The Guardian World News

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• Extra university places for UK's richest students
• US's Bin Laden deal with Pakistan
• Telegraph censured over Cable tapes
• Inquiry into migrants' boat deaths
• GPs face finance test for NHS powers
• Flood alert as Mississippi peaks
• Syrian tanks roll into Homs
• Officer 'reckless' in Tomlinson case
• Kushner honour restored by CUNY
• Twitter allegations ruffle feathers
• US patient shows off face transplant
• One-eyed and patchy - and that's just the plot
• Belt up, young man
• Where is Ai Weiwei?
• Breastfeeding 'improves behaviour'
• Rap homophobia: at a tipping point?
• LinkedIn prepares for US flotation
• Chloé names new creative director
• The great corporate tax swindle

Extra university places for UK's richest students Posted: 09 May 2011 01:30 PM PDT Proposals could allow UK students to enrol in university of their choice as long as they pay vastly higher fees up front Teenagers from the wealthiest families would be able to pay for extra places at the most competitive universities under government proposals that could allow institutions to charge some British students the same high fees as overseas undergraduates. Candidates who take up the extra places would not be eligible for publicly funded loans to pay tuition fees or living costs, limiting this option to all but the most privileged households who could pay fees up front. Under the plans, the extra students may be charged as much as international undergraduates. At the most competitive universities, these students face fees ranging from £12,000 a year for arts subjects to £18,000 for sciences and more than £28,000 for medicine. Applicants would be required to meet the course entry requirements. The changes would give more students the chance to attend their first choice of university. At present, the government sets a quota of undergraduate places that English universities are allowed to offer each year. Employers and charities will also be encouraged to sponsor "off-quota" places under the plans to be outlined in a higher education white paper in the summer. Ministers argue that the creation of extra places will boost social mobility by freeing up more publicly subsidised places for undergraduates from poorer homes. But the proposals are likely to be criticised as a means for the wealthiest to "buy places" at a time when the government is to cut 10,000 publicly funded places. The universities minister, David Willetts, told the Guardian: "There are various important issues that need to be addressed around off-quota places, but I start from the view that an increase in the total number of higher education places could aid social mobility. "There would need to be arrangements to make sure any such system was fair and worked in the interests of students as well as institutions. But it is not clear what the benefit is of the current rules, which, for example, limit the ability of charities or social enterprises to sponsor students. "We are inviting ideas on the whole concept and we will listen very carefully to all the responses we receive." The proposal is most likely to be taken up by highly selective institutions, which turn away thousands of qualified candidates a year. Oxford accepted slightly more than 3,000 British and EU undergraduates out of about 17,000 who applied for the current academic year. That demand is due to intensify as the latest application figures show the number of candidates for this autumn has risen by 2.1% to about 633,000 – another record high. The places may not be covered by access agreements, under which universities are required to outline how they will improve their proportion of students from state schools and deprived backgrounds. Under one version of the scheme, universities might operate a "needs-blind" admissions process, which assesses all candidates regardless of their ability to pay, but then offers places off-quota to candidates from the most privileged homes. The expansion of places will put greater pressure on less popular universities. Ministers have warned that undersubscribed institutions could have government-funded places withdrawn. In a speech last month, the business secretary, Vince Cable, said: "Institutions could very well find themselves in trouble if students can't see value. In circumstances where places are unfilled, we might withdraw those places, and institutions should not assume they will easily get them back." This is more likely to happen if more sought-after universities are free to expand in response to student demand. The government is also keen to encourage more corporate sponsorship of university places. The accountancy firm KPMG has unveiled a plan to pay fees for students at universities including Durham, in a training programme leading to an honours degree in accounting. These students also fall outside government restrictions on numbers, chiefly because they are on bespoke courses reserved for one firm's employees. They do not need financial support as KPMG covers their fees and pays them a salary. The current version of the scheme is, in effect, an outsourcing of corporate training, but the range of education on offer could become more diverse in future. Asked if KPMG planned to extend the scheme to other degree subjects, Simon Haydn-Jones, an associate partner at the firm, said: "Yes we do, in due course – most likely by enabling students to take a range of subsidiary subjects such as geography in combination with an accountancy-related degree. "It is early days for our scheme, though, and we need to get it up and running first before we take any specific decisions on this." The KPMG scheme begins at Durham and Exeter this autumn, and will be extended to Birmingham University next year. The firm ultimately expects to offer more than 400 places. A third option for expanding university places without cost to the public purse is by encouraging charities to sponsor students. At present, if a charity wished to fund a group of students from poor backgrounds, those places would have to come out of a university's existing quota because of the risk that the students involved might need public support in future. The forthcoming white paper is expected to encourage charity sponsorship, possibly by enabling students to renounce entitlement to public support. Tuition fees David Willetts Education policy Higher education Oxbridge and elitism Access to university University of Cambridge University of Oxford Students University funding Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

US's Bin Laden deal with Pakistan Posted: 09 May 2011 11:06 AM PDT US forces were given permission to conduct unilateral raid inside Pakistan if they knew where Bin Laden was hiding, officials say The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned. The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials. Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion. "There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations. "The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn't stop us." The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by Bin Laden's death in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, where a team of US navy Seals assaulted his safe house in the early hours of 2 May. Pakistani officials have insisted they knew nothing of the raid, with military and civilian leaders issuing a strong rebuke to the US. If the US conducts another such assault, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani warned parliament on Monday, "Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force." Days earlier, Musharraf, now running an opposition party from exile in London, emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the raid, terming it a "violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan". But under the terms of the secret deal, while Pakistanis may not have been informed of the assault, they had agreed to it in principle. A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected. Referring to the assault on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, the official added: "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement." The former US official said the Pakistani protests of the past week were the "public face" of the deal. "We knew they would deny this stuff." The agreement is consistent with Pakistan's unspoken policy towards CIA drone strikes in the tribal belt, which was revealed by the WikiLeaks US embassy cables last November. In August 2008, Gilani reportedly told a US official: "I don't care if they do it, as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it." As drone strikes have escalated in the tribal belt over the past year, senior civilian and military officials issued pro forma denunciations even as it became clear the Pakistani military was co-operating with the covert programme. The former US official said that impetus for the co-operation, much like the Bin Laden deal, was driven by the US. "It didn't come from Musharraf's desire. On the Predators, we made it very clear to them that if they weren't going to prosecute these targets, we were, and there was nothing they could do to stop us taking unilateral action. "We told them, over and again: 'We'll stop the Predators if you take these targets out yourselves.'" Despite several attempts to contact his London office, the Guardian has been unable to obtain comment from Musharraf. Since Bin Laden's death, Pakistan has come under intense US scrutiny, including accusations that elements within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence helped hide the al-Qaida leader. On Sunday, President Barack Obama said Bin Laden must have had "some sort of support network" inside Pakistan. "We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, outside of government, and that's something we have to investigate," Obama said. Gilani has stood firmly by the ISI, describing it as a "national asset", and said claims that Pakistan was "in cahoots" with al-Qaida were "disingenuous". "Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd," he said. "We didn't invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan." Gilani said the army had launched an investigation into how Bin Laden managed to hide inside Pakistan. Senior generals will give a briefing on the furore to parliament next Friday. Gilani paid lip-service to the alliance with America and welcomed a forthcoming visit from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, but pointedly paid tribute to help from China, whom he described as "a source of inspiration for the people of Pakistan". Osama bin Laden Pakistan United States Pervez Musharraf George Bush Global terrorism Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Telegraph censured over Cable tapes Posted: 09 May 2011 04:04 PM PDT Press Complaints Commission condemns Daily Telegraph for undercover recording of Cable and other Lib Dem ministers The Daily Telegraph is criticised by the Press Complaints Commission today for secretly recording conversations between Liberal Democrat ministers and having reporters pose as constituents. It upholds a complaint lodged last year by the party's president, Tim Farron MP, over the paper's use of subterfuge, ruling that the stories the Telegraph published as a result did not justify the methods it employed. "On this occasion, the commission was not convinced that the public interest was such as to justify proportionately this level of subterfuge," the PCC says. The undercover reporters taped Vince Cable boasting he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch when, as business