a boundary between two weather systems: we have got cooler air to the north and west, and warmer air to the south and east,” Madge said. “There is still potential for sunshine in a lot of other places – the map for Wednesday shows the cloud across the central belt of the UK, from south Wales to the Humber.
“North of that there are very sunny areas, it is a bright picture, but temperature-wise it is going to be the south-east corner that is going to see the higher values over the next few days.”
The Environment Agency has 14 flood warnings in place, including five for the river Wyre in Lancashire, and 19 flood alerts across the north-west.
Flood defence schemes are being used in Garstang and Catterall, in Lancashire, as well as Wigan, protecting 500 properties, after river levels rose.
The Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill said the frontal system was currently quite weak but would gather strength as it moved northwards on Monday night.
He said it would bring significant rain to some parts of northern England, southern Scotland and Northern Ireland, with as much as 20-25mm in Lancashire and the Peak District.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/22/south-east-uk-set-for-heatwave-as-parts-of-north-face-floods
|
en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/30591714b4f09d504d74511f50d161e689d365fb2aa599e12d7b0128de9f31ad.json
|
|
[
"Ryan Baxter",
"Jonathan Fisher"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:17 | null | 2016-08-25T18:02:50 |
Leicester City will face Porto, Club Brugge and FC Copenhagen in the club’s debut Champions League campaign following the group stage draw on Thursday
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fleicester-citys-champions-league-group-all-you-need-to-know-video.json
|
en
| null |
Leicester City's Champions League group: all you need to know - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Leicester City will face Porto, Club Brugge and FC Copenhagen in the club’s debut Champions League campaign following the group stage draw on Thursday. The Foxes last played in Europe 16 years ago in the UEFA Cup after winning the League Cup the previous season
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/25/leicester-citys-champions-league-group-all-you-need-to-know-video
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fe561e831acbe9f79d1bb9943ab02127699c3ea725e6a1ae6743450fcf4a9acc.json
|
|
[
"Benjamin Lee"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:01 | null | 2016-08-26T08:44:30 |
Cheryl Boone Isaacs says people should not judge Nate Parker’s film, which has drawn controversy after publicity surrounding his 1999 rape trial, before seeing it
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffilm%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fcheryl-boone-isaacs-the-birth-of-a-nation-nate-parker.json
|
en
| null |
'People need to see this movie': Oscars boss defends The Birth of a Nation
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has spoken about the controversy surrounding Nate Parker’s slavery drama The Birth of a Nation, saying filmgoers should separate the film from its director’s “personal issue”.
Nate Parker: director with a back story | Observer profile Read more
In 1999, the actor, writer and director was accused of rape along with the film’s co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin. Earlier this month, it emerged that the accuser killed herself in 2012.Isaacs says people need to see the film despite the publicity about Parker’s history.
“I know just by the conversation that has gone on at Sundance that it’s clearly a movie that filmgoers should go and see,” Boone Isaacs told TMZ, while also admitting that she’s yet to see it.
Asked about the allegation against Parker, she responded: “That’s one issue, that’s his personal issue. Then there’s the issue of the movie and the important thing is for people to see it and enjoy the film and be impressed by the film.”
Parker was acquitted of the crime but Celestin was charged. In a recent Facebook post, Parker said he was “devastated” by the news of his accuser’s death.
The story of Nate Parker's rape accuser and a university's cold shoulder Read more
The film premiered at Sundance in January to awards buzz and a record purchase by Fox Searchlight, who bought the film for $17.5m (£13.2m). On Wednesday, the American Film Institute cancelled a screening and Q&A for the film and Parker has cancelled all press scheduled for next month’s Toronto film festival.
Earlier this week, the Hollywood Reporter surveyed Academy members on the film and their thoughts on Parker. “Personally, I find it really hard to separate the man from the film when he wrote, directed and starred in it,” said Marcia Nasatir. “Do I want to see a movie from someone who has committed an assault against a woman and who I do not think recognises his guilt? Right now, based on what I’ve read, I would not go to the movie.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/26/cheryl-boone-isaacs-the-birth-of-a-nation-nate-parker
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7a9ecc9a22a84ddb7cfe7a2124e025d6b9f2c126e4583dd319a36956aa0d9a55.json
|
|
[
"Colin Rogers",
"Dusty Amroliwala"
] | 2016-08-26T18:52:06 | null | 2016-08-26T17:25:40 |
Colin Rogers and Dusty Amroliwala on the president of Mencap
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fglobal%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fletters-lord-rix-obituary.json
|
en
| null |
Letters: Lord Rix obituary
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Colin Rogers writes: Lord Rix was effective in giving people with learning disabilities a voice and in helping to ensure that it is heard, not just because he was a passionate and powerful advocate, but also because he earned their trust, and that of their families and supporters. When Brian walked into a meeting, whether in a Mencap house or the Palace of Westminster, the respect and admiration that people felt for him was palpable. To thousands he was their personal champion, and many were proud to count Brian as a friend.
Lord Rix obituary Read more
To those of us who worked with him (in my case as a Mencap trustee), it was a lesson to see how easily he communicated with a wide range of people, some of whom had little in the way of communication skills themselves. And, although his heyday at the Whitehall theatre was far behind him by the time we met, Brian remained able to make people laugh. As this truly noble man put it: “All I’ve really achieved in my life is to progress from one end of Whitehall to the other.” What a journey.
Dusty Amroliwala writes: Brian Rix was a strong supporter of the University of East London. He was its first chancellor (1997-2012), and established and founded, in 2001, the Rix Centre, to develop ways of using new technologies to transform the lives of people with learning disabilities.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/aug/26/letters-lord-rix-obituary
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fb8e26befbab60e657ed71553cd2ced0bb5cc447e478b493dc8028ec3bcc87fb.json
|
|
[
"Kipper Williams"
] | 2016-08-30T18:55:24 | null | 2016-08-30T14:17:59 |
Tech giant must pay billions in back taxes after Brussels intervenes
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2Fpicture%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fkipper-williams-on-apple-tax-bill-ireland-cartoon.json
|
en
| null |
Kipper Williams on Apple's tax bill - cartoon
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
| null |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/picture/2016/aug/30/kipper-williams-on-apple-tax-bill-ireland-cartoon
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d0bb60f48888500aec6ba42eadb754c941b310caa2b69d438f18ef87cb6e9c08.json
|
|
[
"Stuart James"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:20 | null | 2016-08-25T16:56:25 |
Pep Guardiola will return to Camp Nou this season after Manchester City drew Barcelona in the Champions League group stages
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fchampions-league-draw-manchester-city-barcelona-arsenal-celtic.json
|
en
| null |
Champions League draw: Man City face Barcelona and Celtic, Arsenal play PSG
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Pep Guardiola will be back on familiar ground with Manchester City this season after they were placed in the same Champions League group as Barcelona in another tough draw for the Premier League club. As well as returning to the Camp Nou Guardiola will confront Borussia Mönchengladbach, who were also in City’s Champions League group last season, and Celtic.
The draw was much kinder to the Premier League’s other clubs, notably Leicester City, whose first Champions League campaign takes on Porto, Club Brugge and Copenhagen in a group that will encourage their supporters to believe they can reach the knockout stage.
Manchester City left to hanker for the beginners’ luck of Leicester Read more
Arsenal face a stern test against Paris Saint-Germain, the French champions, but Arsène Wenger’s side should be confident of overcoming Basel and the Bulgarian side Ludogorets. Tottenham Hotspur will also fancy their chances of reaching the last 16 after being drawn with CSKA Moscow, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco.
Manchester City once again find themselves up against difficult opponents. As well as the obvious threat posed by Barcelona, whom City have faced in the Champions League in two of the past three seasons, Mönchengladbach are no pushovers and taking on Celtic at Parkhead will be tricky.
“It’s not a nightmare because we are in a wonderful competition but you do have to say it’s a very tough draw with Barcelona, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Celtic – a big game again,” Txiki Begiristain, City’s director of football, said. “Pep knows the group very well – obviously Barcelona but also Borussia Mönchengladbach from his time in Germany. We were in the semi-final last season and we want to be there again.”
Leicester are not setting their targets so high but there will be cautious optimism around the club after a draw that could have been a lot worse for the Premier League champions. Porto have a strong European pedigree, winning the European Cup in 1987 and 2004, but Leicester have nothing to fear against Brugge or Copenhagen, the other teams making up Group G.
“Now the teams have been drawn that excitement is building even more and, although it won’t be easy against great champions like Porto, like everyone, I’m curious to see how my players perform,” Claudio Ranieri said.
The Leicester manager added: “Once again I say we are underdogs. For this reason we must fight for everything. I want to see my players fight against the best in Europe. Last season was wonderful but I want more. Now we are in the Champions League and we have another wonderful opportunity to show our quality. We know we have three tough away games but, when we arrive at our stadium, that is when I know we can show something special.”
Champions League: How the groups shape up for 2016-17 Read more
Arsenal, who have been eliminated at the last-16 stage in each of the last six seasons, start at Parc des Princes, on 13 September, in their toughest group game. Although Basel have beaten Manchester United and Chelsea in the Champions League in the last five years, Arsenal will be strong favourites to qualify along with PSG, with Ludogorets the rank outsiders in Group A.
Spurs avoided being placed with one of the European powerhouses. CSKA Moscow were arguably the weakest of the top seeds, and Mauricio Pochettino, the Spurs manager, will be relieved to have avoided Borussia Dortmund and Atlético Madrid from the second pot. Bayer Leverkusen, who finished third in the Bundlesliga last season - albeit 28 points behind Bayern Munich – and Monaco make up Group E.
Real Madrid, the holders, have been drawn with Borussia Dortmund, Sporting Lisbon and Legia Warsaw.
Champions League draw in full
Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, Basel, Ludogorets
Group B: Benfica, Napoli, Dynamo Kyiv, Besiktas
Group C: Barcelona, Manchester City, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Celtic
Group D: Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven, FC Rostov
Group E: CSKA Moscow, Bayer Leverkusen, Tottenham Hotspur, Monaco
Group F: Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Sporting Lisbon, Legia Warsaw
Group G: Leicester, Porto, Club Brugge, FC Copenhagen
Group H: Juventus, Sevilla, Lyon, Dinamo Zagreb
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/25/champions-league-draw-manchester-city-barcelona-arsenal-celtic
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5138bc98f888842dbf508763409293fc0a20f22cc3fceb0a24ff4ced139ac3e4.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T13:20:26 | null | 2016-08-25T20:20:43 |
Unconfirmed reports that three Britons are among hundreds of people killed by earthquake in Amatrice
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fbritons-affected-amatrice-italy-earthquake-foreign-office-confirms.json
|
en
| null |
Britons 'affected' by Italy earthquake, Foreign Office confirms
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A number of Britons have been affected by the devastating earthquake in Italy, the Foreign Office said, as the death toll continued to rise on Thursday.
The BBC reported that at least three British citizens were among those killed in Amatrice, according to an official from the town. The Foreign Office was unable to confirm that report. A police official in the Amatrice area told the Press Association that “a number of Britons” had been killed in the earthquake.
The Daily Mirror reported that a 14-year-old boy from London, who had been on holiday with his parents and sister, was one of the Britons killed.
'They just keep digging': Italy quake rescuers' desperate search for survivors Read more
The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said extra staff had been sent to the region to help provide support to Britons affected by the “terrible” quake. The UK government has offered “any assistance that we can” to the Italian authorities, Johnson said.
He said: “My deepest sympathies are with the Italian people and everyone affected by the terrible earthquake that struck central Italy.
“The British government has offered any assistance that we can to help with the recovery effort and I have spoken with Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni to express my condolences personally.
“As the scale of the disaster has become clearer we now know that a number of British nationals have been affected.
“British embassy staff are in the region providing consular support, and we have deployed additional staff to support this effort.”
Aftershocks have been felt in central Italy as rescue workers continued efforts to find survivors. At least 365 people were injured in the initial earthquake and the aftermath.
A day after the shallow quake levelled three small towns, a 4.3 magnitude aftershock hit the already-devastated settlement of Amatrice.
Firefighters and rescue crews using sniffer dogs have been working in teams around the hardest-hit areas of the country.
“We will work relentlessly until the last person is found, and make sure no one is trapped,” said Lorenzo Botti, a rescue team spokesman.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/25/britons-affected-amatrice-italy-earthquake-foreign-office-confirms
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a166f2f00b200bd9e88a4e4b988d5dd1be9797e1e558f61b4cda2d366b30ecf0.json
|
|
[
"Jessica Elgot",
"Polly Toynbee"
] | 2016-08-27T16:49:18 | null | 2016-08-24T15:26:27 |
Prime minister to take personal charge of cabinet group and push for decision on controversial airport plan by October
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Ftheresa-may-to-chair-heathrow-third-runway-committee.json
|
en
| null |
Theresa May to chair Heathrow third runway committee
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Theresa May will chair a cabinet committee to make the final decision on Heathrow’s third runway plan, in order to push for a resolution by the autumn.
The much-delayed decision will be made by the economic affairs (airports) sub-committee by October. The government’s latest target and full membership of the committee was set to be announced shortly, Downing Street said.
A government spokesperson said: “In line with the approach of the last government, there will be a cabinet sub-committee to consider airport capacity in the south-east.
Third Heathrow runway would push up air fares, say campaigners Read more
“This will be chaired by the prime minister. We will publish full details of all cabinet committees, implementation taskforces and their membership in due course.”
The prime minister was returning for her first full day back at work on Wednesday after a walking holiday in the Swiss Alps. Several cabinet ministers including the prime minister are in a predicament because Heathrow expansion could adversely affect their constituencies.
May’s Maidenhead constituency is under the night flight route and she was not a member of the influential committee as home secretary under David Cameron. In July, it was reported that a deleted web archive from the late 2000s revealed May had been a strong critic of airport expansion in west London, saying her constituents faced the “prospect of a reduction in their quality of life with more planes flying overhead”.
Cameron also took personal charge of the committee, and was accused of “locking out” more anti-Heathrow cabinet members such as the then international development secretary, Justine Greening.
Greening, now education secretary after May promoted her, is one of the most vocal critics of Heathrow expansion. She is the MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.
“Trying to expand Heathrow is like trying to build an eight-bedroom mansion on the site of a terraced house,” she told the Telegraph. “It is a hub airport that is just simply in the wrong place.”
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, also opposed the third runway as London mayor, and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, said last year that he was in favour of expanding Gatwick instead. “London’s role as an international air transport hub can be maintained without additional runways at Heathrow,” he said.
“A second runway at Gatwick, plus enhanced transport links between the airports and better transport links to London will create a ‘virtual’ hub airport, maintaining Heathrow’s role in the local economy without expanding it.”
Members of the committee under Cameron included the then chancellor, George Osborne, who has since returned to the backbenches, as well as Amber Rudd, now home secretary, and the former environment minister Liz Truss, who is now lord chancellor and Patrick McLoughlin, who was transport secretary but is now chairman of the Conservative party.
The Davies commission into airport expansion in the south-east concluded last year that a third runway at Heathrow was the best of three shortlisted options, which also included extending an existing Heathrow runway and building a new one at Gatwick. In December, the government postponed a final decision pending new analysis of the environmental impacts.
After the report’s publication, the government postponed its decision to October 2015, then again to June this year. After the EU referendum result and Cameron’s resignation, McLoughlin said the decision would have to be made by the new prime minister.
Last month, 36 Conservative MPs led by the former party chairman Grant Shapps, wrote to May to demand a decision on Heathrow, saying it was “a matter of extreme urgency”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/24/theresa-may-to-chair-heathrow-third-runway-committee
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f2806259fa76fa0f1cfdc82c1c8f5ffef898736805d8d6b438e6d866704a8536.json
|
|
[
"Jon Henley",
"Anne Mcelvoy",
"Joseph Stiglitz"
] | 2016-08-29T06:51:53 | null | 2016-08-22T19:18:30 |
Britain’s shock referendum vote is very far from being the end of the EU, say leaders of its three largest countries by population, excluding the UK
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Fbeginning-new-europe-merkel-renzi-hollande.json
|
en
| null |
'This is the beginning of a new Europe' say Merkel, Renzi and Hollande
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The leaders of Italy, France and Germany have insisted that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union did not spell the beginning of the end for the bloc, pledging to revive it by bolstering EU security, boosting economic growth and giving the continent’s youth a future.
Ventotene summit to chart roadmap for EU's response to Brexit vote Read more
“Many thought the EU was finished after Brexit but that is not the case,” said Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi on Monday, as he welcomed the French president, François Hollande, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for a second mini-summit of the EU’s three largest countries by population, organised with the intention of plotting a new course for the union following the UK referendum.
Renzi continued: “We respect the choice made by the citizens of Britain but we want to write a future chapter. Europe after Brexit will relaunch the powerful ideals of unity and peace, freedom and dreams.”
The trilateral meeting came as the European commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, claimed at a forum in Austria that national borders were “the worst invention ever made by politicians,” prompting Theresa May’s spokeswoman to respond that the claim was “not something the prime minister would agree with”.
