Tuesday 21 February 2012

Why does it matter if a child has a same-sex crush?

The ripples caused by a boy of seven coming out as gay shows society has a way to go before it views LGBT people equally

A blogger for the Huffington Post has caused ripples online recently by writing that her seven-year-old son has come out as gay. "Amelia" had previously explained on her blog that her son had developed a crush on the character Blaine from the TV series Glee, but now it seems that since learning what the word "gay" means this is how he chooses to describe himself. Is this too young an age to know for sure? Maybe so, however Amelia accepts that this may not be the last word on his orientation. There is no reason that identifying as gay at seven should be a commitment to being gay as an adult, any more than the assumption of heterosexuality that is imposed on almost all children stops people growing up gay. We think it cute when kids get crushes on their favourite pop stars, or have pretend weddings; if we are truly to regard gay people and straight people equally then why be concerned if the pop star our child likes is the same sex?

Part of the concern our society has with children even knowing what homosexuality is (let alone identifying as such) comes from a fairly understandable worry about children's exposure to sex in general. However, is the fact that I have a civil partnership with someone of the same sex so much more graphic than Sleeping Beauty marrying Prince Charming? It doesn't follow that explaining to children what being gay is means we need to explain what it might involve any more than they need to know what mum and dad get up to behind closed doors.

Nobody knows which children will grow up to be LGBT; it can happen in any family. I therefore believe as adults we have a duty to teach all children both that such people exist and that we are willing to accept and support them no matter their orientation. Over recent years the average age of coming out has dropped to around 15, but even if we were to argue that sexual orientation doesn't surface until puberty (against the testimony of many gay people who say they knew earlier) this still leaves a significant number of difficult years in the "closet". Of course, adolescence is a tough time for anybody, but the time between realising you are gay and summing up the courage to talk to anybody about it (a pretty normal six to seven years in my case) is more often than not a time of panic, confusion, isolation and hiding – and occurs at one of the most important, formative periods of life.

Having spoken to other gay people with less open-minded parents I realise I was lucky, I never at any point thought my sexuality was morally wrong. Even so, it was still impossible not to notice that many parts of society treated it as something to be ashamed of. It is unfair to expect our children to deal with suddenly being part of a stigmatised minority, to fear (rightly in many cases) that their own parents might reject them because of a secret that has been thrust upon them against their will – and to deal with it alone. Even if like me you are lucky enough to have parents who make it explicit that they will accept you no matter your orientation, the longer you keep the secret the longer you have to lie to those closest to you and therefore the harder it becomes to "confess".

Who is to say what psychological effect this childhood burden has on gay adults in later life? One thing we do know is that studies have shown young LGBT people are five times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. We need to understand that homosexuality is as much about romance as it is about sex, get over our panic about children knowing that some people are gay and make it explicitly clear to all kids that we will support them no matter what their orientation.

Opposing free labour doesn't make us 'job snobs', Iain Duncan Smith

I'm all for 'real jobs that worthwhile people do', be they in a supermarket or anywhere else. So let's see those jobs

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Opposing free labour doesn't make us 'job snobs', Iain Duncan Smith

I'm all for 'real jobs that worthwhile people do', be they in a supermarket or anywhere else. So let's see those jobs

  • John Harris
  • Tesco
    In the wake of protests, Tesco says it will offer paid placements with a guarantee of a job to all those people it will be taking on for work experience. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

    The last five days have been very interesting indeed. Last week, an amazing outburst of anger followed a Tesco advert for nightshift workers who would be paid only their jobseeker's allowance plus expenses – and as the issue was frantically discussed just about everywhere, a steady stream of employers announced that they had pulled out of the government's latest "work experience scheme".

    Sainsbury's and Waterstones had already exited; they were followed by such charities as Marie Curie Cancer Care, Shelter and Scope, as well as the electronics retailer Maplin, and Matalan, who suspended their participation and put it under "review". Tesco seemed to hold its nerve – but today, it announced that such placements will now be "paid" (though how much is unclear), and come with a guarantee of a full-time job "if the trial goes well".

    Such is the result of a very quick campaign conducted through social media, the outpouring of public opposition via endless radio phone-ins, and the threat of a national day of action tomorrow. But while everything shifts around the government, the Department of Work and Pensions isn't budging – and with that slightly unhinged air he occasionally affects, Iain Duncan Smith has been given space in the Daily Mail to malign those of us who are opposed to supplying free labour to huge multinationals as "job snobs". You can read his full piece here: my bullet-point responses to his main points run as follows:

    1. "… armed with an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer, we find a commentating elite which seems determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notion of a 'worthwhile job'."

    Wrong. Not "any" opportunity, but the kind of faux-opportunity that involves a large element of compulsion (remember, though you can turn down the offer of "work experience" and leave during week one; thereafter you have stay, or your jobseeker's allowance can be withdrawn), and an overwhelming likelihood of no job at the end. My pre-conceived notion of a worthwhile job, particularly for vast retail chain, is simple enough: it ought to have prospects of some kind, and pay the minimum wage. Incidentally, for 18 to 20-year-olds that's £4.98 an hour, and for 16 to 17-year-olds, £3.68. I think most big businesses can afford that: Tesco's latest move suggests they definitely can.

    2. "This Government does not have a workfare programme."

    It does, actually. Post week one of "work experience", people have to work for their benefit. Moreover, workfare is exactly what Mandatory Work Activity amounts to: as IDS says, "it is true that we have a programme which can require claimants to undertake a short period of compulsory work if we do not believe they are engaging properly in the pursuit of employment." He doesn't mention it, but while we're here, we should also mention the Community Action Programme, which involves up to six months of unpaid graft for your benefit.

    Incidentally, focusing the debate only on "young people" is disingenuous: the government's push on "work experience" affects people of all ages – which is why the Jeremy Vine show's spot on the issue included a caller phoning in about her 60-year-old brother recently doing "work experience" at a golf club in Whitstable (here, at around 18m45s). And one other thing: arguing about supposed job snobbery misses a crucial point completely: that what really offends me and thousands of other people is a vast taxpayer subsidy to private business. Which, if you think about it, is also antithetical to the very free market economics in which IDS is said to believe.

    3. "The fact is that the Government's opponents – who constitute a group of modern-day Luddites – are throwing around these misleading terms in a deliberately malicious and provocative fashion …"

    Brilliant! The use of "Luddites" and an accusation of using "misleading terms in a deliberately malicious and provocative fashion" in the same sentence. Did he read this back to himself?

    4. "Out of around 1,400 individuals who have taken part in the Work Experience placement at Tesco, more than 300 have been taken on in permanent roles with the supermarket."

    That's a success rate of 21%, and 1,100 people who worked for nothing, for nothing.

    5. "Sadly, so much of this criticism, I fear, is intellectual snobbery. The implicit message behind these ill-considered attacks is that jobs in retail, such as those with supermarkets or on the High Street, are not real jobs that worthwhile people do … We all have to start somewhere: Tesco Chief Executive Sir Terry Leahy began his career scrubbing supermarket floors. I doubt I'm the only person who thinks supermarket shelf-stackers add more value to our society than many of those 'job snobs' who are busy pontificating about the Government's employment policies."

