Posted in news
They're the power couple behind the throne of Kim Jong-il, North Korea's increasingly frail leader, a husband-and-wife team who may have edged closer this week to the centre of power in the reclusive Stalinist dictatorship.
While most of the attention this week is on Kim Jong-un, the Dear Leader's youngest son and heir apparent, his aunt and uncle are probably being groomed for a role as his mentors.
State media confirmed last night that Jong-un was elevated to the Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee, following in the footsteps of his father, who was elected to the committee in 1972 – the first major step on his road to power. It was Jong-un's first known political post and followed his promotion to four-star general in the nation's all-important military.
Kim Kyong-hui, 64, who was also given four stars this week , is the ailing autocrat's only sister and daughter of the country's founding father, Kim Il- sung. Her husband, Jang Song-taek, 64, is now widely considered North Korea's number two. They were also both given significant political posts.
The couple are believed to have survived at least one purge and the death of their daughter, who reportedly took an overdose of sleeping pills in France after her parents demanded she end a relationship there and return home.
The appointment of Kim's immediate family to senior positions at the ruling party's biggest conference in decades is fuelling rumours that he is trying to extend the country's messianic leadership cult for another generation.
Kim Jong-il, 69, was also given a military role at the last Workers' Party conference in 1980, though he had to wait for his father, Kim Il-sung, to die in 1994 before assuming his current role. In the 16 years since, he has solidified his grip on the country by cultivating a quasi-religious cult around him and his father – the "eternal president".
The official announcements confirm pre-conference speculation that Jong-il, who suffered a stroke in 2008, would cement his family's hold on power before he dies. In June, Jang was appointed chairman of the National Defence Commission – the North's supreme governing body – making him the country's effective second-in-command behind the Dear Leader.
Kim himself was yesterday reappointed general secretary of the party with what state media called "the unanimous will and wishes" of the North's citizens. State-run television said that Kim, who attended the conference, had been "enshrined" by conference delegates, who "enthusiastically gave celebration with a storm of acclaim and the highest respect".
The Russian-educated Jang is thought to have been purged by his brother-in-law from 2004-06 – punishment for flaunting his opulent cadre's lifestyle. But he has since been allowed back into the Kim family's inner circle as the leader's health ebbs and he leans more on family members he can trust.
Jang and his wife met in the 1960s at Kim Il-sung University. He was expelled when the relationship became public but the pair continued to date despite the fierce opposition of Kyong-hui's father, and married in 1972. Both have been at the centre of power in North Korea for four decades.
Kyong-hui is thought to be, in effect, an economic enforcer for her brother in her role as director of Economic Policy Inspections. Defectors say one of her tasks is factory inspections and ordering the imprisonment and execution of failing managers and officials.
The presence of two powerful and ambitious mentors alongside the young heir Jong-un has raised concerns about a tussle for power. But the normally well-informed online newspaper Daily NK said this week that Kim's autocratic leadership made that "impossible", at least until after he is dead. "Rumours of a full-blooded power struggle are remote and show a lack of understanding about North Korea's reality," said the newspaper.
Pyongyang's neighbours in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are watching this week's conference carefully for signs of who will eventually run the world's newest nuclear power. Although few ordinary citizens have ever seen the young heir, he has been increasingly seen accompanying his father during his famous "on-the-spot" guidance tours to workplaces and the army.
But there appear to be few immediate signs of any softening in the hardline Stalinist stance. The party's official newspaper this week said that it would continue to stress the importance of Kim's "Songun" policy of putting the military first, and his father's philosophy of "Juche", or self-reliance.
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German business confidence unexpectedly hit its highest level in more than three years this month, a closely watched survey showed today. But it also indicated that the coming months were likely to be more difficult.Posted in Others
It's a life regimented in excruciating detail, down to the way they eat an orange. Silence is the norm; information is limited; email is screened; close friendships are discouraged and family members are kept at bay – all in the name of God's will. Known as consecrated women, they are lay Catholics affiliated with a conservative religious order who dedicate their lives to the church, making promises of chastity, poverty and obedience similar to the vows taken by nuns.