Renzi greeted Hollande and Merkel at Naples military airport from where the trio flew by helicopter to the small island of Ventotene, where they visited the grave of Altiero Spinelli, considered one of the founding fathers of the ideal of European unity. Along with Ernesto Rossi, another anti-fascist intellectual imprisoned on the island during the second world war, Spinelli co-wrote the 1941 Ventotene Manifesto calling for a federation of European states to counter the nationalism that had led Europe to war.
After placing three bouquets of blue and yellow flowers – the colours of the EU – on the marble tombstone, the leaders held a working dinner on the aircraft carrier Garibaldi, the Italian flagship of the EU’s “Sophia” migrant-rescue and anti-people-trafficking mission in the Mediterranean.
At a pre-dinner press conference that was short on concrete policy measures and long on promises, Hollande stressed the need for improved security and intelligence-sharing to bolster Europe’s defences against a wave of Islamic extremist violence.
But he warned against a retreat into nationalism after Brexit, saying the bloc could enjoy a future of “unity and cohesion” but only if EU and national leaders guarded against “the major risk – that of dislocation, egotism, a turning in on ourselves”.
Merkel recalled that the EU had been born from some of the “darkest moments” of European history but added that in the face of “enormous challenges” it must now work together, strengthening internal and external borders, boosting economic growth and providing jobs for its young people.
The talks were aimed at forging a common position as part of the three leaders’ preparations for an informal summit in Bratislava next month of the 27 states that would remain in the EU after Britain leaves.
“We won’t make decisions on behalf of other member nations but we will commit ourselves to lead,” Hollande said, adding that one of the most urgent tasks was to end economic and political uncertainty following the Brexit vote.
At their first round of talks in June, the leaders had called for “a new impulse” for the EU. They would also discuss Europe’s refugee and migrant crisis, the Syrian conflict and relations with Russia and Turkey, Renzi said.
Calls for similar in/out referendums could multiply, most imminently in the Netherlands, and member states are split on what direction the bloc should take to counter increasing Euroscepticism across member states.
Berlin has made plain it wants a “better Europe” rather than “more Europe” as favoured by its southern partners, with Merkel signalling in June her lack of enthusiasm for any “quantum leap” towards further EU integration.
On the economy, Hollande would like increases in EU investment and more fiscal harmonisation, while Renzi has argued for greater flexibility on EU deficit rules to help Italy’s ailing economy.
All three leaders face challenges from Eurosceptic or populist parties at home, with general elections due next year in France and Germany and a risky referendum on constitutional reform scheduled for later this year in Italy.
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/22/beginning-new-europe-merkel-renzi-hollande
|
en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/89256890175375598598573f9fcdf71d44d9267ebd4753cc30b416778b61ed3e.json
|
|
[
"Nicole Puglise"
] | 2016-08-26T13:16:35 | null | 2016-08-25T18:25:44 |
Judge called Martin Blackwell a ‘soulless, malicious and violent person’ for attacking girlfriend’s son and his boyfriend, who sustained severe burns
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fboiling-water-gay-men-sentencing-martin-blackwell.json
|
en
| null |
Man sentenced to 40 years for pouring boiling water on gay couple as they slept
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A Georgia man who threw boiling water on his partner’s son and his boyfriend as they slept was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Wednesday.
Martin Blackwell, 48, was found guilty of eight counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault, according to the Associated Press. Marquez Tolbert, 21, and Anthony Gooden, 24, the son of Blackwell’s girlfriend, were left with severe burns that required surgery.
A truck driver, Blackwell stayed with his girlfriend and her sister in College Park when he was in town. Tolbert and Gooden were sleeping at the apartment after working an overnight shift at a warehouse on February 12, when Blackwell boiled a pot of water and poured it over the men as they slept in the living room.
“They were stuck together like two hot dogs … so I poured a little hot water on them and help them out,” Blackwell said to police, according to the Washington Post. “… They’ll be alright. It was just a little hot water.” His lawyer said he did it because he felt their behavior was disrespectful and that he often made inappropriate comments to members of the household – asking about their sex lives or using derogatory names.
“We’re not going back to when you get to treat people differently because of who they are,” prosecutor Fani Willis said.
The attack was premeditated, she said, as he selected a large pot and waited for the water to boil, giving him time to rethink his actions.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marquez Tolbert, right, sits with his mother Jaya Tolbert and his grandfather Johnny Tolbert as he listens to the verdict. Photograph: John Bazemore/AP
Fulton County superior court judge Henry Newkirk noted that it “takes a long time” for a pot of water to boil. “You were soulless, malicious and a violent person on February 12,” he said to Blackwell according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “You had so many outs, you had so many outs where the voice of reason could’ve taken over.” It took jurors about 90 minutes to deliberate and find Blackwell guilty.
The FBI said it had opened a hate crime investigation in March, but spokesman Kevin Rowson said Wednesday that the agency isn’t commenting on that probe, the AP reported. Georgia, one of the five states in America, does not have a state hate crime law.
In an emotional video with a local news channel, Tolbert said he thought the attack was fueled by hatred. “Why else would you pour boiling hot water on somebody?” He said he woke up flailing and screaming and that Blackwell screamed “Get out of my house with all that gay” after the attack.
Blackwell then threw them out of the apartment, and the two men wandered trying to find someone to help, the Washington Post reported.
The burns required both men to receive skin grafts and surgery. Tolbert was hospitalized for 10 days with burns on his neck, back, arms and legs. Gooden spent a month in the hospital and was in a medically induced coma for two weeks. A graphic photo shared by the Washington Post shows severe burns on his face.
“The pain doesn’t let you sleep. It is excruciating, 24 hours a day and it doesn’t go anywhere and it doesn’t dial down its just there,” Tolbert said in the video. A GoFundMe page, which shows images of Tolbert’s wounds, said he will have to wear compression garments for the next two years, avoid the sun and go to physical therapy as treatment. So far, the campaign has raised more than $70,000.
Tolbert told Project Q Atlanta that they never had problems with Blackwell before. “He seemed like a normal person. I had no idea anything like this would happen at all. This caught me completely by surprise. I didn’t know what was going on and I couldn’t believe the pain I was feeling at the time,” Tolbert said.
Blackwell never took the stand during the trial and appeared to show no reaction as the verdict was read. He had previously rejected a plea deal, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
“I’m ecstatic,” Tolbert said to reporters. “I think justice has been served.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/boiling-water-gay-men-sentencing-martin-blackwell
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/66eb984d1fb56e54add14efc4e6e12e19f0d17513680143199c44bc028f97a47.json
|
|
[
"Oliver Milman"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:36 | null | 2016-08-25T12:00:10 |
Two specially trained dogs help wildlife officials find tusks ‘within a minute’ as part of project between Tanzanian authorities and Wildlife Conservation Society
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ftanzania-ivory-tusk-dogs.json
|
en
| null |
Dogs in Tanzania sniff out illegal ivory tusks in new anti-poaching effort
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A newly deployed team of specially trained dogs have helped authorities in Tanzania seize a haul of elephant tusks, with conservationists hoping the canine allies can help significantly slow rampant poaching in the country.
The dogs – Jenny, a Belgian Malinois, and Dexter, an English springer spaniel – discovered the four tusks at a property following a tipoff. A man was taken into custody over the ivory haul, which was initially missed by wildlife officials but found “within a minute” by Jenny’s keen nose.
The bust follows an 18-month training program that involved dogs being selected by Wagtail UK, a dog training school based in Wales, and flown to Tanzania’s largest national park, Ruaha. The dogs and their handlers have been trained to detect ivory and guns stowed away by poachers who have ravaged Tanzania’s elephant population in recent years.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tanzanian authorities with Jenny, left, a Belgian Malinois, and Dexter, an English springer spaniel. Photograph: Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society
The project, run by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Tanzanian National Parks, hasn’t been without its challenges, with one of the first dogs brought over having died after being bitten by a tsetse fly.
But Dr Tim Davenport, WCS country director in Tanzania, said more dogs could be put into the field, as well as at airports and ports, to help curb poaching.
“It’s proving successful and we are considering bringing over a few more,” he said. “The challenge is to keep the dogs healthy and trained, but they can certainly help, it’s another tool we can use.
The four ivory tusks seized by Tanzania authorities. Photograph: Tanzania National Parks Authority
“Tanzanian National Parks are very much into the project, it’s going well. It’s only a matter of time before we start to directly track poachers as well as find ivory through dogs.”
Tanzania has one of Africa’s largest elephant populations and has become a target for poachers looking to supply the lucrative market for ivory in Asia. A census conducted last year found that the country lost a “catastrophic” 60% of its elephants in just five years, leaving Tanzania with around 43,000 pachyderms.
The country has also proved dangerous to humans battling the ivory trade. Roger Gower, a British helicopter pilot, was fatally shot by poachers in January as he was helping authorities track criminals.
Despite a global ban on the international trade of ivory, the black market in tusks for trinkets and medicines has led to fears that elephants could be wiped out in the wild. But Davenport said he hoped the poaching in Tanzania had “bottomed out” due to law enforcement measures and efforts to stem demand in China.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/25/tanzania-ivory-tusk-dogs
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7e3c1186936d0884473cb203525a74b92afec752843cd55054c56d9aafda518c.json
|
|
[
"David Hytner"
] | 2016-08-26T20:50:54 | null | 2016-08-26T19:07:08 |
Tottenham’s new signing tells David Hytner about growing up in Nairobi, having to walk miles to away fixtures, playing barefoot until they bled – and Mauricio Pochettino’s brutal pre-season
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fvictor-wanyama-tottenham-hotspur-ready-to-fight-interview.json
|
en
| null |
Victor Wanyama: ‘Failing is just when you’re not ready to fight. I am ready to fight’
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
For Victor Wanyama, it was a statement of respect and ambition. When the Kenya midfielder joined Celtic in 2011, he asked to be given the No67 shirt. It was a move that acknowledged the club’s European Cup-winning team of 1967, the fabled Lisbon Lions and, also, one that advertised his dream to emulate them.
By any reckoning, it was a bold decision from an unheralded player who had arrived from Germinal Beerschot in Belgium for £900,000. Wanyama was 20 at the time. Was he setting himself up for a fall? “I am somebody who is not afraid to try because I believe that failing is just when you are not willing to fight,” he says. “I was ready to fight. That’s why I was not scared to take the shirt.”
Tottenham Hotspur’s £11m summer signing from Southampton speaks in soft tones as he outlines his hopes for the future which, once again, involve the Champions League. But there is a conviction to his words, and it only reinforces the physical aura of a man Mauricio Pochettino described last week as “an animal” and “a beast”.
Wanyama thrived at Celtic and one of his best performances came in the 2-1 Champions League group stage win at home to Barcelona in November 2012. He headed the opening goal and he remembers Rod Stewart, the singer and lifelong Celtic fan, blubbing uncontrollably in the stands. Wanyama won the league title in each of his two seasons at Celtic and after three positive years at Southampton – the first under Pochettino – he intends to kick on.
Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino takes dim view of Lamela’s showboating Read more
The connection to Pochettino was one of the attractions of the move to Spurs and it says much for Wanyama’s work ethic that he was prepared to sign up for another dose of the Argentinian’s punishing pre-season training regimes.
“It’s tough when you go through it but, afterwards, you can feel how important it is because when you go into games, you are so much fitter and you do more,” Wanyama says. “You can see that it pays off. I know the manager from before; he signed me at Southampton [for £12.5m]. He always focuses on the small details and that’s what improves players.”
Wanyama talks a good deal about improvement, in a personal and collective sense, and his primary target for the season is to improve upon what Tottenham achieved last time out, which will not be straightforward but, according to him, is possible. He has started brightly and it was his goal that secured the 1-0 home win over Crystal Palace last Saturday. Then, there is the Champions League. Thursday’s group-phase draw has made it feel real and there was excitement and optimism when the club pulled CSKA Moscow, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victor Wanyama rises above Jordi Alba of Barcelona to score for Celtic in the Champions League in November 2012. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Wanyama is ready to fight. He always has been, since his formative days in Muthurwa, a neighbourhood in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, which is the sort of place, Wanyama says, that stays with people. It was rough and, as a child, he saw terrible things.
“You would be walking along or playing football and you would see thieves snatching things or someone taking a knife out to stab the other one because something had happened – he took his money, maybe. For a young kid, seeing what I saw was a bit of a torture, I would even say.”
Football was his salvation; his pathway to a “better life”. Wanyama dedicated himself to the game. At the age of 11, he played for a local team called Country Bus and, together with his team-mates, he would walk for miles in his bare feet to get to away fixtures. He cites the club’s coach – a man known as Amigo, who has since died – as an inspiration.
“Sometimes, we would walk really far, like, say, the distance between Tottenham’s training ground in Enfield and White Hart Lane [seven miles],” Wanyama says. “And then we’d have to walk back. It was a hell of a journey but, sometimes, it was fun, because you were in a big group and we were young. We would play against teams who might bring older boys but we were not scared.
“I was distracted by football, it was important for me because it passed my time and made sure that I did not get involved in other things. Amigo was really committed to helping the youth and he loved to train us, although we were playing with balls that were hand-made out of paper and elastic bands.”
Wanyama played barefoot and when he won his first pair of boots at an under-12 tournament, he found them so uncomfortable that he had to take them off. “The pitches were not great and you’d hit your toe and there would be blood everywhere,” he adds. “But you just continued. They were the surfaces we had at the time and it was fun.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victor Wanyama celebrates after scoring the only goal of the game against Crystal Palace last weekend. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters
Wanyama’s parents worked for Kenya Railways and he describes his family as “neither rich nor poor”. He adds: “Where we lived was OK. My parents provided what they could but they could not buy football shoes for me. There was not any day where they wanted to see me go to sleep without eating. So I was getting food.”
Wanyama is not the only famous footballer in his family. His father, Noah, played for the AFC Leopards and won caps for Kenya while his older brother is McDonald Mariga, who has played for Parma and Internazionale, among others, and is now at Latina in Serie B.
“McDonald’s full name is McDonald Mariga Wanyama and I’m Victor Mugubi Wanyama,” Wanyama says. “In Kenya, the family name comes last and I like to use my family name on my jersey. McDonald has always had Mariga on his shirt. It’s just a choice.”
Mariga has a Champions League winners’ medal from his time at Inter – he was an unused substitute for José Mourinho’s team in the 2010 final against Bayern Munich although he featured off the bench in the earlier knockout rounds, including the semi-final, second leg at Barcelona.
He was the family’s trailblazer in Europe and when he was at Helsingborg in 2006-07, he persuaded the Swedish club to admit his brother to their academy. Wanyama was 14 when he arrived and having coped with the culture shock, he enjoyed an invaluable experience.
“It was really strange, at first, because I didn’t understand any Swedish but I enjoy languages and after three or four months, I was getting there with it,” Wanyama says. “How is my Swedish now? Really bad. My Flemish is better, because I was at Germinal Beerschot for three years.
“Helsingborg really helped me. If I had stayed in Kenya, I wouldn’t have got that experience of knowing how to be a pro. They didn’t have the facilities in Kenya that I had in Sweden. I was really lucky to go there. I stayed with my brother and when he left for Parma in 2007, I went back to Kenya. I joined one of the academies called JMJ and after that I went to Belgium.”
Wanyama’s interest in British football took hold at an early age. He would go to the cinema in Muthurwa to watch the big derbies, Glasgow, Manchester and north London, and his favourite players were Roy Keane, Paul Scholes and Robbie Keane.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Spurs will be playing their Champions League home matches at Wembley this season, and the club is committed to engaging with the local community in Brent. The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation is set to deliver sports sessions for youngsters, roll out its Community Health Check programme and provide employment opportunities to local people. Speaking at one of the sports sessions at Bridge Park Community Centre in Brent, Wanyama, said: “It’s important to us that we make local people around Wembley feel involved with the club when we are playing our home matches here.” Photograph: Alex Morton/Tottenham Hotspur FC
“I was a fan of Celtic,” Wanyama says. “My brother had one of their jerseys and when he outgrew it, I took it. Even when I was very young, before I knew about the Scottish league and Celtic, I would see a lot people wearing the green and white, and going to the pub in Kenya. Celtic have fans everywhere and they have a massive fan base in Kenya.
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend Read more
“When I signed for the club, I already knew about their history but I did a lot of research. The story of how they beat Inter to win the European Cup in Lisbon appealed to me and I decided to get the No67. I’d also seen my brother getting into the Champions League and I had that dream to play in it. I dreamed of winning it. I was dreaming a lot.”
Wanyama has seen many of his dreams come true. He made his international debut at 15 and having become the only Kenyan to play in the Premier League, he is a hero in his homeland.