    Jobs in retail are self-evidently "real jobs that worthwhile people do." And we do all have to start somewhere: I began selling fruit and veg. The topsy-turvy logic here is mind-boggling: claiming people should be happy working for £2 an hour on the vague promise of either "experience" or a 21% chance of employment sounds not so much snobby as almost feudal: as has been pointed out, there's a whiff of the workhouse in all this. And if anything represented snobbery, that particular institution did.

    6. "… we are caught in a battle between those who think young people should work only if they are able to secure their dream job, and those like myself …"

    This is followed by some impenetrable stuff about The X Factor, and the term "straw man" barely does it justice. I'll conclude with a simple enough point: that this is not about "dream jobs", but the most basic of civilised conditions. Oh, and a quote from that philosopher, stretcher bearer, engineer and primary school teacher and all-round grafter Ludwig Wittgenstein, which IDS should perhaps consider: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Barack Obama's lucky history of hapless opponents

Instead of fighting for his political life, Barack Obama is flourishing. And it is not the first time that the president has been fortunate with his foes

Were it not for the weakness of his opponents, Barack Obama would be fighting for his political life. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Barack Obama has often been lucky with his enemies. During his senatorial primary campaign in Illinois in 2004 the campaign of his most-feared opponent imploded spectacularly just a few weeks before polling day. Unsealed divorce papers revealed that Blair Hull's former wife had detailed several allegations of verbal and physical abuse. His ex asked for a restraining order because Hull had threatened to kill her. In a field of eight, Obama won 53% of the vote.

In the general election that year, Republican candidate Jack Ryan seemed like a viable challenger for the senate seat until his divorce papers were also unsealed. Ryan, it was alleged, had pressured his ex, Jeri, to go to clubs where people had sex in public. One had "cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling"; another had mattresses in cubicles. It did not help that Jeri was a TV star who had worn tight-fitting body suits on Star Trek. Denying the allegations, Ryan nevertheless dropped out, in June. Five months before the election Obama had no opponent.

Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign was far less than the sum of its parts; John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, a hail mary pass that went seriously awry.

Now, as he heads for reelection, he must be saying a prayer every day in thanks for Mitt Romney. The problem with the former Massachusetts governor is not sex and aggression in the home but a lack of passion and affection on the stump. For in the former Massachusetts governor the Republican party has found the worst of all worlds: a candidate feasible enough to represent their best hope and yet insufficiently appealing to be able to leverage that feasibility into electoral capital. Since Iowa, his nomination has seemed as inevitable as his candidacy was vulnerable. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/04/rick-santorum-iowa-mitt-romney. It can't get any worse than a presumptive nominee whose nomination seems presumptuous.

Even the people who vote for him don't really like him. According to a CNN poll, more than a third of those who backed him in Florida said they were not satisfied with the candidates on offer; higher than any other candidate.
For a while this didn't seem to matter. Romney was winning by default.

While there has never been a moment when his frontrunner status has not faced a challenge, the challengers – from Donald Trump to Herman Cain – were scarcely plausible. Their rise was a thing of intrigue. Things to be parsed for deeper meaning about the mindset of the base rather than propositions to be taken seriously. Romney would be the nominee; the rest was just process. What Romney could not fix, money would, and if money were not enough then common sense would do the rest.

But increasingly the process – ie voting – has proved stubborn. For the first time in over a year there is a serious chance that Romney's candidacy might actually run aground. The decisive moment is nigh. Next week in Michigan could mark the point at which the Republican hierarchy has to seriously consider an alternative storyline because the base has lost the plot, the sub-plot, the chapter headings and jettisoned the main characters.

Michigan is not just a state Romney should win. It's a state he has no business losing. It's the state where he was born. His father was governor there. He won it last time. He is outspending Rick Santorum there by three to one. It shouldn't even be close. Yet for the past couple weeks he has been trailing Rick Santorum in every poll there (although the race has started to tighten). If Romney wins Michigan, he lives to limp another day. If he loses, from that point on all talk will shift irrevocably from inevitability to liability. And as Hillary Clinton can testify, once inevitability has gone it's difficult to get back.

This is not just a problem in the primaries. The harder Romney has had to come down on his opponents, the more he has scared off independent voters. "Romney went into this campaign offering Republican activists little more than the promise that he would be the strongest candidate against Obama," writes Walter Shapiro in The New Republic. "But as Romney's scorched-earth campaign tactics drive down his general-election poll numbers and his campaign-trail awkwardness jeopardizes his argument for electability, he is left without a rationale for his candidacy. If Republicans don't feel good about Romney and don't think he will win in November, then why would they vote for him in the primaries?"

The principal beneficiary of Romney's decline would not be Santorum. His victory would simply give raw percentages to a fact long established: that Republicans are not happy with the choices they have and are still shopping around. In all likelihood, Romney's defeat will prompt more feverish talk about drafting a candidate – Mitch Daniels, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush – who can intervene at the 11th hour to rescue the party. "Republicans are fretting the four dancing now can't beat Obama in the fall," the Indiana GOP chairman, Eric Holcomb, , told Politico recently. "So their national talent search continues." It's unlikely that any of them would enter at this late stage or that they would fare much better even if they did. (Remember the excitement around Rick Perry?).

The principal beneficiary would be Obama. The president should be fighting for his life. Instead, he's living on his luck.

Steve Bell on Cameron's NHS summit - cartoon

Bangkok bombings: unravelling the truth out of chaos

Is Iran really trying to kill off Israeli diplomats in the Thai capital? Every day brings a new twist

A Thai bomb disposal expert checks a backpack left at a bomb site in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Apichart Weerawong/AP

It was the bizarrest of twists to a whodunnit story already teeming with convolutions about murky men committing even murkier deeds.

First, there were the suspects: a supposed team of assassins hired by the Iranian government to kill off Israeli diplomats in the Thai capital. Then there was the getaway vehicle: a Honda motorcycle with a Qur'anic reference underneath its seat that would trail the diplomats' cars. There were the weapons: a cache of homemade C-4 explosives stuffed into portable radios, with hand grenades serving as their detonators and magnetic strips to slap the bombs on to moving targets. And, of course, there was the motive: an escalating cold war between Israel and Iran being played out in cities all over the globe, from Tbilisi to Delhi and now, apparently, Bangkok.

Reporters salivate over the weird and wonderful details of such international intrigue. As I was about to soon discover, however, the epically arcane tableau of this tale would quickly be painted with even more colour.

The Guardian's offices in Thailand are just steps away from one of Bangkok's busiest Jewish synagogues, under 24-hour watch since a Swedish-Lebanese man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah was detained by Thai police last month. Israel had allegedly warned Thailand in December that an attack was "imminent", but it was unclear why this mostly Buddhist nation would serve as a terrorism staging ground, or what exactly that attack might entail. So when, on Tuesday afternoon, three explosions rocked Bangkok's nearby upscale Ekkamai neighbourhood, it seemed that this "attack" may have happened at last – albeit in a thwarted manner. First, a two-storey house partially exploded after bombs in it accidentally detonated, forcing its three tenants to flee into the street. It was there that one of them decided to throw explosives at a passing taxi and then again at police, before setting off the bomb at his own feet – sending one of his bloodied legs into the playground of a nearby school.