But the cult-like conditions they endure so alarmed Pope Benedict XVI that in May he ordered a rare full Vatican investigation of the obscure group, which operates in the US, Mexico, Spain and a dozen other countries. The inquiry is expected to begin in the coming weeks. Alleged abuses came to light during an eight-month Vatican investigation into the Legionaries of Christ, a secretive religious order beloved by Pope John Paul II but now discredited because of revelations that its charismatic founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.
The women belong to Regnum Christi, the order's lay wing of some 70,000 Catholics in more than 30 countries who have families and jobs. They give up possessions and ties to their former lives. In interviews with the Associated Press, eight former members from the US and Mexico told of emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse at the hands of superiors who told them they violate God's will if they break any rules.
These extended into every facet of life. Members were told how to eat a piece of bread (tear off small pieces) and an orange (with a knife and fork). They were told how many movies they could see a year (six); what television programmes they could watch (no drama or music); and to refrain from reading in the bathroom. Women who made mistakes were often publicly humiliated.
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Posted in news
A barrister who was killed by armed police was assured he would not be shot by officers stationed outside his home shortly before they opened fire on him, an inquest heard yesterday. Mark Saunders died in May 2008 when he was shot by armed police after he opened fire on them following a five-hour siege at his west London home.
Yesterday, at the inquest into his death, the jury heard recordings of conversations Mr Saunders had with a trained police negotiator in the two-and-a-half hours before his death.
They heard Superintendent John Sutherland, who undertook the majority of the negotiations, tell Mr Saunders: "You are not going to burst out and you are not going to get gunned down. Nobody is going to get hurt today. That is the deal... You have my word that nobody is going to harm you. Listen Mark, you are not going to die today. It is as simple as that."
After asking him to turn the music down – Mr Saunders was playing songs by The Doors at high volume – Mr Sutherland added: "You are in the driving seat and when you come out of the front door you can talk it through."
During the negotiations, which started shortly before 7pm on 6 May, Mr Saunders, who was drunk, told police it would be "painless" to shoot himself. Mr Sutherland told Mr Saunders that it would be "agony" for his wife if he committed suicide and said: "You have got a future, Mark."
Earlier, the inquest heard that Mr Saunders, who had a recurring alcohol problem, had been in his flat for more than two hours during which he had repeatedly opened fire on neighbouring properties.
He held up notes to the police at his window. In one he wrote "Please let me talk to my wife. I don't know how this happened. I am not a bad lad. I want to say goodbye and kill myself."
Mr Saunders' wife, Elizabeth, had suggested going to speak with him, but officers refused to allow this. Mr Saunders' family have criticised this decision, saying that he would still be alive if police had allowed his wife to speak with him.
Yesterday Mr Sutherland explained that officers feared he would kill himself immediately if they had allowed him to do so. He said: "If their stated intention is to say goodbye to somebody, that to me as a trained negotiator is a sign that they want to do so as an immediate precursor to taking their life. The fact that he wanted to say goodbye, to me, meant that it was a very bad idea to introduce Mrs Saunders or anybody else he wanted to speak to for that purpose."
During the negotiations, lines of communication between Mr Saunders and the negotiator repeatedly failed as his mobile phone malfunctioned. In recorded excerpts, one officer suggests that Mr Saunders will not commit suicide, saying: "This is not a bloke who wants to die. The biggest danger is he shoots himself by mistake or comes wandering out with his gun and gets popped."
Officers eventually got through to Mr Saunders again. At 9.09pm Mr Saunders told Mr Sutherland that he "needed to blow off some steam" before firing two shots through the window, prompting two officers to fire back. It was the last thing he said to negotiator. Less than half an hour later, at 9.32pm, Mr Saunders again pointed his gun at police. Seven officers fired, hitting Mr Saunders in the head and chest and killing him.
