The Guardian World News

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• US and Europe voice fears of Japan mishandling nuclear crisis
• Spy escapes murder case in Pakistan
• Global paedophile network smashed
• BBC 'wasting nearly £80m a year'
• Woman used as 'slave' wins case
• Reforms will see hospital 'shut' signs
• Fight for 'right to be forgotten' online
• Public sector losses outstrip forecast
• Newer universities face biggest cuts
• '33 women in two months? I'm 75!'
• G4S may face charges over Mubenga
• Ivory Coast abuse detailed in report
• Dispute keeps Mandela pistol hidden
• 'Fabulous. Perfect. Soulful. Amazing'
• Peter Brook: and for my next trick …
• Why women still need Orange prize
• What the Romans didn't do for us
• Magic roundabouts search launched
• Nate Dogg, hip-hop's unsung hero
• Stirling success for classical music

US and Europe voice fears of Japan mishandling nuclear crisis Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:16 PM PDT EU expert says Fukushima is out of control as UK and France advise their citizens to leave Tokyo because of radiation fears International concern that Japan has lost control over the nuclear crisis is escalating as Britain, France and other countries advised their citizens to "consider" leaving Tokyo because of heightened radiation levels. Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he would visit the Japanese capital to gather information about the "very serious" situation at the Fukushima plant. Conflicting reports from the damaged nuclear plant have deepened alarm over Japan's management of the crisis, leading to charges that the authorities are actually making the situation worse. Gregory Jaczko, who heads the US nuclear regulator, said Japan had failed to order a big enough evacuation. He told Congress the public should get at least 50 miles away from the stricken plant. The Japanese cleared a radius of 12 miles. He raised further fears by saying that all the water had evaporated from one of the spent fuel pools at the nuclear plant, so there was nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter. Jaczko said officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, which could affect workers' ability to stop temperatures rising. The EU's energy chief, Günther Oettinger, told the European parliament the situation was out of control. "We are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster," he said. "There could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island." He said it was impossible to "exclude the worst", adding: "There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen." The partial meltdown at Fukushima appeared more serious than the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, told Congress. China, which had been driving a global revival of the nuclear industry, announced it was putting construction on hold, and ordered safety reviews at existing facilities. The heightened concerns – six days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami plunged Japan into a humanitarian as well as a nuclear emergency – brought criticism of the authorities' management of the situation at Fukushima. Yuli Andreyev, former head of the agency tasked with cleaning up after Chernobyl, told the Guardian the Japanese had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster. He also said the authorities had to be willing to sacrifice nuclear response workers for the good of the greater public, and should not only be deploying a skeleton staff. "They don't know what to do," he said. "The personnel have been removed and those that remain are stretched." Kenneth Bergeron, a physicist who has done research on nuclear accident simulation, said Three Mile Island had shown the importance of bringing in outside experts. "I am concerned that the management of this accident was left to very local hands for a very long time," he said. "Sometimes the managers and operators in place when the accident has taken place are not well qualified. They may have the inability to see the big picture." He criticised the rescue effort for not immediately working to restore the power to the reactors' cooling systems. "What was really needed at Fukushima was restoration of the AC power to the emergency cooling system, and instead we saw them running fire hoses from the ocean. A jerry-rigged arrangement like that sounds to me like a move of real desperation." The Japanese did not assemble a dedicated crisis management team until Monday morning, Bergeron said. "You need a different kind of person and a different kind of training, and I didn't see any evidence of that until it was very late." The decision to evacuate personnel when radiation levels spiked also attracted criticism. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said: "How long can 50 workers last in trying to manage a disaster in four reactors?" However, as Chu told Congress: "If workers have to be permanently evacuated from the site it is unclear if the damage can be effectively contained." The slow and limited information from the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, also came under attack. Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, erupted in front of reporters at the company's lack of transparency. Jim Riccio of Greenpeace said: "I can understand why they would not want to cause panic in the population. But in a disaster of this magnitude timely and accurate information is of the utmost importance." Andreyev accused Japan's regulators of sacrificing safety for profits. "Producers always try to hide the danger. After Chernobyl happened, they also tried to hide it." Viewpoint, page 33 Factory shutdowns, page 35 Japan earthquake and tsunami Natural disasters and extreme weather Japan International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Suzanne Goldenberg Miriam Elder guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Spy escapes murder case in Pakistan Posted: 16 Mar 2011 12:44 PM PDT Raymond Davis flown to US airbase after payments made to relatives of men shot dead by intelligence agent in Lahore Raymond Davis, the CIA spy charged with murder in Pakistan, has flown out of the country after the relatives of two men he killed dropped charges in exchange for "blood money" of at least $2.3m (£1.4m) and help in resettling abroad. Davis slipped out of Lahore on a special flight from the old city airport after being released from the sprawling jail where he had been held for almost 10 weeks amid a diplomatic storm that rocked relations between the two allies and sucked in President Barack Obama. A Pakistani official said the 36-year-old US spy was bound for an airbase in Afghanistan, then on to the US. Davis was freed under Islamic laws that allow a murderer to walk free on payment of compensation to the family of his victims. The acquittal took place during a closed hearing at Kot Lakhpat jail where no reporters were present. "The court first indicted him, but the families later told the court that they have accepted the blood money and they have pardoned him," said Rana Sanaullah, the Punjab law minister. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, thanked the families for pardoning Davis and allowing the American to go. Speaking from Cairo, Clinton said the US had not paid to win Davis's release. The dramatic case has become an obsession in Pakistan since Davis, a bulky former special forces soldier, opened fire on two men at traffic lights on 27 January. Davis claimed he acted in self-defence against robbers, but prosecutors said he shot one in the back as he ran away. Several officials said the men he killed were linked to Pakistani intelligence. The deal to free Davis was an unusual mix of Islamic law and tense backroom negotiations between American and Pakistani spies and diplomats. Court documents detailed payments of almost $1.2m to the mother, widow and eight siblings of Faizan Haider, while relatives of the other dead man, Muhammad Faheem, received a similar amount. A senior Pakistani official said compensation was also paid to the family of a third man killed by a US rescue vehicle, presumed to be driven by CIA employees. It is believed the money was transferred by Pakistani authorities, pending reimbursement from the US, allowing Clinton to make her denial of payment on Wednesday. Washington also undertook to facilitate the future resettlement of family members in the US or a Gulf state such as Dubai, the official added. "The Americans will be helpful to the families," he said. But the deal was also a defeat for US diplomacy, which had insisted Davis was a bona fide diplomat who enjoyed immunity from prosecution. In the early stage of the controversy, the US accused Pakistan of "illegally detaining" Davis, while Obama defended him as "our diplomat". The carefully orchestrated legal events in Lahore belied weeks of negotiations between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which have been at barely concealed loggerheads over the incident. The legal manoeuvres were "a fig leaf", one official admitted. The idea of a payment was first mooted between Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, and Senator John Kerry in February. But the arrangement first needed the co-operation of Pakistani intelligence, which seemed determined to press its advantage. Relations between the two spy agencies had been fragile for months. In December the CIA station chief had to leave Islamabad after being named in the press; ISI officials were angry that their chief, General Shuja Pasha, had been named in a New York lawsuit brought by victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The ISI had been unaware of Davis's CIA role in Pakistan, where he was employed to protect operatives gathering information about groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamist group close to Pakistan's intelligence service and linked to terrorist attacks against India, and relations between the CIA and ISI were strained as a result. The CIA director, Leon Panetta, phoned the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, last month to try to smooth relations. Media leaks in the Pakistani press during the stop-start trial kept the pressure on the US, such as the publication last weekend of the names and passport details of other "Raymonds" – Americans suspected of entering Pakistan under false pretences – in a newspaper. The report quoted "official sources". In return for Davis's release, the ISI has obtained an undertaking from the CIA about covert operations on their turf, the Pakistani official said. "They will do nothing behind our backs that will result in people getting killed or arrested." There were other indications that a deal had been worked out. The US embassy press release welcoming Davis's release was initially dated March 10 – around the same time a deal was struck in Washington. Analysts also noted that General Pasha, who was due to retire this month, obtained an unusual one-year extension of tenure this week. Kerry, head of the Senate foreign affairs committee, who is often used as a go-between in difficult issues, is thought to have raised the issue of compensation with the Pakistan government on a visit to Islamabad on 16 February. Kerry's visit, devoted to securing Davis's release, was initially believed to have been a failure. But US officials have been working behind the scenes since then at trying to secure the deal. Kerry said: "This was a very important and necessary step for both of our countries to be able to maintain our relationship and remain focused on progress on bedrock national interests, and