Almost immediately, Israel blamed Iran for the bizarre sequence of events, accusing it of "continu[ing] to operate in the ways of terror". Iran, in turn, called the allegations baseless and the self-created trickery of "the Zionist regime".

Analysts were perplexed: the events in Tbilisi, Delhi and Bangkok seemed amateurish and atypical of an Iranian assassination or terrorism cell. Here was Iran in the process of building nuclear centrifuges, yet hiring inept assassins in Thailand who had blown up their own home and blown off their own legs? This "assassination squad" seemed ignorant of even the most basic of cardinal hit-man rules, among them How to Avoid Being Photographed with Escorts Days Before You Detonate Explosives.

But things got really weird when I found on Friday a gaggle of police near the Guardian office randomly questioning a 41-year-old Iranian national. "Routine check," the police smiled at me. The man lived nearby; one hour later, the import/export businessman would tell me the most bizarre of tales.

Last month, he said, he was approached by a government official in Tehran who wanted to know where to find C-4 explosives in Bangkok. The man told him "they needed the C-4 immediately, for some anniversary, and that they'd pay whatever it took," the businessman told me. "Then he asked if they couldn't just send someone with the explosives to travel back to Thailand with me. They'd arrange for the C-4 to go through customs in Iran. When I asked him, 'Why, out of everyone you could ask, are you asking me?' The man said, 'Look - if I want to travel somewhere, I could take a limo, a taxi or a bus to get there. The bus gets noticed the least ... Consider yourself the bus.'"

The businessman staunchly refused the pitch. He flew back, alone, to Thailand, and forgot about the incident – until the bombs in Ekkamai reminded him of his government "encounter" in Iran, he said.

His story – which was simply fantastic – was impossible to corroborate. It seemed unlikely, but given the wackiness of all the other details that had emerged so far, perhaps it was true. Maybe Iran was using amateurs like him to deflect attention. Maybe someone did bring in C-4 from outside Thailand; a bomb specialist recently told the Bangkok Post such bomb-making methods had never before been seen in the country.

Mostly, however, his story drove home the difficulty of reporting the "truth" in a world where facts are about as changeable as the location of a sticky bomb. Asian society orbits around a custom of "saving face" that does not exist in the west, which means that anyone – from a high-ranking government official to an eyewitness or interviewee – can tell you what they think you want to hear, instead of what they actually know. That's why, when Thai authorities "confirmed" last week that the so-called Bangkok bombers were indeed Iranians targeting Israeli diplomats, other Thai authorities underlined that the suspects' nationalities still hadn't been confirmed and that the Bangkok blasts were totally unrelated to those in Georgia and India.

Every journalist reporting this story is doing his or her best to make sense of the chaos surrounding it. But every day brings a new twist. That's why, when my phone rang early Saturday morning, I wasn't surprised by the news. "I'm sorry," said my Iranian 'informant'. "Everything I told you yesterday, it was all just a bad joke."

I wonder if that's what the "Iranian assassins" will say when they're finally interrogated by police this week.

Thursday 9 February 2012

Hotel workers in New York to get panic button

New York (CNN) -- Nearly a year after a New York City hotel housekeeper claimed she was sexually assaulted by a prominent French politician, hotel workers who enter guest rooms will be provided with portable panic buttons.

The new policy, a provision to a seven-year contract proposed by the New York Hotel Trades Council, will allow employees who enter guest rooms -- from mini-bar attendants to a room service waiters or waitresses -- to "summon help immediately in case of an emergency," according to hotel union spokesman John Turchiano.

The move comes on the heels of a high-profile scandal involving former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was accused of sexually assaulting maid Nafissatou Diallo in May. Manhattan prosecutors dropped the charges against Strauss-Kahn in August amid questions about his accuser's credibility.

Hotels will be given a year to find a system that works best for their employees after the new contract goes into effect July 1, Turchiano said. The vote on the new contract will take place Monday.

"This was not difficult to negotiate," Turchiano told CNN. "Hotels care as much about the safety and well-being of the employees just like the union does."

Two luxury hotels in Manhattan, The Pierre hotel and Sofitel -- where Diallo worked -- began to provide maids with portable panic buttons in June, one month after the alleged assault. The panic buttons were modeled after medical alert buttons for the elderly, allowing housekeeping staff to quickly alert hotel security, Turchiano said at the time.

Former Egyptian bank executive Abdel Salam Omar was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a housekeeper at The Pierre last year. He later pled guilty to sexual abuse and was sentenced to community service.

Turchiano said that while the Strauss-Kahn scandal highlighted the problem, there has been discussion for some time about making sure hotel employees are equipped with panic buttons.

"There have been examples over the years of inappropriate behavior by hotel guests," he said. "Does it happen a lot? No. Is it scary when it happens? Yes."

Also included in the contract is a historical and significant wage increase of 29% over seven years and expanded medical coverage to cover employees' families.

Journalist hacked Paul McCartney voice mail, ex testifies

London (CNN) -- Voice mails left by Paul McCartney for his then-girlfriend Heather Mills were illegally accessed and heard by a former employee of a major British newspaper group, Mills told an independent investigation into press ethics Thursday.

The former Beatle left about 25 messages for her one night in 2001, including one where he sang to her, as he tried to make up with her after a quarrel, she said.

"One of them said, 'Please forgive me,' and he sang a little ditty of one of his songs onto the voice mail," said Mills.

The former Trinity Mirror group employee later phoned her and said he had heard her voice mail.

She responded angrily, she testified before the Leveson Inquiry, saying there was no way he could have heard the message unless he had obtained it illegally.

Mills said the man laughed, and she said she told him: "I promise you, if you report this story, even if it's true, you have obtained the information illegally, and I will do something about it."

"And he never reported the story," she added.

The inquiry is not releasing the name of the person who heard the message because he is under police investigation, said Robert Jay, the chief counsel to the Inquiry.

But it was not a Daily Mirror journalist or anyone working under the supervision of its then-editor, Piers Morgan, Jay said. Morgan now hosts a CNN talk show, "Piers Morgan Tonight."

The voice mail in question was a critical point when Morgan testified in December before the Leveson Inquiry.

The probe was set up in response to widespread anger in Britain at the revelation that a murdered 13-year-old girl's phone was hacked by journalists in search of stories -- and that many other crime and terror victims, politicians and celebrities had also been targeted.

Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid has been the focus of much of the anger, and Murdoch's son James ordered it shut down over the scandal.

But accusations have been leveled against other newspapers as well, including the Daily Mirror.

Testifying in December, Morgan said he did not believe phone hacking had taken place when he was editor of the tabloid, prompting Jay to follow up: "You don't believe so or you are sure?"

"I don't believe so," Morgan responded by video link.

Jay pressed Morgan particularly hard about his having written in 2006 that he had heard a message McCartney left for Mills, trying to make up after a quarrel and singing to her.

Morgan refused to say who played the message for him or where, but he admitted under sustained questioning that he believed it was a voice mail.

"Did you know that was unethical?" Jay demanded.

"Not unethical, no. It doesn't necessarily follow that it was unethical," Morgan said, insisting he would not "go down a trail that will lead to the identification of a source."

On Thursday, Mills said she had never authorized Morgan to access her voice mail or to listen to a recording of it.