Yesterday the jury was shown footage of the barrister's final moments. Recordings taken from a police helicopter showed the 32-year-old waving a shotgun in the air as he hung from the fourth-storey window of his home in Markham Square, Chelsea.
As the negotiator pleaded with him to put the weapon down, he lowered it. As it reached a horizontal position, a volley of shots rang out from armed officers positioned on buildings opposite the property. The film shows Mr Saunders doubled-up and thrown backwards by the force of five bullets fired by the police.
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Posted in news
Huong's dank shop provides some brief respite from the waves of horn-blaring luxury SUVs bullying pedestrians on the pavements of Hanoi. But more crucially, it offers a final resting place, of sorts, for some of Vietnam's wild elephants.
Huong is the beaming owner of Artcen Company, an "import-export" outfit specialising in crafted ivory products. And, like those of the SUV-driving government officials cashing in on foreign investor paranoia about missing out on "the next little China" – Artcen's coffers are swelling.
"A few years ago, our customers were all Japanese, Chinese and Korean. But we get rich fast now too, and rich people always want to show what they have," says Huong, indicating a fashion that is likely to further endanger the slow-reproducing mammal.
The wild elephant population has plummeted from more than 2,000 in the mid-90s to between 72-80 animals at liberty today, according to Vietnam's ministry of natural resources and environment. A large number of them have succumbed to illegal logging, agricultural encroachment and landmines left over from what Vietnamese call "the American war".
However, it is clear that over the last decade, most of Vietnam's wild herd has fallen victim to the rifle. Increased poaching in one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies has ignited fears that the once-revered animal will disappear from the jungles within a generation if conservation efforts are not stepped up soon.
"Most of our small pieces are locally sourced," admits Huong as she hands me crudely made Buddha and Jesus icons to inspect. "Our prices are already too high, so we don't want to pay off more customs to bring it in from Laos or Cambodia."
Her comments underscore another dark layer in Vietnam's march to economic development. The country has quickly shifted from a transit point in the wildlife trade to a major end-consumer, now rivalling the richer Asian markets of Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan.
Conservation group Traffic estimates that 4,000 tonnes of illegal wildlife products pass through Vietnam every year. Surging consumer demand means poaching is also spreading to forests in neighbouring Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma.
"It's also moving into new technology," says wildlife conservationist Duac Fegot. "We're starting to see more avenues for trade in endangered wildlife in Vietnam emerge on the internet."
"The situation is becoming very critical and serious," says Huynh Tien Dung, World Wildlife Fund Vietnam's national policy co-ordinator. "If the right efforts are spent, it is possible to bring the wild elephants back from the brink. If international donors give more priority to elephants, we are sure that it will help."
Blaming the lack of donor funding may seem disingenuous given the amount of aid pouring into Vietnam for environmental programmes and strategies. Yet the real problem could well be that wildlife protection laws in Vietnam are toothless.
Hanoi officially banned ivory sales in 1992 when it ratified the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. But a loophole was left, allowing for ivory traders to sell stock purchased before the treaty was ratified. Analysts say the loophole is a veiled nod to the continuation of poaching and smuggling.
"These pieces we have on display are all new and would be even more expensive if they dated to before 1992," says Huong. "But we still say they're from before then."
To the ongoing irritation of conservationists, traders and their inventories are never monitored. "The two things that are causing the problems are: weak law enforcement and low awareness of the poor communities on protection of wild elephants," Huynh says.
However, according to conservationists, the cost of street-level ivory – Traffic says tusks are selling for up to $1,500 a kg and cut pieces for up to $1,863 a kg – have encouraged law enforcement agents to seize consignments rather than attempt to halt poaching in the first place.
Authorities recently seized 30 elephant tusks and 15 elephant tusk segments that were being transported to the northern province of Móng Cái on the Chinese border. And last year, a container of tusks shipped from Tanzania to Vietnam – its contents worth millions of dollars – was "confiscated" by the government. But no charges have been brought and the whereabouts of the ivory is unknown.