Wanyama’s dreams are now with Tottenham. He pushed for the transfer to happen in the summer of 2015, only for Southampton to block it. There was frustration, a measure of ugliness. “It’s always tough when somebody wants you and the other club makes it difficult,” Wanyama says. But he refocused and he has what he wanted. Liverpool are the visitors to White Hart Lane on Saturday lunchtime. Wanyama means business.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/26/victor-wanyama-tottenham-hotspur-ready-to-fight-interview
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/68d61def20308f42e61fd163795e9e2fbe39485b2b22b4587b4f9665cbbf72a0.json
|
|
[
"Observer Editorial"
] | 2016-08-28T00:49:36 | null | 2016-08-27T23:05:16 |
There is certainly a case for returning Britain’s train services to public ownership, but Jeremy Corbyn would struggle to pay for it
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Frailway-nationalisation-jeremy-corbyn-virgin.json
|
en
| null |
The Observer view on rail nationalisation
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The railways can evoke passionate views about the merits of public ownership in the same way as the NHS. As nationally owned entities, the two are kindred spirits. The National Health Service Act of 1946 was followed a year later by the Transport Act that merged the “big four” rail routes and created British Railways. But they have taken different paths since, with the disastrous privatisation of the rail network in the mid-1990s resulting in today’s patched-up structure: the infrastructure – tracks and stations – is nationally owned, while the services – run on privately owned trains – are operated by the private sector on a route-by-route basis under the franchise system.
Jeremy Corbyn addressed this mess earlier this month with a call for nationalisation of those private operators, and created a mess of his own when the operator he used to make his point, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains, took umbrage. But don’t let a dissection of seat availability in carriage H, or your view of Corbyn or Branson, detract from a valid question raised by the Labour leader’s clumsy foray: what benefits have been delivered by private ownership of rail services?
Safety and punctuality, the two key factors for passengers, have improved vastly since the nadir of 2000 when the network ground to a near-halt in the wake of the fatal Hatfield crash. That improvement was only possible because the then operator of the rail system, privately owned Railtrack, was replaced by a state-controlled entity, Network Rail. Billions of pounds of state funding has been pumped into Network Rail, through grants and debt, with a noticeable improvement in services as a result. Any train operator pointing to increased passenger numbers, improved punctuality and a sea-change in safety since 2000 should be thanking, therefore, the taxpayer, not the private sector. Private operators run branded carriages while a nationally owned business does the hard work.
Corbyn’s central argument is that nationalisation of rail franchises – such as Virgin Trains East Coast and Greater Anglia – will make services less crowded and fares cheaper. If we accept that nationalisation has made trains safer and more punctual, should it follow that the same policy for franchises will provide more seats at lower expense to the passenger? No, because the issue is ultimately one of funding, not of ownership. Consider the figures: farepayers put £8.8bn into the railways in 2014-2015, compared with £3.5bn from the state. Next to this combined “input” of £12.3bn, private operators took out £222m in dividend payments. These figures suggest that nationalisation will not make a meaningful difference in terms of adding more seats – new carriage orders cost between £1bn and £4.5bn a go – or lowering fare levels through greater subsidy.
That leaves two options: increased public subsidy or reducing costs. Both are problematic for Labour or any party. Analogous to the NHS as a symbol of collective endeavour, the railways merit considerable public investment but the health service is probably as far as the electorate will allow bottomless taxpayer commitment to go. Labour, punished by voters last time round for failing to restore trust lost over deficit spending, will struggle to make an argument for pumping more cash into the railways.
The deficit problem also applies to reducing costs. Network Rail’s undoubted achievements have left a towering mountain of debt: more than £40bn. It has to be reduced, and it would be dangerous to add to it at the rate seen over the past decade. If fares fall, it would not be wise to balance out the funding reduction with a rise in Network Rail’s debt. Elsewhere on the network, the consequences of trying to take costs out of the system are stark. The industrial action causing disruption on the Southern rail franchise – a key London commuter route – is centred on attempts to introduce new train carriages without guards: in other words, to reduce costs. A Labour party under Corbyn would not be expected to take sides against the rail unions, which locks off a further option for getting fares down and funding new carriages.
The case for nationalising rail operators is persuasive because the benefit operators such as Virgin bring to passengers is minimal compared with the far greater achievement of state-backed Network Rail. Indeed, a saving of £222m per year is better than nothing when some public benefits are being axed for similar gains. Nonetheless, Corbyn is in the classic post-credit crunch bind: common ownership of rail, as with health, housing and energy, is a common good. But he will struggle to pay for it.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/27/railway-nationalisation-jeremy-corbyn-virgin
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4daba8025be4621abb8b40cc45cc4c465bab9db8eba8c2f18bf6e1fa8d6e2b21.json
|
|
[
"Greg Wood"
] | 2016-08-26T16:51:33 | null | 2016-08-26T16:47:30 |
Almost a month after taking time off to deal with a nagging hip problem, Ryan Moore returned with an easy winner at Newmarket
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fryan-moore-back-injury-spatial-newmarket.json
|
en
| null |
Ryan Moore back from injury with a bang aboard Spatial at Newmarket
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Ryan Moore is a master of the well-timed run and the man who is widely regarded as the best jockey in the business made a smooth, winning return to action here on Friday after almost a month on the sidelines. Moore arrives back in the weighing room with 12 days to prepare for the St Leger meeting at Doncaster, a fixture which kicks off an international cycle of championship meetings when demand for his services will reach its peak.
Spatial, the 4-6 favourite for the opening race on the card, eased Moore back into the winning groove with a two and a half length success under a hand ride. A daughter of Spacious, who was beaten just half a length when second to Natagora in the 1,000 Guineas eight seasons ago, she looked well up to Group-race standard here and could line up next in the Group Two Rockfel Stakes back at Newmarket next month.
That race is staged on the Rowley Mile on the other side of the heath, as the July course will enter hibernation for another season after a final fixture on Sunday. It did not feel like autumn here and the temperature edged into the mid-70s, but the return to the Rowley Mile is another reminder that the Flat season is building towards its climax.
Spatial is trained by Sir Michael Stoute, who will also saddle Ulysses in Saturday’s Winter Hill Stakes at Windsor, one of two rides for Moore on his second day back in the saddle. Aidan O’Brien, though, is the trainer with most reason to welcome Moore’s return in time for the season’s run-in, which includes Champions Weekend in Ireland, the Arc meeting in Paris, Champions Day at Ascot and the Breeders’ Cup in California.
The exact nature of the injury which had kept Moore out of action since 31 July remains unclear, although he was walking with a noticeable limp during the Glorious Goodwood meeting in late July, when he still finished the week as the leading rider with eight wins. Moore insisted after his winner, though, that he is “in better shape now than I was the last month when I was riding” and the limp has certainly vanished.
“It’s nice to come back at Newmarket, which is just down the road for me, and she’s a nice filly so I can just build back into it,” Moore said.
“I just decided it was the sensible thing to stop. It was unfortunate to miss [the Ebor meeting at] York, that was disappointing, but I wanted to be back for Irish Champions Weekend. That’s a big weekend at Leopardstown and The Curragh [on 10 and 11 September] and then we have all the two-year-old races back here, so there’s a lot to look forward to.
“It’s disappointing [when I’m off] but it’s part of the sport and happens to plenty of people and will happen again. I’ve had to deal with it and I’ve had good people around me and it’s nice to be back for the end of the year.”
Paddy Power cut Moore’s odds for the Flat jockeys’ championship from 25-1 to 10-1 this week when his return to the saddle was confirmed but it looked like a wild over-reaction at the time and even more so now, as Moore continues to insist that a title challenge is not on his mind.
His win on Spatial took him to 58 for the campaign, still a long way behind Silvestre de Sousa, the leader on 75.
“I’ll be taking things very sensibly, for the time being anyway,” Moore said. “It’s nice to have those sort of things [like the championship race] but there’s more important things and it’s not one of my priorities.
“I wasn’t riding every day anyway [before his time off]. I was probably riding four or five days a week and it will now probably be very similar to what I was doing before. I’ll ride the weekend and then the beginning of next week looks quiet and it’s the week after that I’d be looking at, with Doncaster and Ireland. I’ll build up slowly and not take any chances.”
De Sousa will still be feeling the pressure as he defends the title he won last year, as Jim Crowley continued his charge towards the lead with a treble on the card at Ffos Las.
With De Sousa not in action until Friday evening’s card at Newcastle, Crowley was cut to a top-price of 7-4 to win the championship, which concludes on Champions Day at Ascot on 15 October, while De Sousa is an uneasy favourite at 1-2, having been as short as 2-11 earlier in the week.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/26/ryan-moore-back-injury-spatial-newmarket
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f463693e1fb63c1fa15b0af4beb9349ea052dd1663dd34da718fa9b523467921.json
|
|
[
"Peter Beaumont"
] | 2016-08-26T16:51:01 | null | 2016-08-26T15:45:11 |
Program that can turn iPhones into remote spying devices was allegedly used to target Middle Eastern human rights activist
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fisraeli-firm-accused-of-creating-iphone-spyware.json
|
en
| null |
Israeli firm accused of creating iPhone spyware
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
An Israeli technology company has been accused of creating and supplying an aggressive interception program capable of taking over Apple’s iPhones and turning them into remote spying devices, after it was allegedly used to target a Middle Eastern human rights activist and others.
The discovery, announced on Thursday, prompted Apple to issue an urgent software update to block the exploitation.
The capability was revealed as the company said to be responsible for the product – a startup reportedly set up by former members of the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 electronic surveillance establishment – declined to deny it was behind the spyware.
The security hole might have gone unpatched had it not been for the awareness of an embattled human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates. The spyware, which is lawful, was identified by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, after Ahmed Mansoor, who in the past has been arrested, tortured and prevented from travelling abroad, sent the lab a suspicious link that has been texted to him. He has been the target of previous attempted hacks.
Citizen Lab described the UAE government as being “the likely operator behind the targeting” and traced the creation of the spyware to Israel’s NSO Group, which creates and sells spying software to clients, including foreign governments.
NSO’s chief executive, Shalev Hulio – who reputedly served in the controversial Unit 8200 – referred questions to a spokesman, Zamir Dahbash, who said the company “cannot confirm the specific cases” covered in the reports.
Dahbash said NSO made sales within Israeli export laws to governments, which then operated the software. “The agreements signed with the company’s customers require that the company’s products only be used in a lawful manner. Specifically, the products may only be used for the prevention and investigation of crimes.”
Israeli government agencies and private tech firms have aggressively embraced cyber warfare both for spying and launching attacks, with officials in the past boasting they believe they are 15 years ahead of the rest of the world in military cyber capability.
The close connection, however, between Israel’s military cyber units and its alumni who go on to set up startups or develop technology in the private sector has led to concerns that some companies are bringing about the proliferation of cyber warfare tools.
In a statement on Thursday, Citizen Lab – working with Lookout, a security firm – described the attempted hack as bearing the hallmarks of a previous piece of spyware developed by NSO.
According to Mansoor, he was sent text messages on his iPhone on 10 and 11 August promising “new secrets” about detainees tortured in UAE jails if he clicked on the link provided. Instead, he forwarded them to the Toronto-based researchers.
“We recognised the links as belonging to an exploit infrastructure connected to NSO Group, an Israel-based ‘cyber war’ company that sells Pegasus, a government-exclusive ‘lawful intercept’ spyware product,” Citizen Lab said in a statement.
“Once infected, Mansoor’s phone would have become a digital spy in his pocket, capable of employing his iPhone’s camera and microphone to snoop on activity in the vicinity of the device, recording his WhatsApp and Viber calls, logging messages sent in mobile chat apps, and tracking his movements.”
The market for “lawful intercept” or government hacking tools has come under increased scrutiny with revelations about authoritarian customers and non-criminal victims.
The Citizen Lab researchers condemned what it called the use of sophisticated “lawful spyware” developed privately in democracies but sold to states despite export controls.
NSO marketing material says it also has capabilities for Android and BlackBerry devices. No version of the software has been exposed, indicating it remains effective.
Mansoor is an internationally recognised human rights defender and a recipient of the Martin Ennals award – sometimes referred to as a “Nobel prize for human rights”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/israeli-firm-accused-of-creating-iphone-spyware
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8712a93cb0d2f8189c100b951c12af8fca8bb30e8ae06da140b700cb0591fe1a.json
|
|
[
"Matthew D'Ancona"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:13 | null | 2016-08-22T06:00:04 |
Brexit dominates discussion, but the Tory leader has the ambition to fundamentally re-order society
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Ftheresa-may-holiday-hard-work-may-ism-brexit-ambition-re-order-society.json
|
en
| null |
Theresa May’s holiday is almost over. May must now define herself
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In high politics mystery is an asset subject to the law of diminishing returns. As Theresa May’s holiday draws to a close, she contemplates a groaning in-tray, and the more numinous challenge of defining herself more fully to the country she now leads.
Theresa May’s Swiss holiday will show her just how bad Brexit could be | Ian Birrell Read more
Future historians will study her stealthy ascent to the premiership as a masterclass in the power of discreet efficiency. Even as home secretary, occupying one of the great offices of state, she shunned theatricality, rarely strayed outside her policy portfolio, and spent much less time than her colleagues cultivating the media.
Instead, her strategy was to let the boys fight it out among themselves in a murderous version of the Eton wall game, and then to step over their political corpses and into No 10. That strategy was perfectly suited to the collective psychosis of the EU referendum and its aftermath. As the farce of fragmenting leadership campaigns descended into Shakespearean tragedy, May seemed to glide into Downing Street, frictionless and unopposed. At the very start her composure and poise were sufficient – a signal that the government was in the hands of a grown-up. Now she needs to introduce herself more fully to the public, unveiling the pith behind the “one-nation” slogans and the type of society she aspires to nurture.
Naturally, her team is focused on her speech at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. But that is some way in the future. The challenge of self-definition cannot wait until October, or the autumn statement later in the year. Like Gordon Brown, May is not the sort of politician to whom public introspection comes easily. Nor does she share David Cameron’s inclination to declare himself up to date with digital fads like Angry Birds, or smash-hit television dramas like Game of Thrones. By her deeds shall ye know her. She will use the brush of strategy and policy to fill in the blanks of her political self-portrait.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Davis leaves Downing Street on 13 July after being appointed Brexit secretary. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
Looming over all else, of course, is Brexit and the form its enactment takes. Already there has been an unseemly turf war between Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, over the international commercial function of HMG. Fox’s land grab was thwarted by Johnson, whose officials are well-used to departmental jealousy.
The PM let it be known that she was “distinctly unimpressed” by the squabble. What she cannot be is surprised. Having appointed Fox to his new role and David Davis to be Brexit secretary, May was setting the scene for a three-way battle for control of Britain’s departure from the EU. As if to dramatise the struggle, she has asked Johnson, Fox and Davis to share Chevening, the grace-and-favour country house that is generally allocated to the foreign secretary (William Hague spent many happy hours in its fabulous library).
In practice it should be Davis, reporting to the PM, who calls the shots. Small wonder that he is reluctant to move out of the Brexit unit’s current home at 9 Downing Street – though he accepts that 250 or so of his civil servants will have to find accommodation elsewhere in Whitehall. Daily proximity to the centre of power is a huge asset in the Westminster jungle and one he will not easily surrender.
May and Davis are an unlikely duo, and his appointment suggests that this PM is more imaginative and flexible in her approach to team-building than might have been supposed. They have, so to speak, history: she replaced him as party chairman in July 2002, after Iain Duncan Smith sacked him while he was abroad. More recently Davis, as the leading civil libertarian or Runnymede Tory on the backbenches, was a thorn in her side at the Home Office, constantly challenging her anti-terror and surveillance measures.
Appointing Davis suggests that this PM is more imaginative in team-building than might have been supposed
Indeed, Davis almost missed his own appointment to the cabinet. On the day itself, 13 July, he was ensconced in the Commons, debating the Chilcot inquiry, and turned his phone off. Later, over a drink with his former chief of staff, Renate Samson, he became aware that something was going on – and turned his phone back on to discover a series of ever more frantic messages urging him to call the Downing Street switchboard.
As secretary of state for exiting the European Union, Davis has developed a strategy that is sensibly cautious and resists the demands of IDS and others for a hasty departure. According to Davis’s timetable, there must first be six months of detailed research and stress-testing, with particular attention paid to the likely impact of Brexit upon the service economy. He faces institutional hostility in both houses of parliament, and is basing his calculations upon the assumption that our soon- to-be former EU partners do not want a trade war. It is a daunting challenge that will require all his streetfighting and cerebral nous.
Those who know May tell me that she wants to be remembered as more than the steersman of Brexit, important though that is. She has already signalled a belief in an industrial strategy more comprehensive than, say, George Osborne’s championship of the “northern powerhouse”.
Britain’s Olympics strategy can work for our economy too | Martin Kettle Read more
Greg Clark, the business and energy secretary, told theSunday Times today that the success of Team GB in Rio should be an inspiration for “a long-term strategy for our industrial and commercial future. Recognising our strengths – from science to the creative industries – and making sure they are nurtured and encouraged.” What precisely does this mean? Subsidising successful sectors of the economy at the public expense, just as lottery cash has been pumped into sports that reach their medal targets? Or something else? The answer, I suspect, lies at the heart of May-ism, if there is such a thing.
Of the new cabinet committees she has established, attention is drawn by her allies to the social reform group and its centrality to her thinking. In her first statement as prime minister, she promised to fight the “burning injustice” of poverty, racism, and gender inequality and to alleviate the struggle of families that are “just managing”.