"Never, ever," she said.

She said she had never made a recording of any of the messages.

"No, no. They were deleted pretty much straight away," she said.

Brian Leveson, the judge leading the inquiry, intervened to ask if she had ever authorized anyone to listen to her voice mail.

"No," she said.

Mills and McCartney divorced in 2008.

Morgan has said in the past that he has never hacked a voice mail and vigorously denied ever ordering phone hacking. Morgan said Thursday, "I have nothing further to add to the evidence I gave to the Leveson Inquiry."

The publisher of the defunct News of the World paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds Wednesday to settle lawsuits over phone hacking from celebrities and politicians, including former Tony Blair spokesman Alastair Campbell.

Piers Morgan is a former editor the News of the World, but left in 1995 -- about seven years before the Milly Dowler hacking -- and went to the Mirror, which he edited until 2004.

With Wednesday's settlements, News Group Newspapers has settled 59 of the 60 lawsuits against it.

But former child singing star Charlotte Church, who has testified publicly about the damage phone hacking did to her personal life, has refused to settle. Her case is expected to go to court as soon as this month.

In addition to the Leveson Inquiry, police are carrying out three separate investigations into elements of the scandal: phone hacking, e-mail hacking, and police bribery.

Two parliamentary committees are also investigating the scandal.

Both James and Rupert Murdoch, as well as senior executives at News International, have testified before British lawmakers examining allegations of wrongdoing.

There have been 13 arrests in connection with Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan Police investigation into bribery of police officers by journalists.

There have been 17 arrests in relation to Operation Weeting, the phone-hacking inquiry. Three people have been arrested in connection with both investigations.

Maldives' deposed president faces arrest as wife flees to Sri Lanka

(CNN) -- The deposed president of the Maldives was facing arrest Thursday, a former foreign minister said, as political turmoil gripped the capital following days of violent clashes in the Indian Ocean nation.

"There are 14 charges being brought against the president. God knows what the charges are," said Ahmed Naseem, who was also ousted as foreign minister.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed is holed up in his home with no protection from the police or the military, the minister said, adding that a large crowd was gathered outside his house in anticipation of an arrest.

His wife fled to Sri Lanka a day earlier, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan president said.

Maldives president quits

Police mutiny in Maldives

The Sri Lankan president called Nasheed's successor to ensure he was safe after his wife arrived in Colombo, said Bandula Jayasekera, the spokesman for the Sri Lankan president.

Nasheed -- the country's first democratically elected leader in three decades -- said he was forced to resign at gunpoint Tuesday, plunging the nation into clashes between police and his supporters.

Political opponents contested his account, saying Nasheed is destabilizing the country.

Nasheed has urged his successor -- his former vice president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan -- to leave office.

Police beat Nasheed and several lawmakers when they took to the streets in "a peaceful protest" on Wednesday, his Maldivian Democratic Party said.

Video footage posted online by RaajeTV, a video sharing site, showed police officers entering a store and escorting Nasheed out into the street. It did not show him being beaten.

A spokesman for the Progressive Party, which participated in the demonstrations that led to Nasheed's ouster, said the deposed leader's supporters provoked the police, forcing them to respond angrily.

"We are asking all sides for restraint and calm," said spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef, whose party is loyal to Nasheed's predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

The police could not be immediately reached for comment.

Political tensions in the Maldives have simmered for weeks. And last month, the arrest of the chief judge of the Maldives Criminal Court set off a constitutional crisis after Nasheed's administration alleged he blocked corruption charges against members of Gayoom's government.

Opposition groups claimed the arrest was unconstitutional, and their protests culminated in the police revolt that drove Nasheed out of power.

The Progressive Party spokesman said Thursday that a degree of normalcy had returned to Male's streets.

"People are sending their children to school," Shareef said, noting that unrest in the Maldives tends to take place in the afternoon and evening.

But Eva Abdulla, a lawmaker for the Maldivian Democratic Party, suggested that more confrontations could take place Thursday after the violence of the day before.

"Given the kind of brutality we saw on TV last night, I don't know how calm people will be," Abdulla said.

Several lawmakers who had been detained by the police during the protest had been returned to their homes early Thursday, she said, adding that all of them had been beaten.

Abdulla rejected the idea that the Maldivian Democratic Party would participate in negotiations to form a new government with other parties and the new president, whom she described as a "puppet leader" for the police.

"This is not a legitimate government," she said. "We will not negotiate with an unconstitutional government."

The U.S. State Department has called for cooperation among the different parties and urged them to work together to resolve the situation peacefully.

U.S. envoy Robert Blake will visit the capital of Male on Saturday as part of previously scheduled trip to the region, said Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman.

The former president defeated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who is still considered a hero by many who credit him with transforming a fishing culture into a tourist nation.

During Gayoom's long rule, Nasheed was among his fiercest critics, alleging that he ruled with an iron fist, crushing dissent, amassing wealth and stacking his administration with friends and relatives.

Until his defeat by Nasheed, Gayoom won six previous elections as the only candidate on the ballot.

Big states set to make mortgage deal real

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan is one of the participants in the foreclosure settlement talks that are expected to produce a mortgage settlement soon.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Some relief for more than a million beleaguered homeowners appears to be at hand, as New York and California will join just about all the other states in a $26 billion foreclosure settlement with the nation's largest banks, according to a person familiar with negotiations.

A few other states were still on the fence as of late Wednesday, the person said.

With those two big states, the deal could be worth as much as $26 billion when it is announced Thursday, another person familiar with the talks said.

For more than a year, state attorneys general, regulators, federal officials and big banks have been in talks about a settlement of allegations of improper foreclosures based on "robosigning," seizures made without proper paperwork.

As of Wednesday night, at least 42 had signed on, which would yield as much as $26 billion available for qualified homeowners. The deal marks the largest housing relief available "underwater" homeowners whose principal exceeds their home's value, as well as those who have been foreclosed on, since the financial crisis began.

Obama proposes new home refinancing plan

Under an earlier draft of the deal, some 1 million U.S. homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages could be eligible for as much as $20,000 in relief of principal owed, according to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan.

But the relief would only be available to those homeowners whose mortgages haven't been sold to the government-sponsored mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In return, mortgage servicers in states that agree to the deal would get immunity from future state servicing and originating claims -- although homeowners could pursue claims against banks and states could still pursue criminal investigations.

New York's participation had been shaky this week, because some of the banks involved in the multi-state deal had also been sued by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman last week. Those banks -- Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) -- had also asked for a legal pass from Schneiderman's lawsuit, which accuses them of deceptive foreclosure practices for relying on the Mortgage Electronic Registration System.

On Tuesday, Schneiderman's office organized a media briefing to talk about the deal and then canceled it minutes before it was supposed to begin.

Requests for comment to the New York Attorney General's Office were not returned. A spokesman from the California Attorney General's Office said the state was still in negotiations.

The deal is supposed to protect consumers when it comes to robosigning, and ensure that mortgage servicers agree to communicate better, avoid delays and give homeowners who are late on mortgage payments a fairer shake.

The big question throughout the negotiations was how much money would be available to help homeowners, which depended on how many states agreed to the deal. If all 50 states sign on, the mortgage servicing settlement has the potential to offer as much as $26 billion. California's participation raises the total settlement value by several billion dollars.

