Headlines RSS

Aggressive Brown fails to revive faltering campaign as leaders clash over economy, immigration and estate tax

Gordon Brown last night appeared to have failed in his daunting mission to change the course of the general election during an ill-tempered leaders’ debate in which he repeatedly rounded on David Cameron and warned that Conservative spending cuts would imperil the fragile recovery.

The prime minister’s aggressive tone, however, did not destabilise Cameron, and his perceived negativity may have backfired with voters, who gave the debate to the Tory leader in all the instant polls.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, seemed to struggle to impose himself for the first time in the three TV debates, and was caught in a pincer movement over his party’s policy on immigration.

Brown’s pitch from the start was to claim that Cameron represented the “same old Tories”, returning to the hardline policies of the 1930s and 1980s that left millions unemployed. He then rounded on Cameron for offering tax breaks for the banks and millionaires, saying that this was no way to build a fair society. Speaking of his rivals, Brown said: “They are not ready for government, because they have not thought through their policies.”

The Tory leader, initially forced on the defensive over the fairness of his tax plans, countered hard. “What you are hearing is desperate stuff from a man in a desperate state,” he said, adding that Brown should be ashamed of himself for trying to frighten people.

Clegg repeated his claim that only the Liberal Democrats could offer real change. “We need to do things differently to build a new, stronger and fairer economy. The way they got us into this mess is not the way out. Of course, they will tell you tonight that these things can’t be done. I think we have got to do things differently to deliver the fairness, the prosperity and the jobs that you and your family deserve.”

Three instant polls, however, showed that Cameron had triumphed, with Clegg in second, and Brown trailing third. But a Guardian/ICM poll gave victory to Cameron on 35%, with Brown in second place on 29%, and Clegg on 27%.

The polls suggest that Cameron – by offering a reassuring performance – had been correct not to be provoked by Brown’s direct and pointed attacks.

The Tory leader ended with a deliberate pitch to the centre ground. “There’s something you need to know about me, which is I believe the test of a good and strong society is how we look after the most vulnerable, the most frail and the poorest.

“That’s true in good times but it’s even more true in difficult times. And there will be difficult decisions but I want to lead us through those to better times ahead.”

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, insisted that Brown had given a barnstorming performance and the prime minister punched hard in the opening half on the economy, trying to pin down an elusive Cameron on spending, corporation tax and efficiency savings.

In some of the most highly charged exchanges, Cameron also for the first time really rounded on Clegg, accusing him of wriggling over his offer of an amnesty to illegal immigrants that he said would allow 600,000 people who came here illegally to stay, as well as bring their families.

Brown too joined in to criticise the Lib Dem leader. Under pressure Clegg, no longer the novelty act of a fortnight ago, hit back at Cameron, saying: “Let’s save time and assume that every time you talk about our policy you are simply wrong.”

Demanding a yes or no answer, he challenged Cameron to admit that his planned cap on immingration would have no impact on migrants from the European Union. He also appealed for all three parties to come together after the election to agree the scale of the deficit and how to tackle it. With the final debate focused on the economy, deemed to be Brown’s strongest suit, the dramatic 90 minutes was seen as the Labour leader’s last, best chance to revive his campaign, and even prevent his long political career ending ignominiously in the immediate wake of next Thursday’s poll. Polls before the debate started showed the Tories narrowly ahead, but with the gap not widening.

In the personal and political test of his lifetime, Brown had to launch his big attack on the day after he had been enveloped in a disastrous encounter with a Rochdale pensioner, Gillian Duffy, when he was caught describing her as a “bigoted woman”. Duffy had challenged Brown over the threat posed by immigrants from eastern Europe. In his opening address, the prime minister addressed the issue head-on, saying: “There is a lot to this job and, as you saw yesterday, I don’t get all of it right. But I do know how to run the economy, in good times and in bad.”

In an attempt to convince voters that the election should be a judgment on Britain’s economic future and not a referendum on his personality, Brown said: “It’s not my future that matters. It’s your future on the ballot paper next Thursday, and I am the one to fight for your future.”