No Tory leader has ever expressed such fundamental ambitions to reconfigure society. No Conservative moderniser has marched so boldly into the terrain vacated by Labour as it busies itself with a carnival of cannibalism. The May era begins in earnest this week. It is much too early to say how it will be judged by posterity. Her reach may exceed her grasp. But those who dismiss this prime minister as a dull technocrat are in for a big surprise. She is not afraid to dream.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/22/theresa-may-holiday-hard-work-may-ism-brexit-ambition-re-order-society
|
en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e68fc295d3fea382ba6fa38bc41ab97b75e0f400e7fa49cc60a481e71da1b7f9.json
|
|
[
"Maev Kennedy"
] | 2016-08-31T06:50:26 | null | 2016-08-31T06:00:29 |
Museum of the Thames Estuary, among the arcades and fairground rides in Southend, is part of a new arts festival
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fthames-estuary-shipwrecks-in-spotlight-at-pop-up-museum.json
|
en
| null |
Thames estuary shipwrecks in spotlight at pop-up museum
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A spectacular drawing by the artist Adam Dant featuring dozens of known Thames estuary shipwrecks – including of the warship London – will go on display for the first time in a pop-up museum housed in a shipping container.
It is hoped that many finds from the London and other wrecks will be put on permanent display in a proposed new museum in Southend. But meanwhile the temporary Museum of the Thames Estuary on the seafront among the amusement arcades and fairground rides will be a feature of a new biennial arts festival, Estuary, launching next month.
Eyes on the prize: the must-see art and design of autumn 2016 Read more
The London blew itself up in 1665, apparently as a 21-gun salute was being prepared. Maritime archaeologists have been working on the ship for several years, led by Steven Ellis, a local fishmonger, diver and amateur historian.
Last year the team brought up an extremely rare intact 17th-century gun carriage. The wreck lies in shallow water almost within sight of Southend pier, where the timbers had been protected for centuries by the deep estuary silt, but are now becoming exposed and breaking up because of changing tidal patterns.
The shifting sand bars of the estuary, including the dreaded Goodwin Sands, nicknamed the Ship Swallower, spelled disaster for thousands of sailors and their vessels. Dant’s intricate pen and ink drawing shows scores of the known victims, from little fishing boats to grand sailing ships such as the London.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/31/thames-estuary-shipwrecks-in-spotlight-at-pop-up-museum
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/af73c1baadbaccf326dbeecfd874b38b51a44c2109c9d1936021051205aa75a6.json
|
|
[
"Associated Press In Mexico City"
] | 2016-08-26T13:25:08 | null | 2016-08-23T20:51:51 |
Rain cold and high winds destroy 133 acres of trees west of Mexico City and killing more than 7% of monarch population
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fstorms-destroy-monarch-butterflies-forest-habitat-mexico.json
|
en
| null |
Storms devastate monarch butterflies' forest habitat in Mexico
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Storms earlier this year blew down more than a hundred acres of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico, killing more than 7% of the monarchs, according to conservationists.
Rain, cold and high winds from the storms caused the loss of 133 acres (54 hectares) of pine and fir trees in the forests west of Mexico City, more than four times the amount lost to illegal logging this year. It was the biggest storm-related loss since the winter of 2009-10, when unusually heavy rainstorms and mudslides caused the destruction of 262 acres (106 hectares) of trees.
This year’s storm also appears to have frozen or killed about 6.2m butterflies, almost 7.4% of the estimated 84m butterflies that wintered in Mexico, said Alejandro Del Mazo, the attorney general for environmental protection.
“Never had we observed such a combination of high winds, rain and freezing temperatures,” monarch expert Lincoln Brower said of the storms, which struck on 8-9 March.
Two big storm losses within five years may suggest changes in the climatic conditions that have allowed the survival of patches of mountaintop forests. An additional 16 acres (6.5 hectares) of trees were lost to drought this year.
“This points up just how fragile these forests are, and how fragile the monarchs are, and it makes clear the importance of reforestation efforts,” said Omar Vidal, director of the conservation group WWF Mexico, which carried out the forest survey along with experts from Mexico’s National Autonomous University and the government.
The monarchs depend on finding relatively well-preserved forests, where millions of the orange-and-black butterflies hang in clumps from the boughs. The trees, and the clumping, help protect the butterflies from cold rains and steep drops in temperature.
That is why illegal logging in the 33,484-acre nucleus of the reserve is so damaging. Conservationists have tried to convince the largely impoverished farm and mountain communities which actually own most of the land that the forest is worth more to them in terms of tourism when left standing instead of being cut down.
In April, Mexico’s government announced it would create a special national police squad to patrol nature reserves and fight environmental crimes. While the force has not yet formally deployed, illegal logging in the monarch reserve dropped this year, from almost 49.4 acres in 2015 to about 29.6 acres.
Unlike in past years, when most logging was done in the farming communities, about three-quarters of the tree-cutting this year occurred on public lands in the reserve’s core area – precisely the kind of terrain that environmental police could most effectively protect.
“This is why we insist that illegal logging in the reserve has to be eliminated, and that the destruction of [the butterfly’s] milkweed habitat in the United States has to be stopped, so that the monarchs have the ability to better respond to these extreme climate events,” Vidal said.
Brower criticized authorities’ decision to quickly approve “salvage” logging of trees downed by the storms, suggesting it strengthened logging interests and disturbs the forest’s chances for natural regrowth.
He wrote that the “decision to authorize the very extensive salvage logging was possibly the worst management mistake that could have been made”.
Environmentalist and author Homero Aridjis said, “The negative impacts of this logging on the forest cover will become all too apparent when the monarchs begin arriving [usually in November] just as the ‘salvaging’ comes to an end.”
Mexican village uses fireflies to halt deforestation by local logging industry Read more
“The Mexican government should be taking measures to mitigate the probable effects of climate change on the reserve, instead of turning a blind eye to illegal logging, such as the virtual clearcutting” of the forest on government-owned land, Aridjis wrote.
The damage comes after a rebound for the monarch. The area covered by the butterflies this winter was more than three and a half times that of a year earlier. They clump so densely in the pine and fir forests that they are counted by the area they cover rather than by individual insects.
The number of monarchs making the 3,400-mile migration from the United States and Canada had been declining steadily before recovering in 2014. This winter was even better. In December, the butterflies covered 10 acres, compared with 2.8 acres in 2014 and a record low of 1.66 acres in 2013. That’s still well become the 44 acres they covered 20 years ago.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/23/storms-destroy-monarch-butterflies-forest-habitat-mexico
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6906ff2cb6f670511dc9bebde062818861e118edd9d574a54ea9c98bbfd90f62.json
|
|
[
"Elle Hunt"
] | 2016-08-31T06:52:38 | null | 2016-08-31T05:22:48 |
Airline that has featured celebrities, surfers, dogs and swimsuit models in its light-hearted safety videos rapped over the knuckles for ‘extraneous material’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Ftighten-your-safety-message-air-new-zealand-rebuked-over-flippant-videos.json
|
en
| null |
Tighten your safety briefing: Air New Zealand rebuked over flippant videos
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Air New Zealand has been rebuked by the country’s aviation watchdog for burying life-saving messages in among celebrity cameos in its pre-flight safety videos.
The airline is infamous for its elaborate star-studded clips in which celebrities like Richard Simmons, Bear Grylls and Betty White tell passengers how to respond in an aviation emergency.
But an email published by One News on Wednesday revealed that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had criticised the airline for including “extraneous material” in one of its clips – and indicated that the agency had communicated similar concerns in the past.
“As we have commented previously, the video diverges materially from the ‘safety message’ at times, and whilst I appreciate the need to engage the viewers, the extraneous material detracts from the scope and direction of the safety message.”
The writer referred the airline to CAA literature on cabin briefings.
The email referred to the Surfing Safari video, which featured nine professional surfers, including Mick Fanning, the three-time world champion from Australia, and Anastasia Ashley, who has modelled in Sports Illustrated.
Gabriel Medina of Brazil, Masatoshi Ohno of Japan, and Alana Blanchard and Laird Hamilton, both of the United States, also appeared in the clip, which was shot at four locations in the US, Australia and New Zealand.
The CAA told New Zealand media that it would not comment on individual instances relating to the production of safety videos but that “even when assessed within its creative envelope” the Surfing Safari clip complied.
It was in fact retired in July and replaced by a video starring Anna Faris, the actor, and Rhys Darby, the New Zealand comedian who starred in Flight of the Conchords.
Titled Safety in Hollywood, the new clip was filmed at four different sets at Warner Brothers and involved more than 20 extras, including a chihuahua that had starred in Transformers and Grey’s Anatomy.
It has received more than 1.4m plays on YouTube since being uploaded.
Faris said in a press release that Air New Zealand had “really redefined safety videos with its fun and creative approach”.
“It’s so easy to tune out when watching a traditional safety video, so it comes as such a delightful surprise when you get something that’s really fun and funny.”
Jodi Williams, the airline’s head of global brand, said the clips – which it actively promotes with the hashtag #AirNZSafetyVideos – had collectively drawn more than 83m views online.
One of its most high profile was the Lord of the Rings-themed Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made, released in October 2014 to coincide with the final film in the Hobbit trilogy.
Director Peter Jackson appeared in the clip alongside Elijah Wood and other cast members. Shot over six days at locations across New Zealand, it comes in at just under five minutes long and has been played nearly 16m times on YouTube.
It was the second Lord of the Rings-related clip from Air New Zealand – which markets itself as “the official airline of Middle-earth” – following on from An Unexpected Briefing in 2012. That was viewed more than 12m times.
The airline – which was named AirlineRatings.com’ Airline of the Year for the third consecutive year in December – began taking the novel approach to passenger safety in 2009 with its Bare Essentials of Safety clip, which showed cabin crew and staff giving safety briefings wearing only body paint.
Mike Tod, the chief marketing and customer office, said in an interview published on LinkedIn in 2015 that the clips were effective marketing tools: “These pieces of content can put bums on seats.”
But they have been known to backfire. One clip that was produced in partnership with Sports Illustrated for the 50th anniversary of the magazine’s swimsuit edition drew criticisms of sexism and a Change.org petition calling for it to be pulled in July 2014.
“A safety video is to alert passengers on what to do in an emergency; it should not be an excuse to objectify the sexualised female body,” the petition said. “This video creates an unnecessarily difficult and uncomfortable working environment for its female staff, which goes against the entire nature of safety.”
The clip was pulled from flights but a spokeswoman for Air New Zealand told media that that was only because it had reached the end of its run.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/tighten-your-safety-message-air-new-zealand-rebuked-over-flippant-videos
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/49f3c41e672e3b6fc88b740c588d34bf8aa0b90d4617be0c8583f437a56d2169.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-30T20:50:14 | null | 2016-08-30T19:11:20 |
TV presenter and Team GB ambassador in hospital in Leeds after falling seriously ill at opening ceremony of 2016 Games
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fcharlie-webster-back-in-uk-after-contracting-malaria-at-rio-olympics.json
|
en
| null |
Charlie Webster back in UK after contracting malaria at Rio Olympics
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
TV presenter Charlie Webster, who contracted malaria in Brazil, has arrived back in the UK.
The 33-year-old Team GB ambassador travelled on a specialist medical plane with a team of professionals, who continued her care on the 20-hour journey.
Webster’s condition remains stable but serious, and she will continue her treatment in a private ward at St James’s hospital in Leeds.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Charlie Webster. Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
Webster fell ill during the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics and she was taken to hospital on 6 August.
The former Sky and ITV sports presenter had just completed a 3,000-mile (4,828km) charity cycle ride from London to Rio.
Her condition quickly deteriorated and she was put into a medically induced coma. Doctors diagnosed a very rare strain of malaria and specialists are now trying to find out where she caught the disease.
Last week, Webster was able to get out of bed for the first time and her kidney dialysis was reduced to six hours a day.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/30/charlie-webster-back-in-uk-after-contracting-malaria-at-rio-olympics
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/86fc26537bbea5aa4183bfa56c679c0313ae933bac6e7a0a98f61b5f97a2c72a.json
|
|
[
"Oliver Burkeman"
] | 2016-08-28T14:59:07 | null | 2015-01-20T00:00:00 |
The long read: Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2015%2Fjan%2F21%2F-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness.json
|
en
| null |
Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
One spring morning in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994, an unknown philosopher named David Chalmers got up to give a talk on consciousness, by which he meant the feeling of being inside your head, looking out – or, to use the kind of language that might give a neuroscientist an aneurysm, of having a soul. Though he didn’t realise it at the time, the young Australian academic was about to ignite a war between philosophers and scientists, by drawing attention to a central mystery of human life – perhaps the central mystery of human life – and revealing how embarrassingly far they were from solving it.
The scholars gathered at the University of Arizona – for what would later go down as a landmark conference on the subject – knew they were doing something edgy: in many quarters, consciousness was still taboo, too weird and new agey to take seriously, and some of the scientists in the audience were risking their reputations by attending. Yet the first two talks that day, before Chalmers’s, hadn’t proved thrilling. “Quite honestly, they were totally unintelligible and boring – I had no idea what anyone was talking about,” recalled Stuart Hameroff, the Arizona professor responsible for the event. “As the organiser, I’m looking around, and people are falling asleep, or getting restless.” He grew worried. “But then the third talk, right before the coffee break – that was Dave.” With his long, straggly hair and fondness for all-body denim, the 27-year-old Chalmers looked like he’d got lost en route to a Metallica concert. “He comes on stage, hair down to his butt, he’s prancing around like Mick Jagger,” Hameroff said. “But then he speaks. And that’s when everyone wakes up.”
Oliver Burkeman investigates the battle between philosophy and science over human consciousness Read more
The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all “easy problems”, in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters – the Hard Problem of Consciousness – and it’s this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?
What jolted Chalmers’s audience from their torpor was how he had framed the question. “At the coffee break, I went around like a playwright on opening night, eavesdropping,” Hameroff said. “And everyone was like: ‘Oh! The Hard Problem! The Hard Problem! That’s why we’re here!’” Philosophers had pondered the so-called “mind-body problem” for centuries. But Chalmers’s particular manner of reviving it “reached outside philosophy and galvanised everyone. It defined the field. It made us ask: what the hell is this that we’re dealing with here?”
Two decades later, we know an astonishing amount about the brain: you can’t follow the news for a week without encountering at least one more tale about scientists discovering the brain region associated with gambling, or laziness, or love at first sight, or regret – and that’s only the research that makes the headlines. Meanwhile, the field of artificial intelligence – which focuses on recreating the abilities of the human brain, rather than on what it feels like to be one – has advanced stupendously. But like an obnoxious relative who invites himself to stay for a week and then won’t leave, the Hard Problem remains. When I stubbed my toe on the leg of the dining table this morning, as any student of the brain could tell you, nerve fibres called “C-fibres” shot a message to my spinal cord, sending neurotransmitters to the part of my brain called the thalamus, which activated (among other things) my limbic system. Fine. But how come all that was accompanied by an agonising flash of pain? And what is pain, anyway?
Questions like these, which straddle the border between science and philosophy, make some experts openly angry. They have caused others to argue that conscious sensations, such as pain, don’t really exist, no matter what I felt as I hopped in anguish around the kitchen; or, alternatively, that plants and trees must also be conscious. The Hard Problem has prompted arguments in serious journals about what is going on in the mind of a zombie, or – to quote the title of a famous 1974 paper by the philosopher Thomas Nagel – the question “What is it like to be a bat?” Some argue that the problem marks the boundary not just of what we currently know, but of what science could ever explain. On the other hand, in recent years, a handful of neuroscientists have come to believe that it may finally be about to be solved – but only if we are willing to accept the profoundly unsettling conclusion that computers or the internet might soon become conscious, too.
Next week, the conundrum will move further into public awareness with the opening of Tom Stoppard’s new play, The Hard Problem, at the National Theatre – the first play Stoppard has written for the National since 2006, and the last that the theatre’s head, Nicholas Hytner, will direct before leaving his post in March. The 77-year-old playwright has revealed little about the play’s contents, except that it concerns the question of “what consciousness is and why it exists”, considered from the perspective of a young researcher played by Olivia Vinall. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Stoppard also clarified a potential misinterpretation of the title. “It’s not about erectile dysfunction,” he said.
Stoppard’s work has long focused on grand, existential themes, so the subject is fitting: when conversation turns to the Hard Problem, even the most stubborn rationalists lapse quickly into musings on the meaning of life. Christof Koch, the chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and a key player in the Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar initiative to map the human brain, is about as credible as neuroscientists get. But, he told me in December: “I think the earliest desire that drove me to study consciousness was that I wanted, secretly, to show myself that it couldn’t be explained scientifically. I was raised Roman Catholic, and I wanted to find a place where I could say: OK, here, God has intervened. God created souls, and put them into people.” Koch assured me that he had long ago abandoned such improbable notions. Then, not much later, and in all seriousness, he said that on the basis of his recent research he thought it wasn’t impossible that his iPhone might have feelings.
