The Guardian World News

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• Crunch time for Clegg as huge AV defeat predicted
• Obama rules out release of photo
• Last veteran of first world war dies
• Libyan leaders face war crimes arrest
• French official: I made race row tape
• Girls 'should be taught how to say no'
• Fatah and Hamas sign accord
• US hiker will not go to Iran for trial
• Manning's jail conditions improve
• Gbagbo's militia fight on in Abidjan
• Kremlin poodle slur trial delayed
• Sony implicates Anonymous in security breach
• Brian May's quest to save the badger
• Apple updates to prevent tracking
• News Corp reports slump in profits
• Pappy's fight for the sketch show
• Up close and impersonal
• Why cinemas will always survive
• Whisky firms back bioenergy project
• The Right Word

Crunch time for Clegg as huge AV defeat predicted Posted: 04 May 2011 02:54 PM PDT Guardian/ICM poll finds 68% plan to vote no, suggesting support for electoral change has slumped in last month The century-long dream of electoral reform in Britain looks likely to be dashed for more than a generation, with a Guardian/ICM poll predicting that voters will back keeping first past the post by a crushing majority. The survey, before the referendum on whether to introduce the alternative vote (AV) for elections to the Commons, predicts a 68% no vote with just 32% for yes. The hopes of yes campaigners that there was going to be a late tightening of the polls have been dashed. The findings suggest support for electoral change has slumped since a Guardian/ICM poll last month revealed the growing size of the no lead – then 16 points, now 36. In a Guardian/ICM poll in February, the yes campaign was two points ahead. A YouGov poll for The Sun also predicts defeat for AV, showing 40% would vote yes, and 60% no. Only 25% of voters in that poll knew which way Eddie Izzard, the Yes campaign's most high-profile celebrity backer, intended to vote. The referendum result, due to be formally announced on Friday, will prompt deep soul-searching inside the Liberal Democrats, and bitter recriminations over the way that David Cameron sanctioned a full-scale assault on Nick Clegg by the no campaign as a central part of its appeal. Some in the all-party yes camp blame Clegg for abandoning a pledge to stay out of the campaign, saying his presence destroyed their appeal for a new kind of politics and meant their campaign was seen through the prism of the coalition. Clegg vowed that the coalition would continue, but accepted the temperature has been rising inside his own party over the all-party no campaign's tactics. Refusing to concede defeat, he made a final desperate appeal for the yes vote saying: "If you basically think the current system is absolutely fine, totally perfect, nothing wrong with it then obviously vote no and stick with what we've got. If you want something a bit fairer, a bit better, which makes all politicians work a bit harder for your vote then vote yes, vote for change." The Lib Dems fear they are likely to be hammered in elections for the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly. They are also expected to lose more than 300 councillors in England – and fear as many as 600 losses – ceding control of almost every council they are defending. There is no sign that any serious figure will mount a challenge to Clegg's leadership, but there will be calls for the party to adopt a cooler relationship with its coalition partners. Senior party figures privately admit that it may take as long as two years for the party to start to recover its former popularity. Labour tried to play down expectations that it could win as many as 1,300 seats in the English council elections, saying that on the basis of council byelection results since the 2010 election the party is likely to win between 400 and 600 seats. Labour officials warn that in the south any collapse in the Lib Dem vote may see the Conservatives gain seats. Independent experts have predicted Labour should make as many as 1,000 gains, and it is hoping to win Clegg's home city council of Sheffield, as well as Leeds, North Tyneside, Bolton, and Barrow in Furness. Labour is worried that it is likely to fare much worse in Scotland than it expected three months ago, however, even though it has pulled back some support from the Scottish National party. In Wales Labour is on the brink of being able to form a majority government. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, is hoping that the expected crushing defeat for the advocates of the alternative vote will not rebound on him personally even though he has increasingly vocally supported the reform. He signalled that even if the vote is close no political party will return to the issue for a long time. According to the Guardian/ICM poll, a majority of Labour supporters now say they will vote against AV despite Miliband's endorsement of change. So will almost nine in 10 Conservatives and more than a quarter of definite Lib Dem voters, whose lukewarm support seems confirmed by the fact that they are now less likely than Conservative or Labour voters to say they will turn out. Young voters remain in favour of AV, but are the least likely to vote. Among all voters, before adjustment for likely turnout, 28% said they were for change, with 52% against and 20% who said they didn't know. After adjustment for voters who say they are likely to vote, 32% back yes, down from 42% in April; 68% say no – up from 58%. Overall, Labour is on 37%, unchanged from April. The Conservatives are on 36%, up one. The Lib Dems are on 15%, unchanged, and others on a combined 11%, down two. ICM interviewed a random sample of 1035 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 2-3 May 2011. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. AV referendum Electoral reform Alternative vote Conservatives Opinion polls Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg Liberal-Conservative coalition Local elections Local elections 2011 Julian Glover Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Obama rules out release of photo Posted: 04 May 2011 01:28 PM PDT Publication of photos blocked by Barack Obama, who says they might act as incitement to additional violence Barack Obama has blocked publication of gruesome pictures of Osama bin Laden's corpse, expressing concern that they might incite extremists to retaliate. But Reuters, in a release not authorised by the US government, distributed disturbing pictures of three other men killed at Bin Laden's Pakistan hideout. Obama, in an interview with CBS to be broadcast at the weekend, explained why he opted against publication of the Bin Laden picture. "It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence," the president said. Some, including within his own cabinet, had argued in favour of publication as proof that the al-Qaida leader was dead. But Obama said that even if the photos were published, there would still be those who would deny it. "The fact of the matter is you won't see Bin Laden walking on this earth again," the president said. Security in New York and Washington, as well as at US bases and embassies around the world, has been stepped up to cover the event of any al-Qaida revenge attack. The debate over the pictures came after a difficult 48 hours for the White House, forced on to the defensive for offering conflicting accounts of the raid on Abbottabad which raised questions about the legality of the killing. The pictures that were released provide a sense of the extreme violence employed by US Navy Seals as they stormed through the compound in the early hours of Monday. Two men lie in pools of congealed blood; a third lies prone with his arms flung over his head. Around are scattered hints of life before the Americans struck: computer cables, bedding, a tin mug and a plastic gun. Survivors of the attack have been taken into custody in Pakistan, including Bin Laden's Yemeni-born wife, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, and his 12-year-old daughter. A Pakistani intelligence official said Bin Laden's daughter had claimed that her father had been shot in cold blood in front of her. But the official did not confirm a report by al-Arabiya news that the girl is claiming her father had first been captured and then shot, which would have been in breach of international law. George Little, a CIA spokesman, denied Bin Laden had been held by US forces before being shot. "There is no indication that Bin Laden was somehow captured and later killed inside the compound. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise." The US has not yet asked Pakistan for permission to speak to the family. Such a request could open up a fresh rift between the two nations. The Pakistan intelligence officer said if the US submitted a written request to interrogate the family, "given the [critical] statements coming out of Washington and the fact that this [raid] was not an operation we were involved in, we would not accept." Questions about the legality of the killing have grown after the White House backtracked on Tuesday on its initial account of the mission and admitted that Bin Laden had not been armed. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, refused to provide further details. Asked whether the team that killed Osama had come under fire, Carney said the White House had gone to the limit in providing details and that any more would risk future operations. "I am not going to get into operational details," he said. Asked about the legality of the killing, Carney read from a prepared statement. "The team had the authority to kill Osama bin Laden unless he offered to surrender, in which case the team was required to accept his surrender if the team could do so safely. The operation was conducted in a manner fully consistent with the laws of war. The operation was planned so that the team was prepared and had the means to take Bin Laden into custody. There is simply no question that this operation was lawful." Eric Holder, the US attorney-general, giving evidence to a Senate committee, insisted it had not been a "kill" mission but "a kill or capture" mission. "If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that; and, therefore, his killing was appropriate," Holder said. Andrea Prasow, a Washington-based spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, said: "Our position is that we do not have enough information to determine whether the killing of Bin Laden was lawful. We hope the US government will provide a more detailed accounting of what happened, so we can understand if it was in fact lawful under either international humanitarian law (the so-called law of war) or under human rights law." Philippe Sands, a University College London professor currently writing a book on the making of modern international law, said much would depend on the exact circumstances of Bin Laden's death. "If no one else was around, if they had him in a room unarmed and the building was covered, then it looks pretty bad," Sands said. He added that the US would have an additional layer of defence under international law. The "doctrine of necessity" excuses wrongdoing if the actions taken can be demonstrated to be the only way to protect an essential interest, such as the lives of a large number of citizens. Benjamin Ferencz, an American lawyer who was a US prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and who lives in New York state, asked whether the killing was justifiable self-defence or premeditated illegal assassination. He would have preferred for Bin Laden to have been captured and put on trial. Ferencz, 92, said: "The picture I get is that a bunch of highly trained, heavily armed soldiers find an old guy in pyjamas and shoot him in the chest and head, and that borders, without access to more facts, on murder." He added: "Even [the head of the Luftwaffe Hermann] Göring had a right to trial." The rules of engagement for the Seal team made it unlikely that Bin Laden would have had much chance to surrender. The counterterrorism adviser at the White House, John Brennan, in an interview with Fox News, said he could only have surrendered if the team believed he did not pose a threat and were confident he did not have a bomb under his clothes. Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Global terrorism Pakistan United States Ewen MacAskill Declan Walsh Julian Borger guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Last veteran of first world war dies Posted: 04 May 2011 08:27 PM PDT British-born Choules never liked to fuss over his achievements, which included a 41-year military career and the publication of his first book at the age of 108 Claude Stanley Choules, the last known combat veteran of World War I, died on Thursday at a nursing home in the West Australian city of Perth, his family said. He was 110. "We all loved him," his 84-year-old daughter Daphne Edinger said. "It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go." Beloved for his wry sense of humor and humble nature, the British-born Choules nicknamed "Chuckles" by his comrades in the Australian Navy never liked to fuss over his achievements, which included a 41-year military career and the publication of his first book at the age of 108. He usually told the curious that the secret to a long life was simply to "keep breathing." Sometimes, he chalked up his longevity to cod liver oil. But his children say in his heart, he believed it was the love of his family that kept him going for so many years. "His family was the most important thing in his life," his other daughter, Anne Pow, said in a March 2010 interview. "It was a good way to grow up, you know. Very reassuring." Choules was born March 3, 1901, in the small British town of Pershore, Worcestershire, one of seven children. As a child, he was told his mother had died a lie meant to cover a more painful truth: she left when he was 5 to pursue an acting career. The abandonment affected him profoundly, Pow said, and he grew up determined to create a happy home for his own children. In his autobiography, "The Last of the Last," he remembered the day the first motor car drove through town, an event that brought all the villagers outside to watch. He remembered when a packet of cigarettes cost a penny. He remembered learning to surf off the coast of South Africa, and how strange he found it that black locals were forced to use a separate beach from whites. He was drawn to the water at an early age, fishing and swimming at the local brook. Later in life, he would regularly swim in the warm waters off the West Australian state coast, only stopping when he turned 100. World War I was raging when Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war. "There was no sign of fight left in the Germans as they came out of the mist at about 10 am," Choules wrote in his autobiography. The German flag, he recalled, was hauled down at sunset. "So ended the most momentous day in the annals of naval warfare," he wrote. "A fleet of ships surrendered without firing a shot." Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war's last known surviving service members after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a US-based group that tracks veterans. Choules was the last known surviving combatant of the war. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force. Choules met his wife Ethel Wildgoose in 1926 on the first day of his six-week boat trip from England to Australia, where he had been dispatched to serve as a naval instructor at Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria state. Ten months later, they were married. They would spend the next 76 years together, until her death in 2003 at the age of 98. Pow recalls that even in their final days together, they could often be spotted sitting side-by-side, holding hands. "I think it was love at first sight," Choules wrote in his autobiography. "Certainly on my part, anyway." He later joined the Royal Australian Navy and settled permanently Down Under, where he found life much more pleasant than in his home country. "I was nobody," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in November 2009 of his years in the UK. "But I was somebody here." He and Ethel had three children, Daphne, Anne and Adrian, now in their 70s and 80s. During World War II, he was the acting torpedo officer in Fremantle, Western Australia, and chief demolition officer for the western side of the Australian continent. Choules disposed of the first mine to wash ashore in Australia during the war. He later transferred to the Naval Dockyard Police and remained in the service until his retirement in 1956. He and Ethel bought a beach house south of Perth and spent the next 10 years cray-fishing, relishing the peaceful moments at the end of their days when they would have tea aboard their boat. In his 80s, he took a creative writing course at the urging of his children and decided to record his memoirs for his family. The memoirs formed the basis of his autobiography, which was finally published three decades later in 2009. He would cite the book as one of his greatest achievements. Even as he passed the century milestone, he remained remarkably healthy and active, and continued to dance until a few years ago. He liked to start each day with a bowl of porridge, and occasionally indulged in his favorite treats: mango juice and chocolate. "He doesn't have medication because there's nothing wrong with him," Pow, his daughter, said on Choules' 110th birthday. "He's just going to quietly drift out of life eventually," she added with a laugh. Still, the aging process took its toll, and in recent years, he grew blind and nearly deaf. Despite that, his children say he retained his cheerful spirit and positive outlook on life. "I had a pretty poor start," he told the ABC in November 2009. "But I had a good finish." Australia Military First world war guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Libyan leaders face war crimes arrest Posted: 04 May 2011 10:08 AM PDT Gaddafi regime systematically opened fire on peaceful protests, says International Criminal Court prosecutor The Gaddafi regime committed war crimes against Libyan pro-democracy demonstrations, opening fire "systematically" on peaceful protesters, according to a report issued by the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), who will seek arrest warrants against Muammar Gaddafi and two other senior members of his regime later this month. Addressing the UN security council in New York, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he will ask judges at the court in The Hague for three warrants. He has not named his suspects but in his report to the UN security council on Wednesdayhe said they were the people who gave the orders for the alleged atrocities. The Guardian has learned from well-informed sources that Gaddafi will top the list, and that his brother-in-law and intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi, is also likely to be included. Other names in the frame include the leader's second oldest son Saif al-Islam and Mahmoud Al-Baghdadi, in effect, the nation's prime minister. "It is indeed a characteristic of the situation in Libya that massive crimes are reportedly committed upon instruction of a few persons who control the organisations that execute the orders," Moreno-Ocampo said. He added that the arrests were a manner of urgency. "Justice is on course today; however, if those who order the crimes are not stopped and arrested murder, persecution, systematic arrests, torture, killings, enforced disappearances and attacks against unarmed civilians will continue unabated" the prosecutor said.   In the course of a two-month preliminary investigation, Moreno-Ocampo's investigators found widespread evidence of crimes against humanity. "Concerning the manner and nature of the crimes, the shooting at peaceful protesters was systematic, following the same modus operandi in multiple locations and executed through security forces. The persecution appears to be also systematic and implemented in different cities. War crimes are apparently committed as a matter of policy," the report said. Moreno-Ocampo said thousands of people had died since the beginning of the conflict. As well as the use of live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators, the ICC investigation found evidence of a range of abuses including torture, systematic rape, the use of cluster munitions and other heavy weaponry in urban areas, the use of civilians as human shields and the blocking of humanitarian supplies. "Civilians in Tripoli and other areas are reportedly subject to different forms of persecution because of their suspected association with the uprising," the report stated. "Systematic arrests, torture, killings, deportations, enforced disappearances and destruction of mosques have been reported in Tripoli, Al Zawiyah, Zintan and the area of the Nafousa mountains. The victims are allegedly civilians who participated in demonstrations or talked to international media, activists, journalists, as well as citizens of Egypt and Tunisia that were arrested and expelled en masse because of their perceived association with the popular uprising." The ICC prosecutor's office is also looking into several reports that anti-government crowds attacked and killed "dozens" of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who were suspected of being pro-Gaddafi mercenaries. "A number of Sub-Saharan Africans were allegedly arrested by the new authorities in Benghazi and it is unclear whether they were innocent immigrant workers or prisoners of war," the report said. The report was commissioned by the security council on 26 February when it referred the case to the ICC. The investigation is highly significant politically as Nato went to war in Libya on "humanitarian grounds", on the strength of security souncil resolution 1970 authorising "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. If the court approves the arrest warrants it will help insulate the alliance against international criticism of his prolonged campaign in Libya. Moreno-Ocampo will present his first application for an arrest warrant to the ICC's pre-trial chamber, expected to convene in mid-May. "It will focus on those most responsible for crimes against humanity committed in the territory of Libya since 15 February 2011," he told the security council. If the judges grant his request, the question will be who should carry out the arrests. Moreno-Ocampo will say that if the Libyan government fails to act, the security council itself "should evaluate" how to do it. It is unclear whether Russia or China would veto the authorisation of Nato to carry out the arrests. That would most likely involve sending troops into Tripoli. Libya Luis Moreno-Ocampo International criminal court War crimes Middle East Muammar Gaddafi International criminal justice Julian Borger guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

French official: I made race row tape Posted: 04 May 2011 11:19 AM PDT Mohammed Belkacemi made secret tape of meeting in November 2010 where race quotas were discussed The crisis over French football chiefs' alleged plan to keep non-white players out of the national squad has escalated after a senior official admitted blowing the whistle and secretly recording a meeting about race. French sport has been shaken by claims that football bosses wanted to limit the number of young black players and those of north African origin emerging as candidates for the national team. The secret plan for ethnic quotas allegedly involved limiting non-white youngsters entering the selection process through training centres as early as age 12 or 13. The investigative website Mediapart ran extracts from a transcript of a meeting last year where football bosses wanted to set a cap of 30% on players of certain origins. The site concluded that officials felt there were "too many blacks and Arabs" in French football and not enough whites. The scandal has revealed a deep malaise over race in football and the notion that "Les Bleus", despite the multiracial 1998 World Cup winning team, are not patriotic enough unless they have white skin. Two investigations are under way by the French Football Federation and the government, which expects to announce its findings on Monday. Meanwhile, the national technical director of the federation, Francois Blaquart, has been suspended. Mohammed Belkacemi, a respected official responsible for liaising with young players in suburbs and highrise estates, on Wednesday admitted he was the whistleblower who had recorded the controversial meeting in November 2010 where race quotas were discussed. It is believed he gave the tape to other officials rather than directly to the media. The French national coach Laurent Blanc first flatly denied any discussion about quotas, then apologised for any offence about "certain terms" he used. The recordings show officials were debating French players with dual-nationality who could train in France but leave to play for other teams. Several officials suggested limiting these players. Blanc reportedly talks about black players' morphology. He says of the training centres, which produced French champions such as Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka: "You have the impression that they really train the same prototype of players, big, strong, powerful … What is there that is currently big, strong, powerful? The blacks." He said other criteria should be used to bring in players "with our culture, our history". The scandal comes after the French team's mutiny at the World Cup last summer was privately blamed by some on black or Muslim players, suggesting the team had fragmented because there was not enough "national identity". The French sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, on Wednesday told French radio ethnic quotas would be illegal. She said training centres should teach national players how to "respect their team shirt". Black French sportsmen expressed their disgust at alleged ethnic quotas. Yannick Noah, the French tennis player-turned pop star, said: "I've always thought these things existed, in clubs, leagues and in the federation. Now we need to tell the truth and have a real debate." Lilian Thuram, the former World Cup defender, scorned the notion black players might not be patriotic enough. "I'm black, well dark brown to be precise, and I feel perfectly French. But I didn't know that skin pigmentation was what makes one feel French. Does that mean every white person, even Swedish, feels French?" France France Race issues Europe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Girls 'should be taught how to say no' Posted: 04 May 2011 07:24 AM PDT MPs narrowly pass first reading of Nadine Dorries' bill to start classes in abstinence for girls aged 13 to 16 Teenage girls must be given lessons in how to say no to sex, a Conservative MP has told parliament – and MPs have backed her call. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, Nadine Dorries, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, proposed a bill that would result in classes in abstinence, but only for girls aged 13 to 16. She said society was "saturated in sex" and teenagers should be taught that it was as "cool" to say no to sex as to know how to put a condom on their boyfriend. MPs voted 67 to 61, majority six, in favour of allowing Dorries to bring forward her bill. It will receive its second reading in January, though it is unlikely to become law without government support. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics show teenage pregnancies are at their lowest rate since the early 1980s. The under-18 conception rate for 2009 was 38.3 conceptions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 17. This represents a fall of 5.9% compared with 40.7 conceptions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 17 in 2008. However, Dorries told MPs the sale of porn magazines in newsagents, and high street shops selling padded bikinis for seven-year-old girls showed "how far the sexualisation of young girls has gone in our society". "The answer to ending our constant struggle with the incredibly high rate of teenage sexual activity and underage pregnancies lies in teaching our girls and boys about the option of abstinence, the ability to 'just say no', as part of their compulsory sex education," she said. "Peer pressure is a key contributor to early sexual activity in our country. Society is focused on sex. Teaching a child at the age of seven to apply a condom on a banana is almost saying: 'Now go and try this for yourself'. By the age of 18, some girls have been taught three times how to put a condom on a boy. "Girls are taught to have safe sex, but not how to say no to a boyfriend who insists on sexual relations." She said she had sat in on sex education classes in 17 schools and had spoken to teenage girls, many of whom "do not even think they have the option of saying no to boys", she said. But Chris Bryant, a Labour MP who has led a campaign for primary school pupils to have compulsory sex education lessons, said Dorries' 10-minute rule bill was "the daftest piece of legislation" he had seen. He said: "I am a gay man, so I'm not exactly an expert on heterosexual sex, nor on sex with girls. But ... this is not the way to solve any of those problems – for a start, it's just about girls. You've got to talk to the boys and the girls." He said there was no evidence that teaching abstinence would lead to fewer pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases. "The single most important thing we can do for any young person is give them the self-confidence to be able to make good decisions for themselves," he said. He added that he had never understood why teaching pupils how to put a condom on a banana or a cucumber was "of any use to anybody". The Family Planning Association charity said the bill reinforced sexual stereotypes. A spokeswoman said young men also felt pressurised into having sex. "This bill is not helping them and does nothing to empower young women to take personal responsibility." Dorries has courted controversy as one of England's most outspoken politicians. The former nurse has criticised David Cameron's proposal to create all-women shortlists for prospective MPs. Dorries has also campaigned to reduce the time during a pregnancy when an abortion can take place from 24 to 21 weeks. In 2009, she was involved in a motion, discussed at the Trades Union Congress, to reduce the number of women wearing high heels at work. High heels give women lower limb pains, which mean they take time off work, the motion said. • This article was amended on 4 May 2011. It said that Nadine Dorries had been accused of claiming expenses for furniture and gardening. This has been corrected Conservatives House of Commons Sex education Schools Sexual health Health Young people Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Fatah and Hamas sign accord Posted: 04 May 2011 12:05 PM PDT Mahmoud Abbas says deal turns 'black page of division' after signing deal with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Egypt Rival Palestinian groups have hailed the signing of a reconciliation agreement that could change the parameters of the search for Middle East peace, amid trenchant opposition from Israel. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the head of Fatah, and Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the Islamist movement Hamas, met for the first time in five years at a ceremony in Cairo on Wednesday, where Egypt's transitional government pulled off a striking coup by brokering the deal. Abbas, Yasser Arafat's successor as leader of the PLO, said they had turned forever the "black page of divisions". Meshaal, also seeking to strike a historically resonant note, declared that Hamas's bitter rift with Fatah was "behind us". The potential of the agreement was underlined by the presence of representatives from the UN, the EU and the Arab League – all now digesting the diplomatic implications for the region. "We are certain of success so long as we are united," Abbas said. "Reconciliation clears the way not only to putting the Palestinian house in order but also to a just peace." The deal will make it easier for the Palestinians to go to the UN in September and demand broad international recognition of an independent state – without a negotiated peace agreement with Israel. It provides for the creation of a joint caretaker government before Palestinian-wide elections next year. It does not require Hamas to recognise Israel. But sensitivities and difficulties ahead were underlined by an argument over protocol –whether Meshaal should sit on the podium with Abbas or among other delegates in the hall. The agreement was hailed in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and refugee camps in Lebanon. But the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, savaged the accord as "a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism". Israel, which signed the 1993 Oslo agreement with the PLO, shuns Hamas, viewing it as a terrorist group committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. The former Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, did not help the movement's image when he praised Osama Bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior". "How can we make peace with a government when half of it calls for the destruction of Israel and glorifies the murderous Osama bin Laden?" Netanyahu said during a visit to London. Netanyahu has been lobbying for the EU and the US to cut aid to the PA if Hamas joins a new government. Meshaal, once the target of an assassination attempt by the Mossad, and now based in Damascus, Syria, spelled out Hamas's goal: "Our aim is to establish a free and completely sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any settlers and without giving up a single inch of land and without giving up on the right of return [of Palestinian refugees]." The reconciliation brought recognisable signs of change to the streets of Gaza City hours before the signing of the pact. Palestine TV, the channel associated with Fatah and its de facto capital, Ramallah, was allowed to broadcast live from Gaza for the first time in four years. The event they televised, a demonstration in favour of the reconciliation agreement, began with a few dozen people chanting in the Square of the Unknown Soldier, and developed into a raucous party of thousands waving the yellow flags of Fatah which had been long hidden. Last week, when news of the agreement became public, activists headed to the same square to demonstrate their pleasure at the prospect of an end to division. Within minutes, they were cleared by Hamas policemen wielding batons. On Wednesday, the same policeman made no attempt to clear the crowds even when the green flags of Hamas supporters were lost in a sea of yellow Fatah flags. Rashid Mawad, a student, was waving a Fatah flag with one hand, his other still in a plaster cast following his beating at last week's demonstration, his face still bruised. "I wasn't optimistic last week but I feel different now," he said. "I don't know why, perhaps it's because of the events in Syria," he said. Mowayad Aish, an engineering student, was waving a Hamas flag a few metres away. "This is the first step towards ending the occupation of Palestine. It is true there have been difficulties in the past and there will be obstacles in the future but we must remember it is for the people that we want to end the division." Hamas Palestinian territories Fatah Mahmoud Abbas Egypt Middle East Ian Black Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

US hiker will not go to Iran for trial Posted: 04 May 2011 11:58 AM PDT Sarah Shourd says she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and going back to Iran would be too traumatic An American woman released from prison in Iran has said she will not return there to stand trial alongside two fellow hikers charged with spying for the US. Sarah Shourd said she has post-traumatic stress disorder and going back to Iran would be "far too traumatic after what I've already been through". The three Americans deny illegally entering the country and espionage, a charge that can carry the death penalty. They said they were on an innocent hiking trip during a vacation in Kurdistan, in the north of Iraq, when they were arrested by Iranian soldiers on 31 July 2009. Shourd was freed on bail in September 2010 on health grounds, and returned to the United States. Her fiance, Shanee Bauer, and friend Josh Fattal, both still imprisoned in Tehran, are due to start a second session of their trial on 11 May. Bauer and Fattal pleaded innocent at a first trial and Shourd denied the charges in absentia. They say they did not realise they had crossed into Iran. Shourd said they had visited the tourist village of Ahmed Awa and then hiked along a trail that local people had recommended. "When Shane and Josh and I met the Iranian soldiers, we were completely shocked. There was absolutely no indication of a border." Shourd said she was diagnosed with the stress disorder by a clinical forensic psychologist and the five-page evaluation had been sent to the Iranian revolutionary court. She had not had a response to her refusal to go back for trial on the grounds that she risked "renewed or even worse psychological problems" if she returns. "My own mental health makes me even more afraid for what is happening with Shane and Josh," Shourd said. "I was there for 14 months and Shane and Josh have now been there for over 21 months. I can't imagine the toll it's taken on them." Shourd, 32, had been living with Bauer, a freelance journalist, in Damascus where she taught English. Fattal, an environmentalist, then joined them in Damascus for a holiday. Bauer and Shourd became