Nevertheless, the ministry of environment says it is trying to crack down on traders such as Huong, and claim a "master plan" is in the offing. It remains to be seen if this measure will prevent the extinction of the Asian elephant in the wild.
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Posted in Sport
Commonwealth Games organisers in Delhi have been given 48 hours to save the crisis-hit event after team officials warned they would pull their athletes out if serious ongoing concerns about the standard of facilities were not immediately addressed.
The sense of impending crisis was exacerbated when a section of the ceiling in the weightlifting arena fell down amid growing fears over rising flood waters near the athlete's village, which had already been condemned by team officials as "filthy" and "unfit for human occupation".
With the Games at risk of descending into farce, thousands of athletes from the major competing nations remained in the dark about whether or not they would be boarding a plane to compete.
The Scottish team delayed the departure of the first batch of their 192 athletes, comprising 41 boxers, rugby players, wrestlers and support staff. The Wales team set a deadline of Wednesday night to receive reassurances from organisers that the athlete's village and venues would be "fit for purpose" and plan to discuss the issue further on Thursday.
The first batch of 22 English athletes, including the lawn bowls team and the men's hockey squad, are due to fly out as planned, but the English chef de mission, Craig Hunter, said organisers were not making nearly enough progress on the ground.
A mass walkout remains an option, with the "point of no return" seen as early next week. The main competing countries would be likely to act in concert and are in constant communication with one another.
Michael Cavanagh, chairman of Commonwealth Games Scotland, said any decision would be a joint one and insisted that any knock on effects for the Glasgow Games in 2014 would not be a factor.
"In terms of withdrawal we don't see this as simply a Team Scotland decision," he said. "Any decision to withdraw we would see as being a collective decision amongst the countries who are already there and already concerned."
He added: "We can't allow ourselves to be influenced by thoughts of how it may impact on 2014, not when we have something as important as the safety of our athletes to consider."
Although England had been allocated one of the more habitable of the 34 blocks in the athlete's village, Hunter told the Guardian there had "not been much progress" in ensuring that it was fit for habitation in the week he had been there.
"I'm trying to remain eternally optimistic. But at some point we will reach the point of no return and that is when we will have to decide."
While organisers continued to insist there were only "minor issues", Hunter said that was patently not the case.
Commonwealth Games Federation president, Mike Fennell, will arrive in Delhi tomorrow and is likely to meet with the Indian prime minister for crisis talks aimed at saving the Games. Mike Hooper, CWF chief executive, said he would be seeking to draw a line under the blame game that has already begun and put pressure on the government to avoid more international embarrassment.
"There is a problem, it needs fixing. I'm not into pointing fingers. They have the next couple of days to put things right," said Hooper. He said that while venues were built to a high standard, and he had no concerns over security, the sorry state of the village was a huge worry.
The beleaguered Delhi chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, played down the problems and accused the media of damaging India's image. "Something may be dripping, some tile may collapse, doesn't mean the entire Games are bad," she told reporters.
It is now known that the accident on Tuesday, in which 27 were injured when a bridge connecting the athletes' carpark to the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium collapsed, was caused when a metal pin worked loose detaching the main structure from its suspension cables.
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Posted in news
Four people have died and two others were injured after two incidents in southern Germany yesterday which culminated in a woman opening fire in a hospital.
Police said they were investigating the shooting at the Sint Elisabethen hospital in Lörrach, in the south-west of the country, and an explosion earlier at a nearby apartment block in which the bodies of a man and a child were found.
Officials confirmed the shooting and said that the woman had opened fire at the hospital with an automatic weapon, killing one person and wounding a member of hospital staff and critically injuring a policeman.
The woman, who has not been named, is thought to have been shot dead after turning her gun on officers.
Police said they were investigating a connection between the two incidents. Shots were heard following the explosion and witnesses reported seeing a woman armed with a gun running out of the block.