Generally, the attorneys general have been concerned that if they signed on to a deal, it would cripple their own investigations into mortgage cases.

At least one consumer advocacy group, the Center for Responsible Lending, has said the deal -- while "no silver bullet" -- leaves room to hold banks accountable in other mortgage probes, said Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit.

Greece reaches deal on austerity

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and other leaders agreed to austerity measures ahead of a meeting later Thursday of eurozone finance ministers.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Greek political leaders agreed to a package of austerity reforms Thursday, marking the first step toward securing much-needed bailout funds.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said in a statement that there was "general agreement" on measures aimed at cutting public spending.

The reforms are a precondition for Greece to receive a second bailout worth €130 billion from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, known as the troika.

Greece needs to secure the bailout funds soon to avoid a potential default on a €14.5 billion bond redemption in March.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos was due to present the agreement to a meeting of euro area finance ministers taking place Thursday in Brussels.

"After a long, tough period of negotiations, we have finally a staff level agreement with the troika for new, strong and credible program," Venizelos said before entering the meeting.

He added that a deal has been reached on the "basic parameters" of a deal with private sector creditors to write down a portion of the nation's debt.

"We need now the political endorsement of the Eurogroup for the final step," Venizelos said.

However, the president of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, downplayed the prospects for a swift resolution.

"I don't think that we'll have a definite and final decision tonight," Juncker said before entering the meeting, adding that "several elements" still need to be reviewed. "This is not a disaster, the debate has to be continued."

The austerity program also needs to be approved by the Greek Parliament, which is expected to vote on it this weekend.

The measures are expected to include job and wage cuts, as well as pension reforms and other unpopular moves. Greek labor unions have waged protests against the measures this week and the issue has become politically charged ahead of planned elections in April.

Europe: Where things stand

While the agreement clears a significant political hurdle, Greece still faces major economic and financial challenges.

Greece, which owes some €330 billion, has come close to default before.

The nation has struggled to follow through on austerity measures and economic reforms that were a condition of its 2010 bailout package. At the same time, the Greek economy has been in recession for years and many analysts warn that additional austerity could make the situation worse.

Greece has come under fire recently from top EU officials for the government's lack of progress on policies aimed at boosting the nation's economy.

"Greece hasn't done up till now what the IMF has asked it to do," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaueble told CNN's Diana Magnay Wednesday. "No more promises, now they have to deliver."

Greece also appears close to a deal with its private sector creditors to write down a portion of the nation's debt.

The agreement, which would result in significant losses for bondholders, is intended to help reduce Greece's debts to 120% of GDP by 2020, from about 160% currently.

The worsening Greek economy and signs the nation will not meet its fiscal targets have raised calls for the nation's creditors in the "official sector" to provide some relief.

The European Central Bank, which holds an estimated €30 billion to €45 billion of Greek debt, is under pressure to forego profits on those bonds, as are individual euro area central banks.

But the central bank's president, Mario Draghi, rejected calls for the ECB to take part in a restructuring.

"Everybody has been talking about what the ECB would do or not do," Draghi said during a press conference Thursday. "But the ECB didn't say anything."

Draghi said providing funding for Greece under a bailout program would be a violation of the central bank's mandate, which prohibits it from subsidizing government finances.

"It's not our intention to violate the monetary financing prohibition," he said.

-- CNN's Elinda Labropoulou contributed reporting from Athens and Per Nyberg contributed from London. To top of page

At least 137 reported killed as Syrian attacks escalate

(CNN) -- A Syrian opposition group reported at least 137 deaths at the hands of government forces Thursday as President Bashar al-Assad escalated a brutal assault against an opposition that wants an end to his regime.

Thursday marked the fifth consecutive day of attacks on opposition activists and civilians in the besieged city of Homs -- Syria's third-largest city -- which has become a flashpoint in the uprising.

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists that organizes and documents protests, said that 110 of the deaths were in Homs; 10 were children.

The president has repeatedly denied attacking civilians, saying Syrian forces are targeting armed gangs and foreign terrorists bent on destabilizing the government.

Zakaria: Iran loses in Syrian civil war

Activist: 'We're all going to die here'

Doctors: Syria withholding basic care

Syrian state television Thursday said armed terrorist gangs fired seven shells into Homs in the early morning, adding that there were no reports of damage.

The station then showed video of people it identified as residents saying armed gangs had fired on their homes and schools with shells and rocket-propelled grenades.

Nearly all other reports from within the country, however, tell a different story. Opposition activists in Homs describe explosions from mortars and tank shells launched by Syrian forces every few minutes, people bleeding to death in the streets for lack of medical attention, and snipers picking off civilians running for cover.

Video reportedly from Homs and posted online shows rubble and the remains of buildings as gunfire is heard in the background.

Medical charities say doctors inside Syria have reported hospitals, clinics, medical staff and patients being targeted.

A doctor in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, Ali, said a group from the Red Crescent recently tried to visit to give medical aid, but their vehicle was attacked and they were forced to turn around.

CNN is not fully naming the doctor for his protection.

Civilians who enter hospitals with what would have been minor injuries if properly treated were left instead to die, said Col. Malek Al Kurdi of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who said he witnessed such a scene in the coastal city of Latakia.

"Al-Assad is now using the tactic of attacking three or more cities at the same time to attempt to deter the revolt," Al Kurdi said. "Last night the killers attacked Zabadani, Homs, and Talkala at the same time."

Homs residents: Strikes come from afar

E-mails between Assad's aides revealed

'Friends of Syria' group established

The LCC described the shelling of Zabadani, going on for a sixth consecutive day. Ten people died on Thursday, five of them members of the same family, the group said. Another 40 people were wounded, it said, adding that medical supplies, fuel and food were in short supply.

Attacks also occurred in the cities of Lattakia, Daraa, Idlib, and the Damascus suburbs, and said snipers were on rooftops in the southern village of Taseel, the group said.

The LCC accused the government of lying about its own attacks.

In Taseel, it said, "a civilian's home was exploded and a huge amount of weaponry was brought in, then photographed by the Syrian regime's state media as tools and acts of armed gangsters to justify for raiding the town, which is now strictly sealed off."

CNN cannot independently confirm reports in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.

Britain's ambassador to Syria painted a picture of a brutal crackdown on civilians in a Foreign Office blog post Thursday. Simon Collis described seeing peaceful protesters, including the elderly and children, being beaten. Those chanting for freedom in the Umayad Mosque in Damascus were also beaten, he said.

"It is too shocking to ignore," Collis wrote, calling for world condemnation of the actions of al-Assad's regime.

In an open letter, a group calling itself the Syrian Scientific Community asked the Syrian Army not to participate in the killing of people and the shelling of cities and neighborhoods, no matter the reason. They also want aid and ambulances to be allowed to reach their destinations freely without obstruction.

A U.N. Security Council resolution addressing the violence failed to pass over the weekend after Russia and China vetoed it. The 13 other Security Council members, including the United States, voted for the resolution, which was also supported by the European Union and the Arab League.