He battled time and again to portray the Tories as the party of the rich and described as immoral the Conservatives’ plans to cut tax credits but “at the same time give an inheritance tax cut to the 3,000 richest people in the country. Now that’s not fairness, that’s the same old Conservative party – tax cuts for the rich and cutting the child tax credits for the very poor. It’s simply not fair.”

Cameron said the taxpayer was having to pay “more and more and more”.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Louisiana declares a state of emergency amid reports that oil from Gulf rig Deepwater Horizon has hit mouth of Mississippi

The US coastguard is investigating reports that oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig has begun washing ashore near the mouth of the Mississippi river.

Yesterday the coastguard said up to 5,000 barrels a day were flowing into the sea – five times the rate previously estimated – as an assistant chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said he was “frightened for the country”.

Louisiana has declared a state of emergency and the White House said the president, Barack Obama, and the joint chiefs of staff were being briefed regularly on the situation. Yesterday Obama said that BP was “ultimately responsible” for the spill.

A spokesman confirmed this morning that the US national coastguard had received reports of the oil washing ashore. He said officials from the coastguard and BP were out investigating the reports, and would make an announcement later today.

Last night Noaa said persistent winds from the south-east were forecast through the weekend, which will continue to push the oil ashore.

It has declared the Deepwater Horizon incident a “spill of national significance” – defined as: “A spill that, due to its severity, size, location, actual or potential impact on the public health and welfare or the environment, or the necessary response effort, is so complex that it requires extraordinary coordination of federal, state, local, and responsible party resources to contain and clean up the discharge.”

The designation allows for a wider federal response, with funds and assets being used from around the country, particularly from other coastal areas.

“I am frightened for the country, for the environment,” said David Kennedy, assistant chief of the National Ocean Service at Noaa.

“This is a very, very big thing, and the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling.”

BP said today it was “ramping up preparations for a protection and cleaning effort” along the shorelines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

It has already installed 180,000ft of protective boom along the US coastline, and said an additional 300,000ft is in the process of being deployed.

“We are doing absolutely everything in our power to eliminate the source of the leak and contain the environmental impact of the spill,” said BP chief executive Tony Hayward.

“We are determined to fight this spill on all fronts, in the deep waters of the Gulf, in the shallow waters and, should it be necessary, on the shore.”

He added: “In the past few days I have seen the full extent of BP’s global resources and capability being brought to bear on this problem, and welcome the offers of further assistance we have had from government agencies, oil companies and members of the public to defend the shoreline and fight this spill.

“We are determined to succeed.”

BP has been using a mix of chemical dispersant, booms and burning to contain the spread. One method is to tow booms out to sea to surround parts of the spill and then set the oil on fire. Once the fire burns out, the remaining tar is removed by nets or skimmers. High winds prevented the final stage today.

BP is also planning to cap the well and capture the leaking oil, but this will take four weeks to put in place, by which stage more than 150,000 barrels could have been spilt. If the steel cap does not work, BP will have to try drilling a relief well, which would take three months.

By then, the spill could be more than 300,000 barrels – larger than the 258,000 leaked by the Exxon Valdez.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the oil well lacked a remote-control shutoff switch required by some other major producers, including Norway and Brazil. BP was at the forefront of recent lobbying of the US government against stronger safety controls for offshore drilling.

Hayward said: “The scale of the surface response is truly unprecedented, both for BP and for the oil industry.”

However, a BP spokesman said the environmental damage from and cost of tackling the leak would not be in the same range as the Exxon Valdez tragedy, which happened close to shore in the narrow Prince William Sound in Alaska. Exxon spent $3.5bn cleaning up the Valdez spill and had hundreds of millions of dollars in damages awarded against it.

Fund managers and analysts in the City said they were deeply worried about the financial cost to BP of the kind of legal action that could be taken in the US by those damaged by the accident.

Over £13bn has so far been knocked off the oil company’s stock market value since the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire. The City of London was alive with rumours that the spill could even be 10,000 barrels, according to one oil analyst who asked not to be named: “We have also heard that the state of Louisiana is threatening to sue the company,” he added.

The Gulf incident is particularly damaging for BP because it is still recovering from the damage to its reputation caused by the Texas City fire, pipeline fractures in Alaska and a rig accident in the Gulf.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Exclusive: Americans consider withholding veto protecting Israel at UN if building goes ahead at Ramat Shlomo

The US has given private assurances to encourage the Palestinians to join indirect Middle East peace talks, including an offer to consider allowing UN security council condemnation of any significant new Israeli settlement activity, the Guardian has learned.