In all seriousness, Koch said he thought it wasn't impossible that his iPhone might have feelings
* * *
By the time Chalmers delivered his speech in Tucson, science had been vigorously attempting to ignore the problem of consciousness for a long time. The source of the animosity dates back to the 1600s, when René Descartes identified the dilemma that would tie scholars in knots for years to come. On the one hand, Descartes realised, nothing is more obvious and undeniable than the fact that you’re conscious. In theory, everything else you think you know about the world could be an elaborate illusion cooked up to deceive you – at this point, present-day writers invariably invoke The Matrix – but your consciousness itself can’t be illusory. On the other hand, this most certain and familiar of phenomena obeys none of the usual rules of science. It doesn’t seem to be physical. It can’t be observed, except from within, by the conscious person. It can’t even really be described. The mind, Descartes concluded, must be made of some special, immaterial stuff that didn’t abide by the laws of nature; it had been bequeathed to us by God.
This religious and rather hand-wavy position, known as Cartesian dualism, remained the governing assumption into the 18th century and the early days of modern brain study. But it was always bound to grow unacceptable to an increasingly secular scientific establishment that took physicalism – the position that only physical things exist – as its most basic principle. And yet, even as neuroscience gathered pace in the 20th century, no convincing alternative explanation was forthcoming. So little by little, the topic became taboo. Few people doubted that the brain and mind were very closely linked: if you question this, try stabbing your brain repeatedly with a kitchen knife, and see what happens to your consciousness. But how they were linked – or if they were somehow exactly the same thing – seemed a mystery best left to philosophers in their armchairs. As late as 1989, writing in the International Dictionary of Psychology, the British psychologist Stuart Sutherland could irascibly declare of consciousness that “it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it.”
It was only in 1990 that Francis Crick, the joint discoverer of the double helix, used his position of eminence to break ranks. Neuroscience was far enough along by now, he declared in a slightly tetchy paper co-written with Christof Koch, that consciousness could no longer be ignored. “It is remarkable,” they began, “that most of the work in both cognitive science and the neurosciences makes no reference to consciousness” – partly, they suspected, “because most workers in these areas cannot see any useful way of approaching the problem”. They presented their own “sketch of a theory”, arguing that certain neurons, firing at certain frequencies, might somehow be the cause of our inner awareness – though it was not clear how.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Peter Gamelen
“People thought I was crazy to be getting involved,” Koch recalled. “A senior colleague took me out to lunch and said, yes, he had the utmost respect for Francis, but Francis was a Nobel laureate and a half-god and he could do whatever he wanted, whereas I didn’t have tenure yet, so I should be incredibly careful. Stick to more mainstream science! These fringey things – why not leave them until retirement, when you’re coming close to death, and you can worry about the soul and stuff like that?”
It was around this time that David Chalmers started talking about zombies.
* * *
As a child, Chalmers was short-sighted in one eye, and he vividly recalls the day he was first fitted with glasses to rectify the problem. “Suddenly I had proper binocular vision,” he said. “And the world just popped out. It was three-dimensional to me in a way it hadn’t been.” He thought about that moment frequently as he grew older. Of course, you could tell a simple mechanical story about what was going on in the lens of his glasses, his eyeball, his retina, and his brain. “But how does that explain the way the world just pops out like that?” To a physicalist, the glasses-eyeball-retina story is the only story. But to a thinker of Chalmers’s persuasion, it was clear that it wasn’t enough: it told you what the machinery of the eye was doing, but it didn’t begin to explain that sudden, breathtaking experience of depth and clarity. Chalmers’s “zombie” thought experiment is his attempt to show why the mechanical account is not enough – why the mystery of conscious awareness goes deeper than a purely material science can explain.
“Look, I’m not a zombie, and I pray that you’re not a zombie,” Chalmers said, one Sunday before Christmas, “but the point is that evolution could have produced zombies instead of conscious creatures – and it didn’t!” We were drinking espressos in his faculty apartment at New York University, where he recently took up a full-time post at what is widely considered the leading philosophy department in the Anglophone world; boxes of his belongings, shipped over from Australia, lay unpacked around his living-room. Chalmers, now 48, recently cut his hair in a concession to academic respectability, and he wears less denim, but his ideas remain as heavy-metal as ever. The zombie scenario goes as follows: imagine that you have a doppelgänger. This person physically resembles you in every respect, and behaves identically to you; he or she holds conversations, eats and sleeps, looks happy or anxious precisely as you do. The sole difference is that the doppelgänger has no consciousness; this – as opposed to a groaning, blood-spattered walking corpse from a movie – is what philosophers mean by a “zombie”.
Such non-conscious humanoids don’t exist, of course. (Or perhaps it would be better to say that I know I’m not one, anyhow; I could never know for certain that you aren’t.) But the point is that, in principle, it feels as if they could. Evolution might have produced creatures that were atom-for-atom the same as humans, capable of everything humans can do, except with no spark of awareness inside. As Chalmers explained: “I’m talking to you now, and I can see how you’re behaving; I could do a brain scan, and find out exactly what’s going on in your brain – yet it seems it could be consistent with all that evidence that you have no consciousness at all.” If you were approached by me and my doppelgänger, not knowing which was which, not even the most powerful brain scanner in existence could tell us apart. And the fact that one can even imagine this scenario is sufficient to show that consciousness can’t just be made of ordinary physical atoms. So consciousness must, somehow, be something extra – an additional ingredient in nature.
Chalmers recently cut his hair and he wears less denim, but his ideas remain as heavy-metal as ever
It would be understating things a bit to say that this argument wasn’t universally well-received when Chalmers began to advance it, most prominently in his 1996 book The Conscious Mind. The withering tone of the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci sums up the thousands of words that have been written attacking the zombie notion: “Let’s relegate zombies to B-movies and try to be a little more serious about our philosophy, shall we?” Yes, it may be true that most of us, in our daily lives, think of consciousness as something over and above our physical being – as if your mind were “a chauffeur inside your own body”, to quote the spiritual author Alan Watts. But to accept this as a scientific principle would mean rewriting the laws of physics. Everything we know about the universe tells us that reality consists only of physical things: atoms and their component particles, busily colliding and combining. Above all, critics point out, if this non-physical mental stuff did exist, how could it cause physical things to happen – as when the feeling of pain causes me to jerk my fingers away from the saucepan’s edge?
Nonetheless, just occasionally, science has dropped tantalising hints that this spooky extra ingredient might be real. In the 1970s, at what was then the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London, the neurologist Lawrence Weiskrantz encountered a patient, known as “DB”, with a blind spot in his left visual field, caused by brain damage. Weiskrantz showed him patterns of striped lines, positioned so that they fell on his area of blindness, then asked him to say whether the stripes were vertical or horizontal. Naturally, DB protested that he could see no stripes at all. But Weiskrantz insisted that he guess the answers anyway – and DB got them right almost 90% of the time. Apparently, his brain was perceiving the stripes without his mind being conscious of them. One interpretation is that DB was a semi-zombie, with a brain like any other brain, but partially lacking the magical add-on of consciousness.
Chalmers knows how wildly improbable his ideas can seem, and takes this in his stride: at philosophy conferences, he is fond of clambering on stage to sing The Zombie Blues, a lament about the miseries of having no consciousness. (“I act like you act / I do what you do / But I don’t know / What it’s like to be you.”) “The conceit is: wouldn’t it be a drag to be a zombie? Consciousness is what makes life worth living, and I don’t even have that: I’ve got the zombie blues.” The song has improved since its debut more than a decade ago, when he used to try to hold a tune. “Now I’ve realised it sounds better if you just shout,” he said.
* * *
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Peter Gamelen
The consciousness debates have provoked more mudslinging and fury than most in modern philosophy, perhaps because of how baffling the problem is: opposing combatants tend not merely to disagree, but to find each other’s positions manifestly preposterous. An admittedly extreme example concerns the Canadian-born philosopher Ted Honderich, whose book On Consciousness was described, in an article by his fellow philosopher Colin McGinn in 2007, as “banal and pointless”, “excruciating”, “absurd”, running “the full gamut from the mediocre to the ludicrous to the merely bad”. McGinn added, in a footnote: “The review that appears here is not as I originally wrote it. The editors asked me to ‘soften the tone’ of the original [and] I have done so.” (The attack may have been partly motivated by a passage in Honderich’s autobiography, in which he mentions “my small colleague Colin McGinn”; at the time, Honderich told this newspaper he’d enraged McGinn by referring to a girlfriend of his as “not as plain as the old one”.)
McGinn, to be fair, has made a career from such hatchet jobs. But strong feelings only slightly more politely expressed are commonplace. Not everybody agrees there is a Hard Problem to begin with – making the whole debate kickstarted by Chalmers an exercise in pointlessness. Daniel Dennett, the high-profile atheist and professor at Tufts University outside Boston, argues that consciousness, as we think of it, is an illusion: there just isn’t anything in addition to the spongy stuff of the brain, and that spongy stuff doesn’t actually give rise to something called consciousness. Common sense may tell us there’s a subjective world of inner experience – but then common sense told us that the sun orbits the Earth, and that the world was flat. Consciousness, according to Dennett’s theory, is like a conjuring trick: the normal functioning of the brain just makes it look as if there is something non-physical going on. To look for a real, substantive thing called consciousness, Dennett argues, is as silly as insisting that characters in novels, such as Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter, must be made up of a peculiar substance named “fictoplasm”; the idea is absurd and unnecessary, since the characters do not exist to begin with. This is the point at which the debate tends to collapse into incredulous laughter and head-shaking: neither camp can quite believe what the other is saying. To Dennett’s opponents, he is simply denying the existence of something everyone knows for certain: their inner experience of sights, smells, emotions and the rest. (Chalmers has speculated, largely in jest, that Dennett himself might be a zombie.) It’s like asserting that cancer doesn’t exist, then claiming you’ve cured cancer; more than one critic of Dennett’s most famous book, Consciousness Explained, has joked that its title ought to be Consciousness Explained Away. Dennett’s reply is characteristically breezy: explaining things away, he insists, is exactly what scientists do. When physicists first concluded that the only difference between gold and silver was the number of subatomic particles in their atoms, he writes, people could have felt cheated, complaining that their special “goldness” and “silveriness” had been explained away. But everybody now accepts that goldness and silveriness are really just differences in atoms. However hard it feels to accept, we should concede that consciousness is just the physical brain, doing what brains do.
“The history of science is full of cases where people thought a phenomenon was utterly unique, that there couldn’t be any possible mechanism for it, that we might never solve it, that there was nothing in the universe like it,” said Patricia Churchland of the University of California, a self-described “neurophilosopher” and one of Chalmers’s most forthright critics. Churchland’s opinion of the Hard Problem, which she expresses in caustic vocal italics, is that it is nonsense, kept alive by philosophers who fear that science might be about to eliminate one of the puzzles that has kept them gainfully employed for years. Look at the precedents: in the 17th century, scholars were convinced that light couldn’t possibly be physical – that it had to be something occult, beyond the usual laws of nature. Or take life itself: early scientists were convinced that there had to be some magical spirit – the élan vital – that distinguished living beings from mere machines. But there wasn’t, of course. Light is electromagnetic radiation; life is just the label we give to certain kinds of objects that can grow and reproduce. Eventually, neuroscience will show that consciousness is just brain states. Churchland said: “The history of science really gives you perspective on how easy it is to talk ourselves into this sort of thinking – that if my big, wonderful brain can’t envisage the solution, then it must be a really, really hard problem!”
Solutions have regularly been floated: the literature is awash in references to “global workspace theory”, “ego tunnels”, “microtubules”, and speculation that quantum theory may provide a way forward. But the intractability of the arguments has caused some thinkers, such as Colin McGinn, to raise an intriguing if ultimately defeatist possibility: what if we’re just constitutionally incapable of ever solving the Hard Problem? After all, our brains evolved to help us solve down-to-earth problems of survival and reproduction; there is no particular reason to assume they should be capable of cracking every big philosophical puzzle we happen to throw at them. This stance has become known as “mysterianism” – after the 1960s Michigan rock’n’roll band ? and the Mysterians, who themselves borrowed the name from a work of Japanese sci-fi – but the essence of it is that there’s actually no mystery to why consciousness hasn’t been explained: it’s that humans aren’t up to the job. If we struggle to understand what it could possibly mean for the mind to be physical, maybe that’s because we are, to quote the American philosopher Josh Weisberg, in the position of “squirrels trying to understand quantum mechanics”. In other words: “It’s just not going to happen.”
* * *
Or maybe it is: in the last few years, several scientists and philosophers, Chalmers and Koch among them, have begun to look seriously again at a viewpoint so bizarre that it has been neglected for more than a century, except among followers of eastern spiritual traditions, or in the kookier corners of the new age. This is “panpsychism”, the dizzying notion that everything in the universe might be conscious, or at least potentially conscious, or conscious when put into certain configurations. Koch concedes that this sounds ridiculous: when he mentions panpsychism, he has written, “I often encounter blank stares of incomprehension.” But when it comes to grappling with the Hard Problem, crazy-sounding theories are an occupational hazard. Besides, panpsychism might help unravel an enigma that has attached to the study of consciousness from the start: if humans have it, and apes have it, and dogs and pigs probably have it, and maybe birds, too – well, where does it stop?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Peter Gamelen
Growing up as the child of German-born Catholics, Koch had a dachshund named Purzel. According to the church, because he was a dog, that meant he didn’t have a soul. But he whined when anxious and yelped when injured – “he certainly gave every appearance of having a rich inner life”. These days we don’t much speak of souls, but it is widely assumed that many non-human brains are conscious – that a dog really does feel pain when he is hurt. The problem is that there seems to be no logical reason to draw the line at dogs, or sparrows or mice or insects, or, for that matter, trees or rocks. Since we don’t know how the brains of mammals create consciousness, we have no grounds for assuming it’s only the brains of mammals that do so – or even that consciousness requires a brain at all. Which is how Koch and Chalmers have both found themselves arguing, in the pages of the New York Review of Books, that an ordinary household thermostat or a photodiode, of the kind you might find in your smoke detector, might in principle be conscious.
The argument unfolds as follows: physicists have no problem accepting that certain fundamental aspects of reality – such as space, mass, or electrical charge – just do exist. They can’t be explained as being the result of anything else. Explanations have to stop somewhere. The panpsychist hunch is that consciousness could be like that, too – and that if it is, there is no particular reason to assume that it only occurs in certain kinds of matter.
Koch’s specific twist on this idea, developed with the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, is narrower and more precise than traditional panpsychism. It is the argument that anything at all could be conscious, providing that the information it contains is sufficiently interconnected and organised. The human brain certainly fits the bill; so do the brains of cats and dogs, though their consciousness probably doesn’t resemble ours. But in principle the same might apply to the internet, or a smartphone, or a thermostat. (The ethical implications are unsettling: might we owe the same care to conscious machines that we bestow on animals? Koch, for his part, tries to avoid stepping on insects as he walks.)
Unlike the vast majority of musings on the Hard Problem, moreover, Tononi and Koch’s “integrated information theory” has actually been tested. A team of researchers led by Tononi has designed a device that stimulates the brain with electrical voltage, to measure how interconnected and organised – how “integrated” – its neural circuits are. Sure enough, when people fall into a deep sleep, or receive an injection of anaesthetic, as they slip into unconsciousness, the device demonstrates that their brain integration declines, too. Among patients suffering “locked-in syndrome” – who are as conscious as the rest of us – levels of brain integration remain high; among patients in coma – who aren’t – it doesn’t. Gather enough of this kind of evidence, Koch argues and in theory you could take any device, measure the complexity of the information contained in it, then deduce whether or not it was conscious.
But even if one were willing to accept the perplexing claim that a smartphone could be conscious, could you ever know that it was true? Surely only the smartphone itself could ever know that? Koch shrugged. “It’s like black holes,” he said. “I’ve never been in a black hole. Personally, I have no experience of black holes. But the theory [that predicts black holes] seems always to be true, so I tend to accept it.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by Peter Gamelen
It would be satisfying for multiple reasons if a theory like this were eventually to vanquish the Hard Problem. On the one hand, it wouldn’t require a belief in spooky mind-substances that reside inside brains; the laws of physics would escape largely unscathed. On the other hand, we wouldn’t need to accept the strange and soulless claim that consciousness doesn’t exist, when it’s so obvious that it does. On the contrary, panpsychism says, it’s everywhere. The universe is throbbing with it.
Last June, several of the most prominent combatants in the consciousness debates – including Chalmers, Churchland and Dennett – boarded a tall-masted yacht for a trip among the ice floes of Greenland. This conference-at-sea was funded by a Russian internet entrepreneur, Dmitry Volkov, the founder of the Moscow Centre for Consciousness Studies. About 30 academics and graduate students, plus crew, spent a week gliding through dark waters, past looming snow-topped mountains and glaciers, in a bracing chill conducive to focused thought, giving the problem of consciousness another shot. In the mornings, they visited islands to go hiking, or examine the ruins of ancient stone huts; in the afternoons, they held conference sessions on the boat. For Chalmers, the setting only sharpened the urgency of the mystery: how could you feel the Arctic wind on your face, take in the visual sweep of vivid greys and whites and greens, and still claim conscious experience was unreal, or that it was simply the result of ordinary physical stuff, behaving ordinarily?