With the Security Council at an impasse, the United States and other countries have called for the creation of a "Friends of Democratic Syria" group to support a free and democratic Syria, said Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived Thursday in Washington, where he was expected to hold talks with U.S. lawmakers on an Arab League proposal on Syria. The plan calls for resuming a monitoring mission to determine whether al-Assad is abiding by an agreement that his government would end all violence.

Turkey has been critical of al-Assad's crackdown.

Also critical of Syria is Libya, which experienced its own revolt last year that led to the downfall of longtime leader Moammar Ghadafi. Libya announced Thursday it is expelling the Syrian charge d'affaires and his staff because of the "escalation" of the government's crackdown on its people.

Giant baby born to Chinese couple

Chinese state media has reported the birth of a baby of just over 7kg (15lb 8oz), making him what could be the heaviest birthweight baby on record in the country.

Chun Chun, reportedly twice the weight of an average baby, was born just after the Chinese New Year in Xinxiang city, Henan province.

First 'moving' images of Northern Lights from space

New images of the Northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, have been captured by NASA using a new time-lapse photographic technique.

By combining hundreds of stills taken from the International Space Station, they have produced the first 'moving' images of the spectacle.

NASA Earth Scientist Melissa Dawson explains how she happened on the technique almost by accident, when looking over other material from the ISS.

Jungle tribes untouched by modern civilisation

They are among the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and have avoided contact with modern civilisation by hiding in the deepest recesses of the jungle.

Journalist, writer and photographer, Scott Wallace, takes us on a three month journey through the Brazilian Amazon to map the territory of the Arrow People - a rarely glimpsed indigenous group whose life and language remain a mystery and who have repelled previous intruders with deadly arrows.

"The Unconquered - In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes", explores efforts to protect the rainforest and those who rely on it for survival.

In the book, Brazilian explorer and social activist Sydney Possuelo leads a 34-man team - which includes the author - into the jungle to search for evidence of the Arrow People's range and culture.

In doing so the team must avoid making contact with the tribe, which risks decimation by modern diseases against which it has no protection, should contact be inadvertently made.

Photos: courtesy Scott Wallace and Gleilson Miranda, FUNAI/Survival International

Amitabh Bachchan to undergo surgery

Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan will undergo surgery later this week after suffering from "abdominal pain", the actor said in his blog on Thursday.

The 69-year-old actor did not disclose details, but said the surgery was "not too complicated".

Bachchan, who continues to act in films, was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai with abdominal pains in 2008.

He also underwent surgery for an intestinal condition at the same hospital in 2005.

Bachchan suffered a near fatal injury during the shooting of an action scene on the set of a film in 1982 and was critically ill for several months.

The star wrote in his blog that the surgery was likely to take place on Saturday morning.

"The next few weeks shall be full of nothing else but the hospital and medical bulletins," Bachchan wrote on the blog, while talking about his impending surgery.

"My stomach which has already been the bed of many complicated battles in the past, shall have to entertain this as well. It's a war zone, my body, and one which has been through a great deal and still does."

Bachchan has acted in more than 180 Indian films over 40 years. He remains India's most popular actor.

Last year he returned as the celebrity host of Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and one of the most watched shows on Indian television.

He also made his Hollywood debut in a new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

US banks agree $25bn mortgage settlement

Five of the biggest US banks have agreed to provide $25bn in assistance to homeowners to settle claims over improper foreclosure practices.

The deal, struck with the US government and most US states, follows allegations of abusive practices by lenders during the country's housing collapse.

The banks involved are Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial.

President Barack Obama said that homeowners had not been treated fairly.

"Many companies that handled these foreclosures didn't give people a fighting chance to hold on to their homes," he said.

"In many cases they didn't even verify that these foreclosures were actually legitimate."

He added that the deal would "speed relief to the hardest hit homeowners in some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry", saying this was the first step in turning the page on an "era of recklessness".

Settlement terms

The settlement follows a year of wrangling and is the biggest struck between the US government and a single industry since 1998.

The deal will provide $3bn of relief for borrowers who are currently on repayments but who cannot refinance their loans because they are larger than the value of their homes.

It will also give $17bn in principal reductions to those who are behind on their payments and at risk of default, and provide about $2,000 in compensation for those whose homes have been foreclosed.

The five banks involved will contribute relative to their share of the market, and other banks could join the programme, increasing the size of the pot.

Analysis

This deal is significant because it is likely to help as many as two million American households and it could help to reshape mortgage lending practices.

But this by no means solves all of America's housing woes. Critics say this deal may prove more help to the banks than to struggling home-owners and the collapsed housing market.

For one, the banks can now put this behind them without a deeper investigation into any wrong-doing. They have already set aside money to pay for the settlement.

Meanwhile, borrowers who lost their homes to wrongful foreclosure are unlikely to get them back.

And this deal does nothing to help the one in four borrowers who are struggling with negative equity and who have continued to repay their mortgages on time.

This is a step in the right direction but there is still much more work to rehabilitate America's housing market.

By settling, the five banks will avoid civil federal lawsuits. However, they are still exposed to the possibility of litigation from states or individuals.

They will also be subject to tighter regulation of foreclosure practices.

All US states except Oklahoma were involved in the agreement, which will last for three years.

Robo-signing scandal

The abuses happened after the US housing bubble burst five years ago.

From 2006, when the American property market peaked, house prices are down by 33% and almost 11 million Americans owe more than their homes are worth.

Many companies processing foreclosures - or repossession orders - failed to verify documents.

Some employees signed papers they had not read or used fake signatures to speed up the process, an action dubbed "robo-signing".

Attorney General Eric Holder said the deal represented the "latest step forward in righting the wrongs that led to our nation's housing-market collapse and economic crisis".

Californian borrowers will receive almost half of the $25bn settlement, which does not include mortgages originated by the giant mortgage backers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

California's Attorney General, Kamala Harris, said she would try to reach a deal with the two lenders.

"I will continue to fight for principal reductions for the approximately 60% of California homeowners whose loans are owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," she said.

Bank of England injects another £50bn into UK economy

The BBC's Stephanie Flanders explains how quantitative easing works

UK Economy

  • Bank lending 'to shrink' in 2012
  • Service sector sees strong growth
  • UK manufacturing activity expands
  • UK economic activity shrinks 0.2%

The Bank of England has agreed to extend its quantitative easing (QE) programme by £50bn to give a further boost to the UK economy.

When completed, it will bring the total amount of QE stimulus to £325bn.

The Bank started its QE programme, through which it buys mainly government-issued bonds, freeing up cash for lending, in 2009.

The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) also said it would keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5%.

UK interest rates have been held at that level since March 2009.

The BBC's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, said the £275bn of QE undertaken so far was an amount equivalent to nearly 20% of the country's gross domestic product.

Inititally, experts were predicting an extra of £75bn of QE, but this figure was reduced to £50bn when economic surveys released last week indicated that the manufacturing and service sectors had performed better than expected in January.

However, concerns remain over weak consumer spending and the eurozone crisis.

Inflation undershoot?

The Bank said in a statement: "The underlying pace of recovery slowed during 2011, with activity falling slightly during the final quarter.

Analysis

It seems mind-boggling to most people that a tactic designed to get banks lending more would have the side-effect of knocking pensioners' incomes.

QE makes annuities shrink. You get 25% less now than you did three years ago.