The assurances were given verbally in a meeting a week ago between a senior US diplomat and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Since then – and after months of US diplomacy – it appears Israeli and Palestinian leaders are close to starting indirect “proximity” talks, which would be the first resumption of the Middle East peace process since Israel’s war in Gaza began in late 2008.

There was no official confirmation of the details of the meeting and Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, denied assurances were given. “It’s not true,” he said. “We are still talking to the Americans.”

But a Palestinian source, who was given a detailed account of the meeting, said David Hale, the deputy of the US special envoy, George Mitchell, told Abbas that Barack Obama wanted to see the peace process move forward with the starting of indirect talks. The diplomat said Washington understood there were obstacles and described Israeli settlement construction as “provocative”.

He told Abbas the Americans had received assurances from the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that one particular settlement project in East Jerusalem, at Ramat Shlomo, would not go ahead, at least for now. The site is important because last month an agreement on indirect talks collapsed within a day of being announced, after Israeli officials gave planning approval for 1,600 new homes in the settlement. The US vice‑president, Joe Biden, who was in Jerusalem at the time, condemned the Israeli announcement in unusually strong language.

Hale then told Abbas that if there was significantly provocative settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem, Washington may consider allowing the UN security council to censure Israel. It was understood that meant the US would abstain from voting on a resolution rather than use its veto.

Any US decision not to veto a resolution critical of Israel would be very unusual and a rare sign of American anger towards its long-time ally. However, it was not clear what may constitute significantly provocative activity. Palestinian officials asked in the meeting, but were not given an explicit definition, the source said.

In a New York Times opinion piece this week it was suggested that a letter was given to Abbas offering an unprecedented US commitment to the Palestinians and saying Washington would not stand in the way of a UN resolution condemning Israeli actions. But the Palestinian source told the Guardian that the assurances were only verbal and were not in letter form because the US wanted the details kept secret.

Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, suggested they were close to agreeing to indirect talks. “We want to give President Obama a chance, to give Senator Mitchell a chance and of course success to us means independence and freedom,” he said.

Last year, the Palestinians were refusing to enter talks without a full freeze on settlement building. Israel has put a partial, 10-month curb on construction in the West Bank, but Netanyahu has refused in public to freeze building in East Jerusalem. Last week he said Palestinian calls for a halt to settlement building in the city were an “unacceptable demand”.

Yet reports suggest a tacit, temporary delay has been put on planning approvals for settlement projects in the city. Israeli ministers have said they believe the indirect talks could start within weeks and, privately, Israeli officials say there has been transparency with both sides about understandings reached to allow the process to begin.

Asked about Israeli settlement building, Erekat said: “I don’t care about words. I care about deeds. I really want to see that nothing takes place on the ground. That is what matters to me.”

Hani al-Masri, a political adviser to Abbas, said: “The Americans said they will blame the party that puts obstacles in the way of the peace process.”

But he added that it was very unlikely that the Americans would allow the UN to censure Israel.

“We are very far from that step. They will never leave Israel to the mercy of the security council,” said Masri.

US and Israel at the UN

For decades the US has vetoed UN security council resolutions that are critical of its ally Israel. However, occasionally the US either abstains from voting or votes in favour of sometimes strongly worded resolutions. This last happened in October 2000 when the US abstained in a vote over a resolution about the outbreak of the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising, which strongly criticised Israeli “provocation”. The last time this happened regularly was between 1990 and 1992, when George Bush Sr was US president and when relations with Israel were particularly bad. His administration voted in favour of six resolutions critical of Israel

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Video: Oliver Burkeman and Christian Bennett analyse the party leaders’ performances in last night’s final televised clash

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

• Government in desperate negotiations with EU and IMF
• Financial markets welcome imminent deal
• Unions call more stoppages and street protests promised

Greece’s embattled government was tonight engaged in desperate negotiations to thrash out what is expected to be the largest bailout in history.

The ruling socialists conducted fierce horse-trading with experts from the EU, European Central Bank and IMF amid mounting pressure for further austerity measures in return for a reputed €120bn (£104bn) in aid.