I'm deeply grateful for the Pakistani government's decision. "We deeply regret the loss of life that led to this difficulty in our relationship and the demonstrations on Pakistan's streets, but neither country could afford for this tragedy to derail our vital relationship. We look forward to working with Pakistan to strengthen our relationship and confront our common challenges." The US state department released a statement by the US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, who accompanied Davis on the flight from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Munter thanked the families of their victims for pardoning Davis. "I am grateful for their generosity." He stressed that the US justice department has opened an investigation into the shooting in Lahore. He added: "Most of all, I wish to reaffirm the importance that America places in its relationship with Pakistan, and the commitment of the American people to work with their Pakistani counterparts to move ahead in ways that will benefit us all." As night fell in Lahore, there was a small protest outside the US consulate where Davis claimed to work, led by demonstrators from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's main religious party. Further protests are expected after prayers on Friday. Meanwhile, the CIA continued drone strikes in the tribal belt, firing three missiles at a car in North Waziristan that reportedly killed five people. It was the 16th drone strike in Pakistan this year. CIA United States Pakistan Declan Walsh Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Global paedophile network smashed Posted: 16 Mar 2011 10:29 AM PDT Forces co-operate to make 184 arrests worldwide, with 60 children in Britain among 230 taken to safety Hundreds of children – including 60 in the UK – at "significant risk" of abuse from named paedophiles have been removed from immediate danger after British police helped destroy what they believe is the largest online paedophile network in the world. The three-year operation exposed more than 70,000 members across the UK, US, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand, and led to 184 arrests internationally, 121 of them in Britain. The investigation, Operation Rescue, led by the UK's national centre for child protection, was joined by Europol, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency, and police from Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Canada. It identified 670 suspects and 230 abused or at-risk children globally. Some of the first arrests were made in Thailand. Police were unable to say how many children had been taken into care as a result of the investigation. One suspect, a scout master whose case is still pending, was arrested 24 hours before a camp where he was allegedly planning to abuse a named boy in his care. Offenders were tracked to countries including Italy, Spain and Thailand. Details were revealed at a press conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, where the website's server was based. The network hid behind boylover.net, a legal forum which attempted to function covertly by operating as a discussion-only forum where members could share their sexual interest in young boys without committing any offence. But members, having made contact, would then move to more private channels such as email to exchange and share images of children being abused. In the UK, the 240 suspects included police officers, teachers and youth leaders, with an age range of 17 to 82. One of the UK suspects was a woman. To date, 33 have been convicted, including John McMurdo, 36, a scout leader from Plymouth, who was jailed in January last year after admitting possessing and distributing child pornography, and Lee Palmer, who was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2010 after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of two boys, aged two and nine. Police discovered more than 60,000 indecent images on his computer. Peter Davies, the UK police chief who leads the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), and is also the UK's lead for child protection, said: "The scale and success of Operation Rescue has broken new ground. Not only is it one of the largest operations of its kind to date – and the biggest operation we have led – it also demonstrates the impact of international law enforcement agencies working together with one single objective: to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice. That drive has been the hallmark of all the forces and teams involved. "What we show today is that while these offenders felt anonymous in some way because they were using the internet to communicate, the technology was actually being used against them. Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could, and was, tracked by following the digital footprint." Davies said all 230 children identified were at significant risk from named offenders but it was impossible to count how many had been rescued from future abuse "over the lifetime of these offenders". "There are occasions when the threat is so close that the only option is to take these children into care, but the risk can come from babysitters or neighbours. Most of them are individuals but there may be clusters." He said one of the key messages from this operation is that the internet is not a haven. "My advice to young people is to think carefully when they go on the internet because they don't necessarily know who they are speaking to – and nor did some of these offenders, who found they were actually making contact with members of our international police team." The founder and owner of the website, Amir Ish-Hurwitz, 37, from the Netherlands, was jailed by a Dutch court on Wednesday, triggering the decision to publicise the scale of the police operation. The site was closed down on the 25 November 2009. "We could have publicised this earlier, or later, but once the website owner was in court it was obvious that information would emerge," said a Dutch police spokesman. Operation Rescue began in 2007, after Ceop and Australian police independently found boylover.net. Three detectives then posed as members to identify those who posed the biggest risk to children. The breakthrough came when officers were able to access and take over the account of the only UK administrator, based in Durham, and were able to see the personal details, including date of birth, occupation and country of residence of members. "We were amazed that they had registered their true occupations" said Kelvin Lay, a senior investigating officer and one of the three responsible for infiltrating the site. Lay and the other officers identified those who had an occupation or hobby that put them in contact with children as grade A. He said: "We painstakingly went through every post and message to identify whether they were physically abusing children or had access to children." This process led to the 121 arrests. The Europol director, Rob Wainwright, described the results of the investigation as "phenomenal" and praised analysts at Europol's headquarters for infiltrating the sophisticated computer codes designed to cover the tracks of those using the online forum to meet or exchange illegal images of children. He said: "The safeguarding of so many vulnerable children is particularly rewarding." He added that Europol had so far issued more than 4,000 intelligence reports to police authorities in more than 30 countries, which had led to the arrest of suspects and the identification of abused children. The website, boylover.net, had attracted a cross-section of professional workers including teachers, taxi drivers and IT consultants, he said. As part of the operation, Ceop provided intelligence to Thai police in February 2008 about British nationals suspected of committing child sexual abuse in their jurisdiction. This led to Operation Naga in November 2008, during which four suspects were arrested, according to Ceop. Child protection Children Crime Karen McVeigh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

BBC 'wasting nearly £80m a year' Posted: 16 Mar 2011 06:37 PM PDT Internal report finds some staff are under-performing and thousands are paid salary top-up for which they do not qualify The BBC is wasting nearly £80m a year through poor management of under-performing staff and erroneously paying a salary top-up to thousands of employees who do not qualify for it, an internal report has concluded. The leaked study by the BBC's People department identified a range of savings that could be made as part of BBC director general Mark Thompson's bid to slash £400m from budgets in the wake of last year's licence fee freeze. More than 1,000 job cuts have already been announced by the BBC from the World Service and its online operation and several thousand more are expected – up to 25% of the total workforce of about 22,000 – as part of the cost cutting in the coming years. Poorly performing staff were costing the corporation more than £50m a year, according to the report, which recommended the introduction of a new management appraisal system based on conversations rather than paperwork. The report categorised 910 staff – about 5% of the BBC's total workforce – as "poor performers" and said fewer than half of nearly 3,000 employees in the BBC Vision division, which spans all of the BBC's TV channels, were given a regular appraisal. Other issues identified in the report include £28m in "unpredictability allowances" paid annually to BBC staff who did not work unpredictable hours. The total cost of the unpredictability allowance scheme of £33m a year made up more than 3% of the corporation's annual wage bill of about £1bn. The study was put together by the People department as part of the BBC's "Delivering Quality First" initiative in which staff are invited to put forward their ideas on cost savings and how the corporation can provide the best quality programmes for its audience. BBC executives are looking at every area of the organisation to see where it can cut costs, including the possibility of abandoning its coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships and Formula One motor racing. The BBC is also investigating axing the majority of its local radio output, merging much of the stations' output with national news and sport station, BBC Radio 5 Live. A BBC spokesperson said: "No decisions have been made so it would be wrong to speculate. It is of course only right that BBC staff have an opportunity to input ideas about shaping the BBC's future. "These sessions are designed to provoke discussion amongst staff about the way the BBC works and any decisions coming out of the DQF process would be subject to public consultation by the BBC Trust." The People department report also suggested a big discrepancy in pay between different parts of the corporation. Staff between pay grades seven and nine in BBC Vision earned an average of £40,436, 10% more than the typical pay for people on the same pay grades in the BBC News department, who earned an average of £36,464. Staff at equivalent pay grades in the corporation's operations department, responsible for strategy, property and legal affairs, earned an average of £46,916. The document is understood to have recommended a more flexible BBC workforce with more people on short-term contracts, fewer long-term "lifers" and less generous redundancy terms. "People don't leave the BBC, they leave line managers," said the report. "50% of the organisation has a turnover of just 3%. Some areas have even less. When considering the employee deal, it's more productive