Intelligence from torture ‘can save lives’
Britain uses intelligence gained from torture because although ‘abhorrent’ it can sometimes save lives the government has said.
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‘Super’ C. difficile outbreak linked to deaths of 13 patients
A new strain of ’super’ C. difficile has been linked to the deaths of 13 patients and another 17 are being treated for the infection as doctors battle to control an outbreak at Eastbourne District Hospital.
‘Systemic failures’ led to deaths of submariners on HMS Tireless
Inquest into explosion which killed two men on a nuclear submarine while they were on an Arctic exercise.
Thirteen die after C. diff outbreak at hospital
Outbreak of the bug clostridium difficile hits Eastbourne District General Hospital in East Sussex.
Labour MP Tony McNulty reported to parliamentary watchdog over expenses
Senior minister at the centre of expenses row reported to the parliamentary watchdog over his housing expenses claims.
Obama’s aunt faces immigration hearing
Zeituni Onyango, who has lived in the US for eight years, could be deported to Kenya
Zeituni Onyango, the aunt of Barack Obama who has lived in the US for
the past eight years, four of them illegally, is preparing for a crucial immigration hearing in Boston on Wednesday that could see her deported back to her native Kenya.
The 56-year-old woman, described affectionately by Obama as “Auntie Zeituni” in his bestselling memoir Dreams from My Father, is thought to have come to America in about 2000, living most the time in Boston. But in 2003 she became mired in immigration proceedings that culminated in a court order the following year ordering her deportation.
Her immigration status caused a ripple of controversy in the final days of last year’s presidential campaign after the Times tracked her down to a special needs flat for disabled people in a rundown neighbourhood of south Boston.
When subsequently it was leaked that she had remained illegally in the US despite the court ruling, Obama was forced to comment, saying that he had not known about her status and suggesting she leave the country according to law. Since then the Obama administration has kept a scrupulous distance from the case.
Onyango features prominently in Obama’s memoir as the first of his Kenyan relatives to greet him when he visited them in 1988, kissing him on both cheeks and saying “Welcome home”. She is the half-sister of the president’s late father, Barack Obama Sr, who died in 1982.
She has now returned to Boston for the immigration hearing, having fled the city since November to avoid the media. Attempts to interview her by the Boston Globe have been rebutted. “I’m not happy,” is all she would say.
Wednesday’s hearing will be held before Judge Leonard Shapiro, who has a tough record for turning down a high proportion of immigration applications that come before him. Onyango has won the right to re-argue her case, and is understood to be intending to present new evidence in support of a plea for asylum in the US.
The American media has maintained a steady interest in the presidents’ various relatives in Kenya and elsewhere. Today it was reported that one of his five Kenyan half-brothers, Malik Obama, aged 51, had been tested in hospital for possible cholera. There has been an outbreak of the disease in his area of western Kenya and Malik Obama had presented with stomach pains.
The story of Onyango has been particularly enthusiastically embraced by right-wing commentators and bloggers who see it as a stick with which to beat the president. They are watching the proceedings avidly for any sign of White House interference, but have so far failed to throw up a smoking gun.
Mark Krikorian, director of the Centre for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank that argues for tighter immigration controls, said it was important for the Obama administration to stay out of the case altogether. “I think they understand that, but even so the outcome could rebound on them.”
“If his aunt’s claim for asylum is denied and she leaves the country, he will have much more credibility in regards to immigration enforcement.”
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China may be obstacle to Gordon Brown’s global G20 economy plan
Prime Minister wants largest economies to agree a package of measures to address what he called “the first global recession”.
Iranian beggar was real-life Slumdog Millionaire
Man who begged on the streets of western Iran dies leaving a vast fortune in cash, property and jewellery
Years of scrounging and vagrancy on the streets of Shahr-e Kord in western Iran meant that Talat Habibian was never anything more than a local beggar to his neighbours.
So when he was found dead in his squalid home, no one suspected that the dishevelled tramp who spent his life pleading for money and favours had left behind a vast fortune.
But now a judge has confirmed that Habibian was a real-life slumdog millionaire after police discovered a treasure trove of valuables stashed away when they went to recover his body.
Searching through the dead man’s possessions, officers were stunned to find more than £7,000 in cash, ownership documents to a host of lucrative properties and businesses, and title deeds to acres of fertile farmland.
They also discovered an array of precious jewellery and ornaments, including earrings dating back to the mid-19th century reign of the Qajar king, Mohammad Shah.
The precise value of the assets has yet to be established but officials say it totals several billion Iranian rials – potentially millions of pounds sterling.
The judge, Yousef Bagheri, has been appointed to dispose of them after it was confirmed that Habibian – whose age has been given variously as 70 or 75 – had no apparent heirs or next of kin.
The Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of children forced to become street beggars in the Indian city of Mumbai.
Habibian is not Iran’s first wealthy beggar. In 2003, a 40-year-old Tehran woman filed for divorce after discovering that her husband, a wealthy carpet trader, regularly begged in a rundown neighbourhood in the south of the city after swapping his businessman’s clothes for those of a tramp.
The husband explained that he was driven by a compulsive urge stemming from his impoverished upbringing in which he fell under the spell of organised beggars.
And three years ago, a beggar arrested by police in Tehran was found to have £10,000 in the bank and own a luxury flat in the city’s affluent northern suburbs.
The Iranian authorities have taken steps periodically to stamp out begging. In 2006, Tehran city council offered monthly inducements of £360 for adults and £150 for children to give up the practice. The venture failed because beggars said the incentives were less than what they earned on the streets.
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Foreign rule is ‘xenophobic rhetoric’
• Premier League wants best players in the world
• Homegrown footballers will learn from foreigners
The Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has described Sepp Blatter’s proposal to limit the number of foreigners playing in the top flight of the English game as “xenophobic rhetoric”. Earlier this week the Fifa president accused the Premier League of being too focused on making money, and complained there are not enough homegrown players in first teams.
Scudamore is opposed to Blatter’s 6+5 rule – which would see a maximum of five foreign players in starting line-ups in domestic games – and insists the England team’s recent success proves the league has the right balance.
“I do struggle where nationalism, jingoism and patriotism stops and where actually some sort of xenophobic rhetoric takes over,” said Scudamore. “And there is a certain amount of that in the football world when I keep getting told ‘how can English football be English football when there are not enough English players in a particular team?’ I struggle with that when everyone bar David Beckham who is qualified to play for England at the top level is playing at home.
“I start to worry that these start to sound like the sort of attitudes that are quite difficult to justify in my football world and I for one am not going to allow that agenda to be washed over. There is nobody more proud of the England football team than me but we can’t let that spill over into fear and this sort of agenda.”
Responding to claims that English players face too much competition from foreign imports, Scudamore insisted homegrown players are given the opportunity to reach the top level.
“We have a quality agenda, what we want is the best players,” he said. “We would like a huge proportion of those best players to be English. That would tick every box – if they were the best players in the world we would have success at international level. Under Fabio Capello at the moment we are enjoying that success. That is the ideal combination. We want the players in our league to be the best.
“We’ve never had a restriction. The fact is, if you are good enough you will get a chance. The challenge for the English talent is holding their own and that is what is happening at the moment.
“We get accused of not being pro-English because we have so many foreign players, but we also have so many English players and they are playing against the best week-in, week-out. It is possible to be a world league and also an English league.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Obama moves to boost Afghanistan force
President Barack Obama declared that Afghanistan was facing an “increasingly perilous” situation, as he unveiled a new strategy that shifts the US focus to defeating al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operating from safe havens inside Pakistan
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