The talks intensified as the EU’s monetary affairs chief, Olli Rehn, predicted that a deal safeguarding Greece from sovereign default – and securing global financial stability – was imminent. “I am confident the talks will be concluded in the next days,” he said, insisting that negotiators were working “day and night” to finesse the details of a rescue package that would finally end the debt crisis.

In a week that has seen Greece’s turmoil not only worsen but spread across Europe, the prospect of a deal was met with immediate relief. In Athens the stock exchange rebounded after days of dramatic losses with the general index up nearly 8%. Pressure on Greece in capital markets also dropped with the spread on Greek 10-year bonds narrowing to 6.48 percentage points over their German equivalents from 10 points on Wednesday.

However the spectre of more austerity measures to keep bankruptcy at bay was greeted with anger from the country’s labour force. Unions announced further stoppages – including a 24-hour general strike on 5 May.

“We got a flavour of a very harsh package of measures – measures that will lead to [further] recession.” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of the confederation of Greek workers, GSEE, after meeting Prime Minister George Papandreou with other union leaders to discuss the bailout.

“We realised we stand before a done deal,” said Ilias Iliopoulos, who represents the civil servants’ union. “This will acutely burden people, and what is worse, burden them unfairly.”

Communist militants backed by the country’s powerful far-left KKE party pledged they would take to the streets to protest against the “criminal” measures.

After the toughest austerity programme the country has seen since the second world war – a mix of wage cuts and tax hikes – the income of the average Greek is down nearly 20%, with low- and middle-income earners especially hard-hit.

Mounting anger over the perceived inequity of the measures has created a febrile climate as crime has also risen and the mood in city centres has become increasingly edgy.

There is widespread speculation that the IMF will pour further fuel on the fire by demanding that the government steps up the unpopular policies to rein in a public sector deficit of 13.6% and €300bn debt over the next three years.

Among the measures under consideration is said to be a 2 to 4 percentage point hike in VAT from 21% currently, a further 10% increase in levies on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes, and a cut in bonuses.

Sources close to the talks said Papandreou was desperately trying to avoid having to cross the “psychological red line” of abolishing the 13th and 14th salaries received by public sector employees in addition to their monthly wages.

“God help the man. He is walking a very fine line,” said one senior diplomat. “The success of Greece’s economic recovery depends as much on how this crisis is dealt with politically as it does the numbers.”

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

But Hampton defended the need to sanction such big pay deals because of the deals paid by rivals

One of Britain’s most senior bankers has admitted that pay in the industry is unduly excessive, hours after the leaders of Britain’s three biggest political parties criticised the sector.

Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “banker’s pay continues to be astonishingly high, almost certainly too high”.

But he went on to defend the need to sanction such big pay deals because of the deals paid by rivals. “if we don’t pay our top people they leave,” Hampton said.

RBS held its annual meeting on Wednesday and conceded that it needed to look at changes to a new bonus deal for chief executive Stephen Hester which had partly been based on the share price exceeding 50p - a level breached by the share price before the scheme had even been ratified. It publishes its first quarter profits a week today.

With Britain facing deep cutbacks after the next general election, there is anger that the banking sector is again paying out large bonuses so soon after the financial crisis. HSBC is facing a shareholder revolt over plans to hand chief executive Mike Geoghegan a relocation package worth £800,000 a year in cash and benefits, when he moves to Hong Kong.

Last night, during the Leaders’ Debate, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg pledged to shake up the sector.

“We need to break up our banking system so that irresponsible bankers can never again put your businesses and your savings at risk,” he said.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Teacher who struck boy with weight cleared of two charges and will not face jail for grievous bodily harm, which he had admitted

A teacher who snapped and attacked a pupil who had been goading him was cleared of attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent today.

The jury at Nottingham crown court took less than two hours to clear father-of-two Peter Harvey, 50, who had admitted causing grievous bodily harm without intent.

Harvey attacked the 14-year-old boy with a 3kg weight during a lesson at All Saints’ Roman Catholic school in Mansfield last July.

The court heard that he shouted “die, die, die” as he bludgeoned the boy with the weight after the pupil told him to “fuck off”.