The question was rhetorical. Dennett and Churchland were not converted; indeed, Chalmers has no particular confidence that a consensus will emerge in the next century. “Maybe there’ll be some amazing new development that leaves us all, now, looking like pre-Darwinians arguing about biology,” he said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if in 100 years, neuroscience is incredibly sophisticated, if we have a complete map of the brain – and yet some people are still saying, ‘Yes, but how does any of that give you consciousness?’ while others are saying ‘No, no, no – that just is the consciousness!’” The Greenland cruise concluded in collegial spirits, and mutual incomprehension.
It would be poetic – albeit deeply frustrating – were it ultimately to prove that the one thing the human mind is incapable of comprehending is itself. An answer must be out there somewhere. And finding it matters: indeed, one could argue that nothing else could ever matter more – since anything at all that matters, in life, only does so as a consequence of its impact on conscious brains. Yet there’s no reason to assume that our brains will be adequate vessels for the voyage towards that answer. Nor that, were we to stumble on a solution to the Hard Problem, on some distant shore where neuroscience meets philosophy, we would even recognise that we’d found it.
Follow the Long Read on Twitter: @gdnlongread
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness
|
en
| 2015-01-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d95c392b4b3b4b5a045b84106406ecf6e14f5e383f699bf2fc5bd5688be46a81.json
|
|
[
"Julia Kollewe",
"Michael White"
] | 2016-08-30T02:55:17 | null | 2016-07-29T13:43:18 |
Estate agent’s pre-tax profit fell to £10.5m in the first six months of year from £18.1m a year earlier, with Brexit uncertainty blamed
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Fjul%2F29%2Ffoxtons-profits-down-sharply-london-property-market-cools-brexit.json
|
en
| null |
Foxtons profits down sharply as London property market cools
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Profits at Foxtons fell by 42% in the first six months of the year as uncertainty and confusion caused by the EU referendum led to a slump in property sales, with the estate agent warning that the downturn in London’s housing market would continue at least until the end of 2016.
Foxtons’ pre-tax profit dropped to £10.5m over the period, from £18.1m a year earlier. Property sales volumes were down by 10.2%, pushing revenues 7% lower to £31.3m. Lettings revenues also suffered in the run-up to the referendum on 23 June, declining by 2.7% to £32.6m. Foxtons scrapped a special dividend as it said the Brexit vote had caused a prolonged period of further uncertainty.
Nic Budden, the Foxtons chief executive, told analysts and investors: “Certainly, interesting times in the first half ... As the EU referendum debate continued, uncertainty and confusion among customers and clients did lead to significantly weaker market conditions.
“We are anticipating relatively weak market volumes through to the end of the year. We’ll probably just take our foot off the pedal a little bit in 2017, naturally taking a more cautious approach to investment while the market settles down.”
Budden said Foxtons would scale back its aggressive expansion plans next year, after opening seven new branches this year. “It won’t be seven next year and it won’t be zero,” he said. Since floating on the London stock market in 2013, the company has opened between five and seven branches a year.
The Monday after the Brexit vote, Foxtons issued a profit warning, which sent its shares plummeting by 25%. The company’s share price fell by 10% to 111p on Friday, after trading 13% lower at one stage.
“Given the unexpected nature of the vote, you saw quite a dramatic fall in new applicants in the week or two following [the] Brexit [vote] and exchanges slowed because people were trying to renegotiate deals,” Budden said. “That was a sharp decline, but that has stabilised and since then it hasn’t got any worse.”
Budden said he remains confident that Foxtons can increase its share of the lucrative London market, which currently stands at between 6% and 7%. “Longer term, while recent political events have produced uncertainty for buyers and sellers, we expect London to remain a highly attractive property market for sales and lettings, and we remain committed to our goal to reach 100 branches across greater London,” he said.
Foxtons’ results came a day after a profit warning from Countrywide, the UK’s biggest estate agent. It said commercial and London residential transactions had stalled following the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
However, property website Rightmove and housebuilder Taylor Wimpey have shrugged off the impact of the Brexit vote, although they also warned of increased uncertainty and said it was too early to assess the long-term impact of the referendum result.
Foxtons’ results for the first six months of 2016.
The year had started well for Foxtons. Revenues in the first quarter hit a record high as property investors rushed to complete deals before the introduction in April of additional stamp duty for buy-to-let properties and second homes. However, this was followed by a sharp fall in sales in the second quarter, as potential buyers and sellers anxiously awaited the outcome of the referendum.
The Jefferies analyst Anthony Codling said: “With a focus on London, Foxtons has to bear the consequences of betting everything on red, rather than the more balanced approach of its listed rivals.
“Expanding in a contracting market is proving even too difficult for Foxtons and growth plans are being reviewed. Perhaps a sign of the times, but even with first-half profits of £10.5m, the stock market value of Foxtons is less than that of the challenger low-cost estate agent Purplebricks, which has yet to turn a profit, recently delivering a full-year loss of £11.9m.”
Foxtons has been pushing into the capital’s outer zones to reduce its reliance on central London. The estate agent has opened five new branches in recent months in Loughton, Sutton, New Malden, Fulham and Maida Vale, taking its total to 63 branches. There are two more branch openings in south London planned for September, in Peckham and Vauxhall, where the company will trial an offering of zero fees to landlords for the first 12 months.
Foxtons noted that London had experienced a significant shift, with nearly 30% of households now living in private rented accommodation, double the rate seen in the past decade. Competition in lettings has intensified as the number of agents has more than doubled.
Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “If the Brexit negotiations don’t go well, the London property market is probably first in the firing line, because financial jobs could move out of the city. However, at this early stage it’s far too early to judge the likelihood of this happening.”
House prices have so far defied the gloom brought on by the Brexit vote, rising by 0.5% in July, according to Nationwide, Britain’s biggest building society.
Neil Wilson, a market analyst at ETX Capital, said: “But prices are very different to activity in the housing market – strong demand and few sellers coming to the market could squeeze prices higher even if activity collapses.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/29/foxtons-profits-down-sharply-london-property-market-cools-brexit
|
en
| 2016-07-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/99f11b32adb700eb6a645873e3b3de026d42d000da25ace8435ee391a9083efa.json
|
|
[
"Bruno Rinvolucri",
"Leah Green",
"Mark Singer"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:30 | null | 2016-06-22T06:00:28 |
Trump’s candidacy was a protest, with his team hoping for just 12% of the Republican vote, argues New Yorker writer Mark Singer
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Fjun%2F22%2Fdonald-trump-does-not-want-to-be-president-video.json
|
en
| null |
'Donald Trump does not want to be president' - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Trump’s candidacy was a protest, with his team hoping for just 12% of the Republican vote, argues New Yorker writer Mark Singer. Even Trump himself believed his undisciplined and impulsive rhetoric would keep him out of reach of the White House. But, says Singer, the monster rose from the laboratory table and walked
Trump and Me by Mark Singer is published by Penguin
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/22/donald-trump-does-not-want-to-be-president-video
|
en
| 2016-06-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/50da2f076bcd67cfa0ba2a1d173a1fc9dbeb24b33c3bfac8cf06987b1b4300f0.json
|
|
[
"Carmen Fishwick"
] | 2016-08-26T13:13:35 | null | 2015-10-19T12:38:07 |
Student awareness and understanding of sexual consent has become an increasingly high-profile issue in recent years. What is your university doing to tackle the issue, and has it had an effect?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2015%2Foct%2F19%2Fsexual-harrassment-and-violence-at-university-share-your-experiences.json
|
en
| null |
Sexual harassment and violence at university: share your experiences
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sexual consent workshops are now mandatory at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, and voluntary workshops are taking place across other campuses around the country. But how much do these initiatives help in tackling sexual harassment and violence on campus, and are universities doing enough?
One in seven female students said they had been seriously sexually or physically assaulted, according to a survey by the National Union of Students. An online survey conducted in 2013 found that a third of female students had experience of either a sexual assault or unwanted advances at university.
Call to start sex education earlier to stem sexual violence on campus Read more
As a Guardian film exploring the sexist element of “lad culture” at universities launched on Monday, the Sex Education Forum (SEF) said progress could only be made if people were educated earlier on. Despite government guidance that secondary schools should cover consent in sex relationship education, 40% of 19- to 25-year-olds rated their sex and relationship education at school as “bad or very bad”, according to the SEF.
A Guardian investigation in May, which focused on Russell Group universities, found fewer than half of them were monitoring the extent of sexual violence against students, while one in six said they did not have specific guidelines on how students could report allegations to the institution or to police.
Given these findings, it’s important to ask whether sexual consent is being talked about loudly or frequently enough.
What is your university doing around the issue of sexual consent? Do you think its approach to sexual violence and harassment is strong enough? Share your experiences using the form below and we’ll use a selection of responses in our reporting.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/19/sexual-harrassment-and-violence-at-university-share-your-experiences
|
en
| 2015-10-19T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/11bdf98e644c5f38647156f6de518cd0a5c13d8b21844c7e53ce5afa43c11a01.json
|
|
[
"Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-31T10:50:29 | null | 2016-08-31T09:15:58 |
Australian-born Alexander Montagu-Manchester accused of burglary and making a false police report
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fduke-of-manchester-alexander-montagu-manchester-remain-las-vegas-jail-burglary-charge.json
|
en
| null |
Duke of Manchester to remain in Las Vegas jail
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Australian-born 13th Duke of Manchester will remain jailed in Las Vegas at least until next month following his arrest on suspicion of burglary and making a false police report.
Speaking from prison, Alexander Montagu-Manchester, 53, said he had not committed any crimes. “I didn’t break into someone’s house,” he said about the burglary charge.
Regarding the false report allegation, he said the police took his comment that his wife “might have” attacked him to mean that he blamed her for a deep gash on his thumb that he sustained while moving into a new apartment days earlier.
His wife, Laura Montagu, said in a separate interview on Tuesday that he had injured himself with a box-cutter. “He’s been saying a lot of things,” she said. “He needs help. Something’s going on and people can see it.”
Montagu-Manchester says he has Australian and British citizenship but has lived in the US as a permanent resident since the mid-60s. The Duke of Manchester title dates back 950 years.
He said he usually went by the name Alex Montagu, although court documents used the hyphenated surname. His court-appointed lawyer, Justin Glasgow, said he had not asked his client about his lineage.
The Australian consulate in Los Angeles said officials had not been asked to provide assistance to him. A British consular official declined to give information about Montagu-Manchester without his authorisation.
Montagu-Manchester was not asked to enter a plea to the burglary charge, which arose from a woman’s report that she had woken at about 2.30am on 6 July to find a shirtless and shoeless man trying to enter her bedroom.
She told police the man dropped a box and ran when he saw her talking on the phone to the emergency services. Police said Montagu-Manchester was arrested at another house.
The Las Vegas justice of the peace, Eric Goodman, set a 26 September hearing to give prosecutors and defence lawyers time to negotiate possible plea agreements involving the three criminal cases pending against Montagu-Manchester. If he is found guilty he could face up to 14 years in Nevada state prison.
The judge said the defendant would not be released from jail because his arrest on 12 August on suspicion of filing a false police report violated terms of his previous release on the burglary charge.
Montagu-Manchester is to appear in court on Wednesday with a different defence lawyer before a different judge in the false report case.
He is accused of concocting a story that Montagu attacked him on 1 August and cut his left thumb with a knife while he was moving into a new apartment. His thumb was bandaged during his court appearance on Tuesday.
Montagu denies injuring Montagu-Manchester or ever visiting the new apartment. She noted that a removal company employee and hospital medical personnel told police that Montagu-Manchester told them he had cut himself.
Genealogy records reveal Alexander Charles David Drogo Montagu was born in Australia to the late Angus Charles Drogo Montagu, the 12th Duke of Manchester, and Mary Eveleen McClure. Alexander Montagu succeeded to the title of 13th Duke of Manchester in July 2002.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/31/duke-of-manchester-alexander-montagu-manchester-remain-las-vegas-jail-burglary-charge
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3ec9fe006af1bba97622f72d35e06f31ee7fe9f99286f479d337a9248e405542.json
|
|
[
"Patrick Barkham"
] | 2016-08-29T18:50:15 | null | 2016-08-29T17:39:14 |
It has to be the best form of exercise – life-saving and a supreme pleasure. So why are so many British schools failing to provide tuition despite their national curriculum obligations?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fsave-life-saving-swimming-lessons-badger-cull.json
|
en
| null |
SOS: save our swimming lessons
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
One of the joys of this summer has been watching my four-year-old twins learn to swim: from as water-resistant as cats to as playful as porpoises in six weeks. They are fortunate because their granny is a swimming teacher. And she’s got time on her hands – having just been made redundant.
She lost her job because her school couldn’t afford to repair its pool. Parents at another local primary with a pool are desperately raising money to save it. A third public pool near me is also threatened with closure because it is 29 years old. I was a kid when it was opened by Princess Diana, and remember the sensation – wow, it’s got a wave machine! It’s still a marvellous pool for children.
Lack of UK law requiring lifeguards on all beaches means 'varied presence' Read more
The coverage of drowning tragedies at Camber Sands and around Britain’s coastline has highlighted the lack of funds for coastguards and lifeguards, but a bigger issue is the lack of money for swimming lessons. The death of the endurance athlete Nick Thomas, who got into trouble while trying to swim the Channel, shows that even good swimmers are vulnerable; but how many of last year’s 321 accidental drownings could have been prevented if everyone could swim?
Swimming is a tiny, neglected part of the national curriculum. Schools must simply ensure that by the age of 11, pupils can swim 25 metres unaided. Despite this, the Amateur Swimming Association found in 2014 that more than a thousand primary schools didn’t provide any swimming lessons, and 45% of children start secondary school unable to swim.
I can’t think of another form of exercise that is also a life-saving skill, a supreme pleasure, and the closest gravity-bound creatures like us can get to weightlessness. We need more lessons, and real-world water skills such as how to handle rips – and take selfies in front of enormous waves without killing ourselves. Learn-to-swim vouchers for non-swimming children and adults would be hugely popular.
And I’m not saying that because I know a brilliant swimming instructor with no one to teach for the first time in decades.
Large blues all round
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A female large blue butterfly: ‘Extinct in 1979, the large blue is now flying in greater numbers than at any time since the 1930s.’ Photograph: David Simcox/The Wildlife Trusts/PA
A century ago one of Britain’s top seasonal sports involved enthusiasts descending on grassy fields and lunging around in pursuit of their passion: collecting butterflies.
One rarity, the large blue, suffered from over-collecting as well as habitat loss. Eventually, in 1979, it became extinct. This summer, after four decades of conservation effort led by the scientist Jeremy Thomas, who reintroduced it from Sweden, the large blue is flying in greater numbers than at any time since the 1930s – 10,000 butterflies at Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and Royal Entomological Society’s Daneway Banks nature reserve and Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Green Down have laid more than a quarter of a million eggs.
Saving this one species has helped many rare orchids and beetles. It also gives nature-lovers the most precious commodity of all: hope.
Cull Britannia
Post-truth politics is all the rage, but policymaking that ignores scientific fact and expert judgment was pioneered back in 2013, the first year of the badger cull.
This year the government is extending it to five new locations in the West Country to supposedly reduce bovine TB in cattle. A new book, Badgered to Death, reveals a largely forgotten historical fact: the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 caused the slaughter of 6 million livestock, and a frantic restocking operation as farms moved cattle – and bovine TB – across Britain. Suddenly the number of cattle slaughtered for TB spiked by 300%, from under 5,000 to more than 20,000. Though cows, not badgers, are the biggest spreader of bovine TB, this unscientific and expensive cull continues.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/29/save-life-saving-swimming-lessons-badger-cull
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ba2bf5581066626753b029daba0ce8534a8e88b16d2b4dd5a7c0a9ba34f9fa4c.json
|
|
[
"Maeve Shearlaw"
] | 2016-08-26T13:20:07 | null | 2016-08-26T10:26:37 |
Twitter users have been gently mocking their countries using old-school nostalgia – here’s what we learned
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fifafricawasaschool-the-continent-in-playground-memes.json
|
en
| null |
#IfAfricaWasaSchool: the continent described in playground memes
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
There’s nothing like a few schoolyard memories to bring people together.
Yesterday, thousands of Africans took to Twitter to gently mock their countries via the hashtag #IfAfricaWasASchool, and in doing so found both scathing and irreverent ways to describe what it’s like to live on the continent today.
It’s not the first time a hashtag has prompted a viral storm of jokes and stereotypes about African countries. Last year, users rallied around #IfAfricaWasABar, #WhatWouldMagafuliDo (in reference to Tanzania’s austere new president), and #SomeoneTellCNN, as the American news organisation mischaracterised Kenya as a “hotbed of terror”.