The police said the woman opened fire in the gynaecology unit of the hospital and according to local reports managed to fire off several rounds during the incident.
Speaking to Germany's national public television station, ZDF, Lörrach prosecutor Dieter Inhofer said: "There was a very heavy exchange of gunfire in the hospital that had the potential to be very dangerous, but based on what we know right now … no one else was injured."
Police, who arrived within 15 minutes of the shooting, said they had sealed off the area. A motive for the shooting has not yet been established but at a news conference, German prosecutors said a domestic dispute may have triggered the shooting.
The incident comes amid debate over the tightening of gun ownership in Germany and three days after Jörg Kretschmer, the father of a German teenager who killed 15 people on a shooting spree at his former Stuttgart school last March before killing himself, went on trial for violating German gun laws. The 51-year-old businessman is accused of failing to keep his 9mm Beretta pistol secure.
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Posted in Others
The Government has left the way open for a cut in the BBC licence fee in 2012 after the Corporation's governing body yesterday offered to freeze the annual charge at £145.50 for the next two years in recognition of the economic difficulties being faced in many British households.
Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, reacted to the offer by the BBC Trust by saying he was "pleased" at the suggestion, and that the Government would be implementing it next year. But Mr Hunt retained the option of cutting the fee in 2012-2013, a decision that will be made as part of the next long-term licence fee settlement.
The freezing of the licence fee is a blow to the BBC's management, which had been promised a 2 per cent increase next April by the previous Labour government with a smaller increase to come in the following year.
Sir Michael Lyons, the outgoing chairman of the BBC Trust, predicted that the budgets of television and radio programmes would have to be cut. "A freeze in income will not be pain-free, and this decision was not taken lightly," he wrote in a letter to Mr Hunt. BBC management estimates that the loss of the anticipated increase in the licence fee equates to a cut of £144m.
Nonetheless, the Trust chairman, who this week announced that he would not be standing for re-appointment when his four-year contract ends in May, added: "The trust is satisfied that the BBC can manage the impact while continuing to deliver the range of programmes and services that the public loves."
In an interview with the BBC, Sir Michael said: "Our concern about the remainder of this licence fee period has increased because of the difficult circumstances facing the whole country. Households are all facing the prospect of higher taxes, lower benefits and in many cases reduced incomes. The BBC lives in that world, understands the pressures that are on licence fee payers and we have a duty to ask for no more than we need."
In accepting the freezing of the fee for next year, Mr Hunt said: "I have made it clear that the BBC needs to take proper account of the current economic climate and this move, which comes with the Trust's assurances that it will not significantly impact on the quality of services provided to licence fee payers, will be welcomed by the public."
It will now fall to the incoming chairman of the BBC Trust to convince the Government that the licence fee should not take a cut. News of the increased pressure on BBC budgets came as the Corporation is attempting to persuade thousands of staff from taking strike action in protest at planned changes to the Corporation's pension scheme. The BBC director-general Mark Thompson yesterday addressed BBC offices via video-link in order to convince them to accept an alternative proposal to change the scheme, which is facing a shortfall of £1.5bn. BBC members of the Bectu, NUJ and Unite unions are threatening to stage walk outs next month to disrupt coverage of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.
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Posted in Society
A single blood test for men aged 60 could identify those most likely to develop and die from prostate cancer, new research suggests.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with 35,000 in the UK diagnosed every year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Screening is used in certain countries, but remains open to debate with experts weighing up the benefits of screening against the potential harms and costs of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of healthy men.
Prostate cancer can develop when cells in the prostate gland start to grow in an uncontrolled way.
The findings in the British Medical Journal suggested the single test could pinpoint which men needed to be monitored closely and others who needed no further checks.
Professor Philipp Dahm and colleagues at the University of Florida reviewed six previous screening trials involving 387,286 participants.
They found routine screening aided the diagnosis of prostate cancer at an earlier stage, but did not have a significant impact on death rates and raised the risk of over-treatment.