It emerged during the four-day trial that pupils at the school were trying to wind up Harvey so his reaction could be caught on a camcorder being used secretly by a girl in the class.

The footage was then to be passed around the school as a way of “humiliating” him.

His lawyer argued he was in such a state when he battered the boy, a known trouble-maker, he could not have possibly intended to kill or seriously harm him.

The judge said he would not send the teacher to jail for grievous bodily harm, which he had admitted. Harvey spent eight months on remand awaiting trial before being bailed earlier this month.

Judge Michael Stokes QC said: “Common sense has prevailed now we have heard all the evidence.

“These are not easy cases and it’s plainly in the public interest where an event of this nature takes place in a school that the jury representing the public should consider the level of guilt.”

Turning to Harvey, the judge added: “I’m not going to send you to prison for this offence. I’m not even going to impose a suspended sentence. That would be wrong given that you have already served a sentence longer than can be lawfully suspended.

“This court is looking to impose a community order which will assist you with the problems that you have had.”

Harvey bowed his head as the jury of six men and six women returned its unanimous verdict of not guilty.

He left by a side exit and will return to court to be sentenced for grievous bodily harm on 21 May.

After the attack, science teacher Harvey, who had just gone back to work after several months off with stress, told police he thought he had killed the boy.

Transcripts of an interview with detectives were read out in court.

Harvey said: “I can’t remember it too well but I do recall it was like watching it on television, like it was not actually happening to me.

“I can remember the boy saying ‘fuck off’ and when that happened I was not really there.”

Harvey said: “We went through the door into the prep room and I remember standing over him with this metal weight and I remember hitting him twice.

“Something happened and I’m sure I dropped it. I remember feeling really peaceful.”

He added: “The nice guy [education adviser Shahrukh Mugaseth] went with me to the police station and I could see my reflection in the screen.

“It was me but it was horrible me. I wanted to destroy it but I couldn’t get my hands up so I headbutted it.

“I just kept seeing the boy’s head with me hitting it twice. I kept seeing it all the time and I thought I had killed him.”

Harvey said he had planned a practical experiment involving melting ice in the Year 9 lesson on the day of the attack.

He admitted he should have called a senior manager after he became angry and kicked the bag of a 14-year-old girl who was playing with the blinds in the classroom.

The court heard from two former pupils at the school, who described Harvey as a “charismatic” teacher who cared deeply about his students.

Caroline Frith, who left the school in 2004, said she was inspired to become a history teacher by Harvey.

She said: “He was a very good teacher in every aspect. He was incredibly charismatic and he commanded the respect of his students.

“He put a lot of planning into his work and he could get the children involved and enthused about science.”

Harvey, who did not go into the witness box during his trial, was also described as a “caring and giving” man who would regularly take part in school plays. On one occasion he grew a beard for the role of Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist.

But he had struggled to help his wife Samantha cope with depression after she had to give up her job as a teacher because of her illness.

The couple have two teenage daughters, one of whom has Asperger’s syndrome.

Nick Harding, a magistrate and friend of Harvey’s for 20 years, said he was an “extraordinary” teacher.

He said: “Peter was devoted to the job and about his subject. Peter is a very caring, loving and giving man. I have never seen him be anything but that.”

Stuart Rafferty QC, prosecuting, had described the case as a tragedy but told the jurors they should not acquit Harvey because they had sympathy for him.

The court was told that shortly before he was signed off sick with depression and stress in December 2008, he had become “snappy” with pupils. On one occasion he “exploded” after he caught a girl chewing gum.

He told police he had become afraid of crowds and said he once felt like “gouging” out the eyes of someone who was staring at him.

Harvey said that after he was signed off he was referred to a counsellor who said he was “too placid and gentle” and “needed to let it all out”.

He said that despite his violent thoughts, he was told by his counsellor there were “several steps to go” from having the thoughts to actually acting on them.

In April 2009, he told his doctor and therapist he felt more positive and wanted to go on a “phased return” to his school.

But the day before the attack he told a colleague he had become frustrated at his inability to control his students.

His colleague David Hopwood said: “The day before the incident took place, I can remember having a conversation with him when he said he was finding it odd because, for the first time in 20 years, he was finding it difficult to keep the same order in the classroom because it had always been excellent.”