to start from identifying what it's not. It's not a job for life, a gold-plated pension [or] a paternalistic institution (any more)." • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". BBC Television industry Radio industry John Plunkett guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Woman used as 'slave' wins case Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:55 PM PDT Saeeda Khan withheld payment from Mwanahamisi Mruke, fed her two slices of bread a day and made her sleep on floor A former hospital director has been convicted of trafficking a woman from Tanzania to Britain and using her as a "slave", in the first case of its kind to come before a court. Southwark crown court heard that Mwanahamisi Mruke, 47, was brought to the UK by Saeeda Khan with the promise of a domestic service visa and 120,000 Tanzanian shillings a month (£50). There was also £10 a month pocket money. Desperate to fund her daughter Zakia's college education, Mruke agreed. But when she arrived in Britain in October 2006, Mruke was forced by Khan to work around the clock and sleep on the kitchen floor of her home in Harrow, London, for the next three years. Mruke was fed just two slices of bread a day, and ordered around by a bell, which her captor kept in her bedroom. Although the payment arrangements were initially honoured, Khan stopped paying Mruke after one year. She was also prohibited from leaving the house, her passport was taken away, and Khan made threats about Mruke's relatives in Tanzania. Yesterday the jury at Southwark crown court found Khan guilty of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation. She was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £15,000 towards police and prosecution costs, plus £25,000 compensation to Mruke. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said Khan had told "a pack of lies" during the trial. "Your behaviour was callous and greedy," he said. During the trial, the jury was told that Mruke was forced to work between 6am and midnight each day. She was also woken during the night to take Khan's son for a walk and never received a day off. When Mruke asked to go home after the deaths of her parents, and for her daughter's wedding, Khan refused. It was only in February 2010, when Mruke visited her local doctor with an interpreter, Rhoda Mwanga, that concerns were raised about her living conditions. Mwanga contacted the charity Kalayaan, which seeks justice for migrant domestic workers, who alerted the police. Ten days later police officers, accompanied by Mwanga and Kalayaan workers, visited Khan's home and rescued Mruke. Khan, a widow, was arrested and later charged. Speaking after she was convicted, Mruke said she would "never forgive" the person who had imprisoned her. "I felt like a fool, I was treated like a slave," she said. "Even the money I was promised, I was never paid. I feel terrible about this. " Mruke said she had been hoped to "improve my life" in Britain. But her hopes had been "dashed, my strength was reduced and I became unwell." She is now pursuing a civil claim against Khan. Crime Slavery Police Tanzania Amy Fallon guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Reforms will see hospital 'shut' signs Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:33 PM PDT The head of England's leading hospitals predicts that Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms will lead to hospital closures Hospitals will shut, others will lose their accident and emergency or maternity units, and some will be downgraded to glorified health centres because of the government's NHS shakeup, the head of England's leading hospitals has warned. Sue Slipman, chief executive of the Foundation Trust Network, told the Guardian that handing GPs control of £80bn of NHS funds, letting private healthcare firms provide treatment and giving patients more choice about where they are treated – key policies promoted by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley – would increase existing pressures on hospitals so much that some will not survive. "There will be some 'shut' signs; I suspect there will be some closures. There will be fewer A&E departments and in urban centres there may well be fewer maternity units," said Slipman, who predicted unprecedented changes to hospitals over the next few years. Cities, especially London, will experience the greatest loss of hospital facilities, she believes, while local hospitals in rural areas are more likely to continue to offer a traditional wide range of medical services. Slipman – who represents large, successful hospitals that are semi-independent of NHS control after gaining foundation trust status – said widespread "rationalisation" of hospitals was necessary, and would ultimately lead to better care for patients. "The NHS is not sustainable in its current form, including [its] supply of hospitals," said Slipman. "If you want to retain a service that's free at the point of delivery, it has to be the most efficient it can be and produce good quality. Whatever you think of these [Lansley's] reforms, you cannot be against reform if you want a sustainable NHS in the long-term. The reconfiguration of certain services is just the rational outcome of that change." But she conceded that patients' attachment to particular hospitals, and the rivalry between health professionals, mean the changes will be "difficult and controversial". She added: "This debate is the most difficult area [in healthcare]. On the whole, politicians don't like it. You'd be a very brave politician to stand up and say 'we need service reconfiguration', even if that's the logical policy." But the radical restructuring of the NHS foreshadowed in the health and social care bill will inevitably lead to what Slipman called "significant" changes and "a lot more" reconfiguration. Hospitals are already under pressure from an ongoing drive to shift healthcare into GPs' surgeries and other community settings. Financial pressures linked to the NHS's need to save £20bn by 2015 and its flat, or even reduced, budget in the coming years, are also causing difficulties. From 2013, GPs will be able to decide which hospitals to arrange treatment contracts with. This will hand them "the ability to destabilise" local hospitals and is likely to lead to "huge commissioner-driven reconfiguration of services", Slipman said. Allowing private firms to compete with the NHS for patients would add to the pressure on the viability of individual units and entire hospitals. The capital will be hardest hit, she predicted: "London proportionately has more hospitals per head of population than elsewhere, and that level is unaffordable in the new world." Slipman added that the public should get used to the idea of some current hospital buildings offering little more than outpatient clinics, with services such as A&E, surgery and acute medicine increasingly concentrated in fewer places, including regional centres of excellence in treating major conditions. The NHS may even see the emergence of "national chains" of hospitals, in which financially sound, clinically proven hospitals take over struggling smaller ones, some of which could operate on what Slipman called "the Debenhams model". The main hospital's name would adorn the building but services could be provided by a range of other hospitals – like rival outlets' concession stores inside Debenhams branches. Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said changes in the NHS should be driven by what places offered patients the highest standard of treatment, and not by a fixation with the bricks and mortar of local hospitals – even if that meant that some hospitals were "culled". A Department of Health spokesman said: "We do not agree with this bleak outlook. We are passionate about improving care for NHS patients, and that's what our plans will do." Polly Toynbee, page 28 NHS Health policy Health Andrew Lansley Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Fight for 'right to be forgotten' online Posted: 16 Mar 2011 10:38 AM PDT 'Right to be forgotten' would ensure users of Facebook and other sites could completely erase personal data The European Union is to enshrine a "right to be forgotten online" to ensure that, among other things, prospective employers cannot find old Facebook party photos of someone wearing nothing but a lampshade. In a speech to the European parliament, the EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, warned companies such as Facebook that: "A US-based social network company that has millions of active users in Europe needs to comply with EU rules." In a package of proposals to be unveiled before the summer, the commissioner intends to force Facebook and other social networking sites to make high standards of data privacy the default setting and give control over data back to the user. "I want to explicitly clarify that people shall have the right – and not only the possibility – to withdraw their consent to data processing," Reding said. "The burden of proof should be on data controllers – those who process your personal data. They must prove that they need to keep the data, rather than individuals having to prove that collecting their data is not necessary." Under the proposals, national privacy watchdogs will be endowed with powers to investigate and launch legal proceedings against companies with services that target EU consumers. Reding's spokesman, Matthew Newman, said: "A year ago she issued Facebook a warning because the privacy settings changed for the worse and now she's legislating to put flesh on those bones." Facebook profiles have been accessible by default since January last year. Users have to opt in to ensure that their photographs and other information can be viewed only by friends. Newman said companies "can't think they're exempt just because they have their servers in California or do their data processing in Bangalore. If they're targeting EU citizens, they will have to comply with the rules." Privacy settings are often so complex that a typical user does not know how to use them, Reding's staff say. The new legislation will ensure privacy is inbuilt and not tacked on later as an added extra. The rules will also outlaw the surreptitious gathering of data without the user explicitly giving permission. Newman said that the laws would make the EU the first jurisdiction to deliver a "right to be forgotten". "Maybe you've been at a party, up until four in the morning and you or someone you know posts photos of you," he said. "Well, it's a harmless bit of fun, but being unable to erase this can threaten your job or access to future employment." The rules would give consumers a specific right to withdraw their consent to sharing their data. "And after you have withdrawn your consent, there shouldn't even be a ghost of your data left in some server somewhere. It's your data and it should be gone for good," he said. Facebook believes it is already compliant with EU law and says it is working alongside Brussels officials in the revision of data protection legislation that was enacted in 1995, in the early days of the internet. "Facebook is fully engaged in the debates around the review of the European Union's data protection directive," said a company spokeswoman, Sophy Silver. "We work closely with data protection authorities across the EU and with the European commission and parliament.. Silver said Facebook users were already able to remove their data completely from view, after which it took a few weeks to clean up the company's servers. Social networking Facebook European Union Internet Europe Leigh Phillips guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Public sector losses outstrip forecast Posted: 16 Mar 2011 01:13 PM PDT More than 100,000 jobs lost in 2010 as Labour accuses Office for Budget Responsibility of getting its forecasts wrong Public sector workers are being laid off much faster than officials forecast, with more than 100,000 jobs being lost over the past 12 months. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a decline of 111,000 in "general government" workers, 1.9% of the total, during 2010; 66,000 of the jobs were in local government. In its forecast with the budget last June, George Osborne's Office for Budget Responsibility predicted a decline of 0.1%, equivalent to 5,500 jobs, in general government employment between the financial years of 2009-10 and 2010-11. In its revised November estimates, the OBR shifted its estimate of the number of government employees in 2010-11 down by a further 40,000; but yesterday's 111,000 figure means job losses are running twice as fast as it expected. Liam Byrne, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "If the OBR has underestimated the rise in public sector unemployment, then that makes the outlook for jobs even worse." On the ONS's wider measure of public sector employment, which includes public sector corporations, the government's austerity drive claimed 132,000 public sector jobs in 2010, with the rate of job losses gathering pace through the year. Some 45,000 public sector jobs were lost in the final three months of 2010 alone, including 32,000 in schools and colleges, despite the promise to protect education. There was also a surprise rise of 9,000 jobs in "public administration", raising a question about whether the government is finding true efficiencies. The decline in public sector jobs overall is partly attributed to the government's recruitment freeze, but the pace suggests cuts are already translating into job losses. It is now known that, overall, 170,000 local government workers have got "at risk" notices, which will take some months to translate into redundancies. The ONS figures show the total of unemployed people increased by 27,000 in the three months to January to reach 2.53m, the highest figure since 1994. Ministers said the figures show that the private sector is picking up staff and offsetting some of the public sector redundancies, citing a 77,000 rise in jobs from non-state employers in the final three months of 2010. The figures also show a 45,000 fall in public sector jobs between October and November 2010. In 2010 there was a 132,000 reduction in public sector employment, a decrease of 2.1%. Of those laid off in the last quarter of 2010, 9,000 were in central government, 24,000 in local government, and 12,000 in quangos and other public corporations. Regions with the biggest falls in public sector jobs were: Yorkshire and Humber (22,000); the north-west (19,000); and the south-west (18,000). In Whitehall the largest losses were in the Department for Work and Pensions (1,670), the Home Office (1,190), and Revenue & Customs (640). Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "These job losses are a mark of things to come. Where is the protection for frontline services the prime minister promised?"  The Cabinet Office welcomed the figures as showing that efficiencies are being found across the public sector. Job losses Public sector careers Public sector pay Public services policy Public sector cuts Public finance Heather Stewart Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Newer universities face biggest cuts Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:00 PM PDT Official figures show £940m cuts will target teaching colleges All but five universities in England are to have their funding cut next year, according to official figures, which show that newer universities focused on teaching will be worst affected. A total of £940m is being cut from the budget for teaching, research and buildings for the next academic year, a 12.6% reduction. Universities that can offset teaching losses with their research income emerge most unscathed, as the teaching grant is reduced by 8.2%, compared with 2.8% shaved from the research budget. There will also be a 58.1% cut in cash terms in funding for buildings. Figures published on Thursday by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) show that just five universities will see a rise in cash terms in their grant.With inflation of 2.4%, only one institution sees a real-terms rise in income: the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where the teaching grant of £3.2m is dwarfed by £17.7m funding for research. Among the 20 least affected universities, seven are members of the research-intensive Russell group: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, University College London, Imperial, Warwick and Manchester. None of the Russell group universities feature among the 20 worst affected. The 10 institutions where cuts are deepest include Bishop Grosseteste University College in Lincoln, which focuses on degrees relating to education. It will have a 13.4% cut in cash terms. City University, the next hardest hit, will have an 8.4% cut, while the University for the Creative Arts will have a 7.8% cut, and London Metropolitan University will see its budget reduced by 7.6%. The Hefce chief executive, Sir Alan Langlands, said: "Universities that don't lose out so much are those that benefit from the very modest nature of the cut in research funding, as opposed to the more significant cut in teaching funding." The universities with least change to their funding are those with high levels of world-leading research, Langlands said, and those with good incomes from business and charities, which often fund scientific research. Further education colleges that teach degree courses are also facing cuts, in some cases by as much as a fifth of their income for higher education. In coming years, universities will expect to get an increasing proportion of their funding from tuition fees. Durham is the latest to announce it will charge £9,000, the maximum allowed, from next year. Les Ebdon, chair of the university thinktank million+ and vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, criticised the combination of teaching cuts and a freezing of student numbers next year. "The net result is that the wealthiest universities with the most socially exclusive profiles will retain more public funding, while universities which create the most opportunities will receive less funding," he said. "If there was ever a year when the government needed to be bold and invest in higher education to keep fees down in 2012, this was it. Instead, students and universities are being left to pick up the tab." Universities have begun preparing for a more spartan public funding environment, cutting back on less successful courses, seeking redundancies and forging closer links with business. David Latchman, master of Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, said he expected to see further growth in the school of business and in courses related to improving job skills, such as arts management. Birkbeck's strategy will include encouraging firms to subsidise their employees to study part-time and recruiting more foreign students. It will debate a three-tier system of variable fees. "Law can bear a higher fee than English," Latchman said. Leicester University has shielded itself from the loss in government income through successful philanthropy; commercial activities, including hosting conferences; and raising fees for postgraduate students, as well as cutting costs. Its vice-chancellor, Bob Burgess, said: "A dynamic university will hold its nerve during this period, which is a period of transition. It's very important to maintain and develop as well as thinking about how you manage cost-cutting exercises." David Willetts, universities minister, said changes to funding meant more cash would follow student choices through the payment of tuition fees. "These changes will support a more diverse sector, where the choices of informed students provide a drive towards high quality teaching and efficient use of resources," he said. Gareth Thomas, Labour's higher education spokesman, said: "At a time when all our major rivals are investing heavily in universities to drive economic growth, cutting by so much the engine room of innovation in our economy seems even more illogical." A total of £6.5bn is being distributed to universities for the next academic year. The budget cut includes £255m of short-term funding, which was given by the last government to help institutions prepare for spending cuts. If this short-term funding is excluded, the reduction compared with the budget for the current academic year is £685m, or 9.5%. Meanwhile, European students could be charged to come to Scottish universities under proposals to keep higher education free for all Scottish residents. The new measures, coupled with much higher charges for English students, are designed to fend off increasing demands for the Scottish government to drop its long-standing opposition to making Scottish students pay a graduate tax to help increase income for universities. University funding Higher education Tuition fees Students Spending review 2010 Tax and spending Jeevan Vasagar Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

'33 women in two months? I'm 75!' Posted: 16 Mar 2011 10:19 AM PDT Italian PM says sexual schedule too much for man half his age, and adds his girlfriend would 'scratch his eyes out' anyway Silvio Berlusconi has ridiculed the case against him on vice charges, saying that the number of women with whom he was alleged to have had relations defied belief. "I am 75 years old", he told the centre-left newspaper, La Repubblica. "And even if I am a rascal, 33 girls in two months seems to me to be too many, even for a 30-year-old. It's too many for anyone." With three weeks to go before his trial, Berlusconi was signalling the launch of a vigorous counter-offensive. In fact, Italy's prime minister is 74 years old, and the prosecutors do not claim he had sex with all the female guests who attended dinners at his mansion home outside Milan, some of whom stayed on for alleged, so-called "bunga bunga" parties. Berlusconi portrayed them as "Carefree, elegant dinners". Asked why, in that case, the women had been paid large sums of money by his accountant, he said it was because of his charitable nature. "I pay for operations, the dentist [and] university fees to all those who have need of it", he said. The prime minister, who split from his second wife in 2009, said that another reason for disbelieving the prosecution case was that his girlfriend would have "scratched my eyes out" if he had done the things of which he is accused. He had earlier been quoted as saying he had a steady female companion. But, despite fevered speculation in the Italian media, she has never been identified. Berlusconi said that "fortunately, I have managed to keep her out of this dirt". On 6 April, he is due to go on trial charged with paying an underage prostitute and then trying to cover up the alleged offence by abusing his position. The young woman at the centre of the case is a Moroccan immigrant, Karima el-Mahroug. Documents published on Tuesday showed prosecutors believe she was only 16 years old – and not 17 as previously believed – when she first visited Berlusconi. In May 2010, she was taken to a police station on suspicion of theft, but then released after the prime minister telephoned to say, erroneously, that she was the grand-daughter of the then Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi has insisted he believed this to be the case, and was trying to avert a diplomatic incident. But in his latest interview, and for the first time, he appeared to place responsibility for the misunderstanding on Mubarak. "I can swear that a week before I had spoken to Mubarak about this girl for at least 15 minutes," he said. Berlusconi added that, at the time, he was "dealing with the crisis between Libya and Switzerland. I thought: what would happen if the relative of a foreign prime minister [sic], in this case Mubarak, were to be jailed in Italy?" In 2008, relations between Libya and Switzerland were pitched into crisis following the arrest of Colonel Gaddafi's son, Hannibal, and his wife for allegedly beating up their servants. Silvio Berlusconi Italy John Hooper guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