So what would happen #IfAfricaWasaSchool? This is what we learned:
— Young Wealth (@Skiwo) #IfAfricaWasASchool school will commence at 3am so everyone is there by 8am because AFRICAN TIME pic.twitter.com/ykMGfl4pDT
For most students, 20th century African history would focus heavily on colonialism, except in one country:
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) .@_Almaqah every time Ethiopia reminds the other kids for the 1000th time it was never colonized #ifafricawasaschool pic.twitter.com/iM4nFl6NOO
Zimbabweans would always get the hardest deal in maths:
— Kev✊ (@kevrx) #IfAfricaWasAschool
Teacher: For our last exercise today, Convert $83,500 to your home currency,
Zimbabwean: pic.twitter.com/7F2cBnECum
Geography would be easier for some than others:
— Carson Brown (@carleighbee) #IfAfricaWasASchool
*teacher calls Cape Verde at roll*
Everyone else: pic.twitter.com/Fh8uAu7iEA
And as in every school, some kids would get noticed more than others:
— Queen SAV (@AfricanaSav) Niger's that kid nobody knows that just sits in the back cause Nigeria steals all their light #IfAfricaWasASchool pic.twitter.com/hYAWFy46zg
We also learned a bit about about how the school would run. The leadership is apparently well established and hard to topple:
— M Shawgi (@ShawgiMD) #IfAfricaWasASchool the prefects would retain their positions for a minimum of 25 years.
— Caster Van Niekerk (@UNcubeOthungayo) #IfAfricaWasASchool Ladies And Gentlemen Meet Your Principal, Your Kid's Principal & You GrandKid's Principal 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/4iRwDnce1k
No one would ever bring a packed lunch:
— Lil Dounz (@Douniya_A) #IfAfricaWasASchool the cafeteria would be so lit 🔥 pic.twitter.com/75IWau5Jxt
And particular dishes could cause lunchtime riots:
— Idk, Somewhere. (@MindingMyOwnBih) Ghanaians: GHANAIAN JOLLOF IS THE BEST
Nigerians: NIGERIAN JOLLOF IS THE BEST
Everyone else:#ifafricawasaschool pic.twitter.com/hWbwxIWxV3
Deciding what to wear everyday would be nothing short of a nightmare:
— إبراهيم لو (@abraham_lou) #IfAfricaWasAschool prom would be lit🔥 pic.twitter.com/o5zm4rRYyP
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/ifafricawasaschool-the-continent-in-playground-memes
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/790d2193e0efffe8a487aa67937242a2e71665cc8ff404bc81100e82d00aefb9.json
|
|
[
"Press Association",
"Will Hutton",
"John Harris",
"Jakub Krupa"
] | 2016-08-27T08:49:19 | null | 2016-08-27T07:44:41 |
Gus O’Donnell says both public opinion and the EU itself may change, meaning the UK would be happy to remain part of union
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fbrexit-is-not-inevitable-says-former-civil-service-chief.json
|
en
| null |
Brexit is not inevitable, says former civil service chief
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Brexit is not inevitable and Britain could still remain a part of a changed European Union, the former head of the civil service has said.
Gus O’Donnell, who was the cabinet secretary from 2005-11, told the Times (subscription) that he anticipated the UK would retain EU laws and rules regardless of its status in the union.
The crossbench peer said: “Lots of people will say, ‘We’ve had the referendum, we’ve decided to go out, so that’s it, it’s all over’. But it very much depends what happens to public opinion and whether the EU changes before then.
“It might be that the broader, more loosely aligned group is something that the UK is happy being a member of.”
Before the referendum Lord O’Donnell had said that leaving the EU would be complicated and take a long time.
On Saturday, he said leaving would mean “a huge administrative and legislative change” because of the vast amount of EU law that had been implemented in the last 40 years. As a result, he said he believed the UK would keep them in place even if it did officially leave the bloc.
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/27/brexit-is-not-inevitable-says-former-civil-service-chief
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1906104d5932229857589a1c7590697a159f8dfd29e9f7ceb00e288cced0c6b5.json
|
|
[
"Vic Marks"
] | 2016-08-29T18:52:25 | null | 2016-08-29T16:48:07 |
England have made it to the third ODI against Pakistan without having to break sweat or chew nails, but they will not be concerned about the mundane nature of the series so far
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fengland-pakistan-odi-trent-bridge-ben-stokes-bowling.json
|
en
| null |
Ben Stokes back with the ball as England look to seal Pakistan series
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
England have the chance to win the ODI series and insure against any possibility of losing the not desperately coveted Super Series at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.
It is a floodlit match and therefore Eoin Morgan may be tempted to bat first if he wins his first toss of the series, even though England have enjoyed two victories in which they have cantered past their target when batting second without having to break sweat or chew nails. On the evidence of the series to date the punters at Trent Bridge will welcome England batting first in the hope of a bit of swashbuckling from the batsmen. There has not been much of that so far.
Pakistan have struggled to set targets: neither their 260 at Southampton nor their 251 at Lord’s was sufficiently challenging. As a result the entertainment value has not been much greater than a second repeat of Emmerdale. One-day cricket requires uncertainty about the outcome to be compelling.
The England camp cannot be concerned about the mundane nature of the games so far. They have done their job with great efficiency. In the two games their pace bowlers have imposed themselves on a flaky Pakistan line-up. It has been a rare sight to witness two Englishmen propelling the ball in excess of 90mph, which has been the case when Mark Wood and Liam Plunkett have been in action. Meanwhile Chris Woakes, now a veteran of 50 ODIs, has not been far behind them in pace while a little ahead in terms of accuracy.
Pakistan post old-style ODI total after being snared by England’s speed trap | Vic Marks Read more
England are likely to keep this trio together at least until the series is won but in Nottingham they can be augmented by Ben Stokes, who is now fit to bowl and very eager to do so. It was both unsurprising and endearing to hear how Stokes reacted to playing as a specialist batsman in the first two games. “It was so boring in the field,” he declared. Temperamentally Stokes is a natural all-rounder and Morgan will have to be at his most obstinate to prevent him from grabbing the ball and marking his run out.
Nor is there likely to be any change in England’s batting line-up. There is always one man in any team under pressure after a barren spell. Recently that man has been Morgan – indeed a run-drought seems to be part and parcel of accepting the one-day captaincy. But Morgan’s workmanlike 68 at Lord’s means that the mantel of the “overdue” batsman has now passed to Alex Hales.
Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie to stand down at the end of the season Read more
There have been signs of unease with Hales in the second half of the summer. The most obvious was him striding into the third umpire’s room soon after his dismissal in the Oval Test.
Recently there has been a dearth of runs whatever the colour of the ball heading in his direction – though his stock is much higher in white-ball cricket. Moreover his observation that pulling out of the Bangladesh tour would risk sacrificing his Test place also hints that his poor form is preying on his mind. Hales could do with some runs on his home ground.
However these are pinpricks compared to the problems facing a Pakistan side that is currently ranked No9 in the world. Imad Wasim, who must have the chance of being the first Pakistan cricketer nurtured in Wales – he was born in Swansea – is suitably exasperated: “With the talent we’ve got I don’t think it’s a No9 team. I believe we can come back”. Those outside the Pakistan camp are not so sure.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/29/england-pakistan-odi-trent-bridge-ben-stokes-bowling
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4cd0f698b337a8a23226e3975a768d6711a1f3c150450a113991806e9571235b.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Staff"
] | 2016-08-28T10:49:39 | null | 2016-08-28T10:45:44 |
RNLI says emergency services are looking for a missing person at the Sussex beach, days after five men died there
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fswimmer-missing-at-camber-sands-rnli-sussex-beach.json
|
en
| null |
Swimmer missing at Camber Sands
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Emergency services have launched a search for a missing swimmer at Camber Sands, days after five men died at the East Sussex beach.
The RNLI, police and coastguards were involved in the operation, an RNLI spokeswoman said.
On Wednesday, five friends, all aged in their teens or 20s, died at the beach near the town of Rye, prompting authorities to deploy lifeguards on the normally unguarded seafront for the busy bank holiday weekend.
A Sussex police spokeswoman said: “A member of the public has contacted police and the coastguard at Camber Sands after seeing an abandoned pair of flip-flops next to the sea.
“A female was seen diving into the sea at this location. Officers at the scene are doing coastal checks to see if there are any persons in the sea having difficulty.”
Up to six RNLI lifeguards were due to be on duty at Camber Sands over the weekend, plus a team giving safety information to visitors between Saturday and Monday.
Last Wednesday, Kenugen Saththiyanathan, 18, known as Ken, his brother Kobikanthan Saththiyanathan, 22, known as Kobi, both of Erith, south-east London, and their friends Nitharsan Ravi, 22, of Plumstead, south-east London, Inthushan Sriskantharasa, 23, of Grays, Essex, and Kurushanth Srithavarajah, 27, of Welling, south-east London died after visiting the beach.
Relatives of some of the men criticised the lack of lifeguards at Camber and suggested they might have stood a chance of survival if the beach had been guarded.
Ravi’s family said they felt “very angry” at the lack of response from the authorities following the death of another man, Brazilian Gustavo Silva Da Cruz, 19, at Camber last month.
A spokesman for Rother district council said that, despite there being no lifeguards, there were summer patrols to advise people of potential dangers.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/28/swimmer-missing-at-camber-sands-rnli-sussex-beach
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ce7149b0891ec4efbcdcf6c3af914e92ecfeb060fe01b45d0c1c9c12132d5b60.json
|
|
[
"Martin Rowson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:50 | null | 2016-08-25T16:36:29 |
Farage won cheers by sticking to his time-honed rhetoric of slightly shaggy populism, heavy with generalist calls to national pride and taking back control
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2Fpicture%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fmartin-rowson-on-donald-trump-and-nigel-farage-cartoon.json
|
en
| null |
Martin Rowson on Donald Trump and Nigel Farage - cartoon
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
| null |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/aug/25/martin-rowson-on-donald-trump-and-nigel-farage-cartoon
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5b64e361c5f72ead2ff3c9421468e4a7ad574084e547b539d85580fe2ca4e5ca.json
|
|
[
"Josh Halliday",
"Jamie Grierson"
] | 2016-08-29T16:49:59 | null | 2016-08-29T16:24:55 |
Despite several major forces banning them, investigation shows restraint device used more than 500 times in recent months
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flaw%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fuk-police-forces-under-pressure-to-stop-using-spit-hoods.json
|
en
| null |
UK police forces under pressure to stop using spit hoods
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Provincial police forces are under pressure to stop hooding detainees after it emerged that the practice has been used hundreds of times despite being banned by Britain’s biggest police forces.
Official figures obtained by the Guardian show that spit hoods have been used 513 times since last year by a handful of provincial police forces.
The practice of placing a tightly meshed hood over a suspect’s head has been criticised as breaching human rights law and investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission in at least two high-profile cases this year.
Using spit hoods on children has no place in a civilised society | Diane Taylor Read more
Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that eight rural forces continue to use the practice – including on children as young as 13 – despite it not being sanctioned by police chiefs at the biggest forces, including the Metropolitan police, West Midlands police and Greater Manchester police.
A 13-year-old schoolboy and a 14-year-old schoolgirl were among detainees hooded by police officers in Northamptonshire last year, the figures show, while a 70-year-old man was placed in a spit hood by North Wales police.
The solicitor of an disabled 11-year-old girl who was hooded, handcuffed and detained by Sussex police officers said the practice arguably breached the UK’s domestic and international legal obligations, “particularly in the case of children, those suffering from mental ill health and the disabled”.
Gus Silverman, a solicitor at the law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “The fact that large police forces such as Greater Manchester and West Midlands have decided there are better ways of managing vulnerable individuals should cause serious questions to be asked of those forces who continue to use spit hoods.”
The girl, known as Child H, was twice placed in a spit hood while being detained by officers for minor offences.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which strongly criticised Sussex police’s handling of the case, refused to condemn its use of the spit hood in that case because it complied with the force’s policy that any spitting would always justify it.
Child H’s mother said: “It is appalling that some police forces consider it appropriate to hood children, when other forces don’t allow their officers to use these devices at all.
“If some forces can keep the public and officers safe without using spit hoods then why can’t all police forces? I have been calling on Sussex police to stop using spit hoods on children after my daughter was hooded in Sussex, but there isn’t any excuse for children to be hooded anywhere in the country. It was a truly horrible experience for my daughter to be hooded and no child should be treated that way.”
There is no national police policy on the use of spit hoods. Chief constables at each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales decide whether to sanction the use of force, often used alongside handcuffs and other forms of restraint.
The practice is not used by 20 of the 35 forces that responded to the Guardian’s Freedom of Information (FoI) request. Only nine forces said they used spit hoods. They include police in Northamptonshire, north Wales, Cheshire, West Mercia, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Hertfordshire.
These provincial forces have used spit hoods a total of 231 times so far this year, compared to 282 times last year, according to the FoI figures.
Of the 119 people spit-hooded by Hertfordshire police, 15% were black, mixed race or Asian, the figures show. In Bedfordshire, 13.7% of the 51 people spit-hooded were non-white. That figure dropped to 10.3% of the 202 in Northamptonshire and 6.7% of the 89 in Norfolk.
Essex police said spit hoods had not been authorised for use by its senior officers and that it provided safety glasses for officers’ protection.
British Transport police have hooded detainees in 151 cases since June 2014, when the force authorised the practice.
UK police watchdog to investigate use of spit hood on black man Read more
The force is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after it used a spit hood on a young black man who was pinned to the floor by four officers at London Bridge station in July.
Footage filmed by witnesses showed officers holding IK Aihie, 20, to the floor with his hands behind his back and a spit hood over his head. His girlfriend, Jessica McConkey, can be seen in distress in the clip while others plead with the officers: “What the hell are you doing?” and “Stop that.”
IPCC investigators met Aihie this month to confirm they had launched an investigation into his arrest on 21 July. Aihie said: “I hope there will now be a thorough investigation and I would ask any witnesses to my arrest to please contact the IPCC.”
Aihie’s solicitor Shamik Dutta, of the law firm Bhatt Murphy, said: “It is imperative that all relevant evidence in this case is preserved without delay to ensure a robust inquiry into the officers’ conduct.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/aug/29/uk-police-forces-under-pressure-to-stop-using-spit-hoods
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cbcb812a1c9ad94d8bc1324eb05ccc2686d91528905fa3371371bab02c3fe3f1.json
|
|
[
"Fabrizio Romano",
"Ed Aarons"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:15 | null | 2016-08-25T20:42:21 |
West Ham have agreed a £24m fee with Juventus for Simone Zaza, with talks continuing with the Italy striker over personal terms before his anticipated switch to east London
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fwest-ham-juventus-simone-zaza-fee.json
|
en
| null |
Simone Zaza set for medical after West Ham agree £24m fee with Juventus
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
West Ham have agreed a €28m (£24m) fee with Juventus for Simone Zaza, with the Italy striker set to fly to England on Friday for his medical after agreeing personal terms.
Zaza, who missed a penalty for Italy in their penalty shootout defeat to Germany in the Euro 2016 quarter-final, has been a long-term target for West Ham, who have seen numerous attempts to sign a frontline striker fail to materialise this summer.
Arsenal agree £35m fee with Valencia for Shkodran Mustafi Read more
A £31.5m bid for Michy Batshuayi was accepted by Marseille before the Belgium international opted to join Chelsea instead, while Milan’s Carlos Bacca rejected the chance to join Slaven Bilic’s side.
Having initially made contact with Juventus in June, co-chairman David Sullivan stepped up negotiations with the Italian champions this week after Andy Carroll was ruled out for up to six weeks and record signing Andre Ayew was told he was unlikely to play again this year. A club record fee of €28m including add-ons has now been accepted by Juventus, who had also been in talks with German side Wolfsburg over Zaza.
The 25-year-old is now understood to have agreed the terms of his contract at the London Stadium and will complete his medical on Friday. Zaza joined Juventus from Sassuolo last summer for €18m and scored five goals in 19 Serie A appearances last season.
“I don’t know the details, but we were in talks and it was quite close,” West Ham manager Slaven Bilic said on Thursday. “I would love it to happen.”
Earlier on Thursday, West Ham announced the signing of Swiss midfielder Edimilson Fernandes from FC Sion for an undisclosed fee believed to be around £5.5m. The 20-year-old was introduced on the pitch of the London Stadium prior to the Europa League qualifier against Romanians Astra Giurgiu.
West Ham were beaten 1-0 to exit the competition to their Romanian opponents for the second season in succession.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/25/west-ham-juventus-simone-zaza-fee
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b996bf2ea151565d2810a06591c9a54122a56386fd7b8ce593f5b05139be6208.json
|
|
[
"Daniel Taylor"
] | 2016-08-28T20:51:46 | null | 2016-08-28T18:57:03 |
Sam Allardyce has named the uncapped West Ham midfielder Michail Antonio in his first England squad, but there is no place for Everton’s Ross Barkley
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fengland-squad-announcement-allardyce-antonio-barkley.json
|
en
| null |
Michail Antonio called up as Sam Allardyce names his first England squad
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sam Allardyce has dropped Ross Barkley and Jack Wilshere from his first England squad and decided instead to name Wayne Rooney as one of his midfielders as well as giving the West Ham United player Michail Antonio his first international call-up.
Antonio is the only newcomer named by Allardyce in a 23-man squad notable for Rooney’s inclusion as a midfielder despite José Mourinho saying the Manchester United captain would never drop back to fill that role for him at Old Trafford.