Hopwood, a teacher at the school for five years, agreed with Rex Tedd QC, defending, that once a teacher lost control of a class it could prove difficult to regain order as pupils would “take advantage” of a tutor they could wind up.

He said Harvey had been assaulted once by a pupil, while he knew other teachers had been attacked at the 1,000-student school, which had a good reputation in the town and for which there was competition for places.

The court also heard from Shahrukh Mugaseth, who had been brought back from retirement to act as an education adviser at the school in October 2008. He had been observing Hopwood’s lesson in a classroom next to Harvey’s at the time of the attack.

He was also the teacher who told Harvey to go home and seek medical help after he said he was suffering from stress and depression in December 2008.

But he said he was not involved in the decision to allow Harvey to return to work.

Describing the moments immediately after Harvey attacked the boy, Mugaseth said: “When I saw him, his eyes were closed very tight, his fists were clenched and I can only describe it as though he was in a state of trauma.

“He was speaking, not to anyone in particular, and he was saying ‘die’. He repeated it about half a dozen times. It was as if no-one else was with him, as if he was speaking to himself.”

Mugaseth said he escorted Harvey, whose forearms and trousers were covered in blood, to the headteacher’s office.

He added: “He was making a low-level howling noise. He said ‘I killed the boy, I killed the boy. This is not me, this is not me.”‘

The court also heard that the boy Harvey attacked was the “leading light” for trouble in his classroom.

He had been in trouble for disrupting classes nine times before he was attacked, suffering a fractured skull.

The court heard that the last thing the boy remembered was swearing at Harvey, who replied: “I’ll teach you to fuck off.”

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Organisation accused of cover-up as it seeks to keep thousands of ‘perversion files’ secret

America’s Scouting movement is fighting to keep secret thousands of “perversion files” on suspected child molesters after it was ordered to pay record damages over the sexual abuse of a former Scout.

In a growing scandal threatening to rival the crisis hitting the Roman Catholic church, the Boy Scouts of America has been accused of covering up decades of child abuse in order to protect the reputation of what is now a billion-dollar organisation.

Last week, a jury in Oregon made the largest punitive damages award to a single plaintiff in a child abuse case in the US by ordering the Scouts to pay $18.5m (£12m) to Kerry Lewis, who was repeatedly assaulted by a former assistant scoutmaster, Timur Dykes, in the 1980s. Dykes had admitted to a superior in the Scouts that he had abused boys, but was allowed to remain in the organisation and is alleged to have sexually assaulted several other children who are also taking legal action.

The judge in the case overruled the Scouts’ attempts to keep the jury from seeing about 1,200 files kept by the organisation on suspected paedophiles. Kelly Clark, Lewis’s lawyer, told the jury that while the files were often used to remove child abusers from the Scouting movement, many were allowed to remain in the organisation. He said that the Scouts rarely alerted the police and when they did, the movement asked the authorities to avoid publicity.

Clark told the jury that the Scouting leadership had been “reckless and outrageous” in failing to warn parents and boys about the problem.

The files shown to the jury were not made public and are just a small part of what is believed to be a cache of as many as 6,000 held at the Scouts’ headquarters in Texas, dating back to the 1920s. Lawyers for alleged sexual abuse victims are suing to have all the files made public at a hearing next month.

If that happens, it is likely to prove a severe blow to an organisation that is already at the centre of controversy over a bar on atheists and gay people. Membership stands at about 3 million, but has been dropping for more than a decade, in part because of the controversies over discrimination.

Clark said the scale of the award to Lewis reflects a heightened awareness of sexual crimes against children because of the recent revelations about the Catholic church. But he also said that the jury was shocked by the existence of what in court were called the “perversion files”.

“We said they had 75 years of secret files about paedophiles, and that’s the way the evidence came in. I think that fact in itself was just staggering to the jury,” he said. “They had a regular practice of placing guys on probation and then they would allow them to continue to be active in Scouting, not unlike some of what you saw in the Catholic church.”

Dykes confessed his abuse in 1983 to the local Scouts co-ordinator, who also happened to be a Mormon bishop, but was allowed to continue working with the Scouts. Lewis said he was molested by Dykes over the following two years. The Mormon church settled with Lewis and seven other victims of Dykes more than a year ago.