G4S may face charges over Mubenga Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:01 PM PDT G4S company and guards on flight carrying Jimmy Mubenga could be charged with manslaughter Scotland Yard is considering bringing a corporate manslaughter charge against the world's largest private security firm over the death of an Angolan deportee. Detectives investigating the death of Jimmy Mubenga, who collapsed while being deported on a commercial flight from Heathrow, have interviewed whistleblowers from G4S, the company hired by the government to deport foreign nationals. They are considering whether the company could be held responsible for his death under rarely used legislation that came into force three years ago. Passengers on British Airways flight 77 told police they saw three G4S guards heavily restraining Mubenga, who they said had been complaining of breathing difficulties before he collapsed. The guards were later arrested in connection with the death and, following interviews this week, were bailed until 4 May. They could face manslaughter charges. However, sources with knowledge of the case have said police are also considering passing a file to the Crown Prosecution Service recommending a corporate manslaughter charge against G4S. The first and only company to be convicted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 was found guilty last month. Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was fined £385,000 for the death of Alexander Wright, 27, a geologist who suffocated when he became trapped in a collapsed trench. Under the legislation, prosecutors need to prove a person's death was caused by a gross breach of duty of care by a company. They also need to convince a jury that the actions of a company's "senior management" were a substantial element in that breach. A prosecution of this kind against G4S, which receives more than £600m from the government for services including the running of four prisons, three immigration removal centres and 675 court and police cells, would be highly damaging to the Home Office. G4S is the second-largest private employer in the world and boasts a £7bn turnover. Police have recently interviewed three G4S whistleblowers, who last month told parliament that the company repeatedly ignored warnings from staff that potentially lethal force was being used against deportees. They said executives were warned about one technique nicknamed "carpet karaoke'', which involved bending deportees over in aircraft seats to silence them. The whistleblowers, who include a G4S charter operations manager who said he warned seniors they risked "playing Russian roulette with detainees' lives", are known to be cooperating with police and providing detailed paperwork they say corrobarates their claims. Detectives are also seeking to track down other individuals from G4S known to have concerns about safety standards and training at the company. Heathrow CID opened the inquiry into the death of Mubenga, 46, hours after he collapsed on the aircraft as it prepared for departure to Luanda on 12 October. The flight was delayed for 24 hours and passengers were transferred to a nearby hotel overnight. The following day, the passengers were interviewed by police but, owing to their imminent departure, only spent around 40 minutes each speaking to detectives. Days later, the Metropolitan police's homicide unit took over the case after the Guardian independently tracked down passengers who said Mubenga had complained he was unable to breathe for several minutes before his collapse. The unit arrested three guards, aged 35, 48 and 49, and questioned them under caution. Police have tried to trace other passengers for more in-depth interviews. Four G4S whistleblowers last month submitted evidence to the Commons home affairs select committee. The evidence, obtained by the Guardian, alleged serious failings by G4S. It also contradicted some of what senior G4S officials told MPs at a hearing after Mubenga's death. Keith Vaz, who Labour MP who chairs the committee, said the possibility that whistleblower evidence could assist the police investigation represented "progress". His committee has yet to decide whether to recall the G4S officials or hold further evidence sessions. "I am not surprised that the police have decided to take the matter forward given the circumstances surrounding this case," he said. "I am sure the members of the home affairs committee will want to look further into this case during their inquiry into the deportation of detainees." Committee member Julian Huppert, a Lib Dem MP, said police interest in the parliamentary testimony showed "how strong the committee process is". "I am glad the home affair select committee hearing has led to this outcome," he said. G4S said in a statement: "As this is the subject of an on-going investigation, we are unable to comment as this time. We can confirm that G4S has received no approach at this time from the authorities in relation to the company's position and potential liabilities." Jimmy Mubenga Immigration and asylum Police Crime Angola Paul Lewis Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Ivory Coast abuse detailed in report Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:41 AM PDT Human Rights Watch hears victims from Mali, Nigeria and Burkina Faso tell of executions and rape by Gbagbo foot soldiers The systematic persecution and murder of foreign nationals in Ivory Coast has been revealed in a harrowing eyewitness account obtained by human rights monitors. A 21-year-old Malian man told Human Rights Watch how he and six other west Africans were forced to their knees in a dark basement and beaten with an iron bar. Five of the men were executed at point-blank range but he resisted and escaped. The watchdog said it had documented the beating or burning to death of at least 14 west African immigrants in Ivory Coast. Its report chronicles rising atrocities on both sides of the country's political divide and said those committed by president Laurent Gbagbo's forces may constitute crimes against humanity. The Malian national, who was not named, told the NGO how he narrowly avoided death on 6 March when he and six others were abducted and forced into two vehicles by militiamen. "That day I was wearing dirty clothes from working as a porter," the man was quoted as saying. "That's how they knew I was Malian – we're most of the porters. As I was walking, six guys with Kalashnikovs came up behind me, and one of them stuck it into my back and pushed me toward the road. They did the same thing to a couple of others, and soon they had seven of us in total. "We were all west African nationals. They forced us into two taxis, and when we arrived at an unfinished house they forced us to go down to a basement, where there were other guys with Kalashes waiting. It was dark down there, so they used their cellphones for lights to take us down. It smelled horrible." He continued: "They beat us with an iron bar and a belt that had a sharp metal buckle. Four of them stood at guard with guns pointed on us at all times. All of them in the basement wore balaclavas. Then they attached black bandanas over the eyes of the first two guys, and one of the [pro-Gbagbo Young] Patriots executed [them] at point-blank range. "Another guy was lighting the area for him with a cellphone to make sure he didn't miss, even though the distance was only two metres. They did the same to the next three guys, as they were begging for their lives. Five executed right next to me, as they were on their knees. The whole time they kept saying we were rebels, we were rebels. "When they tried to put the bandana on my head, I fought back. Every time they tried, I'd fight. So then they again beat me with the iron bar. I kept refusing to let them put the bandana on, as did the guy next to me, a youth from Niger. Eventually I heard them say they would finish us off elsewhere, and they took us back outside." The man concluded: "They forced the guy into a taxi, but I saw another car coming and I took the chance to run for it. They fired two gunshots from behind, but didn't hit me. I ran and then once I got out of their sight, I found a spot to hide. Eventually I made it back home." Ivory Coast has been locked in violent turmoil since a disputed November election between Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner. Human Rights Watch described an organised pattern of xenophobic attacks. It said the homes, shops and mosques of hundreds of west Africans have been burned, and many have been chased out of their neighbourhoods under threat of death at the hands of pro-Gbagbo militias. The majority of these attacks came immediately after Gbagbo's youth minister, Charles Ble Goude, called for "real" Ivorians to set up roadblocks in their neighbourhoods and "denounce" foreigners. A militant pro-Gbagbo group has warned Burkina Faso nationals to leave the country by 22 March. Witnesses described to the watchdog how west Africans were killed by militiamen after being pulled out of taxis. Two marketplace porters were tied up, stuffed into their handcarts and set ablaze. A handicapped man from Burkina Faso accused by militiamen of hiding rebels in his house was brought into an abandoned building and set on fire. Attackers amputated the penises of two other men, then killed them. The report said: "Residents from Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Niger gave detailed accounts of daily attacks by pro-Gbagbo security forces and armed militias, who beat foreign residents to death with bricks, clubs, and sticks, or doused them with gas and burned them alive." Human Rights Watch also documented the rape of nine women by groups of militiamen and police operating together; all the victims were active and public members of Ouattara's political party. In two cases, the women were raped in front of family members, and the husband and father of the victims were then arbitrarily detained and remain "disappeared", the group said. The report detailed how victims of political violence have been beaten to death with clubs, large pieces of concrete, knives, axes and machetes. Others had their throats slit or were doused with petrol and set ablaze. It criticised gunmen claiming allegiance to Ouattara – who have taken over parts of north Abidjan in the past three weeks – for summary executions of 11 pro-Gbagbo troops captured since they rose up against the incumbent. Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said: "The time is long overdue for the UN security council to impose sanctions against Gbagbo and his allies directly implicated in the grave abuses of the post-election period. The international community should also send a clear message to Ouattara's camp that reprisal killings will place them next on the list." Ivory Coast Mali Nigeria Niger Burkina Faso David Smith guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Dispute keeps Mandela pistol hidden Posted: 16 Mar 2011 01:05 PM PDT Owner of house where Mandela buried gun as a young freedom fighter reportedly asking unaffordable price for it to be returned For historians in South Africa, it has become a holy grail. The pistol given to the young militant Nelson Mandela, and hidden by him underground half a century ago, has gone down in legend as the first weapon of the war against apartheid. But an attempt to reunite the 92-year-old with the artefact has collapsed into a bitter dispute between museum officials and the owner of a house where it is thought to be buried. The Liliesleaf Trust, which preserves the former headquarters of the armed wing of the African National Congress, said it had been denied access to the neighbouring property because of its owner's "belligerent and selfish stance". But Al Leenstra, the homeowner, said through his lawyer that he has offered to sell it at a reasonable price, and accused the trust of twisting the facts to manipulate public emotion. While the two parties continue to wrangle, the hopes of returning the gun – estimated to be worth 22m rand (£1.9m) – to South Africa's first democratic president, or to the ANC in time for its centenary next year, appear to be dwindling. The semi-automatic Makarov pistol was presented to Mandela in 1962, reportedly on the instructions of emperor Haile Selassie, by the colonel in charge of his military and political training in Ethiopia. Mandela then returned to Liliesleaf farm, the secret base of the ANC's military wing in Rivonia, Johannesburg, where he wore blue overalls to pose as a caretaker under the alias David Motsamayi. In July 1962, Mandela took the precaution of wrapping the gun in foil and an army uniform and burying it under a tin plate along with 200 rounds of ammunition. He was arrested soon after and charged in what became known as Rivonia Trial in 1963. In the decades that followed a number of new buildings appeared at Liliesleaf, including the house above the pistol's apparent hiding place. Allister Sparks, a veteran journalist, recalled a visit to Liliesleaf with Mandela years after his release. "He was reminiscing about all the things that had gone on while he was there," he said. "He said to the house maid, 'Where's the kitchen? I buried some weapons here 20 paces from the kitchen.' "We went to the kitchen and he stepped out his paces but by the time he got to 10 he hit the garden wall. So it was over in the neighbour's property … Anyway, we never found it and poor Nick Wolpe has been digging ever since." Wolpe, chief executive of the Liliesleaf Trust, was asked by Mandela in 2003: "Have you found my gun?" He is eager to search the neighbouring property, but says he is now "being held to ransom" by an asking price of 3m rand (£265,000) to buy it. Wolpe said the search "has been brought to an abrupt halt by the unreasonable behaviour of the owner of the property" where the gun is possibly buried. "The property owner has backtracked and displayed a greediness, realising that there is much to be gained and in so doing has begun to exploit the situation," he said. "It is very unfortunate that the homeowner has taken such a belligerent and selfish stance as the trust is extremely keen to uncover the whereabouts of the buried Makarov gun due to recent events surrounding Mr Mandela's health. This is highly unlikely to happen now." He added: "It is very sad and disappointing as we very much would like to find the gun while Mr Mandela is alive." Wolpe said there had been years of negotiations with several adjacent properties for a "fair and reasonable price". "I am extremely angry and frustrated. We've made it clear over the years that it's a negotiated purchase and we're not prepared to pay over the odds." But Bobbie Lanham-Love, a lawyer representing 77-year-old Leenstra, insisted: "It's a reasonable price, in accordance with the price quoted by Mr Wolpe last year, not two or three times the value or anything like that. The truth is that our client could probably go to the market and realise a much higher value." Lanham-Love accused the trust of twisting the facts to play on public sympathy: "Nelson Mandela is our greatest hero. It's so easy to hide behind the facade of an emotional argument like this." Nelson Mandela South Africa David Smith guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

'Fabulous. Perfect. Soulful. Amazing' Posted: 16 Mar 2011 03:00 PM PDT That was Lady Gaga's reaction to the PS22 school choir's take on Just Dance – and she's not alone. Hermione Hoby met the YouTube superstars – and their inspiring teacher There was really only one moment worth watching at last month's Oscars. At the end of a dull ceremony, a chorus of 10-year-olds took to the stage and sang Over the Rainbow with joyful lack of inhibition and more feeling than most Oscar-winning performances. But that would have been no surprise to the 10 million people who have watched PS22's pop covers online. PS22 is the largest elementary school on New York's Staten Island, an unremarkable, state-funded school with a thoroughly remarkable fifth-grade chorus. Tori Amos, Kylie Minogue and Beyoncé are among their fans; after they covered Just Dance, Lady Gaga called them: "Fabulous. Perfect. Soulful. Amazing." Now, as 10-year-old Azaria says: "We've met so many celebrities we've forgotten half of them!" They've also covered more esoteric fare, like Ariel Pink's Round and Round. The week after the Oscars, the sign outside the school reads: "We welcome home Hollywood's newest stars, PS22 Chorus!" As I'm signing in at reception, a door bursts open and there's chorus director Gregg Breinberg flinging open his arms to hug me. There's a lot of hugging over the next few hours. As Breinberg walks around the school, kids mob him, yelling: "Hi, Mr B!" The school has 1,200 pupils, but he seems to know everybody's name. When he started the chorus 10 years ago, he was newly arrived in the school and worried about the security of his position. "I was trying to be the music teacher that I thought I was supposed to be and not the music teacher that I am," he explains, over a hasty pizza lunch. Eventually, he threw caution to the wind and decided to follow his instincts. "I always tell the kids that the most interesting music can come when you break the rules. That holds true for our chorus. They have a unique sound: these kids do not sound like typical elementary school kids." Almost more moving than the sound they make is how expressive they are as performers. They sway and groove and make idiosyncratic hand movements along to the lyrics, finishing each song with whoops and yells. How does he get that sort of uninhibited performance from them? "Because if you don't stop 'em, they do it naturally," he says, grinning. "It's what happens when you put them in a setting where they're comfortable and where it's OK to goof. In the context of the group, that team spirit means they can really rise above their limitations." And there are plenty of those. Most of the kids come from economically disadvantaged families and, as Breinberg says, many "really had big issues with behaviour. A lot are in special education." Pupils only get to be in the chorus if they work hard and behave well. At the start of each academic year, Breinberg holds auditions and casts a new chorus, "and kids that really couldn't sing on the pitch at the beginning but loved it and wanted it so bad that I just had to give it to them, they end up actually on key by the end of the year". Today, former member 18-year-old David Bobe has come back to tell the chorus he's just been invited on to American Idol. Nonetheless, "these are not prodigies," Breinberg says. "It's that group dynamic that makes this amazing thing happen. Hopefully I inspire them just the same way they inspire me. I think that's why it works – there's this whole foundation of respect: respect for me; respect for them; respect for the music." And then it's time for practice. Half-eaten pizza slice in hand, he yells "Chorus!" through the corridors and kids come running. They're working on a version of the national anthem for an ice hockey game at Madison Square Garden the following week. The words are written on a whiteboard and he goes through each line patiently. "Does anybody know what ramparts are?" he asks. "Craziness?" offers one pupil. "Parts of a ramp?" suggests another. It's a reminder that though they may sing with more soul than most of the artists they cover, they are still, of course, just kids. Cheering each other on, they all say that the best thing about being in chorus, as 10-year-old Jonathan puts it, is that "it makes everyone feel like they have more friends". "The best feeling," says Breinberg, "is when you see those kids rising above themselves. We just want to give them something to hold on to and something to inspire them to be better people. And all the beautiful music is almost incidental, you know?" Pop and rock Lady Gaga Beyoncé Tori Amos Oscars Kylie Minogue YouTube guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Peter Brook: and for my next trick … Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:31 PM PDT At 85, Peter Brook shows no sign of compromising his radical theatrical vision. Here, he tells Michael Billington why a Mozart masterpiece deserved a makeover In his youth Peter Brook was famed for his pyrotechnic dazzle. "He cooks," wrote Kenneth Tynan in 1953, "with cream, blood and spices: bread-and-water addicts must look elsewhere." But, at 85, Brook is a very different director. Since 1974, when he took over the artistic directorship of the Bouffes du Nord in Paris, his work has been characterised by its clarity, lightness and distilled elegance; and, even though he resigned from the Bouffes in 2008, a desire to cut through the dead wood of tradition still gives his work its distinctive signature. His 90-minute production of Mozart's A Magic Flute, which comes to the Barbican next week, is quintessential late Brook. Out go the opera's pantomimic spectacle, big processions and trios of boys and ladies. Instead, we have a stage bare except for bamboo poles and minimal props and a young, nine-strong cast who deliver the work – sung in German with dialogue in French – crucially situated in front of Franck Krawczyk at the piano. As Brook wryly says: "If you come to this production looking for something that will slam you in the eyes, you've come to the wrong address." Meeting Brook for an early-morning appointment in his Bastille apartment in Paris – where he sits in his red dressing gown calmly sipping green tea – I am intrigued by the journey that has led him to A Magic Flute. In his early 20s, he quickly became disenchanted with the conservative ethos and restricted rehearsal conditions of the postwar Royal Opera House. When directing La Bohème, he complained that four of the singers hadn't actually met until 20 minutes before curtain-up. More recently, he has returned to opera with La Tragédie de Carmen (a radically stripped-down version of Bizet's spectacle), Impressions of Pelleas and a famous Don Giovanni at Aix-en-Provence. But why A Magic Flute now? "Every choice I've ever made," says Brook, "has been dictated by a formless hunch rather than by strict logic. With A Magic Flute I've always felt that there was a work of real quality that has been submerged