engaged after they were arrested. Iran Middle East United States US foreign policy David Batty guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Manning's jail conditions improve Posted: 04 May 2011 10:05 AM PDT Switch of WikiLeaks whistleblower suspect from maximum security jail means more rights and liberties in runup to trial The conditions under which the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning is being detained in military prison have vastly improved in the wake of a sustained campaign against his earlier treatment, which some said amounted to torture. Since Manning was transferred from the Quantico marine base in Virginia to Fort Leavenworth on 20 April his detention regime has changed dramatically. He has been switched from maximum security to medium custody, which affords him many more rights and liberties, and he is no longer being held under a prevention of injury watch that imposed harsh conditions. The new regime has been revealed in a blog post from Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, who is handling the US soldier's forthcoming court martial. The prisoner, who worked as an army intelligence specialist in Iraq, has been charged with multiple counts relating to the leaking of a huge trove of state secrets to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. Under the old prevention order, Manning was forced to strip naked and wear just a smock at night, he had no bedding and was not permitted any personal items in his cell. He was kept locked up in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in a windowless cell, and allowed only to walk in a yard on his own for that final hour. In Fort Leavenworth, by contrast, he has a large window that lets in natural light. He has a normal mattress and bedding and his clothes are not removed at night. Manning can have personal objects in his cell, including books and letters from family and friends, as well as legal documents relating to his case. He can write whenever he wants. His new life of detention is also considerably less lonely. There are five other pretrial prisoners and Manning spends much of the day in their company. His cell is connected to a common area used by four of the detainees with a television and exercise machine, table and shower area. The improvement in Manning's prison life is testament to the power of a sustained campaign by his supporters and politicians to end what was deemed virtual torture against him. The Pentagon had been flooded with emails and lobbied by representatives such as Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic congressman from Ohio who took up Manning's cause. The UK embassy in Washington has also been involved after the Guardian revealed that Manning is a British citizen by dint of his mother being Welsh. Kucinich said the lawyer's account of Manning's new conditions revealed a dramatic change "that can only be attributed to the public campaign that brought great pressure on the department of defence". But Manning's more relaxed treatment also raises serious questions about why he was treated so brutally for the nine months in which he was held at Quantico. When Barack Obama was asked about the case in March, he said he had been assured by the Pentagon that Manning's treatment was appropriate. Kucinich said he would continue to press through Congress for answers to a number of questions: "Why was Manning treated the way he was in Quantico that was similar to torture? Who was responsible for that treatment, and what's going to be done to ensure those individuals are held to account?" Bradley Manning WikiLeaks Human rights United States US national security Protest US military Torture Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Gbagbo's militia fight on in Abidjan Posted: 04 May 2011 08:11 AM PDT Liberian mercenaries in Abidjan still resisting three weeks after Alassane Ouattara deposed beaten president Dozens of people have died in Ivory Coast's commercial capital as the remnants of a militia loyal to Laurent Gbagbo fight on – three weeks after he was deposed. The stubborn resistance in Abidjan is said to come from mainly Liberian mercenaries hired by Gbagbo as a last throw of the dice after he suffered election defeat and his army crumbled. Persistent clashes underline the fragility of post-war security after the power struggle between Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara, who succeeded him as president. Franck Kodjo, a Red Cross official, told Reuters: "We have seen many dead. We recovered 40 bodies over two hours, but we were forced to stop because we had no room left in our van." Gbagbo's refusal to cede power to the democratically-elected Ouattara triggered a renewed civil war which is believed to have killed more than 3,000 people and displaced more than a million. Gbagbo was arrested on 11 April by forces loyal to Ouattara, with assistance from the French military. A commander for the Ivorian army, the FRCI, said the remaining pro-Gbagbo fighters in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Yopougon were mostly Liberians who had crossed the border as guns for hire in the aftermath of the election dispute. Efforts to disarm them have so far failed. "We are in the process of securing the town but there are heavy weapons," the commander told Reuters. "We're not the ones firing them, it is those we oppose, the Liberians." Other parts of Ivory Coast's main city are reviving after the conflict, with banks reopening and traffic slowly returning to normal. Ivory Coast's main industry, the cocoa sector, is poised to resume exports of nearly half a million tonnes of beans, exporters said. Ouattara's government is investigating Gbagbo and his inner circle for alleged human rights abuses during the conflict. He has pledged to set up a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission and has already filled the key post of chairman. Gbagbo is under house arrest in a presidential villa in the northern town of Korhogo, guarded by UN peacekeepers and former rebel forces who supported Ouattara. The former president called for his supporters to allow the country to restart its economy in peace. Gbagbo met a team of mediators including former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu. After the meeting, Tutu said: "We were very thrilled that the former president looked forward to the country returning to normalcy. "This is what we are urging all parties – that the country should become the country it was – peaceful, with security for everyone." Annan said he encouraged Gbagbo to address the Ivorian people "sooner rather than later" to call for reconciliation. Gbagbo had not given any sign that he disputed Ouattara's presidency, he added. Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara David Smith guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Kremlin poodle slur trial delayed Posted: 04 May 2011 01:31 PM PDT Guitarist takes music reviewer to court over slur but opposition claims case is latest spat between Kremlin and free-speaking cultural elite Heard the one about the poodle, the goth and the Kremlin ideologue? It sounds like a bad joke, but that is the riddle in Moscow as Russia's most famous music critic, Artemy Troitsky, 55, prepares to go on trial for allegedly insulting an equally celebrated rock star. Criminal proceedings are being brought by Vadim Samoylov, the lank-haired former singer and guitarist of Agata Kristi (Agatha Christie), Russia's answer to the Sisters of Mercy. The 46-year-old claims he was slandered when Troitsky, who became a legend during the Soviet era, called him a "trained poodle for Surkov" in a TV documentary broadcast in January about musicians who collaborate with people in power. Vladislav Surkov is the first deputy chief of staff to president, and Deep Purple fan, Dmitry Medvedev, and is often called the grey cardinal of Russian politics. He wrote songs for a gloomy 2004 album called Peninsulas performed by Samoylov. A first hearing in the case was due to start on Wednesday but was postponed because Troitsky was ill. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted of publicly insulting Samoylov. In a separate civil suit the musician has demanded 1m roubles (£22,000) in compensation. The prosecution is being seen as much more than just a case of studded leather handbags. Over the last year there have been a series of clashes pitting Russia's ruling elite against opposition-leaning musicians and other cultural figures. The sharpest was when Yury Shevchuk of veteran rock band DDT upbraided Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, during a televised meeting, questioning whether Putin wanted "real liberalisation and democratisation for a real country, where public organisations are not suffocated and where people don't feel scared of a policeman on the street". Earlier this year the vivacious former ballerina with the Bolshoi theatre, Anastasiya Volochkova, resigned from Putin's United Russia party with an expletive ridden tirade, saying she had been "used" and tricked into criticising the jailed oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovksy. Troitsky is already being prosecuted in a separate criminal slander case after calling a policeman "one of the foulest cops in Russia". The officer was involved in investigating a controversial car crash when two women were killed by an oil executive's car. Troitsky lost a civil case connected to the incident last month.Speaking in a phone interview, Troitsky said he believed the "poodle prosecution" was "not Samoylov's initiative", adding: "These court cases are a staged and programmed campaign against me. It's an attempt to teach me a lesson, to tame me, to get me to shut my mouth and to show how public figures in modern Russia should behave." Troitsky said the fact he had arranged for Yuri Shevchuk, frontman of the rock band DDT and a critic of Vladimir Putin, to appear on stage with Bono when U2 came to Russia last year was one reason he had upset the authorities. A spokesman for Samoylov refused to comment on the case. Russia's government has made several attempts to co-opt popular musicians for political gain in recent years. One of the first was Surkov's meeting with prominent bands in 2005. That rendezvous came shortly after the orange revolution in Ukraine, when Ukrainian rockers such as Okean Elzy whipped up the crowds. "The Kremin became very nervous that our musicians might start trying on orange clothes themselves," said Troitsky. He added: "Now, in the last year, our society has started showing signs of life and protest. The authorities want to get the loyalty of well-known artists in case of political turbulence ahead." In another sign of tension between politicians and Russia's cultural intelligentsia last week, a popular poet did not attend a meeting to which Putin invited artists and performers. Dmitry Bykov, who is known for caustic pastiches of classical Russian poetry, instead published a series of verses in which he mockingly compared the prime minister to a "tsar" with a "tough style and a voice of metal". Bykov refused to comment when contacted by the Guardian, but gave a hint of his contempt for Putin's gathering. "I write so many books and all you want to ask me about whether or not I went to meet some third-rate politician," he said. Russia Europe Human rights Protest Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sony implicates Anonymous in security breach Posted: 04 May 2011 04:34 PM PDT The company has written a letter to Congress saying the data theft came as it was defending itself against cyber-attacks Investigators found a file implicating the "hacktivist" group Anonymous in the security breach that led to the theft of the personal details of more than 100 million online gamers, electronics company Sony has told the US Congress. In a letter to Congress, Sony said the data theft came at the same time it was defending itself against a cyber-attack from members of Anonymous. Forensic experts found a file on one of the hacked systems, titled Anonymous, which contained a phrase – "We are legion" – that is sometimes used by the hackers' collective, said Sony chairman Kazuo Hirai in the letter to members of the House of Representatives. "What is becoming more and more evident is that Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber-attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes," he told the House commerce committee, who have launched an inquiry into the matter. Hirai, chairman of the board of directors of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said Anonymous began denial-of-service attacks, which