A second study headed by Professor Hans Lilja, showed a single "prostate-specific antigen" (PSA) level test at age 60 strongly predicted a man's risk of diagnosis and death from prostate cancer.
The team found 90% of prostate cancer deaths occurred in men with the highest PSA levels at age 60, while men with average or low PSA levels had negligible rates of prostate cancer or death by age 85.
The findings suggested at least half of men aged 60 and above might be exempted from further prostate cancer screening.
Gerald Andriole, chief of urologic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, suggested PSA testing should be geared to individual risk.
He recommended that young men at high risk of prostate cancer, for example those with a strong family history, should be monitored closely, while elderly men and those with a low risk of disease could be tested less often.
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Posted in news
The recent financial crisis has again demonstrated the inherent instability of capitalism. It could be argued that the current pensions reform concocted by the Fillon government is showing the inherent instability of Sarkozyism. On 7 September, 3 million people took to the streets for the biggest one-day strike in years. The strike action was supported by 70% of the public. Workers were protesting against the government's plan to raise France's legal minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, and from 65 to 67 to benefit from a full pension.
An employee will have to work 41 years in 2012, 41 years and 3 months in 2013 and 41.5 years in 2020 in order to claim full pension benefits. This change is deeply unfair for unemployed workers, part-time employees (notably women), people who have started to work at an early age and for students who have entered the job market at a late stage. These vulnerable categories will have to work beyond the new statutory threshold of 62 to earn a decent pension.
Yet, the neoliberal narrative says, isn't France the most "privileged" country in Europe when it comes to pension regimes (which are deemed "generous"), public services (obviously "bloated") or working hours (which allegedly make France economically "uncompetitive")? If the Sarkozy-Fillon reform goes through, the Conseil d'orientation des retraites (Cor) estimates that France's system would become one of the harshest in industrialised countries (Germany's new legal minimum of 67 will only be implemented in 2029).
Still, the neoliberal story goes on: isn't there an "insoluble" demographic problem here? The system is allegedly coming under intolerable strain as the postwar baby boomers leave the workforce, with the prospect of a longer lifespan in retirement as a result of improvements in diet, medicine and lifestyle. This is a cynical and offensive argument. First, what matters is not life expectancy in abstracto, but life expectancy in good health. In France, it is 63.1 years for men and 64.2 for women. Blue-collar workers have a good health expectancy, which is 10 years inferior to professionals.
Second, to delay the legal minimum retirement age by two years won't help sort out high unemployment among young people. Third, the "demographic" argument creates a crucial political diversion. The government has refused to consider increasing general contributions, notably employers' contributions. As usual, profits will remain in private hands whereas the public will always foot the bill when banks or firms fail. As a consequence of this deliberate political choice, 84% of the €30bn to be invested in pensions by 2020 will be paid by employees and only 7% by employers. Independent studies have shown that it would take a 15% increase in general contributions between 2010 and 2050 to keep the system afloat – an increase of 0.37% per year.
French people categorically reject British or US-style pension funds and defend their "pay-as-you-go" pension system. Who would blame them? Should they stoically embrace casino-style pension regimes on the grounds that other European countries have implemented them? In the end, it all boils down not to demography, but to politics. European governments have responded to the latest cyclical crisis of capitalism by imposing fierce austerity measures on their peoples. In London, Athens, Berlin or Paris, they pursue the same political agenda (cuts to salaries, public services and pensions), that hits workers hard.
In France, there is more to it. For Sarkozy, the reform carries symbolic importance. It would reverse decades of cutting the time people spend in work (François Mitterrand lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60 in 1983 and Lionel Jospin launched the 35-hour week in 2000). Sarkozy has already accomplished his fair share of "pro-market" reforms: he has loosened labour laws, encouraged overtime and, more infamously, implemented the so-called "fiscal shield", which handed back €586m in taxes to the richest last year.
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