secretary, he was due to rule on whether News Corporation should be allowed to take full control of BSkyB. The story was leaked to the BBC, which reported it the day before it appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 21 December. Cable came close to being sacked and was stripped of his power to rule on media mergers by David Cameron, who handed them to the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. The paper also recorded separate conversations with other Lib Dems, including employment minister Ed Davey, who privately said he was opposed to housing and child benefit cuts despite defending coalition savings in October 2010. The PCC, an industry body paid for and run by newspaper and magazine publishers, says clandestine use of recording devices breaches the editors' code of conduct, which it enforces. This states that papers "must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices or hidden devices including tape recorders and cameras". Subterfuge is also outlawed unless there is a strong public interest. The PCC acknowledges in its ruling: "there was a fine balance to be struck". But it said it "did not believe that the Telegraph – although acting no doubt with legitimate intent – had sufficient grounds, on a prima facie basis, to justify their decision to send the reporters in". It added it had consistently advised newspapers not to go on "fishing expeditions" in the hope of finding stories and said it would be issuing futher guidance on the subject. The Daily Telegraph editor, Tony Gallagher, says the paper accepts the ruling but adds in a statement that the PCC adjudication "has alarming implications for the future of investigative journalism". The paper told the Commission it had received information from numerous anonymous sources, including voters as well as senior political figures, that Liberal Democrat ministers were contradicting their publicly-stated views in private. Its owner Telegraph Media Group told the PCC it had sought to expose this contradiction by sending in reporters and that it had been in the public interest to do so. It denied it had been on a "fishing expedition" because it had acted on tip off from politicians and the public. Gallagher said: "We had a duty to investigate their conduct and.....to be effective the use of subterfuge was necessary. Our revelations led to the demotion of a member of the Cabinet, apologies from a string of junior ministers and condemnation from their party leader." He added that the decision: "Increases the obstacles facing newspapers wishing to carry out legitimate inquiries based on material which is often by its nature incomplete - and it limits their ability to expose matters of legitimate public interest which those in positions of power would rather shield from public view." Daily Telegraph Newspapers & magazines Vince Cable Liberal Democrats News Corporation Press freedom James Robinson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Inquiry into migrants' boat deaths Posted: 09 May 2011 01:07 PM PDT Human rights body demands inquiry into failure of European military units to save 61 migrants on boat fleeing Libya Europe's paramount human rights body, the Council of Europe, has called for an inquiry into the deaths of 61 migrants in the Mediterranean, claiming an apparent failure of military units to rescue them marked a "dark day" for the continent. Mevlüt Çavusoglu, president of the council's parliamentary assembly, demanded an "immediate and comprehensive inquiry" into the fate of the migrants' boat which ran into trouble in late March en route to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the boat encountered a number of European military units including a helicopter and an aircraft carrier after losing fuel and drifting, but no rescue attempt was made and most of the 72 people on board eventually died of thirst and hunger. "If this grave accusation is true – that, despite the alarm being raised, and despite the fact that this boat, fleeing Libya, had been located by armed forces operating in the Mediterranean, no attempt was made to rescue the 72 passengers aboard, then it is a dark day for Europe as a whole," Çavusoglu declared. "I call for an immediate and comprehensive inquiry into the circumstances of the deaths of the 61 people who perished, including babies, children and women who – one by one – died of starvation and thirst while Europe looked on," he added. Çavusoglu's intervention came as news emerged of another migrant boat which sank last Friday, according to the UN's refugee agency. Up to 600 were on board the overcrowded vessel as it fled the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Witnesses who left on another boat shortly afterwards reported seeing remnants of the ship and the bodies of passengers in the sea. The International Organisation for Migration, which has staff on Lampedusa, said it had spoken to a Somali woman who lost her four-month-old baby in the tragedy, and said that it was unclear how many passengers had managed to swim to safety. According to testimony collected by UNHCR workers in Lampedusa, migrants on the second boat setting sail from Tripoli attempted to disembark when they saw the first boat sink, but were prevented from doing so by armed men. The UNHCR has insisted that more communication is needed between coastguards, military and commercial ships to minimise migrant deaths at sea. "We need to take heed of a situation that is very much evolving. We have to cooperate much more closely," said a spokesperson, Laura Boldrini, adding that ships should not wait for a problem to arise before attempting to help migrant boats. "Rescue should be automatic, without waiting for the boat to break apart or the engine to stop running," she said. Following the Guardian report into the plight of the migrant boat left to drift in the Mediterranean after suffering mechanical problems, Nato rejected suggestions that any of its units were involved in apparently ignoring the vessel. Officials pointed out that the Charles De Gaulle, a French aircraft carrier identified as having possibly encountered the boat, was not under direct Nato command at the time – although it was involved in the Nato-led operations in Libya. "Nato vessels are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to international maritime law regarding safety of life at sea," said a spokesman. French defence officials denied that any of their ships were involved. "The [Charles De Gaulle] was never less than 200km (160 miles) from the Libyan coast," read a statement. "It is therefore not possible that it could have crossed the path of this drifting vessel which came from the Misrata region. If this was the case, it would have obviously come to the rescue of these people, in some way or another." In 2010, the statement added, French naval vessels intercepted around 40 refugee boats and came to the assistance of more than 800 people. Campaigners believe that calls for European ships to be more active in assisting migrants are now becoming more urgent. "All of these migrant boats are incredibly overcrowded and these are desperate people," said Professor Niels Frenzen, a refugee law specialist at the University of Southern California. "Given the hundreds of deaths we know about – and many more we probably aren't aware of – any migrant boat that's being observed right now is by definition a vessel that is in distress, and one which needs rescue." Frenzen added that with Nato, the EU border agency Frontex, national coastguards and other unilateral forces all operating simultaneously in the Mediterranean, there was an "incredible mess of overlapping missions and jurisdictional confusion over the boundaries of different search and rescue regions". "We've got this incredible concentration of ships and aircraft in that sea, many of which are there under security council resolution 1973 [which authorises military operations in Libya], the primary purpose of which is to protect civilian life," he said. The UN refugee agency issued a warning for all vessels to keep an eye out for unseaworthy migrant boats in the Mediterranean. Refugees Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Nato Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

GPs face finance test for NHS powers Posted: 09 May 2011 04:38 PM PDT Liberal Democrats insist on rigorous checks as MPs debate Andrew Lansley's NHS bill The Treasury will only support GP-led consortiums if the new bodies have passed rigorous clinical and financial tests, the chancellor's deputy said on Monday. In a sign of the Lib Dems' determination to introduce major changes to the health and social care bill, Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury and No 2 to George Osborne, told the Guardian the reforms would be implemented in a "variable pattern". Tory MPs were angered over the weekend when Nick Clegg described the bill as a "disruptive revolution" and said it would be wrong to force GPs to join the new consortiums by 2013. The deputy prime minister felt free to speak so strongly after reaching agreement with Cameron over relaxing the 2013 deadline. Alexander expanded on Clegg's remarks by suggesting there would never be a uniform imposition of the NHS reforms. He told the Guardian: "We need to be sure that we only allow GP consortia to go forward where they show they are capable and have got all the right building blocks in place so some will go faster than others and we will have a more variable pattern. "From a Treasury point of view, consortia only get the permission to go forward when they are capable clinically and financially to go forward. If GP consortia don't want to go forward, they will hardly develop the capabilities they need. So we are working very hard on timetables and flexibility right now." But Alexander makes clear that he hopes the NHS reforms are not abandoned. "Reform is necessary to ensure the NHS is able to deal with these rising health pressures and I just don't believe the Labour top-down model of the NHS is suitable. So we should not abandon reform. "But at the end of the day if we think this is a bad bill then having no bill would be better than that so we have to come up to substantial changes. What we have heard in recent weeks and months is growing voices in the NHS that there are new things we need to look at." Alexander opened up a new area of controversy by saying he did not want the new pubic services reform white paper to impose a universal blueprint for reform across the pubic sector. Cameron said in February a presumption would be written into legislation that public services will be delivered by the private or voluntary sectors. Alexander's intervention came as the Tory whips orchestrated an ostentatious show of support for health secretary Andrew Lansley. Nine cabinet ministers sat with him on the frontbench as he took part in a Commons debate called by Labour. No voting member of the cabinet sat on the frontbench last month when Lansley announced the pause in the health and social care bill that would hand about 60% of the NHS budget to new GP-led consortiums. Lansley told MPs that the changes to the health and social care bill, which will be introduced at the end of the government's "listening exercise", would be substantive. He indicated that the consortiums would be expanded to include patients, doctors and nurses. Senior Tories made clear there was growing support for Lansley. One ministerial source said: "David Cameron needs to be careful. Andrew is a lot stronger than he thinks. If Andrew tells the prime minister that he is putting his job at his disposal because Downing Street has undermined his credibility that would make David look foolish." The Labour motion failed by 284 votes to 231. But Lib Dem MPs expressed anger. Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, called for ministers to "take the guts" out of the reforms because opening the health service to greater free market competition "undermines the NHS ethos". John Pugh, MP for Southport, said: "I have this vision of a bill being drafted during the daytime by a sane, pragmatic Dr Jekyll-like minister, but during the night some … Mr Hyde jumps in with a rightwing ideology, breaks into Richmond House [the Department of Health] and changes many of the sentences." The findings will alarm the many medical organisations which have voiced alarm that Lansley's plans would lead to the NHS undergoing privatisation, a fear that has caused severe unease in Downing Street. Leading cancer charities warn that care received by the growing number of people in England developing the disease could suffer as a result of the government's NHS plans. Cancer networks, groups of specialists who advise GPs where patients can get the best treatment, are due to be phased out in 2012. But Lansley is resisting calls to keep funding them. Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "It's a deeply worrying prospect that the care of cancer patients could be compromised by this. Cancer patients need to know their care will not suffer." Health policy Health Danny Alexander Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Conservatives Andrew Lansley NHS Patrick Wintour Nicholas Watt Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Flood alert as Mississippi peaks Posted: 09 May 2011 12:11 PM PDT Police evacuate residents as Mississippi river spreads to six times its usual span, threatening the city's blues district The city of Memphis, Tennesee has been put on alert for record flooding as the waters of the Mississippi river reached a historic peak. Police went door-to-door to evacuate people from low-lying neighbourhoods after forecasters said the river could reach its peak of 14.6 metres (48ft) by Monday evening. Heavy winters in the upper midwest and an extremely wet April – with 600% more rain than normal in some southern states – have turned 2011 into a season of floods along the Mississippi's 2,320-mile route. In Memphis, the river ran nearly three miles wide on Monday, about six times its usual span, with water lapping at Beale Street, the city's blues district. Rising floodwaters from the Mississippi and its tributaries forced the evacuation of about 1,300 home. But many of the city's landmarks – including Elvis Presley's Graceland – sit on high ground and officials vowed to protect them. "I want to say this: Graceland is safe. And we would charge hell with a water pistol to keep it that way and I'd be willing to lead the charge," said Bob Nations, director of the Shelby county emergency management agency. Other signs of normality remained – FedEx, which is headquarters in Memphis, was not affected, and an NBA playoff game was not called off. City officials said 370 people were staying in shelters and more residents could be forced to flee their homes as the waters move on. Forecasters expect the waters to remain at record levels until Thursday, before a gradual fall. The flood-swollen waters still have 1,000 miles to go before they reach the Gulf of Mexico and forecasters warned there was considerable danger further down river in the days ahead, especially if there is more rain or if the levees fail. The river broke through one such temporary barrier in Memphis at the weekend, submerging an airport. Once Memphis is out of danger, the authorities will be braced for potential floods in the towns of Natchez and Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the river is expected to reach its peak on 19 May and in New Orleans on 23 May Tracey Howieson, a hydrologist in the southern division of the National Weather Service, said the record levels of the Mississippi could force a back-up of tributaries along its route, flooding rural areas. "The smaller rivers cannot flow into the Mississippi because the Mississippi is so high, so there are threats of land being inundated up near Vicksburg." The authorities began deploying two flood diversion systems around the city of New Orleans on Monday to try to divert water in Lake Pontchartrain. This year's floods are the worst since 1927. Army engineers last week resorted to blowing up flood levees to save the town of Cairo, Illinois. The decision drowned 130,000 acres of prime farmland. "It's kind of a hydrological perfect storm," said Chris Vaccaro, a spokesman at the national weather service headquarters in Washington. Forecasters had been predicting flooding since last November because of a combination of heavy snowfall in midwestern states such as Minnesota, the source of the Mississippi, and severe rain storms further south. "It's too much precipitation in too short of a time and in the wrong places," Vaccaro said. "It is the confluence of vast amounts of precipitation in terms of melting snowfall and rain, and then also the rain-swollen Ohio river flowing into the already swollen Mississippi." American scientists have been warning for years that climate change is influencing extreme weather events. A US government report in 2009 predicted an increase in the number and severity of extreme weather events – heavy snows and rainfall in the mid-west and droughts in the south-west – due to climate change. North Dakota and Minnesota have seen record flooding for each of the last three years. Meanwhile, southern parts of the US, from Texas to New Mexico and California, are reporting intense droughts this year. The areas along the Mississippi have seen a marked increase in floods over the last 20 years, said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, who briefed Congress on the flooding on Monday. "All along the river, the Mississippi is reaching unprecedented flood levels," Gleick said. "We are now moving into a situation where all weather and storm events are, to some degree, influenced by human-induced climate change. The links between climate change and extreme events can not be ignored." In the case of the Mississippi, however, the flood risks are compounded by bad city planning and a century of trying to squeeze rivers into tighter spaces through the levee system. "Since 1993, we have seen huge numbers of new homes and business built on the flood plain despite recommendations never to do that again," said Gleick. "I think what we are seeing along the Mississippi is all of those things: climate change, bad planning, bad development and inappropriate levees." Flooding Tennessee United States Natural disasters and extreme weather Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Syrian tanks roll into Homs Posted: 09 May 2011 11:22 AM PDT Communications shutdown aims to silence anti-Assad protests amid more gunfire and arrests in Homs, Banias and Damascus Syria's regime intensified its chokehold on protesters calling for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad on Monday, combining brutal force with a communications clampdown that some activists said threatened to snuff out the revolt that has spread throughout the country. Hundreds more were arrested in Homs and Banias and gunfire and troops were reported in suburbs of Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 400 people had been rounded up in the coastal town of Banias since Saturday, adding to an estimated 7,000 already in detention across the country. A human rights campaigner in Homs said snipers were deployed in several residential neighbourhoods. "Hundreds have fled from three villages just to the southwest of Homs where tanks had deployed," the campaigner told Reuters. One man, with a brother in Homs, said the city was terrified by the tanks rolling in and the wave of arrests. "By punishing the whole city, they want people to turn against the protesters," he said. But activists were equally worried about the silence from other parts of the country, including the southern town of Deraa, epicentre of the seven-week revolt that has left more than 800 dead. The government has gradually succeeded in shutting down some of the communications networks, including the 3G telephone network and some satellite phones, that have enabled activists to spread news and videos around the country. Diplomats say it has been following advice from Tehran, which used a mix of force and telecommunications savvy to face down its own opposition protest movement two years ago. Some observers in Damascus have started to fear that the widespread clampdown will quash the protests. "News is so slow to trickle out and now they have taken down a lot of 3G internet and satellite phones, making it impossible for activists to work," said one activist in the capital who did not wish to be named. Wissam Tarif, executive director of the human rights group Insan, said: "People are not afraid of the operations themselves, but they are afraid of being paralysed logistically. They can't gather, they can't talk to each other – it makes it an uneven game." Tarif, who is monitoring events from The Hague, added: "The wave of detention since Friday has continued without stop. The number of people disappearing is getting higher. People are being picked out of cars at checkpoints." As the intimidation campaign continues, Tarif says it was a struggle to keep going. But he added: "On the other side the question is how long can the regime keep this up? And in how many places? They can't occupy the country forever." Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist who lives in Damascus Syria Bashar Al-Assad Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Internet Human rights Katherine Marsh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Officer 'reckless' in Tomlinson case Posted: 09 May 2011 03:27 PM PDT Detective Inspector Eddie Hall falsely claimed Tomlinson fell down before encountering PC Simon Harwood A senior Metropolitan police officer has been found to have "recklessly" misled two pathologists over the possible cause of Ian Tomlinson's death at the G20 protests in London. Detective Inspector Eddie Hall was investigated after it emerged he told two forensic experts Tomlinson had fallen to the ground in front of a police van before the newspaper seller later came into contact with PC Simon Harwood. Hall's description of the fall, which did not happen, was formally relayed to two pathologists charged with finding a cause of 47-year-old Tomlinson's death . The Independent Police Complaints Commission ruled that Hall had been reckless, but accepted that he did not deliberately mislead the pathologists. The IPCC has opened a fresh inquiry into whether City of London police failed to deal appropriately with information from three other Met police witnesses, who came forward less than 48 hours after the death to say they had seen a colleague push the newspaper vendor to the ground. Tomlinson's family said senior City of London police officers "misled" them about his death and should face misconduct proceedings after the Guardian revealed the Met witnesses on Monday. Video footage showed Tomlinson being struck with a baton and violently pushed from behind on 1 April 2009 on Royal Exchange Buildings. An inquest jury found last week that Tomlinson was "unlawfully killed" by the police officer, and died from internal bleeding as a result of injuries sustained by the push. Jurors heard evidence from four pathologists, including Dr Ken Shorrock, one of the pathologists formally instructed by Hall on behalf of the Met at St Pancras