Wilshere appears to have paid the price for his lack of game time after making only two substitute appearances for Arsenal this season, amounting to 37 minutes in total, whereas Barkley’s omission constitutes an even greater surprise after an impressive start for Everton.
Sam Allardyce reveals failed attempt to call up Steven N’Zonzi for England Read more
Allardyce was at Goodison Park for Everton’s win against Stoke City on Saturday but he has decided Barkley does not merit being involved in England’s World Cup qualifier against Slovakia next Sunday. Asked why Barkley had been left out, Allardyce would only say: “Everybody – Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – was probably looking to get back in. We will continue to monitor, will watch everybody, and who is to say they won’t be in next time and keep the pressure on me by playing well?”
Jermain Defoe’s recall hopes have also been extinguished, with Allardyce deciding not to bring in the Sunderland striker and naming Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge as his three forwards. John Terry was considered only fleetingly but Phil Jagielka has been brought back as an additional centre-half, having missed the cut when Roy Hodgson named his Euro 2016 squad.
Theo Walcott, another player Hodgson did not take to France, has also been given another chance while Luke Shaw has returned to the squad for the first time since recovering from a double break to a leg in September last year.
Allardyce, who will explain his thinking at a press conference on Monday, has kept to his promise of selecting Joe Hart even though England’s regular goalkeeper is not in Pep Guardiola’s thinking at Manchester City.
Marcus Rashford has not been so fortunate and Allardyce will inevitably be asked to explain why United’s match-winner at Hull City on Saturday has been demoted to the England Under-21s. Allardyce had explained last week that it was difficult to pick Rashford when the teenager had not featured in United’s first two Premier League games but Hart and Chris Smalling have still been chosen despite the same applying to them.
— England (@England) 📝 @OfficialBigSam names his first #ThreeLions squad, with a debut call-up for @WestHamUtd winger @Michailantonio. pic.twitter.com/TbEeMzBzEA
James Milner’s international retirement has opened up another space in midfield and Antonio’s inclusion continues the climb of a player who began his career at Tooting & Mitcham and had never played in the Premier League until joining West Ham from Nottingham Forest a year ago. “I think he’s in outstanding form,” Allardyce said. “It’s a fantastic journey that he’s been on, from non-league to an international call-up.
“He scored nine goals in his first season [at West Ham] and he’s a terrific athlete, a good crosser and a goalscorer. I’m looking forward to him coming, and looking forward to meeting everybody. Hopefully we will have a good few days’ preparation and get to know each other on the basis of trying to go and win in Slovakia.”
Antonio, the scorer of West Ham’s goal in their 3-1 defeat at Manchester City, was close to tears when he received the call to report to St George’s Park on Monday. “I’m overwhelmed,” he said. “I got slightly emotional when I found out. I’ve always dreamt of playing for England as a kid, so now for it to happen after I’ve worked my way from non-league to where I am now, I am just so happy. I don’t even know what to say – words can’t explain how happy I am. I just give my all every time I go on the field. All I can do is go out there, on the international stage, and show there is a reason why the gaffer has called me up.”
England squad for World Cup 2018 qualifier against Slovakia
Goalkeepers Fraser Forster (Southampton), Joe Hart (Manchester City), Tom Heaton (Burnley).
Defenders Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Nathaniel Clyne (Liverpool), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Danny Rose (Tottenham), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City), Kyle Walker (Tottenham).
Midfielders Dele Alli (Tottenham), Michail Antonio (West Ham), Eric Dier (Tottenham), Danny Drinkwater (Leicester), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Adam Lallana (Liverpool), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Theo Walcott (Arsenal).
Strikers Harry Kane (Tottenham), Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool), Jamie Vardy (Leicester).
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/28/england-squad-announcement-allardyce-antonio-barkley
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5a3e480fb3ca1e66fe60d7d19cd237943af49d3b7b8a0844d4c4d6c5d3ee9822.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-27T20:51:27 | null | 2016-08-27T20:45:08 |
Álvaro Morata scored his first goal since returning to Real Madrid in a 2-1 home win over Celta Vigo. Toni Kroos scored Real’s second goal
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Freal-madrid-celta-vigo-la-liga-match-report.json
|
en
| null |
Álvaro Morata celebrates Real Madrid return in win over Celta Vigo
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A late goal by Toni Kroos sealed victory as Real Madrid defeated an impressive Celta Vigo to win their first home La Liga game of the season.
Álvaro Morata scored his first goal for the hosts since returning from Juventus to break the deadlock on the hour before Fabián Orellana equalised for Celta in the 67th minute.
Kroos then finished off James Rodríguez’s cutback with a low drive from the edge of the area in the 81st minute, giving Real six points from their two league games.
With Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Keylor Navas sidelined, Zinedine Zidane fielded an almost identical XI to the side who won 3-0 at Real Sociedad, dropping only Mateo Kovacic to accommodate Luka Modric’s return from suspension.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/real-madrid-celta-vigo-la-liga-match-report
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4b10a85c30953e1ffb05e8d7966117db0e8abca4b54aed559418fbc4746bc5e8.json
|
|
[
"Ben Fisher"
] | 2016-08-28T10:51:39 | null | 2016-08-28T10:05:42 |
The Sunderland striker Jermain Defoe has said it would be a dream for him to be named in Sam Allardyce’s England squad later on Sunday
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fjermain-defoe-sunderland-england-sam-allardyce.json
|
en
| null |
Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe dreaming of England call-up by Sam Allardyce
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Sunderland striker Jermain Defoe has said it would be a dream for him to be named in Sam Allardyce’s England squad later on Sunday. Defoe scored 15 goals to help Sunderland avoid relegation last season and worked under Allardyce at the club.
Sam Allardyce reveals failed attempt to call up Steven N’Zonzi for England Read more
The 33-year-old was overlooked by the former England manager Roy Hodgson for the European Championship this summer and the striker was not included in his World Cup squad two years ago. Defoe’s last cap for his country came three years ago against Chile. Defoe, who scored his second goal of the season in a draw against Southampton on Saturday, has scored 19 goals in his England career to date.
“If I am in the squad it’ll be a dream,” said Defoe. “Sam can’t treat me any different because he was my manager last season. I suppose you’ve got to deal with it. We’ll see what happens. But I just want to keep working hard and keep scoring my goals.
“It’s always at the back of your mind when you are scoring goals, which is what I get judged on. It’s as simple as that. I’ve always said, just concentrate on my club football and see what happens after that.”
Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United forward who was included in Hodgson’s squad for Euro 2016, was named in Gareth Southgate’s England Under-21 squad on Friday. Allardyce will name his squad for the World Cup 2016 qualifier against Slovakia next month later on Sunday, with Manchester United’s Luke Shaw and West Ham United’s Mark Noble also thought to be under consideration.
The Sunderland manager, David Moyes, said after the draw at St Mary’s on Saturday that Defoe’s inclusion in the squad would not come as a surprise. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all because he’s a goalscorer,” said Moyes. “Sam knows him better than me but he’s a good pro and he wants to do things right.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/28/jermain-defoe-sunderland-england-sam-allardyce
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1eae974c4f3a0a3764e924746da7736ff53001a1227fe71cde6a2e1fa9a49f5e.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-28T04:51:43 | null | 2016-08-28T04:27:24 |
Sigmar Gabriel says ‘it’s inconceivable for Germany to take in a million people every year’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fangela-merkels-deputy-says-she-underestimated-migrant-challenge.json
|
en
| null |
Angela Merkel's deputy says she underestimated migrant challenge
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview on Saturday that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives had “underestimated” the challenge of integrating a record migrant influx.
Gabriel is also leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) – the junior coalition partner in Merkel’s government – and his comments to broadcaster ZDF come as campaigning gets under way for a federal election next year.
Refugees did not bring terrorism to Germany, says Angela Merkel Read more
More than a million migrants flocked to Germany from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere last year. Concerns about how to integrate them all into German society and the labour market are now rife and support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) has grown.
“I, we always said that it’s inconceivable for Germany to take in a million people every year,” Gabriel said in extracts of an interview released on Saturday.
The IAB German labour office research institute says around 16,000 are still arriving each month, compared with more than 200,000 in November.
Gabriel also criticised Merkel’s catchphrase “Wir schaffen das”, meaning “We can do this”, which she adopted during the migrant crisis last summer and has repeatedly used since.
Merkel used the phrase at a news conference she held in late July after a spate of attacks on civilians in Germany, including two claimed by Isis, that have put her open-door migrant policy in the spotlight. Her popularity has slipped since those attacks.
Gabriel said repeating that phrase was not enough and the conservatives needed to create the conditions for Germany to be able to cope, adding that the conservatives had always blocked opportunities to do that.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/angela-merkels-deputy-says-she-underestimated-migrant-challenge
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/96463adf36025508e87d277e80d5eae6f2c30ca58d62c7f489fcbb0045d2b72e.json
|
|
[
"Rob Smyth"
] | 2016-08-27T16:51:12 | null | 2016-08-27T16:50:48 |
Minute-by-minute: Join Rob Smyth as two sides with 100% starts to the season do battle at the KCom Stadium
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fhull-city-v-manchester-united-premier-league-live.json
|
en
| null |
Hull City v Manchester United: Premier League - live!
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
| null |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2016/aug/27/hull-city-v-manchester-united-premier-league-live
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3644493867d2d9c349d343f2b6da6f10c7eb22ee880dcde14ee57ba1a4f49d95.json
|
|
[
"Robin Mckie",
"Martin Rees",
"Simon Lewis"
] | 2016-08-29T14:57:30 | null | 2016-01-24T00:05:16 |
From supermarket bags to CDs, man-made waste has contaminated the entire globe, and become a marker of a new geological epoch
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Fjan%2F24%2Fplastic-new-epoch-human-damage.json
|
en
| null |
Plastic now pollutes every corner of Earth
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Humans have made enough plastic since the second world war to coat the Earth entirely in clingfilm, an international study has revealed. This ability to plaster the planet in plastic is alarming, say scientists – for it confirms that human activities are now having a pernicious impact on our world.
The research, published in the journal Anthropocene, shows that no part of the planet is free of the scourge of plastic waste. Everywhere is polluted with the remains of water containers, supermarket bags, polystyrene lumps, compact discs, cigarette filter tips, nylons and other plastics. Some are in the form of microscopic grains, others in lumps. The impact is often highly damaging.
“The results came as a real surprise,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, of Leicester University. “We were aware that humans have been making increasing amounts of different kinds of plastic – from Bakelite to polyethylene bags to PVC – over the last 70 years, but we had no idea how far it had travelled round the planet. It turns out not just to have floated across the oceans, but has sunk to the deepest parts of the sea floor. This is not a sign that our planet is in a healthy condition either.”
The crucial point about the study’s findings is that the appearance of plastic should now be considered as a marker for a new epoch. Zalasiewicz is the chairman of a group of geologists assessing whether or not humanity’s activities have tipped the planet into a new geological epoch, called the Anthropocene, which ended the Holocene that began around 12,000 years ago.
Most members of Zalasiewicz’s committee believe the Anthropocene has begun and this month published a paper in Science in which they argued that several postwar human activities show our species is altering geology. In particular, radioactive isotopes released by atom bombs left a powerful signal in the ground that will tell future civilisations that something strange was going on.
In addition, increasing carbon dioxide in the oceans, the massive manufacture of concrete and the widespread use of aluminium were also highlighted as factors that indicate the birth of the Anthropocene. Lesser environmental impacts, including the rising use of plastics, were also mentioned in passing.
But Zalasiewicz argues that the humble plastic bag and plastic drink container play a far greater role in changing the planet than has been realised. “Just consider the fish in the sea,” he said. “A vast proportion of them now have plastic in them. They think it is food and eat it, just as seabirds feed plastic to their chicks. Then some of it is released as excrement and ends up sinking on to the seabed. The planet is slowly being covered in plastic.” In total, more than 300 million tonnes of plastic is manufactured every year, states the paper, The Geological Cycle of Plastics and Their Use as a Stratigraphic Indicator of the Anthropocene.
“In 1950, we virtually made none at all. It is an incredible rise,” added Zalasiewicz. “That annual total of 300 million tonnes is close to the weight of the entire human population of the planet. And the figure for plastic manufacture is only going to grow. The total amount of plastic produced since the second world war is around 5 billion tonnes and is very likely to reach 30 billion by the end of the century. The impact will be colossal.”
As the paper makes clear, plastic is already on the ocean floor, remote islands, buried underground in landfill sites and in the food chain. Even the polar regions, generally considered still to be pristine zones, are becoming affected. In 2014, researchers found “significant” amounts of plastic granules frozen in the Arctic Sea, having been swept there from the Pacific Ocean.
In some cases, wildlife adapts to the spread of plastic. For example, on islands such as Diego Garcia, hermit crabs have taken to using plastic bottles as homes. However, most of the impact on wildlife is harmful. Creatures ranging from seabirds to turtles become entangled in plastic and drown or choke to death. “The trouble is that plastic is very slow to degrade, so we are going to be stuck with this problem for a long time,” said Zalasiewicz.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/24/plastic-new-epoch-human-damage
|
en
| 2016-01-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cdecbdca2f7bb76a33e54308363c616d3c9ff8bdb26f42385c8bbcd342ef9e45.json
|
|
[
"Vic Marks"
] | 2016-08-28T18:52:06 | null | 2016-08-28T17:00:38 |
Ben Stokes has said he is uncomfortable in the field if there is no chance of bowling but can now give the captain, Eoin Morgan, more options with the ball against Pakistan
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fben-stokes-fit-ready-bowl-england-third-odi-pakistan-trent-bridge.json
|
en
| null |
Ben Stokes: I’m fit and ready to bowl for England in third ODI if needed
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
England’s two one-day victories against Pakistan have been so straightforward that even one of their most gung-ho cricketers is warning against any complacency throughout the rest of the series.
Pakistan’s Ol’ Man Misbah cements his legend by just saying nuthin’ | Rob Smyth Read more
After Saturday’s win at Lord’s, Ben Stokes said: “We could spill into dangerous territory if we start to think too far ahead. We have gone 2-0 up in the series because we have been playing the better cricket.” He then pointed out, like the cagey old pro he isn’t, the dangers of thinking the series is already done and dusted.
There are three 50-over matches remaining, with the next one taking place at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.
England’s simple victory at Lord’s, fashioned by the capture of three wickets before everyone had found their seats, was mighty efficient. The fast bowlers bowled fast and straight; the catchers caught – with Liam Plunkett producing a dazzling one-handed snatch at cover. With the senior batsmen Joe Root and Eoin Morgan to the fore, a modest target was knocked off without alarms.
In fact, the England side should be stronger at Trent Bridge because they will have the benefit of another bowler. Stokes, who has had the unusual experience of playing as a specialist batsman in the first two matches, expects to be fit enough to give Morgan more options with the ball on Tuesday.
Stokes said: “The plan from the start was to be fit and ready to bowl by the third ODI, and it is looking likely that I will be there for Eoin if needed. I’ve done all the prep and I’m ready to bowl. Hopefully I’ll be asked.”
The Durham all-rounder hates being out of the action and admits to be uncomfortable in the field when there is no prospect of bowling. “It’s so boring,” Stokes said. “It makes the fielding session seem so much longer. Obviously, if you bowl 10 overs it kind of takes 20 overs out of the game for you. I pride myself on my fielding, so that has kept me switched on.” However, there was no hiding a frustration for Stokes, which England hope will not arise too often.
It was an indication of how highly regarded Stokes has become that he was selected as a pure batsman. The Durham diplomat admitted: “I was a bit surprised I got the nod ahead of Jonny [Bairstow] after his Test series against Pakistan – and South Africa. He has shown amazing form. At the same time, it’s nice to get confidence from your captain and coach saying they want me to play as a specialist batsman. So I have wanted to make sure I got some runs in the first two matches.”
For all the apparent bluster, Stokes, like the vast majority of cricketers, needs bolstering occasionally. He responds well to expressions of confidence and to being given additional responsibility. Moreover, the brief opportunity to concentrate solely on his batting has led to more consideration of how best to go about his business. In the last 12 months he has improved significantly against spin bowling.
“I think sometimes I have been drawn into trying to be too aggressive too early,” Stokes said. “I have learnt that I can give myself time. I don’t need to be going out reverse-sweeping for six and four straightaway. Singles can be just as important as boundaries, rotating the strike and not letting the bowlers settle. I have also worked hard on my defensive game after the UAE tour, where I struggled against spin especially.”
Wise words from a maturing cricketer. But let us hope that he has not forgotten the joy of smashing the ball all around the ground – after appropriate reconnaissance. I doubt this is the case. At Lord’s on Saturday he played the only skittish innings of the day – 42 runs from 30 balls – and he will hope to proceed at a similar rate in Nottingham, ideally in addition to producing 10 hostile overs for a grateful captain. We do not want Stokes being too sensible.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/28/ben-stokes-fit-ready-bowl-england-third-odi-pakistan-trent-bridge
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/dfd1e97be67ec2055b987759e14675d5ee132ef019f025abc97fab453b65ee69.json
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.