The downward effect of QE on pensions happens because the annuity income you are promised tracks the interest rate the government pays on its debts. These interest rates are already low and QE pushes them even lower.

By pressing the QE button, it could mean thousands have to make do with a whole retirement on less money.

"Some recent business surveys have painted a more positive picture and asset prices have risen. But the pace of expansion in the United Kingdom's main export markets has also slowed and concerns remain about the indebtedness and competitiveness of some euro-area countries."

It added that without another stimulus from QE, inflation was likely to fall from its current 4.2% to below its 2% target, as rising unemployment and falling import and energy prices fell away, and as the VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% last January also dropped from the annual comparison.

Official economic data also released on Thursday showed import prices fell by 1.3% between November and December.

Other figures showed that industrial production, which accounts for about 15% of the economy, grew by 0.5% on the month, against forecasts for a 0.2% rise.

"Despite overall signs that activity picked up in January after GDP contracted 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011, the economy is far from out of the economic woods and it continues to face major obstacles to developing sustainable, decent growth," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.

Damaged pensions

The new QE was greeted with dismay by the pensions industry.

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Dr Ros Altman: "I don't see how making pensioners poorer is going to stimulate the economy"

Joanne Segars, the chief executive of the National Association of Pension Funds, said while she could understand the need to boost the economy, QE was damaging the value of pensions: "Retirees who get locked into a weak annuity will find that the Bank's money printing leaves them out of pocket for the rest of their lives.

"For the companies that run final salary pensions, QE is a headache which pushes their pension funds further into the red. This means businesses have to put more money into their pension schemes, instead of spending it on jobs and investment. Our fear is that firms struggling with a weak economy will simply choose to close their pension schemes."

She called for help for pension funds from the Pensions Regulator.

Key al-Qaeda militant 'killed in US drone attack'

One of the most senior al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan, Badar Mansoor, has been killed in a US drone strike, local officials say.

The attack took place in Miranshah in North Waziristan tribal area, close to the border with Afghanistan.

Badar Mansoor is suspected of killing dozens of people in attacks in Pakistan and further afield.

If confirmed, his death would be seen by the US as a vindication of its drone programme, correspondents say.

Al-Qaeda has so far not publicly commented on the claim, but AFP news agency has quoted one Mansoor loyalist confirming the death.

Pakistani officials say he was among at least four militants killed in the pre-dawn strike.

Badar Mansoor had moved between the militant groups of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Pakistani Taleban and al-Qaeda where he became a key figure, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.

He is thought to have trained new fighters and planned numerous suicide attacks, including one against Pakistan's Ahmadi Muslim minority in Lahore in which about 90 people died, our correspondent adds.

The drone attack was the second in North Waziristan in as many days. On Wednesday, 10 suspected militants were killed, Pakistani security officials said.

Drone attacks cause huge anger in Pakistan, which has previously complained that they violate its sovereignty. However, correspondents say the authorities are believed privately to give their support to the US for the attacks.

Last month, US President Barack Obama defended the use of drones to target militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The US does not normally comment on drone operations, which have killed hundreds of people in recent years. The dead include senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, as well as an unknown number of other militants and civilians.

Syria crisis: Shelling 'kills dozens' in restive Homs

Amateur video shows the continued shelling of Homs

Syria Crisis

  • Army pressured by uprising and defections
  • Under fire in Homs
  • Diplomacy strain
  • Plan in tatters

The Syrian army has launched fresh mortar and rocket attacks in the city of Homs, as the government continues a push aimed at crushing rebel forces.

Activists say 95 people have been killed so far on Thursday. Hundreds have reportedly died since last week.

Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has been a leading focus of unrest in the 11-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the "appalling brutality" of the onslaught.

The international community is struggling to find a way to resolve the crisis after Russia and China blocked a UN resolution drafted by Arab and European countries on Saturday.

Analysis

The most important factor [in the resilience of the Syrian army] is the deepening and widening of the uprising over recent months. Those once wedded to peaceful protest now judge that taking up arms is the only viable option.

One important milestone has been the outbreak of violence this month in Syria's second city, Aleppo. The army is increasingly stretched across fronts that it did not have to worry about last year.

It took days to regain control of suburbs around Damascus, and the town of Zabadani - scarcely 20 miles (32km) north-west of Damascus - was entirely seized by rebels last month.

These growing commitments thin out, and increase the strain on, loyal units. The paradox is that more fighting means more defections, but failing to do so risks conceding territory on which the armed parts of the opposition can regroup and consolidate.

The assault on Homs, which began late on Friday, is focused on districts that are controlled by rebel forces.

The worst shelling has been in the Baba Amr district, where activists say 50 people were killed on Wednesday alone.

The BBC's Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon, says there are armed rebels in the area, but also many civilians.

Ali Hazuri, a doctor in Baba Amr, told AFP news agency that the intense bombardment had resumed early on Thursday after an overnight lull.

"The shells are raining down on us and regime forces are using heavy artillery," he said.

During lulls in the onslaught, Syrians are using loudhailers to appeal for blood donations and medical supplies, the Associated Press news agency reports.

The Human Rights Watch group said the blockade of the city by government forces meant victims of the shelling were being denied adequate medical treatment, saying makeshift hospitals were being overwhelmed with the dead and wounded.

Syria restricts access to foreign media and casualty figures cannot be independently verified.

The army says it is fighting foreign-backed armed groups. Army defectors have joined rebel forces in Homs and other parts of Syria in recent months.

Government troops have stepped up operations at Syria's borders in an effort to stop arms reaching the rebels, reports say.

Continuing army operations against rebels are also being reported in the northern city of Idlib, the southern province of Deraa, and the town of Zabadani, north of Damascus.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of anti-government activists monitoring the violence, say a total of 105 people have been killed around the country on Thursday, including 95 in Homs.

Meanwhile, Germany announced it was expelling four diplomats from the Syrian embassy in Berlin, following the recent arrest of two people suspected of spying on Syrian opposition figures in Germany.

Libya said it was giving Syria's charge d'affaires and staff in Tripoli 72 hours to leave the country, months after it recognised the Syrian opposition as the legitimate authority.

And in a blog post the British ambassador to Syria Simon Collis - who has been recalled to London for consultations - said "time and again" he had witnessed peacefully protesting Syrian civilians being beaten by "regime thugs".

'Missed chance'

Speaking at the UN in New York on Wednesday, Mr Ban said the failure to agree a UN resolution on Syria had encouraged Damascus "to step up its war on its own people".

The BBC's Paul Wood reports from inside Homs

He added: "I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighbourhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come."

He also said the Arab League was hoping to revive its monitoring mission in Syria - which collapsed last month amid the escalating violence - in possible collaboration with the UN.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said efforts were focused on tightening the "diplomatic and economic stranglehold on this murdering regime", and said there were no plans for Britain to arm Syrian rebels.

The UN resolution vetoed by China and Russia backed an Arab League peace plan that would have seen President Assad hand power to a deputy to oversee a transition.

Russia said the proposal amounted to regime change.

Human rights groups and activists say more than 7,000 people have been killed by Syrian security forces since the uprising began last March.

The UN stopped estimating the death toll in Syria after it passed 5,400 in January, saying it was too difficult to confirm.