mortuary on 22 April 2009. The police officer told Shorrock that Tomlinson had been seen to fall to the ground on Lombard Street, minutes before the newspaper seller came across Harwood. The same information was supplied to Dr Ben Swift, the pathologist instructed by Harwood, who was also present during the examination. In his defence, Hall said an IPCC investigator had told him Tomlinson had fallen in front of a van. The IPCC investigator, Chris Mahaffey, denied this. Tomlinson passed through Lombard Street as he tried to find a route home through the G20 protests and was forcefully escorted out of the road by police officers. But the IPCC said there was "no evidence of any kind" that suggested he fell to the ground at this point. Releasing its findings, the IPCC confirmed "misinformation was supplied by the police to the pathologists". Investigators found that while Hall did not "intentionally mislead" the pathologist, his erroneous briefing jeopardised the investigation, inquest and possible prosecution. The Met was "directed" by the IPCC to take action against Hall and he was given words of advice by the head of his unit. The IPCC report into Hall's briefing was one of three released by the watchdog. Its main report into Tomlinson's death contained much of the evidence revealed at the inquest. A third report found police did not deliberately mislead the media over the circumstances of his death. Deborah Glass, the the watchdog's commissioner for London, said the report into media handling, which was mainly the result of interviews conducted in 2009, contained no evidence to suggest a police "cover-up". However she said the IPCC's report did not take into account the fact that, just two days after Tomlinson died, three police constables from Hammersmith and Fulham station told seniors they had seen him struck with baton and pushed to the ground. City of London police was told about the three police witnesses on 3 April, and the IPCC is now investigating why the information was not passed onto its officials, the coroner or the family. "The CoLP investigators appear to have failed to pass this crucial information on to the pathologist, the coroner, the IPCC or the family until later in the investigation," the family said. "The family had to wait for the video footage to be released four days later on 7th April before they knew that there had been police contact with Ian Tomlinson." Tomlinson's widow, Julia, said that on 4 April, the day after police became aware that three witnesses from their own ranks had seen Tomlinson assaulted, she received misleading information. She said that City of London police read her a statement saying Tomlinson had died of a heart attack, there had been no further injuries that would have contributed to his death and there was "no evidence" police in the area were involved. It was not until 7 April, the family said, that video footage was released, showing that there had been police contact with Tomlinson. "I cried after the statement was read to me. Now I feel that I was misled. It made me believe that the protesters were somehow responsible for Ian's death," she said. "This is wrong and I do feel angry that I was misled like this." Ian Tomlinson Metropolitan police Police Protest G20 Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Kushner honour restored by CUNY Posted: 09 May 2011 04:41 PM PDT City University of New York board overturns attempt to block prize-winning playwright's award because of his views on Israel The trustees board of the City University of New York (CUNY) brought to an end an embarrassing row over freedom of expression by voting unanimously to award an honorary degree to the award-winning playwright Tony Kushner. A firestorm was ignited last week when a single trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, launched an attack on the Jewish playwright on the grounds that he was not sufficiently pro-Israel. The intervention blocked the award of the degree which would normally have been routine. The chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, addressing the board on Monday night, said he had supported the original recommendation of the award and praised Kushner's "extraordinary body of work". He urged the board to overturn last week's decision and to support the award. Some members of the board spoke, all of them voicing support for Kushner. One of them described the row as a "blemish" on the university's reputation as an upholder of freedom of expression. After only 20 minutes of discussion, the board voted in favour of the award. The decision last week prompted a letter from Kushner, saying he had always supported the right of Israel to exist and protesting that he had been given no chance to defend himself. The New York Times said the university had shamed itself by shunning one of America's most important playwrights and called for Wiesenfeld's dismissal. The board indicated it would use the meeting of the smaller executive committee, to which Wiesenfeld does not belong, to try to make amends. Benno Schmidt, who chairs the committee, said the decision to set aside the award was "a mistake of principle". In a statement, he said: "Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name. It is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here." Kushner is an award-winning playwright who is considered one of the leading voices of his generation. His play about the Aids crisis, Angels in America, won Pulitzer and Tony awards, and his latest work, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, has recently opened off Broadway. Wiesenfeld has a record of acting to forward what he considers the interests of the state of Israel. A former political fixer for the then governor of New York state, George Pataki, he was instrumental earlier this year in having a temporary lecturer fired from CUNY because of his views on Israel. The teacher was later reinstated. In the wake of his intervention against Kushner, he told the New York Times that he believed the Palestinians had "developed a culture which is unprecedented in human history". He said: "People who worship death for their children are not human." In response to the news that the university would grant Kushner an honorary degree after all, Wiesenfeld repeated his claim that the playwright had uttered a "blood libel against the Jewish people" by accusing Israel of having committed ethnic cleansing. Tony Kushner New York United States Israel Theatre International education news Ed Pilkington Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Twitter allegations ruffle feathers Posted: 09 May 2011 12:47 PM PDT • Jemima Khan condemns claims about her as untrue • Online defiance reinforces calls for UK privacy law The authority of Britain's civil courts appears increasingly fragile after the names of celebrities said to have obtained gagging injunctions – and their alleged misdemeanours – were circulated unimpeded on Twitter. Amid signs that lawyers representing aggrieved clients are unable or reluctant to take action against the US-based site or its users, the ability of the wealthy to suppress inconvenient truths and falsehoods appears severely compromised. Online defiance of the courts reinforced calls for the government to draft a privacy law that would clarify what should be permitted under freedom of speech and how far privacy should be protected. A solicitor whose firm represents several of those identified called on judges and the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, to consider whether flouting of court-imposed superinjunctions and anonymised orders should be punished. Charlotte Harris, a media specialist at the law firm Mishcon de Reya, said: "We are not going to be suing people on Twitter. You can't sue people who have never been served with an order. "If members of the public discuss [injunctions], it ought to be a safe place for them to have a conversation." Harris said she was interested in going after whoever initially placed the information on Twitter. "There has been terrible mischaracterisation of the people involved," she said. "In 80% of the cases they involve blackmail, harassment, stalking or threats to families. It's not all famous footballers. This is about using freedom of speech as an excuse." Asked whether court injunctions were becoming unenforceable, Harris said: "We have to think carefully about how to enforce them. We will be taking action against the source of the leak. There may be ways for the judges or the attorney general to [launch proceedings]. "I don't think it should be left to my client to expose himself to more pain than he has already been through." A privacy law is needed in Britain, she added. The human rights campaigner and socialite Jemima Khan, one of those named inaccurately on Twitter, described weekend claims that she has taken out a gagging order preventing "intimate photos" of herself and Jeremy Clarkson being published as a "bloody nightmare". Khan said the rumours were "untrue and upsetting", and addedon Monday: "I hope the people who made this story up realise that my sons will be bullied at school because of it. Plus I'm getting vile hate tweets." Dan Tench, a partner in media law at the solicitors Olswang, which has obtained injunctions for clients, said: "We are not looking to do anything. The sensible thing would be to ignore it. Loads of things turn up on Twitter. "If one spent all day trying to work out what is accurate there wouldn't be much left of the day. It's not unenforceable. We have led the way in bringing actions against anonymous internet sites. You can take people down. But in a breach of privacy case, it's not entirely consistent with keeping your identity private." Twitter's legal status has not been tested in court, but lawyers believe the website would be able to successfully argue that it is not a publisher. In the closest similar case, Mr Justice Eady ruled in a defamation hearing in 2009 that Google and other search engines were not publishers. Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor, said the defiance of superinjunctions could render them meaningless. He said: "If a point is reached as a matter of evidence when everyone knows who the injunctions are about then they become pretty pointless. It sounds like it's very difficult to make sure that injunctions like this are complied with." In a statementon Monday, Twitter said: "We don't comment on individual accounts. In keeping with our policy, we review reports that accounts violate the Twitter rules and terms of service." Earlier, the company told the Guardian: "On a practical level, we simply cannot review all 55m-plus tweets created … every day. There are tweets we do remove, such as illegal tweets and spam. However, we make efforts to keep these exceptions narrow so they may serve to prove a broader and more important rule – we strive not to remove tweets on the basis of their content." Twitter could be served with a court order forcing it to disclose the identity of tweeters breaching the injunctions. The attorney general's office acknowledged it could initiate proceedings for breach of a civil court order in the public interest, but said there were no plans to do so. A spokeswoman said: "It would normally be for any aggrieved party to bring proceedings." The breaching of a civil court order is technically a contempt of court, punishable by up to two years in prison, but such cases are rare. Mark Stephens, a senior media lawyer at Finers Stephens Innocent, said the Twitter user behind the allegations "should expect a knock on the door within the next 48 hours" from solicitors representing the stars. "If it is false, it is libellous; if it is true, it is contemptuous," he added. The Liberal Democrat Treasury minister, Danny Alexander, signalled that superinjunctions were turning into a political problem. "The whole situation is getting farcical," he said. "A parallel universe is emerging called the twittersphere where the law does not apply. It is clear to me that the status quo is no longer an option." There are people out there who clearly have not taken out a superinjunction who are being put in a very difficult position." "As some one who believes very strongly in freedom of speech, as Liberal Democrats do, the status quo cannot be an option any longer. What is emerging on Twitter is because the current positon is not sustainable." The Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming told the Guardian that his attempts to put down written questions about individual injunctions were being thwarted by House of Commons officials. "For some time courts have been covering up bad practice using confidentiality and privacy as a reason to do so," he said. Superinjunctions Twitter Internet Celebrity Owen Bowcott Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