take servers down by overwhelming them with internet traffic, after the company took action against a hacker in a federal court in San Francisco. "Just weeks before, several Sony companies had been the target of a large-scale, coordinated denial-of-service attack by the group called Anonymous," said Hirai. "The attacks were coordinated against Sony as a protest against Sony for exercising its rights in a civil action in the United States district court in San Francisco against a hacker." But he said the mass data theft was launched separately and Sony was not sure whether the two cyber-attacks were co-ordinated. The company also admitted that it discovered a breach in its PlayStation video game network on 20 April but did not report the matter to US authorities for two days and only informed consumers on 26 April. "Throughout the process, Sony Network Entertainment America was very concerned that announcing partial or tentative information to consumers could cause confusion and lead them to take unnecessary actions if the information was not fully corroborated by forensic evidence," Hirai wrote. On Tuesday the company admitted the names, email addresses and phone numbers of 25 million Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) customers were stolen in the attack, which also hit 77 million PlayStation Network gamers. Debit card records of 10,700 customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain were compromised in the attack. "The Sony matter is under active investigation. It involves personnel from the FBI and the justice department who are looking into the matter," US attorney general Eric Holder said. "It is something we are taking extremely seriously." Anonymous was born out of the influential internet messageboard 4chan, a forum popular with hackers and gamers, in 2003. The group's name is a tribute to 4chan's early days, when any posting to its forums where no name was given was ascribed to Anonymous. It came to public prominence in December after members briefly brought down MasterCard, Visa and PayPal after those companies cut off financial services to WikiLeaks. PlayStation Games Sony US Congress United States US politics David Batty guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Brian May's quest to save the badger Posted: 04 May 2011 12:30 PM PDT Queen guitarist Brian May is championing the rights of Britain's animals, from foxes to rats. Now he talks about his latest battle – on behalf of badgers The shrubbery rustles and shakes, then Brian May falls out of the rhododendrons, dusts himself down and stumbles towards five fox cubs at play in a clearing. In the landscaped gardens of his historic home in the Surrey hills, the Queen guitarist looks every inch the semi-retired rock star: huge curly hair on gangly frame, black trousers, immaculate white Pumas and a dangerously unbuttoned white shirt. May has a plethora of projects to promote – every Queen album is being digitally remastered to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary this year; next month he will tour the country with Kerry Ellis, who starred in his musical We Will Rock You, and with whom he has written a new album; he has just played guitar on a new Lady Gaga track; and a documentary he has made about the history of 3D will be broadcast on Sky. But instead, the 63-year-old musician and astrophysicist is crooning softly to the fox cub he has clutched to his chest. In the state-of-the-art animal rescue centre May has built in his garden, the guitarist behind Britain's biggest-selling album (Queen's Greatest Hits) is currently nursing back to health 140 hedgehogs and half-a-dozen abandoned fox cubs. He is also fast becoming the public face of the campaign to stop a cull of badgers proposed by the authorities to answer the concerns of farmers who are convinced the animals are infecting cattle with bovine TB. Multimillionaire rock legends often dabble in fast cars, metal detecting or saving rainforests. Is May worried his anti-cull campaign will be dismissed as just another rock star hobby? "Hobby, hmmm," he murmurs, treating the word with a quiet disgust. "There aren't many people from rock music or entertainment who put the time in that I have . . . this has become a huge part of my life. I don't care what people say. I'm not doing it to make money. I'm not doing it because I want to be famous. Even if it was a 'hobby', why would I have that hobby? It could only be because I care about animals. This concerns us all. It's not just something that concerns farmers." May, who simultaneously channels the ethereal otherworldliness of a long-term resident of planet rock with the precision of a professional scientist, came to this passion through blogging. He began his "soapbox" before blogging was fashionable and although gentle and softly-spoken in person, he lets off steam online: his rants on subjects such as a review of Mika's album by the Guardian's Alexis Petridis have led him to be dubbed the world's grumpiest rock star. His intention, he says, is to discuss important issues "so if you want to call it being grumpy, yeah, but it's being concerned and trying to raise awareness of things which need to be fixed". There are "joyful" posts about music, astronomy and 3D on the soapbox, but May is most profoundly anguished about cruelty towards animals. The blog "changed my life completely because it's a two-way communication", he says. "I started talking about animals with people on the soapbox." May has never been an ordinary rock star. Helped by his father, he built his own guitar, Red Special, as a child. He abandoned his PhD on zodiacal light for fame with Queen but returned four years ago and completed it. He is a great friend of astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, with whom he has written Bang!, an accessible history of the universe. His love of animals has been less well documented but "it's always been there", says May a little defensively, highlighting his Queen song White Man as an example. He promised himself "if there was ever an opportunity in my life to make a difference for animals I would take it". That opportunity came when someone contacted him online about a proposed cull of hedgehogs on the Scottish island of Uist. May was "aghast" and successfully fought to have the hedgehogs transported to the mainland instead. "When David Cameron started saying that if he got into power he would try to repeal the hunting act, my ears really pricked up and I thought if I can make a difference with hedgehogs maybe I can alert people to the possibility of going back into what I regard as something very barbaric," he says. May, who is married to the actor Anita Dobson, and has three children from his first marriage, and three grandchildren, has set up a charity, Save Me, which rehabilitates injured wild animals, and is campaigning against the badger cull and any repeal of the hunting ban. Dobson is supportive but does not get involved. "Everybody has to work on their own passions," says May very quietly. "So many people have said to me, foxes are just like rats, who gives a shit? And then you say, so a rat isn't worthy of some consideration? Rats are so like human beings, it's frightening. And it's human beings who are relegating them to 'vermin'. It gives people the feeling that they don't have to treat animals with any kind of consideration, and to me that's wrong." May, who has long been an "imperfect vegetarian" but does not now eat meat or fish, "certainly wouldn't" engage in direct action, such as releasing animals from scientific laboratories or mink from farms but thinks that animal rights has become a dirty word because its image has been "deliberately manipulated" by opponents who incorrectly characterise hunt saboteurs as violent. Hunting and killing animals for pleasure "boggles my mind", he says. "I don't understand why people are like that. I wrestle with that the whole time. It's a sickness. I don't think a healthy human being needs to be killing or causing pain to be happy. Why should that be? A decent life and a decent death – that's what I ask for myself, and that's what I would ask of any creature." Ultimately, he believes animals have rights – both moral and legal – and wants to challenge "the mentality that says human beings are the only creatures on this planet who matter". May happily plays with the fox cub he has named Caroline Spelman, after the environment secretary, but does not want to be caricatured as sentimental about animals. "I don't really love badgers because they are furry and good-looking. It's not about that. They are appealing, there's no doubt, they are like little bears, especially when they are young. To me they are fascinating and rather mysterious because they have been in the British Isles longer than humans and they have their own social ways, not all of which is understood by us. "I can't help but have a sort of awe for all wild creatures who have survived even the awfulness of what we have done to the world. We are the vandals in this world, there's no doubt about it." Despite being the first wild animal to be given legal protection in Britain, in 1973, the illegal "sport" of badger baiting and digging still goes on, and this year killing badgers is set to be sanctioned by the government – which wants to authorise farmers to trap and shoot them to reduce bovine TB. May is convinced this is the Conservatives' political sop to the countryside lobby because, locked in coalition, they lack the numbers to repeal Labour's hunting ban. "It's a panacea that is being offered to farmers, look we are doing something, we are on your side, we're going out and killing things," he says. Bovine TB led to the slaughter of 24,899 cattle in England last year, costing £63m. Farmers insist the disease is a genuine crisis, and argue it has increased with a burgeoning badger population and that disease hotspots correspond to high badger populations, particularly in the West Country. May insists that it is still unproven that badgers pass TB to cattle (it is proven that cattle transmit it to badgers) and unproven that a cull would help. He quotes the conclusion of a 10-year culling trial in which 11,000 badgers were killed: culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the control of TB. After travelling to Cardiff to unsuccessfully plead with the Welsh assembly to reverse its own separate decision to cull badgers in Pembrokeshire, May admits he "got into a lot of trouble" for suggesting farmers should abandon cattle farming in bovine TB hotspots. "People called it a ridiculous idea but it came from a conversation I had with a farmer who had already switched from cows to sheep." You would not knowingly bring up children in an area where there was radiation pollution, he says. "There was a nasty little piece" in the farming press that said telling farmers they should not farm cattle is "like telling Brian May he can't play guitar and they said some people would welcome that. Ha ha, lovely. But there was a time when Queen was very uncool in Britain and what we did was play elsewhere. I actually took my family and my little boy went to school in LA partly because of that, so it's not such a ridiculous suggestion." "People talk about a science-based cull. I'm afraid to say people don't know what science is," he sighs. He believes bovine TB can be solved with vaccination – of badgers and cows. But the vaccination of cows is tricky: EU legislation forbids the export of vaccinated cows because it is difficult to distinguish between a vaccinated cow and one carrying bovine TB. In contrast, the vaccination of badgers is "eminently doable", argues May. "All the research has been done. This business of 'it's not proven' is really rubbish." A badger vaccine is currently being trialled in Gloucestershire although the coalition cancelled five other trials put in place by Labour's "exemplary" environment secretary Hilary Benn. The National Trust recently announced plans to vaccinate badgers on its land in Devon. May once said he stopped voting Conservative because of the party's attitude towards wild animals. Now he says he is "very close" to the group Conservatives Against Fox Hunting, "who have the courage to stand up against the party line" but relates to the Green party more than any other. Did he vote Green at the last election? "You can't ask me how I voted! It's a secret vote. The truth is, I'm really not political. I just care about the animals. That's my party. I'm a party that cares about changing attitudes to animals." May has all the accoutrements of a multi-millionaire rock star – assistants running around, a stable full of gold discs and, incongruously, huge pink stems of rhubarb freshly picked from his organic garden – but says he scarcely gets time to enjoy the good things in his life. He has suffered depression, particularly after the death of his father and Freddie Mercury, and seems prone to pessimism, even bemoaning his follicular majesty when he has his photograph taken with his foxes. "It's disappearing now," he murmurs despondently, mussing his luxuriant curls. "The hair has seen better days." Long nights awake debating with badger lovers and haters on the web can get "depressing", he admits, especially when he is confronted with videos of animal cruelty. "It's a thing you have to fight, being depressed about it. It's very uncomfortable to see into the minds of people who are so full of violence. I find it very upsetting. It's changed my life.Some mornings, I find it hard to deal with." He pauses. "I get over it," he shrugs and laughs at himself for the first time. Badgers Wildlife Animal welfare Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Apple updates to prevent tracking Posted: 04 May 2011 05:53 PM PDT Update for iPhone and iPad cuts amount of cached data that is stored to just a week Apple has released a software update for its iPhone and iPad which prevents it keeping a detailed record of the owner's movements, and does not synchronise the details to the owner's computer. The company had been criticised for the fact - discovered by two British researchers and revealed by the Guardian on 20 April - that the devices could effectively be used to trace where users had been, and that the file stored on the phone or tablet could be accessed by anyone who got hold of their computer. The data had been stored for up to a year. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, responded to a concerned user on 25 April that "we don't track anyone". It also emerged that Android phones keep a similar cache of data, though only if the user gives permission. Apple users give similar permission, though it is buried in the 15,000-word agreement to use the iTunes store. Apple said in a statement on 27 April that the file was in fact a record of mobile cell towers and Wi-Fi networks that the phone had "seen" in order to help it calculate its location more rapidly and accurately than if it were using the GPS satellite location system. Some of the towers, it said, could be up to a hundred miles away from the iPhone or iPad that recorded them. The update cuts the amount of cached data that is stored to just a week, and does not synchronise it to the owner's computer if the phone or tablet is connected to it. That means that if someone gets at the computer they will find no details. In addition, the cached data is wiped if the user disables the location services setting on the iPhone or iPad. The data is not encrypted on the device, which means that it could be collected by law enforcement or thieves. But Apple says it will encrypt the data in another forthcoming update to the software that runs the devices. On 27 April, Apple said "users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues [of data storage for determining location] to date." The update applies to the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, and the 3rd and 4th iterations of the iPod Touch. However the iPhone 3G will not receive the update. Apple has not said what will happen for those users. Apple Computing Data protection iPhone iPad Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

News Corp reports slump in profits Posted: 04 May 2011 05:25 PM PDT Rupert Murdoch's company reports 24% drop in third quarter profits, though Fox News had highest ever operating profit Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is prepared to walk away from its controversial bid for BSkyB if the price keeps rising, its chief operating officer said. News Corp has bid 770p a share for BSkyB but the broadcaster's shares are now 849p. Chase Carey, chief operating officer, told analysts that BSkyB's share price was "clearly troubling" and was "unrealistic" given the challenges he sees ahead for the broadcaster as Murdoch's company posted its quarterly results. Carey's comments came as News Corp, owner of Twentieth Century Fox and the Times newspaper, reported a 24% slump in its third quarter profits as the success of Avatar proved tough to match. News Corp reported a fall in net income to $639m (£387m), or 24 cents a share, from $839m, or 32 cents, a year earlier. Fox News reported its highest ever operating profit, but filmed-entertainment sales slid 36% to $1.55bn as the quarter's movies didn't measure up to Avatar, the biggest box-office movie of all time. Film earnings fell by half to $248m. In a statement, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said the third quarter figures had faced "challenging comparisons" thanks to the enormous success of Avatar a year ago. "Looking beyond our film business, I am delighted with the continued and significant operational momentum of our channels businesses," he said. Murdoch said he was particularly pleased with News Corp's results in television, a segment that "viewed by the market just one year ago as a challenged business, more than quadrupled its earnings contributions over the prior year quarter on the strength of the national advertising market, increased retransmission consent revenues, and the popularity of our programming." Television revenues rose 23% thanks to a strengthening ad market and revenues for Super Bowl XLV and lower costs. Revenue declines for News Corp's UK and Australian newspapers and the costs of launching iPad newspaper The Daily helped drag down publishing returns that reported an operating income of $36m, a $207m decrease compared with the $243m reported a year ago. Most of that decline, $125m, was due to the litigation costs at News' Integrated Marketing Services. The slump in figures comes as News Corp fights off problems in its UK newspaper and satellite TV businesses. The company's attempts to take full control of BSkyB have been hampered by scandal as well as demands for a higher price from shareholders. Last month News Corp issued an "unreserved apology" to eight victims of the phone hacking scandal that has dogged the firm's UK newspaper division. "Past behaviour at the News of the World in relation to voicemail interception is a matter of genuine regret," the company said in a statement. "It is now apparent that our previous inquiries failed to uncover important evidence and we acknowledge our actions then were not sufficiently robust." Before the statement News had maintained the scandal was the work of a rogue reporter. But the position became untenable as Scotland Yard's investigation gathered pace. The News of the World's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck and Ian Edmondson, who was sacked as associate editor (news) in January, have both been quizzed by the Yard. Lord Prescott, former deputy prime minister and a hacking victim, is suing the Metropolitan police over their initial handling of the phone tap inquiry. Prescott and Labour MP Tom Watson have used parliamentary privilege to claim the new inquiry has now spread to The Sunday Times and The Sun. Prescott has said Murdoch's takeover of BSkyB should be delayed until the phone-hacking inquiry is over. News Corporation Media business BSkyB BSkyB United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Pappy's fight for the sketch show Posted: 04 May 2011 02:00 PM PDT These men are aiming to resurrect the sketch show – with a time-travelling dinosaur and a wise old owl At a time when comedy is booming and rookie standups are getting TV breaks faster than you can say Jack Whitehall, you would expect a well-loved live act with a Chortle award on their CV to have knotched up some high-profile TV appearances by now. But the sketch troupe Pappy's most recent telly appearance was on, er, Dick and Dom's Funny Business. Now, I have no beef with Dick and Dom, purveyors of garish merriment to the nation's children, but Live at the Apollo they ain't. "It's interesting, isn't it?" says Matthew Crosby, one-third of Pappy's. "The only place to see a reflection of the live sketch-comedy circuit at the moment is through a show that's on at 10 in the morning." This marginalising of sketch comedy is an overlooked consequence of TV's standup boom. For years, the sketch ruled the small screen – from Monty Python to The Two Ronnies, from Not the Nine O'Clock News to The Fast Show. But now, Mock the Week and Michael McIntyre's Roadshow are populated by the solo talents, while sketch troupes like Pappy's are left in Dick and Dom's care. Pappy's, formerly Pappy's Fun Club, are much more than a sketch troupe, though. The trio (Crosby's cohorts are Tom Parry and Ben Clark) are just about as live as comedy gets. Their act is a knockabout, in-the-moment "happening" (Parry's word) that incorporates theatre, clowning, variety and song. A typical show will establish an over-arching objective: their bid to beat the world sketch-performing record, say, or their (fictional) proprietor Pappy's demand for improved energy efficiency. Far from being "hit and miss" (the criticism always applied to sketch comedy), the skits and loopy subplots are then staged with one winking eye on the story of Crosby, Parry and Clark's bid to achieve their goal. "We wanted to do sketch comedy without a fourth wall that would work in standup clubs," says Crosby. This is part of a growing trend, with sketch acts such as Delete the Banjax and Lady Garden now appearing on mixed standup bills. "Our shows aren't about writing great characters," adds Parry. "They're always the story of us as well: how our relationship changes over the course of an hour." This allows Pappy's to address the audience directly: there's never any pretence that they're anywhere but right here, right now. But their act resembles theatre, too. Sketches and characters recur and form their own stories, dopey escapist tales perhaps, like those you'd find in a six-year-old's storybook. And Pappy's don't just want to make us laugh, they want to make us feel. One show starred a dinosaur, played by Clark, marooned in the 21st century. "By the end," says Parry with delight, "you felt genuine emotion from the crowd. They really wanted this dinosaur to time-travel home." Parry and Clark used to run a theatre company in Wolverhampton, where they honed a taste for DIY drama: aeroplanes constructed out of planks, Shakespearean battles fought with bin lids and brushes. "It was about simplicity and honesty," says Parry. It still is, if Parry's portrayal of the internet in the 2008 show Funergy is anything to go by. Near-naked, wrapped in clingfilm, with a keyboard dangling from his waist, he played the part of the world wide web embroiled in a face-off with a wise old owl over where was the best place to go to for answers. The owl won. The anarchic, cobbled-together aesthetic is part of Pappy's charm, but it poses a problem to TV commissioners. "A man on an upturned bin claiming to be on top of a hill works in a theatre," says Parry. "On telly, it looks like someone has skimped on the budget." Budgets are in fact one of the big obstacles to a sketch-comedy renaissance on TV. When standup is so cheap and so popular, why spend more on sketch shows? "There's a spread-bet aspect to standups on TV," says Crosby, the thinking being that if you don't like one act, you may like the next. "But if it's a sketch show," says Clark, "audiences will go, 'I'm not watching any more episodes of this.'" Crosby believes the fact that the best sketch show gong at this year's British Comedy awards went to a children's programme, Horrible Histories, is symptomatic of the problem. "Surely TV producers must be saying to themselves, 'Where is the next wave of great sketch shows?'" Pappy's are currently on their first national tour. After that, a move to radio or TV is their priority, not as an end in itself, but to grow the audience for their live work. "If you rush to get yourself on television for the sake of it," Parry says, "you're not going to be successful. The more time you put into it, the better you'll be when your chance comes." Comedy Brian Logan guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Up close and impersonal Posted: 04 May 2011 01:30 PM PDT He taught the YBAs but abhors the idea of art as self-expression. Michael Craig-Martin talks to Stuart Jeffries about bucket design, his new show – and being jealous of Damien Hirst One evening, Michael Craig-Martin was driving along, listening to an absorbing discussion of contemporary art on