Mr Assad's government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Clinton meets Israeli FM amid Iran crisis

WASHINGTON: Israel’s outspoken Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met Tuesday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton amid high tensions with Iran and a stalemate in the Middle East peace process.

Lieberman and Clinton chatted about the weather in a brief photo opportunity before their meeting at the State Department. They did not speak to reporters.

The Israeli foreign minister is also meeting with members of the US Congress during his visit, which comes as Western nations and Israel voice fear that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

Israel’s Maariv newspaper said Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned his officials to stop “blabbing” about the possibility of the Jewish state attacking Iran.

The United States and the European Union have both been ramping up economic pressure on Iran, which insists — to Western skepticism — that its sensitive nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.

Lieberman’s visit comes a day after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas signed a deal with the Islamist movement Hamas to end a longstanding rift between the two main Palestinian groups.

Netanyahu denounced the deal brokered by Qatar, warning that Abbas must choose between making peace with Hamas and with Israel.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was more nuanced, saying Monday that reconciliation was an internal Palestinian matter but that a Palestinian government must clearly commit to non-violence and recognize Israel.

Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since September 2010 despite periodic US attempts to revive them.

Afghan special operations to expand: US admiral

WASHINGTON: A US admiral said Tuesday that special operations forces in Afghanistan are preparing for a possible expanded role as American forces begin to withdraw after a decade of war.

Adm. Bill McRaven, the special operations commander who led last year’s Navy commando raid against Osama bin Laden, confirmed special operations forces would be the last to leave under the Obama administration’s current plan, and that the Pentagon is considering handing more of the Afghan war responsibility over to a senior special operations officer as part of that evolution.

He said special operations would combine targeting and training operations this summer to prepare for a smaller overall US footprint, but McRaven stressed that no final decisions had been made.

”We feel like we have to become not only more effective but more efficient,” McRaven told a Washington audience.

”As far as anything beyond that, we’re exploring a lot of options,” he said.

US court strikes down California gay marriage ban

SAN FRANCISCO: A US appeals court on Tuesday found California’s gay marriage ban unconstitutional in a case that is likely to lead to a showdown on the issue in the US Supreme Court.

The 2-1 decision from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals featured two judges appointed by Democrats ruling against the ban, while a Republican-appointed judge dissented.

California joined the vast majority of US states in outlawing same-sex marriage in 2008, when voters passed the ban known as Proposition 8.

That socially conservative vote by a state more known for hippies and Hollywood was seen as a watershed by both sides of the so-called culture wars, and two gay couples responded by filing the legal challenge currently making its way through the federal courts.

The 9th Circuit’s rules allow at least two weeks before a ruling takes effect, so same sex marriages cannot immediately resume in California, court spokesman Dave Madden said. Prop 8 proponents previously made clear that they will appeal, which would almost certainly keep gay marriage on hold pending future proceedings.

A federal judge in San Francisco struck down Proposition 8 in 2010, and gay marriage opponents appealed that ruling to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Opponents and supporters of same-sex marriage both have said they are ready to appeal the decision all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Opponents of gay marriage could ask a larger 9th Circuit panel to hear the matter, or decide to appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

Broader question not at issue

In the 9th Circuit ruling on Tuesday, Judge Stephen Reinhardt emphasised that the court was not deciding the broader question of whether marriage was a fundamental right for same sex couples as well as heterosexuals. Rather, the judges focused on the unique circumstances of Prop 8 in California.

“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable,” Reinhardt wrote, “it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently.”

“There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted,” Reinhardt wrote.

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins joined Reinhardt’s opinion, while Judge N. Randy Smith dissented from the main constitutional findings.

About 40 of the 50 US states had outlawed gay marriage before a California state court ruled in 2008 that a ban was unconstitutional, leading to a summer of gay marriages. But California voters that November decided to change the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and woman.

It provoked some gay rights activists to take a matter that had been waged on a state-by-state basis to federal court, essentially staking the entire agenda on one case.

Republican Ted Olson and Democrat David Boies — attorneys who represented George W. Bush and Al Gore, respectively, in the legal case that decided the 2000 presidential election — joined forces to take on Proposition 8 in court.

The US Supreme Court is seen as a more conservative body than the lower courts that have been considering the case.

Should the high court eventually decide to hear the case, much may depend on Anthony Kennedy, a Republican-appointed justice who has written important pro-gay rights decisions but has not explicitly endorsed gay marriage.

Six states — New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa — allow gay marriage, as does Washington, D.C.

In addition, New Jersey and Washington state are considering legislation to legalise same-sex marriage, and gay rights activists in Maine say they plan to bring the issue to voters in a referendum in that state.

 

Maldives must not persecute ousted regime: Amnesty

COLOMBO: Amnesty International warned the Maldives’ new regime Wednesday against seeking revenge against the party of former president Mohamed Nasheed, who quit in the face of public protests and a police mutiny.

“The new authorities in the Maldives must avoid persecuting members of outgoing President Mohamed Nasheed’s political party,” the human rights watchdog said in a statement.

Nasheed, the island-nation’s first democratically-elected president, resigned Tuesday after what his party described as a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by the opposition with the backing of rebel elements in the security forces.

Amnesty said at least three senior members of Nasheed’s Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) were reportedly detained after being beaten by police and opposition supporters on Monday night.

“The events of the last days follow weeks of political paralysis and a breakdown of accountability and the rule of law,” Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director said in a statement.

“The new government must ensure that it will protect the rights of all Maldivians equally, without regard to their political affiliation,” Zarifi said calling for an independent probe into the detentions and beatings.

Nasheed’s former ally and Vice-president Mohamed Waheed was sworn in as the new head of state on Tuesday afternoon.

Waheed on Tuesday promised to form a unity government comprising opposition parties, uphold the “rule of law” and prevent any illegal treatment of “past political leaders”.

Police spokesman Ahmed Shiyam told AFP that “anyone from the previous regime who worked against the constitution and laws” would not be allowed to leave the country.

Following his resignation, Nasheed was escorted by armed guards to a family residence where he spent the evening, according to his brother.

But Amnesty said there were some doubts about the former president’s current whereabouts which needed to be “clarified immediately”.

Three ministers resign in porn scandal in south India

The ministers denied they were watching pornography, but said they were resigning to save their party from embarrassment. — File photo

NEW DELHI: Three government ministers in the southern Indian state of Karnataka resigned Wednesday after they were accused of watching a pornographic video during an assembly session.

The right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules Karnataka, ordered the three ministers to resign after local television channels aired footage Tuesday of the men watching the allegedly pornographic video clip while the state assembly proceedings were going on.

The ministers denied they were watching pornography, but said they were resigning to save their party from embarrassment.

The governor of Karnataka accepted the resignations.

Television footage showed Laxman Savadi, minister for cooperation, watching the video clip on his mobile phone and then passing the phone to C. C. Patil, minister for women and child development.

The mobile phone belonged to the minister for ports, Krishna Palemar, who also resigned.

Soon after television stations aired the footage, outraged residents of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, held protests outside the homes of the three ministers, demanding their resignation.

The three men said they were not watching pornography. Savadi said he was watching a video clip of a rave party to prepare for a discussion in the assembly.