US patient shows off face transplant Posted: 09 May 2011 12:33 PM PDT Texas man who lost almost all his face tells of joy at being able to taste lasagne after pioneering work by US surgeons A man who lost almost all of his face when he touched an electric cable while painting a church three years ago showed off the results of America's first full face transplant. Dallas Wiens, 25, speaking with difficulty at a press conference in Boston, said his daughter had told him he looked "handsome". The work is not yet completed and there will be more surgery. He told reporters that one of his strongest impressions after having the transplant was being able to smell and taste lasagne prepared by the hospital. "I adapted to it very quickly," Wiens told reporters. "As time went on … I was able to smell again and breathe through my nose. Every step of the way was amazing." Wiens, from Fort Worth, Texas, was blinded in the accident and the damage was too severe for doctors to restore his sight. He has been given a new nose, lips, nerves, skin and muscle. The press conference at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, was his first public appearance since the 15-hour operation in March. "It feels natural," he said of his face. "It feels as if it has become my own." Associated Press reported that the Pentagon had paid for the operation in the hope that the findings can help treat soldiers badly wounded in battle. The five transplants have cost a total of $3.4m (£2.1m). Plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac, who performed the operation on Wiens, said the transplant's results were better than he expected. "The most fun part is to see the next six to nine months when the function will start to come back and when Dallas will start to feel a light touch on his face," Pomahac said. "To me, that's really exciting." The operation follows the world's first full face transplant last year in Spain. About a dozen partial face transplants have been carried out worldwide since 2005, in the US, France, Spain and China. Texas United States Disability Health Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

One-eyed and patchy - and that's just the plot Posted: 09 May 2011 04:31 PM PDT New blood and a quest for the fountain of youth aren't quite enough to rejuvenate the timber-shivering franchise It's fitting that this fourth instalment of the mega booty-hauling franchise revolves around a quest for the fountain of youth. Here's a property that would give its right arm for some rejuvenation, having worn out its welcome last time round, way back in 2007. And having already paid an arm and a leg to persuade Johnny Depp to reprise his Jack Sparrow role, you wouldn't imagine it had many more limbs to spare. But the logic seems to be, if you're splashing out on your star, you'd better make a splash with the rest of the movie. This splashes so much, its stranger tides almost drown it. It's a succession of ever-escalating action sequences and grand settings. At first they're stunning, then they're routine, then they're wearying. There is at least some new blood to power this rejuvenation exercise. Depp is his usual mincing self but Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have walked the plank when aboard clambers Penélope Cruz, as a duplicitous old flame of Jack's. Being Cruz, she's Spanish and feisty, and that's about it. And fitting right in as the new villain of the piece is Ian McShane's Blackbeard – a mystically powered captain whose orange, leathery complexion suggests he's spent long years trapped in a tanning salon. Throw in Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa (now with a peg leg), and the British and Spanish navies, and you've got something close to a piratical wacky races. Everyone's racing to get to the fountain of youth, negotiating perilous terrain and fantastical episodes and stitching each other up. The freshest new monsters are some vicious but seductive mermaids, which are rather cruelly hunted, slaughtered and tortured along the way. That could traumatise a few younger viewers but being just about the only other women in the movie apart from Cruz, it also suggests something more worrying beneath the light-hearted mateyness. Worse still, everyone else is so scheming and self-centred and double-crossing, it's not always clear who to root for, who's in cahoots with whom, or what anyone's going to do if/when they actually find the sacred fountain. The only virtuous role model is a hunky clergyman, played by Sam Claflin. In terms of visual spectacle, it almost goes without saying the film fitfully delivers. There are vertiginous 3D swoops up and down ships, in and out of water and over jungles, and some of the action is ingeniously choreographed. The early scenes in 18th century London are particularly enjoyable, with Richard Griffiths as a delectably piggy George II, and Depp staging a thrilling escape on ropes and horse-drawn carriages. But no sooner has one set piece ended, we're thrown into another one. In the brief moments of downtime there's some enjoyable comedy and even some useful dialogue but it's soon drowned out by another chase or swordfight or race to get some thing that will help them get another thing or stop someone else getting the thing they want. As previous franchise-resuscitation attempts have shown (Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Rambo, Shrek, etc), it's difficult to come back with a part four after a long absence. The temptation to do something fresh is often outweighed by the fear of losing whatever it was that made it successful in the first place. This tries to do both, but ends up just trying too hard. On general release from 18 May Rating: 2/5 Johnny Depp Penélope Cruz Geoffrey Rush Steve Rose guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Belt up, young man Posted: 09 May 2011 12:30 PM PDT Florida wants to ban sagging and Obama hates it too, but can anything stop blokes wearing their jeans below their pants we ask. Plus, some habitual 'saggers' tell us why they wear their trousers slow-slung Florida's attempt to ban young men from "sagging" – wearing jeans so low they show their underpants – has plenty of precedents. In 2008, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama told MTV that "brothers should pull up their pants". A year before, the mayor of Delcambre, Louisiana, threatened six months in jail and a $500 fine for any man allowing his jeans to slide down his buttocks. The sight of exposed boxer shorts has caused consternation this side of the pond too: last year, 18-year-old Ellis Drummond was threatened with an Asbo for wearing trousers so low that they were showing his underpants. In the end, the attempt had to be abandoned. The fact is that not only has the saggy jean proved impervious to attempts to drive it off the street, it has actually mutated to survive. While the look is most associated with hip-hop culture, where it originated in the early 90s, young indie kids not overly endowed in the arse department also tend to wear their jeans hanging low. The godfather of the skinny jean, Hedi Slimane, designed his denims for Dior Homme to sit well below the hip-bone, and plenty more brands have followed suit. A jean that's tight in the leg and low-slung in the crotch is not easy to wear – climbing over anything is particularly challenging – but that hasn't deterred the nation's teenage boys, or the older hipsters, buying posher versions of the look. So why has the desire to expose one's buttocks and boxers to the elements proved so enduring, and how come it unites fans of both These New Puritans and 50 Cent? The answer is, simply, rebellion. It's well documented that the look comes from prisoners having their belts taken away in case they use them to hang themselves. Though showing your barely clad backside to an unsuspecting world carries only a dim echo of this lawless attitude, that echo is amplified when the authorities fall into the trap of trying to criminalise it. There's also the fact that showing your arse is an insult that predates hip-hop by centuries – this is simply a muted version, hence its persistent popularity with teenage boys. Hip-hop has also permeated popular culture to such an extent that teenage boys aren't bothered by accusations that a look which may seem threatening in South Central, LA, looks simply ridiculous in St Albans, Hertfordshire. The culture is global now. The responses to sagging say something about the different ways in which we regard male and female bodies. When women wear their jeans so low it shows off their knickers, it's undoubtedly regarded (if not intended) as sexually alluring. When teenage boys do it, it's a moral panic. Yet there's no sexual intent in sagging. We're a long way from Robert Plant and Mick Jagger wearing trousers so tight you could have discerned their religion from 10 rows back. Gay men, by-and-large, have shunned the saggy-jeaned look. In fact, pointing out that in displaying your bottom you might be making it an object of desire might be one thing that would get teenage boys to hitch their strides up. Otherwise, no amount of nagging will stop young men sagging. Meet the 'saggers' Manh Pham, 21, student from east London "Loads of celebrities wear their trousers like this – Tinie Tempah and Noel Fielding. I definitely wouldn't wear my trousers low to work, but it's the way we all dress for social gatherings. I think the trend comes from prisons, where they take the belts off inmates – but I'm not really sure. I just do it to conform." Scott Giraldez, 19, chef from Skegness "I don't really know why I wear my trousers like this – I've just been doing it since I was 14 or 15, because everyone else does it. It seems unfair for Florida to try to ban the style – I think everybody is entitled to their own fashion quirks." Misbah Patman, 19, student from east London "My family are from Afghanistan, and they all disapprove of the fact I wear my jeans low – I always have to pull them up when I get home, and I could never wear them like this to a family party. But where I'm from, this is how everyone wears their jeans – if you wear them pulled up high, people think you're really uncool." Jack Sutherland, 19, student from Leicester "I do sometimes feel a bit self-conscious – I see old people looking at me, and I think they're going to ask me to pull my trousers up. No one ever has, though. I've been doing it for about two years. My mum's used to it by