through no fault of the composer. The librettist, Schikaneder, obviously wanted a big, fun popular show with plenty of scenic effects. But he and Mozart were both freemasons and, at a time when the movement was regarded by the Archduke as a potentially subversive political threat, sought to create an opera that is about spiritual trial and initiation. For Mozart, freemasonry represented his intuition that there was something finer and purer in life beyond the material and the everyday." A quest for the intangible For Brook, that obviously coincides with his own quest for the intangible that has underlain recent work such as The Man Who, based on Oliver Sacks's bestselling book, and 11 and 12, a meditative piece that used a story about tribal divisions in French colonial west Africa to argue for acknowledgement of human difference. In a world of high-concept opera productions, Brook also adopted an approach to Mozart that is almost revolutionary in its simplicity: to listen intently to what the music was telling him. "Every time a director and designer confront this work," says Brook, "they ask themselves, 'How shall we do it?' Some go down the baroque route. Others say, 'Let's do it with video.' But the question is always, 'What is it going to look like?' There is another approach, however, which is starting with the ear rather than the eye. The singers also approach it differently. They're not worried about how to control their voices to get over the orchestra. "Take the moment when Tamino sings his very first aria to Pamina's portrait. We take a shortcut to what is heavy and complicated in the opera by cutting out the Queen of the Night's three women and by focusing on Tamino's spiritual awakening. Conventionally, the singer feels 'this is where I begin to sing a very famous aria', and attacks it bang on. But here he begins the aria very quietly and there's a breathless hush as the audience listens to what he is singing and realises the aria arises out of character and situation." But, if Brook is deeply attentive to the music, he also champions Schikaneder who, he points out, was no lightweight buffoon, but a shrewd Viennese actor-manager who had once played Hamlet. "I have an unshakeable conviction," says Brook, "that never in history has a guy written the tunes, and someone has come along and put the words to them. I once asked Richard Rodgers whether he had any tunes in his bottom draw waiting for a lyric. He told me that it was only when he heard the lyricist's precise words, such as Oscar Hammerstein's "O, what a beautiful mornin'", that the melodies emerged. And in Mozart, the music is drawn to the surface by the words." Like all first-rate directors, Brook believes in what Blake once called "the holiness of the minute particular". But his quest for what he calls "the essential form of the opera" takes time. He worked for three months with the singers and Krawczyk so that "the piano is never a mere accompaniment or reduction of the orchestra but like one of the instruments in a quartet." Even the design is a product of trial and error. At one point, Brook leads me over to his work desk and shows me his early sketches for A Magic Flute, full of mounds and mini-pyramids, that were ultimately discarded. "I never, never consciously simplify," says Brook, "but follow my hunches and allow time to play its part. Time is this merciless, corroding force, but you also know that, if you stay with it, it will take you towards the pure essence." For all Brook's inner conviction, I sense a certain apprehension, possibly based on less than rave reviews for 11 and 12, that A Magic Flute may be considered out of step with the times. "I've always admired the British theatre," he says, "for its incredible energy and vitality, but I also feel there's a terror of silence and the power of the invisible, and Mozart's whole life was based on that interplay." But I don't think Brook need worry: for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, A Magic Flute offers not a reduction of Mozart's opera but a beautiful realisation of its inner core. 'I never think about my legacy' No living director has done more, both through his work and through his 1968 book The Empty Space, to change our perception of theatre than Peter Brook: to reinforce the centrality of the shared experience, to clear the stage of clutter and to realise the need for ecstasy. But, since Brook will be 86 by the time A Magic Flute reaches London, I wonder if he ever dwells on his artistic legacy. "I never think about that," he says, "which is why I'm delighted that two fresh faces have taken over from me at the Bouffes du Nord. The horror of someone trying to reproduce what I once did appals me. I was equally shocked the other day when a West End producer wrote to me out of the blue and asked if I could recreate my Stratford Midsummer Night's Dream of 40 years ago. But what does touch me is when people come up to me in the street, as they sometimes do since they mistakenly think I've retired, and talk about some experience that has remained with them. That for me is the only real legacy: the idea that one has left a lingering trace in people's memories. In the end, that's all a director can hope to do." Peter Brook Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Opera Theatre guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Why women still need Orange prize Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:38 AM PDT Women writers are failing as much as ever to win the recognition they deserve, so they need the publicity the award brings I've never been a huge fan of the Orange prize. I've liked many of the books nominated, and I've enjoyed the awards ceremony because after the winners are ushered on to the stage with a burst of thumping, triumphant power chords, which is delightful. But on the question of whether the prize should exist at all, I have always agreed with AS Byatt that it was sexist. "It assumes there is a feminine subject matter," she said. So why, this year, have I changed my mind? The past year or so has been a bad one for women writers. Not for writing produced by women. As always, lots of it has been excellent (and some has been terrible, much like the writing produced by men). It's been a bad year for women writers because it has become more apparent than ever that they are failing to receive the recognition they deserve. The February publication of Vida research demonstrating the astonishing under-representation of women in literary magazines and criticism didn't surprise me. I'd had many conversations with women writers to whom editors had expressed a lack of interest in publishing work by women. But I had hoped that it was just a coincidence that so many people I spoke to had witnessed these kinds of attitudes. Maybe less coincidental is the fact that an upcoming new anthology of short stories – a project I felt was really exciting – features work by a mixture of new and more established writers, 80% of whom are male. I was also perturbed to see that an LA Times article about the Orange Prize-shortlisted author Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad winning the National Book Critics' Circle fiction prize last week was illustrated with a photograph of Jonathan Franzen, because, as the article's headline – Egan Beats Franzen ... – seemed to indicate, his loss was considered more newsworthy than her win. Then there's the fact that David Nicholls's One Day has been such a runaway success among both men and women, despite the fact that it succeeds as a novel because of its careful adherence to the tropes of so-called women's commercial fiction (but, hey, it has a manly orange cover). It's easy to come up with reasons other than sexism to explain why women seem to get short shrift. It's just not especially easy to come up with valid ones, as TLS editor Peter Stothard demonstrated when he responded to the Vida data with the assertion that the 75% of books reviewed in his publication were by men because "we know [women] are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS". Evidently, he means fiction written by women. I would like it to be possible for women writers to combat sexism simply by focusing on producing great writing. But then women have been doing that for centuries and the attitudes are still entrenched, even though, as Alain de Botton pointed out when the Orange prize was launched in 1996, there is nothing "distinctive from being a man when it comes to picking up a pen". Unfortunately, the evidence shows that the experiences of male and female writers after they set their pens down are often distinctively different. That's why I've changed my mind about the Orange prize. I still agree with Byatt that the idea of female-specific subject matter is spurious, but I don't think that's what the prize rewards. As long as women writers are forced to continue the exhausting battle for equal billing, they need the Orange prize to demonstrate the accomplishment and variety of their work. Orange prize for fiction Fiction Awards and prizes Jean Hannah Edelstein guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

What the Romans didn't do for us Posted: 16 Mar 2011 01:30 PM PDT The discovery that a Roman road may in fact have been made by Iron Age Britons offers a glimpse of a far more sophisticated society than previously thought It's not a question often asked, but perhaps it should be. What did the Druids do for us? The discovery of a road in Shropshire that was built by pre-Roman engineers suggests that indigenous Britons may have been much more accomplished than we – or the Romans – liked to imagine. The road itself tells the story well. The route had long been known as a lost Roman road, named Margary No 64 after the man who first mapped what everyone assumed to be the country's earliest network. It was visible as a low earthwork and as marks in ploughed fields, and in 1995 archaeologists dug up a bit. Sure enough, it looked Roman. But in 2009, quarrying by Tarmac was due to destroy 400m of it, giving archaeologists a rare opportunity to expose a long section of road, some of it, crucially, very well preserved. At first, it still looked Roman, from its cambered, cobbled surface on a metre of hardcore and a clay base, to the ditches at the sides with a thin scatter of Roman rubbish. However, dig director Tim Malim noticed that the road had twice been rebuilt, and knew its history could be dated using a technique that tells you when buried mineral grains were last exposed to sunlight. The unexpected result was a more than 80% chance that the last surface had been laid before the Roman invasion in AD43. Wood in the foundation was radiocarbon-dated to the second century BC, sealing the road's pre-Roman origin. And Malim thinks a huge post that stood in 1500BC close to the crest of the hill was a trackway marker. So, while the cobbles rattled to the sound of carts and chariots generations before the Romans invaded Britain, the route itself was older than Rome. When the Roman army marched around its new conquest, it was not above using the road and discarding its litter. Indeed, there's every reason to believe that the Shropshire road continues north to meet Watling Street, suggesting that one of the Roman engineers' great achievements was at least in part no more than an act of resurfacing. It is fashionable among archaeologists and ancient historians to debate how much Britain was really "Romanised". There is no consensus. But notwithstanding villas with central heating and public statues of Roman emperors, some academics portray the