Radio 4. "The guy who was talking was making some excellent points, but there were a few things I disagreed with. It only occurred to me after a long, long time that the voice on the radio was mine. I had to pull over because my heart was pounding." What kind of person, you'll be asking, doesn't recognise their own voice? The kind of person who was born in Dublin, did toddler time in London, but spent most of his formative years in Washington DC, where he acquired a US twang. This still endures despite the fact he returned here in 1966 and became so synonymous with revolutionising the art scene that he's known as the godfather of the Young British Artists. "The weird thing is I don't even think I have an American accent." It's a great story and almost a metaphor for Craig-Martin's vision of art. When he started drawing as a teenager in Washington, what struck him was how an image took on a life of its own, distant from the idea its creator had in their head – just as Craig-Martin's radio voice became an alien phenomenon coming at him over the airwaves. "People call me a conceptual artist, as if the idea was all, but actually what interests me is what happens when the idea becomes a thing. Ideas are by their nature generalisations, something that can be applied to lots of things. But making art is about making particulars, and that particular something can be the generator of a generalisation." Why do you care about this stuff? "When I was 12, I thought I had stumbled on a gold mine, but nobody around me seemed to care about it." What little Michael had stumbled across, looking at reproductions of modern art, was a new vision introduced by Marcel Duchamp (who put a urinal in a gallery) and elaborated on by later artists. "Radical art – and I've always thought of myself as radical – is always at the frontiers, always speculative, always too radical to be really understood initially. It changes your frame of reference. That's what Duchamp did." It's also what Craig-Martin's most celebrated work of art did and does. An Oak Tree, from 1973, consists of a glass of water on a shelf in an otherwise empty gallery. "I was trying to work out what was the essence of a work of art. I thought it had to do with suspension of disbelief. You get it in theatre – why not in art?" When An Oak Tree was bought by the National Gallery of Australia in 1977, customs officials initially (and wonderfully) barred it from entry because it was "vegetation". A rare example of life imitating conceptual art. But, I suggest, there is another vision of art. Not one that is speculative, but one that is reassuring. Isn't it reassuring to capture the human spirit on paper, to make works that are beautiful? "None of that interested me. As I came across modern art, I knew the only thing to be was an artist. To do that, the only thing to do was drawing. So I took life-drawing classes. It was mostly middle-aged women and me." What did you get from them? "Irritation. The presumption that life drawing underlies everything in art is fundamentally conservative." A man with no style A retrospective of Craig-Martin's drawings opens today at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London. Visitors expecting something akin to Watteau's immensely touching drawings – which are on display nearby at the Royal Academy, and show an artist seizing in chalk the essence of his human subjects while also expressing his own personality – will be confounded. There's scarcely a human in Craig-Martin's show, and every image is intended to obliterate rather than express the artist's personality. "I've always wanted to make drawings that were absolutely style-less," says Craig-Martin. After graduating with an MA in fine art from Yale, Craig-Martin began to draw mass-produced objects: sandals, sardine cans, milk bottles. "I thought the objects we value least because they were ubiquitous were actually the most extraordinary." He gave up pencils and used crepe masking tape to produce ostensibly style-less drawings of them. Why? "I wanted to remove my hand from the process of drawing. I drew them without personal inflection." But isn't art about expression? "That's not what interested me. I was interested in how form followed function. Take a bucket: it can't be twice the size it is because if you filled it up, it would be too heavy to carry. The handle is in a certain place because if it was bigger, the side would hit your leg." Increasingly, though, the form of manufactured objects does not follow their function. "Think of a mobile phone. You used to have a receiver with a defined earpiece and mouthpiece. Now you just have a box. Today everything looks like everything else. A phone looks like a computer looks like a camera." There's a risk, then, that this retrospective will look like a graveyard of once-ubiquitous objects. "True. You think objects are for ever, but mass-produced objects only came in with the industrial revolution and maybe won't exist for much longer. The irony is that much of what I set out to draw, everyday objects, are curios. Milk bottles, who uses them? So the images become something other than I intended." What was the intention? "I wanted people to realise how extraordinary everyday objects are, and think about what image-making is. The impulse was never nostalgia, kitsch or a critique of consumerism." There is a deeper irony. In his very effort to be style-less, Craig-Martin created a style, and a style that made him bankable. Those drawings and paintings where everyday objects outlined in black tape float out of bright red, yellow or blue backgrounds? Craig-Martin. A glass of water on a shelf? Craig-Martin. "Style is something you impute to a body of work. It looks like a linear trail, but while I was doing it all it was haphazard." The anti-art era Another irony is that his austere, quasi-philosophical art investigations are delightful in themselves, as if his images have indeed taken on a life of their own. One drawing in the new show is called Manhattan: in it, filing cabinet, ice-cube tray, a torch and other everyday objects assemble like a cityscape; another, Tropical Waters, has gun, lightbulb, can opener and other objects swirling like fish. Craig-Martin never thought his kind of art would be popular. He casts his mind back to 1972, when the Hayward put on a show of British conceptualism called The New Art. "At the time, the people who cared about this stuff were just me and some artist friends. Art objects were deemed crazy and unintelligible, with people dismissing them because of what they read, not what they saw. There was practically no interest in art. Any press attention was vilification. I thought it would always be like this. But now people look to art rather than to theatre as a cultural model – an extraordinary change." Isn't he responsible for that change? That, at least, is the story: in the 1980s, as an art teacher at London's Goldsmiths, Craig-Martin created and nurtured that generation of British artists who would transform one of the most visually conservative, anti-art cultures into one that was, and remains, art-crazy. "People think I gave Damien, Tracey and all the others career information. To say I did underestimates them. They were all beneficiaries of some tremendous art education that existed in British art schools from the 60s to the 80s, but they all knew those days were nearly over and that they couldn't do what I did as an artist, which was to fall back into teaching. "They also knew they couldn't do what lots of artists have done – go on the dole. There was no dole. They knew the only way to survive was through their work. They had a sense that there was somebody out there to speak to, and started to work with the idea of an audience before there was an audience." Wasn't that Thatcherite entrepreneurialism? "It was more generous. The art world is usually a cruel place. I wouldn't recommend anyone going into it unless there's something here." He pats his chest. "With the YBAs, I saw a generosity I'd never witnessed before. When a collector came to a studio, the artist would say, 'Do you know so-and-so's work?' And if the collector said no, the artist would take them round to so and so's studio. It was a magical time." Didn't you feel jealous of their success? "Of course! I remember Damien showing Charles Saatchi his idea for a shark in his notebook, and Saatchi saying, 'I'll pay for that.' There was nothing like that level of interest – or money – for my generation. In the 80s, only the Lisson Gallery was interested in new art. One gallery! Now there are 40 or 50." And you've benefited from that? "Sure. In lean times, I used to say yes to every commission – just in case there wouldn't be any more. Now I don't have to." Craig-Martin works six days a week. He's currently producing works for an outdoor sculpture show that opens this month at the New Art Centre in Wiltshire, and curating a room at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition. Why work so hard? "I'm 70 this year, and I'm conscious that everything seems to be working physically, that my energy is there. But I'm trying to accomplish as much as I can because at some point I know that won't be the case. When you're 30 or 40, you don't think about it ending, about falling apart or dying. I do, so that's why I work hard." • Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings 1967-2002 is at Alan Cristea Gallery, London W1, until 4 June. Details: 020-7439 1866. Art Saatchi gallery Damien Hirst Tracey Emin Stuart Jeffries guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Why cinemas will always survive Posted: 04 May 2011 08:36 AM PDT Like TV and DVD before, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox's online releases can't compete with the movie-going experience The news that two of Hollywood's major studios, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox, are planning to make new movies available online only two months after release is being heralded as a harbinger of doom for cinema. We've been through this scaremongering before, with the rise of television, video, DVD, on-demand rental companies such as Netflix and Lovefilm, as well as video iPods. Like the hounded heroine of a stalk'n'slash horror, cinema has throughout its history faced attempts on its life, and moments at which its number seemed to be well and truly up. Let's get something straight: nothing can compete with cinema, and nothing ever will. Audience numbers and box-office takings will always fluctuate. But suggesting that downloading can ever provide an alternative to cinema is like saying that fast-food chains will kill off restaurants. The experiences are not comparable. It may take people a while to realise that – they may dip a toe in the studios' on-demand scheme – but they will soon come to miss the largeness, the inclusivity and the sense of occasion that comes from going to the cinema. When you watch a film on a television or a laptop or, God forbid, an iPod, you haven't seen it as it was intended. Sometimes it's the only option available, especially with old or obscure movies now that the repertory scene is in permanent decline and the double bill has all but died out. But the idea that audiences for blockbusters are going to spurn the excitement of experiencing at maximum size, say, the latest Pirates of the Caribbean release, or whatever floats your schooner, is ridiculous. Most will know almost without realising it that there is no alternative to the communal, immersive alchemy of cinema-going. Nothing trumps it. None of which should suggest that cinemas themselves can afford to be complacent or exploitative. While cinema is a social experience, the chains owe it to the ticket-buying public to be more vigilant about those disruptive audience members for whom cinemas are merely alternative venues for mobile phone conversations. And pricing remains an issue. I haven't given any of my custom to the Vue cinema chain for a year now, since it charged me £21 for myself and my 10-year-old daughter to see How to Train Your Dragon at 11am on a Sunday morning several months into the film's release (we had even brought our own 3D glasses). There are similar complaints in the US. Joe Flint wrote on the subject on the LA Times website last year. His beef was with the pricing structure at Hollywood's otherwise wonderful Arclight cinema, a classy venue that knocks any Vue into a cocked popcorn tub. Extortionate pricing, Flint says, "gives people just one more reason to stay home. At a time when theatre operators are worried about movies popping up sooner on DVD and video-on-demand and thereby undercutting ticket sales, making it costlier to go out to the local multiplex seems ill advised." I think Flint is right up to a point – floating voters could be swayed if pricing continues to veer toward the prohibitive. But the shrinking of the window between cinema and on-demand release dates is a consequence of an entire society's tendency towards instant gratification, rather than a knife in the back of one particular cultural experience. Besides, it isn't just the integrity and authenticity of the films that we would lose in defecting to on-demand; it's the memories that are bound up with them. When I think of my most cherished cinema-going experiences, they rarely revolve around favourite films so much as favourite audiences or atmospheres: the spontaneous wave of applause and cheering that broke out in a cinema in 1981 following the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in which a tricksy swordfighter is dispatched with an off-the-cuff bullet; the police chasing a suspect through the auditorium where I was watching Wes Craven's New Nightmare; the metronomic snap of seats that announced one walkout after another during The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover or David Cronenberg's Crash, and seemed only to intensify the pleasure for those of us who stayed the course. Movie memories are made of this. They don't tend to begin with the words: "Remember the time we downloaded that film …" Film industry Digital media Ryan Gilbey guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Whisky firms back bioenergy project Posted: 04 May 2011 08:24 AM PDT Up to 9,000 homes to be powered with energy produced by burning waste matter from the whisky-making process It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland's best-known distilleries. Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production. Vast amounts of "draff", the spent grains used in the distilling process, and pot ale, a residue from the copper stills, are produced by the whisky industry each year and are usually transported off-site. The Rothes project, a joint venture between Helius Energy and the Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) will burn the draff with woodchips to generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 homes. It will be supplied by Aalborg Energie Technick, a danish engineering company. The pot ale will be made into a concentrated organic fertiliser and an animal feed for use by local farmers. Environmentalists have expressed concern that some of the wood used in the process may not be locally sourced, but say the 7.2MW project – the equivalent output of two large wind turbines - is a good scale and a valuable addition to Scotland's renewables industry. Green energy has been a key issue in the run-up to Thursday's Holyrood elections. The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, has pledged to produce 100% of Scotland's electricity through renewable energy by 2020, a claim dismissed as "fantasy" by Labour. The £50m Rothes project is the latest bioenergy venture from the Scotch whisky industry, but it is believed to be the first to provide electricity for public use. A bioenergy plant at Scotland's largest distillery in Fife is close to completion. The project by Diageo will provide 98% of the thermal steam and 80% of the electrical power used at the Cameronbridge distillery. And last year, scientists at Napier University announced they had developed a method of producing biofuel from the by-products of the whisky distilling process which could power cars and even aircraft. The new fuel, they said, could be available at petrol pumps within a few years. Of Scotland's 100 whisky distilleries, 50 are based in Speyside, and Frank Burns, general manager of CoRD, said it was an ideal location for the new bioenergy plant which will be built on an existing industrial site. "It is very well supported in the local community. Up here in Rothes and in Speyside in general we have a lot of strong links," he said. "We had zero objections at the planning stage and we have done a lot of work within the community on the progress of the project." Waste products from around 16 of the area's 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse. None will come from further than 25 miles away. Burns acknowledged, however, that some of the wood for the process may not be locally sourced. "Some of it will be local and some of it will be shipped in," he said. "It is down to the supplier. They may source it locally." Most of the fuel, he added, will be comprised of the draff. Sam Gardner, climate policy officer for WWF Scotland, said: "From the information we have, the project looks to be a very welcome addition to Scotland's renewable industry. It is using waste products from our whisky industry which is eminently sensible thing to do, and is producing heat both for whisky production and for the local community. We would want to see assurances, however, that the biomass was sustainably sourced." Biofuels Energy Renewable energy Whisky Food & drink Scotland Food & drink industry Kirsty Scott guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Right Word Posted: 04 May 2011 09:04 AM PDT The talk radio jocks have forgiven President Obama for his birth certificate, but they want to see Bin Laden's death certificate It's been a difficult week for patriotic Americans, some of whom remain torn between love of country and loathing for the man who leads it. Rush Limbaugh Rush Limbaugh surprised many of his critics by opening his radio show this week (listen to clip) offering unequivocal congratulations to President Obama for having actually done something extremely effective for a change by having had the good sense to have continued former President Bush's antiterrorism policies – such as keeping "Club Gitmo" open, and more importantly, for making President Bush's unfulfilled quest to capture and kill Osama bin Laden a top priority. Limbaugh also couldn't help but admire the president for rejecting the military's suggestion of bombing the Bin Laden compound in favour of a commando raid, even though the latter was the riskier choice. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb, like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the special forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using Seal Team 6 or any of the special forces. Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama singlehandedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death. The precision with which the Navy Seals carried out the operation was very heartening to Limbaugh whose personal happiness seems to be closely tied to his country's military might, but he did have some concerns about the quick burial at sea and whether or not the DNA evidence was conclusive. It's a very uplifting thing to realise that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night, I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don't know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the programme with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we've got it already, the proof positive it was Osama bin Laden. It's a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military. Limbaugh's admiration for the armed forces is obviously genuine, but while not wanting to rain on their parade (let alone the commander-in-chief's), diligent journalist that he is, he couldn't help but raise another issue that has been floated in some mainstream media outlets and especially by Hillary Clinton's news channel of choice, al-Jazeera, that Osama bin Laden is not the commander of al-Qaida anymore and that he has long since ceased to have much importance. He also felt compelled to draw attention to the stacks of newspaper articles that have suggested that Osama bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora and so has been dead for years, although Limbaugh doesn't necessarily subscribe to this theory himself. Anyway, the bottom line is that, one way or another, it would appear that Osama bin Laden is probably dead now and even if President Obama and his administration had some hand in that, it's still a great day for America. Laura Ingraham Laura Ingraham was positively furious (listen to clip) about all the furore surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden – not just because she feels a ridiculous amount of praise is being lavished on President Obama simply because he managed to carry out in just over two years what his predecessor George W Bush failed to carry out in eight, but because she feels that even if Bush had achieved his goal of capturing and killing public enemy No 1 during his administration, the media would still not have given him credit for it. What would they have said if it had been President Bush to announce the killing of Osama bin Laden? Would it have been – "Well, this was his moment, the strength that he demonstrated, the resolve, the steely resolve. This is a game-changer for George W Bush?" Well, I can confidently state none of this would have been said, had it been Bush making that speech last night! Ingraham believes that if it had been George Bush who had pulled off the successful raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan after months of careful intelligence work, the media would have played down the achievement and focused instead on the other news that has now been knocked off the front pages, such as the muddled policy in Libya, Iran's nuclear aspirations and the high unemployment and gas prices back home. She was also unimpressed by the decision to bury the world's most dangerous terrorist's body at sea within 24 hours of his death, because now we can never be absolutely sure if the Navy Seals actually got the right guy. And Ingraham is certainly not ready to take the president's word on this. Where's the picture? Is there anybody else out there wanting to see the picture of Bin Laden's head? I do! I want the picture, I want the bullet hole. I want all of it. That doesn't make me some kind of ghoul. I just want to see it. I want to see the photo. I want to know that the DNA matched. Why are we announcing this before the DNA match was done? Does anyone get that? That all seems just … do the DNA match and then just tell us we got the right guy. Ingraham might feel reassured if she was personally allowed to examine the photographic and DNA evidence, but as we saw with the birther issue, actual evidence can fail to convince the truly sceptical and as we all know, DNA samples and photographs can easily be doctored. Michael Savage Michael Savage was extraordinarily forthcoming this week (listen to clip) in his praise for the president who he has so often referred to as the most dangerous man in the country for having finally managed to kill the most dangerous man in the world. "Now some will ask, and I am not one of them, where is Osama's death certificate, but we should take a collective deep breath and celebrate the US Navy Seals and tip our hat to the Obama administration for a job well done. He did something that Bush didn't do, that Bush wanted to do that he said he would do and we have to give him credit for that and I'm very happy today frankly that the Hitler of our time is dead." Savage went on to warn Republicans that they would be fools to have a go at Obama now because he managed to do, in a very effective way, what their lot failed miserably to do. Savage did have a few questions about the timing of the death announcement, however, and had his own theory, which he admitted was a little off the wall, that it might have been to distract attention from the royal wedding, to which the Obamas were not invited. He was also a little perturbed about the deference showed to Muslim tradition by burying the body within 24 hours. The man was an arch terrorist who has been hunting down Americans for 20 years. What does that have to do with Islam? Why should we respect his religious beliefs? I mean, there's some who've argued he should have been chopped up and fed to pigs and the video released to the world! Anyway, aside from the burial issue and a few other minor gripes about the photograph being withheld and so forth, Savage insisted that it is a time to celebrate, not speculate, and even went so far as to admonish callers who were unable to overcome their hatred of the president long enough to simply acknowledge this one-off achievement. Now, that's a true patriot. Osama bin Laden US television Talk radio Republicans George Bush Barack Obama US military US foreign policy Sadhbh Walshe guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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