now – she's just happy as long as I'm wearing decent underpants." Jamal Greenland, 20, rapper from  north London "I've been wearing my jeans low since I was 14 – it's just my style, and it goes with the kind of music I'm into. I wouldn't say I wear them really low, though – and I usually have a shirt over them, so it's not like I look indecent or anything. I don't think the Florida law's a bad thing, though – I never wore my trousers like this to school. That would be disrespectful." Ryan Warner, 21, retail assistant from south London "I've been wearing my trousers really low for about 10 years. I started when I got into skateboarding – all the skateboarders wore baggy, low-slung track-pants. I buy jeans with a low-slung crotch; I just like the look. I don't think they'll need to bring in a law like the Florida one over here – in America, the style is more exaggerated. You get guys pulling their trousers down so low that you can see their whole bum. That's going too far." Simon Bush, 23, retail assistant and student  from Malmesbury "The Florida law seems like a massive overreaction. I can understand that when people first started wearing their trousers like this, people were offended, because they weren't used to it. But now, everybody does it – and it's not like we're actually flashing our body parts, like some girls do. I  always wear nice boxers. And I can't wear them any other way – I'm tall and I have no bum, so my trousers just don't stay up." Men's trousers Men's fashion Fashion Hip-hop Young people Alex Needham Laura Barnett guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Where is Ai Weiwei? Posted: 09 May 2011 01:32 PM PDT Detained for over a month by Beijing police, fears are growing for the safety of the Chinese artist. As two exhibitions of his work open in the UK, Adrian Searle reports It is, as I write, 37 days since Ai Weiwei disappeared, arrested by the Chinese police on 3 April in Beijing as he was about to board a scheduled flight for Hong Kong. He has not been seen or heard from since. He has not had access to a lawyer (Ai's own lawyer disappeared for five days following the artist's arrest), and despite persistent enquiries his family do not know where he is. Another question. Who is Ai Weiwei? As well as an artist, Ai is an architect, designer, activist, iconoclast, blogger, sometime antiques dealer and expert blackjack player. If the Chinese authorities who have arrested him and engineered his disappearance are right, this creative, complicated man is also a bigamist, involved in tax fraud, the distribution of pornography, and – laughably – a plagiarist. There is no currently no news on Ai's condition, only rumour, including an unconfirmed and appalling graphic report, by a disaffected Xinhua journalist writing under a pseudonym, that Ai has been tortured, and has begun to confess to his supposed crimes. Meanwhile, his art has been shipped abroad, to London and New York and Switzerland. Two exhibitions of his work open in London this week. Twelve zodiac animal heads will be unveiled in the Somerset House courtyard tomorrow; these are oversized bronze replicas of figures originally sculpted by the Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) as a water clock for the gardens of the Yuanmingyuan, Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong's summer retreat. In 1860, the palace was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. Two ended up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent; the current Chinese government has been trying to retrieve them. What goes around comes around. A second show of Ai's sculptures and videos opens on Thursday at the Lisson Gallery. Meanwhile, there have been protests by the German, American, British and other governments. There are petitions and protests and a Free Ai Weiwei website, where information is gathered. A young woman in Hong Kong has been spraying "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" on the city's buildings, risking a punitive jail sentence. Tate Modern has "Release Ai Weiwei" written in huge letters along its exterior. Anish Kapoor has dedicated his Monumenta exhibition, which opens tomorrow at Paris's Grande Palais, to Ai. There have been moments of silence and noisy demonstrations, letters to the press from Salman Rushdie and a long interview in Germany with the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans, who said that on his most recent visit to Beijing he had urged Ai to keep his head down or to leave the country. Ai did neither. "What can they do to me? Nothing more than to banish, kidnap or imprison me. Perhaps they could fabricate my disappearance into thin air, but they don't have any creativity or imagination, and they lack both joy and the ability to fly," he wrote on his blog in November 2009, when he was already being harassed and having his bank accounts investigated. CCTV cameras mounted by the authorities outside his Beijing studio had monitored his comings and goings for years. He even made a sculpture of one such camera, a replica carved from a single piece of marble. "I believe," the artist continued on his blog, "that no matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy." In Ai's Remembering (2009), 9,000 children's backpacks mounted on the exterior wall of the Haus der Kunst in Munich spell out the sentence: "She lived happily for seven years in this world." The idea came from the artist's visit to Sichuan after the 2008 earthquake. Seeing the collapsed school buildings, Ai said: "You could see bags and study materials everywhere . . . The lives of the students disappeared within the state propaganda, and very soon everybody will forget everything." In 1995, he had himself photographed dropping an ancient Han Dynasty urn, smashing it on the floor. He had a similarly ancient vessel decorated with the Coca Cola logo. Both works speak of the disregard paid to history during China's recent past, and of the selling of the past as though it were a brand. Questions of value – of unique and irreplacable artefacts, and of individual human lives – are recurrent themes. What at first appeared as acts of cultural, bad-boy vandalism have turned out to be bitter statements about the state of things. Starving cats and haircuts There are those, even within the art world, who have viewed Ai with suspicion and regarded him as an opportunist. If anyone doubts his seriousness and sincerity, I suggest they read the English translations of the blogs he posted between 2006 and 2009, when his site was closed down by the Chinese authorities and its contents deleted from cyberspace. Many of these 2,700 posts have now been retrieved and translated into English, in a fascinating and frequently very moving book just published by MIT. I can think of no equivalent recent writing by an artist in the west, none that confronts political and social realities so eloquently or with such passion and controlled rage. Thoughtful, acerbic, angry, increasingly outspoken, the blogs cover innumerable subjects, from attempts to rescue the cats rounded up and left to starve in warehouses in the clean-up campaign before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to architecture and design. He writes about Andy Warhol, about the destruction of China's heritage and the unthinking cynicism and idiocies of city planners and cultural officialdom. He documents the Chinese government's handling of the 2003 Sars epidemic, the contaminated milk scandal, the "tofu-dregs" construction of the schools that collapsed during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. He damns the mendacity of the Chinese media ("To call them whores would be to degrade sex workers. To call them beasts of burden would humiliate the animal kingdom"), and the hypocrisy of some Chinese public intellectuals. But there are also lighter essays on haircuts, humour, creativity and much more besides. After the closure of his blog, Ai turned to Twitter, saying that in Chinese the 140-character brevity of the form almost amounted to a novella. Individuals lead complicated and messy lives, artists no more or less than anyone else. Ai's personal history – growing up with his exiled family in a labour camp from the age of one, his years in New York, his return to China and his pivotal role in the Chinese art world, his growing national and international fame – is all of a piece with the art he has made. His apparently iconoclastic appropriations of ancient artefacts and reworkings of antique furniture have a relationship to China's history and its social realities, as much as they do to Marcel Duchamp or Warhol. His blackjack playing on the tables of New Jersey in the 1980s has been used against him by the Chinese media (though blackjack websites in the US are calling for Ai's release, such is his renown); such activities would be almost unremarkable if the gambler in question were Francis Bacon. In his blog, Ai never presents himself as better than anyone else, even if he has campaigned at great personal risk for justice in China. Diplomacy by stealth As Ai was being led away at Beijing airport, German politicians and museum directors were flying home after the official opening of The Art of the Enlightenment, a €10m (£8.8m) exhibition at the new National Museum of China, the largest museum in the world. Housed in a building in Tiananmen Square designed by German architects GMP, and the summation of a Chinese and German cultural accord, the exhibition is scheduled to run for a year. In the light of Ai's arrest there have been calls, even within the German government, to close it now. The show's programme of talks and salons is being poorly attended by the Beijing audience. People are afraid. The Enlightenment does not seem to have enlightened the Chinese authorities. Other big international projects that may go on hold include a festival organised by the British Council, the highpoint of which is meant to be an exhibition of ceramics from the V&A and the British Museum at the China National Museum next year. The former chairman of the Museums Association's ethics committee, Tristram Besterman, has called for a rethink. The Chinese government sees shows such as these – as well as a massive building program, up to 100 new museums a year – as a useful exercise in soft power. The detention of Ai Weiwei does such canny cultural diplomacy no good at all. "If a famous figure like Ai Weiwei can be so blatantly abused in the glare of publicity, what protections do ordinary Chinese citizens receive from their police?" wrote Jerome A Cohen in the South China Post last month. A world expert in Chinese law at New York University, Cohen has pointed out that Ai's detention is illegal even under Chinese law. Where is Ai Weiwei? Ai Weiwei Art China Adrian Searle guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Breastfeeding 'improves behaviour' Posted: 09 May 2011 03:30 PM PDT Interaction between mother and child seen as significant factor in research based on Millennium Cohort Study Babies who are breastfed are less likely to have behavioural problems by the age of five than those given formula milk, according to new research. The question of whether breastfeeding has a long-term impact on behaviour has been investigated before, but the studies have usually been small-scale and inconsistent in their findings. But a large research project carried out by the universities of Oxford, Essex and York, together with University College London, has come to a more robust conclusion. They used data from the ongoing Millennium Cohort Study, a survey of babies born in the UK during a 12-month period between 2000 and 2001. More