Clark said the Scouts shared information from the files when requested to do so by the police, but it almost never took the initiative in submitting a case to the authorities, even where there was credible evidence of abuse.

“The routine was that they would deal with it internally,” said Clark. “They would place the paedophile on their list of ineligible volunteers and if it was dropable they would drop it, and it was done. There were numerous examples of Scouting executives saying ‘let’s keep this quiet, he’s out of Scouting now, so we don’t need to do any more about it.’ There was definitely a misguided sense of priorities.”

Even where the police did become involved, the Scouts sought to minimise the damage to the organisation.

“We saw numerous examples of the Scouts writing to law enforcement saying ‘it would be best for the good of Scouting if this could avoid being made too public.’ Law enforcement was almost complicit in this saying ‘we’ll do our best to keep this quiet because we value the work of the Boy Scouts,’” said Clark.

The Scout leadership said it was seeking to keep the files secret to protect the privacy of the victims and to guard against being sued for false accusations. It said it was “deeply saddened” by the abuse of Lewis, but would not comment further on the case because of continuing litigation.

“The Boy Scouts of America has a rigorous, nationwide system of checks and balances, in accordance with local laws, which keeps out of the programme those individuals who should not be leading youth,” it said.

But Patrick Boyle, author of Scout’s Honour: Sexual Abuse in America’s Most Trusted Institution, said the Scout leadership lost sight of its real purpose in dealing with paedophiles.

“They’ve behaved like a corporation with an embarrassing product defect that they don’t want to acknowledge. The Scouts were minimising the extent of the problem within their organisation and in large part discrediting their own Boy Scout victims and trying to hide the product defect, so to speak, by not letting on how many cases they have, misleading people into thinking they didn’t really know how many cases they have, they didn’t have a file system. And then fighting tooth and nail in court to keep it secret,” he said. “They have also been very heavy handed with the victims, not apologising.”

Scouts’ dishonour

The Boy Scouts of America organisation has been at the centre of nearly three decades of controversy ranging from out-of-court settlements with victims of childhood sexual abuse to its bar on non-believers and gay people.

Although Kerry Lewis won the largest punitive damages to date ($18.5m) awarded over sexual molestation, the Scouts in the US have settled about 60 similar cases out of court over recent years.

Until last week’s judgment, the Texas-based Scout movement had previously fought off several court actions, including an attempt to overturn its policy that atheists and agnostics who were not prepared to swear allegiance to God could not join. It also beat off legal attempts to force it to drop an effective bar on openly gay members on the grounds that being homosexual is not consistent with the organisation’s requirement to be “morally straight”. The Girl Scouts of America, a separate organisation, permits members to submit a word other than God when reciting its oath and has no restrictions based on sexual orientation.

Some critics have accused the Boy Scouts of losing touch with its original purpose as it has evolved into a an organisation which in some ways resembles a large corporation, with close to $900m in assets, including a $45m art collection and a large property portfolio.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

BSkyB signs interim settlement with digital terrestrial and cable pay-TV providers BT Vision, Virgin Media and Top Up TV

Cut-price subscription deals for live Premier League football could be available on digital terrestrial and cable television by the start of the new season in August, after BSkyB today reached an interim settlement with three rival pay-TV operators.

The deal struck by the satellite broadcaster is limited to providing just BT Vision, Virgin Media and Top Up TV with discounted wholesale deals for Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2, which carry live Premier League football.

BSkyB has today dropped fight to get the Competition Appeals Tribunal to implement a “stay” to postpone the implementation of Ofcom’s ruling that it must cut the amount it charges all rival pay-TV operators to offer Sky Sports by more than 20%.

Under Ofcom’s ruling BSkyB would have had to have offered its prime sports content to any competitor in the market.

“Often these things end up being settled out of court, so to speak, and there have been a series of discussions about how to reach an agreement,” said a senior executive with knowledge of the deal. “The deal will see the ’stay’ definitely not put in place and concessions will be made that will mean it [Ofcoms ruling] will not apply to all platforms.”