four centuries of Roman occupation as a mere ripple on the longer and stronger flow of native culture and politics. But what of the reverse? Could Britain have been more "Roman" than was thought, before it was invaded? What do we find if we follow route 64 back into the past? The road implies not just the ability to design and organise its construction, but also the justification for its cost – heavy traffic. Immediately we are outside a vision of ancient Britain where wheeled vehicles appear only in battle, as Roman writers would have it, in chaotic displays of chariotry. Archaeological evidence is clear that long before the Roman invasion, the British landscape was well organised, with a dense network of fields and tracks. Larger settlements were towns in all but name, where homes were separated from industrial areas by streets, and functions such as mass storage and ritual had their separate places. Baths, medicines, skilled arts and crafts, perhaps even forms of currency – such things were commonplace, and can be seen evolving over millennia. But archaeology is revealing a twist to this native sophistication, which suggests that before they were invaded, Britons were more aware of Rome than Rome was of Britain. This is seen no more clearly than in a cemetery near Colchester, Essex, excavated mostly in the 1990s at, as it happens, another Tarmac quarry. Some very special people had been buried there. They weren't leaders, but members of the ruling class who had died between about AD40 and AD60: it's conceivable that some of them actually saw the invading Roman army, but they had grown up and learned their skills long before. There is nothing about their graves that looks in the least bit Roman. One of the men could have been a druid. But when you look at the things the deceased took with them, you notice a striking thing: Rome. Or more specifically, precious Roman objects requiring Roman expertise. These include a beautiful blue glass jar of a type more typically found in the Mediterranean region around the time of the birth of Christ, that probably held a cosmetic. There is a pottery inkwell: did its owner write? One man took with him a large Italian wine jar and a copper jug and basin set, such as was common in Pompeii; an amber-coloured glass bowl may have been made in Italy. And then there is "the doctor". This man had his wine jar, his imported pottery service and copper vessels. But he also had a set of surgical instruments – one of the oldest known in the ancient world. The tools are recognisably functional – scalpels, forceps, probes and more – and comparable to finds made around the Roman empire. But they are not Roman. On current evidence, they were made in Britain to designs that merely borrowed from Greece and Italy. Buried with the surgeon's shiny tools were divining rods and a magical board game. Whether you call him a doctor or a druid, he was a local aristocrat with access to luxuries and ideas from Rome and beyond, and he had the ability to choose. Archaeology traditionally deals in centuries; history in years. If you find something that looks Roman, you will probably call it Roman, though the dating may be too imprecise to pin down your discovery to a generation, still less a few years either side of a historical event such as a military invasion. Many things here once thought "Roman" could, in fact, be older. Shropshire's road, then, could be the start of a journey that changes the way we think about early Britain. Mike Pitts is editor of British Archaeology. Archaeology Heritage guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Magic roundabouts search launched Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:53 AM PDT A contest aims to find which ones make motorists' heads spin, and which are quite pleasant – in a roundabout way Blooming flower beds, velvety lawns, graceful silver birches, the gentle background hum of happy cars – to Tom Hemmingway, earth hath very little more to show more fair than a little patch of paradise, the roundabout in Nottingham outside the BBC's offices. He is so impressed by it – "one of the very best in Nottingham and possibly the best in the whole UK", that he has nominated it in a quest to find the nation's best (and worst) roundabouts. Hemmingway, who regularly drives past it, is quite lyrical about his promised land: "It even looks gorgeous with its colourful flowers and trees," he says. "It never struggles to cope even on match days when its proximity to Nottingham's two football clubs and to Trent Bridge cricket ground means it's heaving with cars. The roundabout takes it all in its stride and doesn't miss a beat." Letchworth Garden City claims the honour of the first UK roundabout, built in 1909, but they really took off in the 1960s, when Swindon acquired its legendary Magic Roundabout, which has been known to reduce motorists to tears. Many stir deep emotions, particularly among those who feel a lifetime is ebbing away during the hours spent trapped in their orbit. If anything the roundabout at Queen's Gardens in Newcastle-under-Lyme is even more densely planted than Nottingham's charmer, with grass, several trees and a bristling thicket of spiny shrubs. It fills James Welch, from Stoke, with revulsion. "I have the misfortune to have to navigate this appalling road island twice every working day, and it's not only a eyesore, it's also a catastrophe. The Queen's Gardens roundabout is plagued by constant beeping and motorists struggling to find the right lanes. "The best thing to do would be to take a JCB to it and plough the whole thing up and start again." The search, inevitably dubbed Roundabout Idol, has been launched by the car leasing firm Central Contracts, which promises to praise the best and name and shame the worst. "Rather than making our journeys easier, certain roundabouts have been plaguing our commutes and have us risking both vehicle and sanity to reach the other side," a spokesman said. "We are asking motorists to tell us what roundabout makes their head spin, their stomach churn and their temper rise." Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Nate Dogg, hip-hop's unsung hero Posted: 16 Mar 2011 09:08 AM PDT The singer lent his gangsta croon to chart-topping singles by Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey and Eminem Hip-hop star Nate Dogg, who has just died at the age of 41, isn't as familiar a name as his friend and long-time collaborator Snoop Dogg, who even your Grandma has heard of. But Nathaniel D Hale, always an immaculate figure in his suit and trademark bowler hat, had his gangsta croon all over dozens of hit records. A former US marine, in 1991 Nate Dogg formed a group called 213 with then-obscure friends Snoop and Warren G, and when Dr Dre brought Snoop onboard for his classic gangsta rap album The Chronic, Nate came along for the ride. The Chronic sold more than 3m copies, and Nate was on his way, moving centre stage on the Grammy-nominated Regulate with Warren G in 1994, which reached No 4 in the UK. His solo albums – which included collaborations with Tupac and Ludacris – weren't as memorable as the countless cameos he performed on hit after hit. He lent his unmistakable tones to tracks by Eminem, 50 Cent (21 Questions), The Game, Xzibit, Mariah Carey, Eve, Ludacris (Area Codes), Lil' Jon, Nelly, Redman and Mos Def; he stole the show on Ooh Wee from Mark Ronson's first LP; and was obviously on speed dial whenever Dr Dre (The Next Episode) or Snoop wanted a soulful verse. Why? His rugged baritone was hip-hop through and through, delivering something powerful and credible that other soul singers just couldn't. He was like a rapper simply singing his lyrics. And his lifestyle was hip-hop too – the inevitable drug and firearms charges in 2002, and an early death, following strokes in 2007 and 2008. You might not have known how familiar you were with Nate Dogg's work, but we should feel his absence keenly. Hip hop Urban music Snoop Dogg Dr Dre Rap Andrew Emery guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Stirling success for classical music Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:55 AM PDT Report concludes that Sistema Scotland project to immerse deprived children in classical music is having a positive effect and can achieve 'social transformation' Raploch, on the outskirts of Stirling in the heart of Scotland, may boast a stunning location between Stirling Castle and the city's famous monument to William Wallace, benignly overlooked by the Ochil Hills. But it is one of Scotland's most deprived estates, with 33% unemployment, grave problems with drug and alcohol abuse, and poor health. Only four children out of every 100 make it to higher education. But since 2008 an audacious project to change the future for Raploch's young people by immersing them in classical music has been working with 80% of children at nursery and primary schools. And now a new report commissioned by the Scottish government has concluded that the project, Sistema Scotland, has the potential "to achieve social transformation". Though the report acknowledged that the success of the long-term aims of the scheme – including hopes that children will be driven towards higher educational achievement and, ultimately, out of poverty – are impossible to evaluate at the moment, it concluded that the scheme was already having an overwhelmingly positive effect on the children involved. The programme is based on the Venezuelan El Sistema, the celebrated music-education and social-inclusion project founded in the 1970s, which has produced musicians such as Gustavo Dudamel, the music director of the LA Philharmonic, and the acclaimed Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Sistema Scotland has 388 children involved, of whom 90 have joined the Big Noise Orchestra, playing music together for up to 20 hours a week, and receiving intensive tuition from experienced musicians. During term-time the children in the orchestra receive tuition in after-school clubs, and in the holidays they are taught five times a week. Of the parents questioned for the report, all felt that their child's confidence had improved as a result of their involvement, and over 90% felt that their child was happier. Nearly 80% believed that their child was better able to concentrate, was more disciplined and more focused after their involvement in Sistema Scotland. The report said that "the holistic, immersive approach of Big Noise is central to achieving significant transformation, particularly to the lives of the most vulnerable children". Sistema Scotland was initiated by Richard Holloway, a former bishop of Edinburgh, after he visited Venezuela and was impressed by the profound social effects that El Sistema had on the young people involved. The scheme costs £474,000 a year, with 11% of the funding coming from public sources, including Stirling council. The organisers of Sistema Scotland are now keen to increase fundraising efforts to establish versions of the scheme in other parts of the country, and aim to be working with two more communities in the next two years. Scottish culture minister Fiona Hyslop said: "This evaluation shows that Sistema Scotland's Big Noise Orchestra is a great cultural experience for the children involved, which is having a positive impact on their lives. They are learning through creativity and aspiring to be part of something bigger." Classical music Scotland Young people Social exclusion Poverty Arts in schools Charlotte Higgins guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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