than 10,000 mother and baby pairs of white ethnic background took part. They were interviewed when the baby was nine months old and again at two-yearly intervals. The researchers asked parents to fill in questionnaires to assess their children's potential behavioural difficulties. These included emotional issues such as clinginess and anxiety, hyperactivity such as restlessness, and conduct problems such as lying and stealing. Fewer than a third of the babies born at full-term (29%) and a fifth (21%) of those born prematurely were breastfed for at least four months. But only 4% of the breastfed babies showed a tendency to behavioural problems compared with 16% of those fed formula milk. The difference in the full-term babies was still significant even when other influences were taken into account, such as socioeconomic status and the mother's education, age and smoking habits. However, the association was not clear among the 512 children who were born prematurely. The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, say they are not concerned with ordinary childhood misbehaviour. "Children learn appropriate behaviour from people around them and, during the learning process, all children sometimes behave inappropriately – for example, have temper tantrums or are aggressive," they write. "Behavioural problems, however, are inappropriate behaviours that occur repeatedly over a period of time, have a negative impact on the child's development and interfere with the child's or their family's everyday life." They offer two possible explanations for their findings. One is that breast milk contains large amounts of essential fatty acids, which are known to have an important role in the development and function of the brain and central nervous system. But in the past decade, they note, formula manufacturers have been supplementing their products with essential fatty acids and it is likely that the children in the study were given supplemented formula milk. The other possible answer, they write, is that "breastfeeding leads to more interaction between the mother and the child, better learning of acceptable behaviours and fewer behavioural problems". Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology at Liverpool University, called it "a very good piece of research published in an important journal". He said he suspected the mother-child bonding that takes place during breastfeeding might be the most important factor. "Positive bonding between parent and child is known to be fantastically helpful for development," he said, noting that the authors specifically took into account factors such as childcare arrangements because they are so well-established as important influences in development. "This is more evidence of the importance of breastfeeding and mother-baby attachment, not just for physical health but also for the psychological development of the child," he said. The authors said that more work needed to be done to see if their findings would contrast with other ethnic groups. Breastfeeding Children Parents and parenting Medical research Health & wellbeing Health Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Rap homophobia: at a tipping point? Posted: 09 May 2011 07:36 AM PDT Tyler, the Creator and Lil B are the latest rappers to turn the spotlight on homophobia in hip-hop, but the attention their lyrics attracts suggests attitudes are slowly changing On the surface, the attitudes of LA collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and fellow Golden State compadre Lil B are polar opposites. The former trade in an adolescent misanthropy heavily flavoured with violent misogyny and homophobic slurs – to such an extent that even in a genre no stranger to either, the frequency with which Odd Future lean on the shock value of lines such as "Rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome" and use of the word "faggot" is notable. On the other hand, Lil B caused a furore – and attracted death threats – last month when he announced his forthcoming album would be titled I'm Gay. Though the former Pack member is straight, it's hardly out-of-character for a rapper who specialises in stream-of-consciousness surrealism. His penchant for blurring gender and sexuality lines is already well known, whether exclaiming "Damn, I'm a princess" mid-freestyle, referring to himself as a "pretty bitch" or throwing down the gauntlet to the biggest female rapper around: "Nicki Minaj, I'm the finest bitch out!" And with songs entitled I'm God, I Am the Ocean and I'm Paris Hilton, I'm Gay is less of a grand statement than it might appear. Thousands of words have been expended on Odd Future's lyrical content and What It All Means since their rise to prominence over the past year, but only now – as lead member Tyler, the Creator gears up for the release of his second album Goblin – have they been pressed to explain themselves. Which, in recent interviews, Tyler has done in a particularly mealy-mouthed fashion. "I'm not homophobic," he declared to NME last week. "I just think 'faggot' hits and hurts people." It would appear that Tyler's much-vaunted genius does not stretch to making a connection between these statements. Notwithstanding his inability to distinguish between active and cultural homophobia, though, it's important to remember that Odd Future is not a monolith. Frank Ocean, their R&B associate, has penned a song with an explicitly pro-gay marriage slant: "I believe that marriage isn't between a man and woman, but between love and love." And the collective's sound engineer, Syd tha Kyd, is an open lesbian whose response to the controversy is telling: "When I first started really fucking with Odd Future heavy, my dad was like, 'Really? They talk about some crazy shit and as a female, you're slapping a lot of women in the face.' I'm like, 'That's what I do. I slap bitches.'" For Lil B's part, one suspects he is motivated less by a desire to fight for oppressed minorities than just old-fashioned attention-seeking; announcing the title I'm Gay with the reasoning that "I'm gonna show y'all the words don't mean shit" isn't exactly on-message. It's much the same argument that Tyler uses to excuse his own words; as professional lyricists, it's unlikely that either Tyler or Lil B actually believes that words are meaningless, but what they both share is a faith in the malleability of words that perhaps makes the idea of entrenched connotations incomprehensible. But Lil B deserves plenty of kudos for refusing to back down, and indeed standing even more strongly, when asked to ally himself with the gay community, declaring himself outright to be "a supporter of GLAAD". Judging either Odd Future or Lil B on purely moral terms isn't really adequate, though – and, in fact, is something of a red herring that precludes discussion of their art. What's interesting about their contrasting attitudes is how they affect the power of that art – and, in particular, why Tyler, the Creator, who relies so heavily on shock tactics, ultimately makes his music toothless. Fundamentally, for all the outrage and shock he garners from easily excited fans, his misanthropy is a cliche of angry male adolescence. He raps: "They claim the shit I say is just wrong/ Like nobody has those really dark thoughts when alone"; it's pretty much the Odd Future modus operandi in one couplet, but the problem is that so many "outsider" artists have affected transgression by telling the world about their dark thoughts that, wrong or right, it's become boring. Tyler doesn't transgress expectations; he follows a well-worn path of faux-rebellion trodden by everyone from the Sex Pistols to Eminem – and the alleged vulnerability Tyler reveals in rapping about his absent father is entirely part and parcel of this archetype. Tyler's combination of dubious fantasies, anti-gay slurs and emo whining about his upbringing recalls Eminem which doesn't leave much room for shock. In 2011, this feels impotent and tedious. Odd Future's defenders in the media emphasise Tyler's technical skills – and it's true that his gift for assonance and internal rhymes is impressive. But his talent is only half the story: the shtick they use it for is played out. And it undermines the rest of his aesthetic: he demands our empathy at every turn for his own tough life, but is too limited an artist to show empathy for people who, with all due respect, suffer much more on a daily basis than growing up in a single-parent household. Tyler's model of male anger ends up feeling a lot more like male privilege – and as conservative and regressive as that implies. As the critic Ann Powers noted recently, "Maybe OFWGKTA raps about rape because none has ever known a victimised woman, so it seems comic book to them." What both Odd Future and Lil B are doing, at heart, is trolling their elders in the hope of provoking reaction. So why does Lil B seem so much more exciting? Perhaps because he understands that truly brave trailblazing entails trolling your own core demographic, not outsider strawmen who have no time for you anyway. And perhaps because he seems interested in engaging with wider culture at the same time as disappearing into his own head: while he's made his name by splurging often erratic freestyles on to YouTube as though he's trying to empty his brain into cyberspace, when Lil B hits the mark he is a visionary talent. In The Age of Information, for instance, he muses on the internet that is the lifeblood of his generation. It won't have escaped your attention that these culture wars are, once again, largely being fought by straight men. Another California teenager, with a style indebted to both Odd Future and Lil B, could change that. Nineteen-year-old Angel Haze is a bisexual girl of Native American ancestry, whose Altered Ego mixtape is one of the year's finest. She essays love songs of cosmic scope and reach, pulling together a sequence of startling, heart-squeezing imagery on, for example, Fall for Your Type; then she turns round and uses her "queerness" as a weapon to deliver the most vituperative nastiness you'll hear this side of, well, Odd Future. Both Lil B and Angel Haze seem determined to twist and shred questions of love, sexuality, culture and the self into new shapes. If words are malleable to them, that's only because they themselves are in flux. In contrast, Tyler and Odd Future are stuck in rigid archetypal modes. Lil B understands that hip-hop values aren't antithetical to progress: when he claims that "in 100 years, people will look back and thank me" for confronting the genre's homophobia, it's partly braggadocio – but you wouldn't bet against him being proven right. And this is how it should be. Personally, as a gay hip-hop fan, I am long since inured to impolitic lyrical content. But as easy as it can be to turn a blind eye, I don't expect to do this in two decades' time. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All Hip-hop Rap Urban music Gay rights Alex Macpherson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