Despite today’s deal BSkyB intends to mount a case to overturn the Ofcom ruling that it must slash the cost of SkySports 1 and 2. It will present the appeal to the CAT in a matter of weeks, but its rivals will be able to take advantage of those new prices while it argues its case.

Sky had been attempting to have Ofcom’s decision that it must cut the amount it charges rivals to offer Sky Sports by more than 20%, announced last month, put on hold by appealing to the CAT. But after legal wrangling that has dragged on all week it has decided to drop the action.

The CAT has brokered a deal under which Virgin Media, BT and Top Up TV can all take advantage of the reduced wholesale price for the two Sky Sports channels, but they must place the difference between the new regulated price and Sky’s original wholesale price in a so-called “escrow” account. If Sky wins its case, which is unlikely to be heard until September, then the money will be handed over to the satellite broadcaster as it will be able to put its prices up again. If Sky loses, the cash will be returned to the three companies.

In a statement issued today, Sky said this deal will “initially apply only in respect of BT, Top-up TV and Virgin Media on DTT and cable”.

The CAT has ruled that any other broadcaster who wishes to offer Sky’s channels at the new Ofcom rate will be able to ask the court directly to join the escrow regime. The regime, however, only applies to companies that wish to offer Sky Sports 1 and 2 on digital terrestrial and cable TV.

The deal is a victory for Ofcom, which stated in its March 31 ruling that Sky must start offering the new prices by 14 May.

A Sky spokesman said: “We are pleased to have been able to put forward an agreement which provides substantial protection against the short-term impacts of Ofcom’s decision. We remain fully focused on our substantive appeal, which will be filed with the CAT in due course.”

Ofcom said the deal was good for the UK pay-TV market and that it would staunchly defend the ruling against BSkyB’s appeal.

“The agreement is very good news for consumers,” said a spokesman for Ofcom. “It means that Sky will supply Sky Sports 1 and 2 to BT, Virgin Media and Top Up TV on digital terrestrial TV and cable on Ofcom’s regulated prices. We look forward to the next steps in the process, including the formal appeal where we will defend the decisions we have taken, which are in the interests of UK consumers.”

• 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”.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »

Prime ministers meet in Bhutan and agree to send foreign ministers back into wide-ranging discussions including Kashmir

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed today to resume peace talks between their top diplomats and work toward rebuilding trust shattered by the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani militants.

Officials said India’s Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, agreed on the need to normalise relations dogged by more than six decades of hostility since both gained independence from Britain. They deputed their foreign ministers to meet at a later date to discuss the resumption of a wide-ranging formal dialogue that began in 2004, but was suspended after the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

The two prime ministers met for more than an hour in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, on the sidelines of a summit of south Asian leaders. It was their first meeting in eight months.

India’s foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, said Gilani assured India that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activity directed against India and it would expedite the trial of suspects of the Mumbai attacks it is holding in Pakistan.

The two prime ministers “agreed that relations between the two countries should be normalised and the channels of contact should work effectively to enlarge the constituency of peace in both countries,” Rao told reporters.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, described it as a “very friendly” meeting and signalled that he thought the resumption of the dialogue – which covers a range of issues from border disputes, nuclear weapons and the two countries’ dispute over Kashmir – was a formality.

“The two prime ministers have agreed to resume a dialogue process that remained suspended for so many months. Both foreign ministers have been asked to work out modalities of engagement. The climate has changed,” Qureshi said.

“I don’t think that either side was expecting such a positive turn in dialogue.”

Rao was more equivocal. She said India was willing to discuss and resolve all outstanding issues with Pakistan – including terrorism and the rise in infiltration by Islamic insurgents. She said the foreign ministers have been charged with “thinking afresh and working out ways to restore trust and confidence in the relationship.” No date has been set for the meeting.

India and Pakistan have been under pressure to resume their peace dialogue – which eased historic tensions although it made little headway on the key issue of Kashmir, which they both claim in entirety and have fought two of their three wars over since gaining independence in 1947.

The US hopes that if tensions on the subcontinent ease, Pakistan will be able to deploy resources on the Indian border to help fight the Taliban and al-Qaida on its border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan is trying seven men on charges related to the Mumbai attacks, but the militant network blamed for the assault continues to operate relatively freely.

Tags: Guardian by admin
No Comments »