LinkedIn prepares for US flotation Posted: 09 May 2011 07:17 AM PDT Business site expected to raise about $146m as it becomes first major western social network to go public LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals, is to float on the New York stock exchange with an offer that could value the nine-year-old website at more than $3bn (£1.8bn). LinkedIn, which has about 100 million users and turned a profit of $15.4m on revenues of $243m in 2010, expects to raise about $146m with its keenly anticipated flotation later this year. It will become the first major social network in the west to go public, following the Chinese network Renren which said in the first week of May it will raise $743m in a flotation on the New York stock exchange. Though others are larger, notably Facebook with around 700 million users worldwide, the business orientation of LinkedIn's members make them potentially more valuable to advertisers because of their influence and power. The company will offer 7.8m shares priced at $32-$35 each – the top of its expected price range. LinkedIn was expected to start a social media goldrush when it announced plans to go public in January. The social network is among a cluster of highly valued internet sites – including Skype, Groupon, and Zynga – anticipated to fetch huge sums with flotations in the next 12 months. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn, will join the company's other shareholders, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs and McGraw-Hill, in selling 3m shares in the public offering. LinkedIn will offer a further 4.8m shares. Major investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, which together own about two-fifths of the company, will not be participating in the IPO. Unlike more mainstream ad-supported social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn has a "freemium" commercial model, offering premium services to paying customers, while basic features and registration are free. According to its IPO prospectus filed in January, revenue from paying users fell to 27% of overall revenues for the first nine months of last year, down from 41% in the previous year. Job listings and recruitment contributed 41% of net revenue in the same period, up from 29%. Advertising revenue remained steady at 32%. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JP Morgan are LinkedIn's three lead advisers. LinkedIn Digital media Social networking IPOs FTSE Stock markets Advertising United States Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Chloé names new creative director Posted: 09 May 2011 10:49 AM PDT Paris fashion label says the Birmingham-born former Pringle designer will replace fellow Briton Hannah MacGibbon in June The Paris fashion label Chloé, whose previous designers have included Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney, has announced that Clare Waight Keller, who was responsible for updating the Pringle of Scotland brand, will take over as creative director. She will replace fellow Briton Hannah MacGibbon, who has worked at the fashion house for ten years and has been creative director since 2008. Chloé, which is owned by Compagnie Financière Richemont, said MacGibbon was leaving to pursue "new projects". Born in Birmingham, Waight Keller was appointed creative director of Pringle in 2005 and charged with turning it from a heritage label into a modern luxury brand. She resigned in March after a successful six-year run with the label, where she oversaw the menswear and womenswear collections and worked on collaborations with the likes of Tilda Swinton. She has established herself as a talent able to combine craft with modern shapes. With an MA in fashion knitwear from the Royal College of Art, she has worked at Gucci under Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and begins work at Chloé on 1 June. Despite mixed reviews, MacGibbon had begun to turn Chloé's image around with a mix of 1970s-influenced sportswear and minimalism, including wide trousers and silk blouses. In March 2010 MacGibbon, along with her former Chloé boss Phoebe Philo (currently head of design at Céline) and McCartney, were widely celebrated for pioneering an influential new look: feminine minimalism. MacGibbon's tenure was seen as a marked improvement on the seasons by the Swedish designer Paulo Melim Andersson, who left after Philo in 2006. But the label, despite a recent successful fragrance launch, has failed to replicate the success of the Philo years, which included stellar sales and hits such as 2002's Paddington bag. Chloé's chief executive, Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye, said MacGibbon's "considerable talents will be missed". In a short statement MacGibbon added: "I will always have a deep affection for Chloé and am very grateful to the company for having given me this opportunity." During the Paris autumn/winter womenswear shows in March, rumours circulated that the label was not planning to renew the designer's contract, and had even interviewed replacement designers. As yet no one has claimed the top job at Christian Dior after John Galliano was fired over his alleged racist and antisemitic outbursts. Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, the designer of Kate Middleton's wedding dress, is the latest designer thought to be in the frame. Balmain has also recently replaced its head designer. Fashion Fashion designers France Europe Simon Chilvers guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The great corporate tax swindle Posted: 09 May 2011 08:20 AM PDT It's astounding how our politicians have bought in to firms' tax blackmail. But there is an alternative: workplace democracy More and more, we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price-gouging or even the government subsidies and tax loopholes they enjoy. For example, as the oil majors reap stunning profits from high oil and gas prices, we are told it is impossible to tax their windfall profits or stop the billions they get in government subsidies and tax loopholes. There appears to be no way for the government to secure lower energy prices or seriously impose and enforce environmental protection laws. Likewise, despite high and fast-rising drug and medicine prices, we are told that it is impossible to raise taxes on pharmaceutical companies or have the government secure lower pharmaceutical prices. And so on. Such steps by "our" government are said to be impossible or inadvisable. The reason: corporations would then relocate production abroad or reduce their activities in the US or both. And that would deprive the US of taxes and lose more jobs. In plain English, major corporations are threatening us. We are to knuckle under and cut social programmes that benefit millions of people (such as college loan programmes, Medicaid, Medicare, social security, nutrition programmes, etc). We are not to demand higher taxes or reduced subsidies and tax loopholes for corporations. We are not to demand government action to lower their soaring prices. If we do, corporations will punish us. Three groups deliver these business threats to us. First, corporate spokespersons, their paid public relations flunkies, hand down the word from on high (corporate board rooms). Second, politicians afraid to offend their corporate sponsors repeat publicly what corporate spokespersons have emailed to them. Finally, various commentators explain the threats to us. These include the journalists lost in that ideological fog that always translates what corporations want into "common sense". Commentators also include the professors who translate what corporations want into "economic science". Of course, there are always two possible responses to any and all threats. One is to cave in, to be intimidated. That has often been the dominant "policy choice" of the US government. That's why so many corporate tax loopholes exist, why the government does so little to limit price increases, why government does not constrain corporate relocation decisions, etc. No surprise there, since corporations have spent lavishly to support the political careers of so many current leaders. They expect those politicians to do what their corporate sponsors want. Just as important, they also expect those politicians to persuade people that its "best for us all" to cave in when corporations threaten us. What about the other possible response to threats? Government could make a different policy choice, define differently what is "best for us all". In other words, it could persevere in the face of business threats, and to do so, it could counter-threaten the corporations. When major corporations threaten to cut or relocate production abroad in response to changes in their taxes and subsidies, or demands to cut their prices or serious enforcement of environmental protection rules, the US government could promise retaliation. Here's a brief and partial list of how it might do that (with illustrative examples for the energy and pharmaceutical industries): • Inform such threatening businesses that the US government will shift its purchases to other enterprises. • Inform them that top officials will tour the US to urge citizens to follow the government's example and shift their purchases as well. • Inform them that the government will proceed to finance and organise state-operated companies to compete directly with threatening businesses. • Immediately and strictly enforce all applicable rules governing health and safety conditions for workers, environmental protection laws, equal employment and advancement opportunity, etc. • Present and promote passage of new laws governing enterprise relocation (giving local, regional and national authorities power of veto over corporate relocation decisions). • Purchase energy and pharmaceutical outputs in bulk for mass resale to the US public, passing on all the savings from bulk purchases. • Seize assets of enterprises that seek to evade or frustrate increased taxes or reduced subsidies. Laws enabling such actions either already exist in the US or could be enacted. In other countries today, existing models of such laws have performed well, often for many years. These could be used and adjusted for US conditions. Of course, a much better basis than threat and counter-threat is available for sharing the costs of government between individuals and businesses. That basis would be achieved by a transition to an economic system where workers in each enterprise functioned collectively and democratically as their own board of directors. Such worker directed enterprises eliminate the basic split and conflict inside capitalist corporations between those who make the key business decisions (what, how and where to produce, for example) and those who must live with and most immediately depend on those decisions' results (the mass of employees). One concrete example can illustrate the benefits of this alternative to the threat/counter-threat scenario. Corporations have used repeated threats (to cut or move production) as means to prevent tax increases and to secure tax reductions. Likewise, they have made the same threats to secure desired spending from the federal government (military expenditures, federal road and port building projects, subsidies, financial supports and so on). In effect, corporate boards of directors and major shareholders seek to shift tax burdens onto employees. Their success over the last half-century is clear. Tax receipts of the US government have increasingly come, first, from individual rather than corporate income taxes and, second, from middle and lower individual income groups rather than from the rich. In worker-directed enterprises, the incentive for such shifts would vanish – because the people who would be paying enterprise taxes are the same people who would be paying individual income taxes. Taxation would finally become genuinely democratic. The people would collectively decide how to distribute taxes on what would genuinely be their own businesses and their own individual incomes. Economics US taxation United States Economic policy Obama administration Public finance Equality Richard Wolff guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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