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Nato reiterates Ukraine and Georgia will eventually join the bloc, but does not offer them formal roadmaps.
As forecasters predict more snow, bookmakers are slashing their odds, fearing a white Christmas could cost them up to £1m
MacNN reports on a newly published Apple patent application which details ongoing research into alternative cooling systems for notebook computers. Specifically, Apple explores the possibility of a liquid cooling system for their notebook computers.
Odetta, the folk singer with the powerful voice who moved audiences and influenced fellow musicians for a half-century, has died. She was 77.
The Scottish Football Association could launch a bid with Wales to host the European football championship in 2016.
Babies with a severe form of epilepsy risk having their diagnosis delayed and their treatment compromised because of a company's patent on a key gene. It is the first evidence that private intellectual property rights over human DNA are adversely affecting medical care.
Developers wishing to get apps in the hands of reviewers have traditionally been limited to two options: send the reviewer an iTunes gift card and hope it doesn't get used to buy Britney Spears singles, or deal with the complicated and somewhat troublesome method of Ad Hoc distribution. Finally, though, Apple has added the ability for developers to
Is the Amazon Cloud secure?Anyone not asking that question is not doing their due diligence. But how do you separate the real issues you need to worry about from the fear that pundits are using to grab eyeballs for their articles and blogs?The short answer is: Yes! The Amazon Cloud is secure and you can securely deploy web applications....
How bad does Bill Richardson want to be a part of the Next Big Thing?
Here's where to find a friendly greeters' welcome, from Jamaica to Chicago
Governments from around the world today began signing an international convention banning the production of cluster bombs, millions of which lie unexploded across dozens of countries and have killed and maimed thousands of civilians.At the Oslo signing ceremony, Norway, which has led the efforts to ban cluster munitions, was the first country to sign. It was followed by Laos, where cluster bombs dropped by US planes more than 30 years ago are still killing civilians; and Lebanon, which was attacked with the weapons by Israel.By the end of tomorrow, around 100 of the United Nations' 192 members will have signed up. Once 30 countries have ratified the convention, it will become part of international humanitarian law.There are a number of notable absentees, including the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan, as well as Israel, which fired cluster bombs during the 2006 Lebanon war. Campaigners hope the treaty might help change global attitudes towards the munitions, as a 1997 treaty did on land mines, prompting some nations to sign up later.Intended primarily as anti-personnel weapons, cluster bombs open up in mid-air to release dozens of individual devices, known as bomblets, which scatter across a wide area.While the bomblets are intended to explode when they hit the ground, many do not and they can lie dormant for years. Victims often include farmers tilling land and children attracted by the bomblets' bright colouring.The US and other nations insist cluster bombs have a legitimate military use. But one group that deals with the issue, Handicap International, says 98% of cluster-bomb victims are civilians and 27% are children.The convention has been welcomed by the Red Cross, and on guardian.co.uk by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, his German counterpart.The weapons had "rendered huge tracts of land unusable, cutting farmers off from their crops and visiting further suffering on families forced to risk their lives simply to pursue their livelihoods", said Matthias Schmale, international director of the British Red Cross.Miliband and Steinmeier said their goal was a "truly global treaty on cluster munitions", while noting that "many of the major users, producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions" had not yet agreed to sign it.During the 34-day Lebanon war in 2006, up to a million devices failed to explode. More than 200 civilians died in the year after the Lebanon ceasefire. Cluster bombs caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.At least 75 countries currently stockpile cluster bombs. More than 30 have produced the weapons. Unexploded cluster bombs have also killed civilians in Afghanistan, Chad, Eritrea, Chechnya, Sierra Leone and Vietnam.Despite initial misgivings within the military, Britain ? which fired Israeli-made cluster bombs in its attack on Basra in 2003 and had been the third biggest user of cluster bombs after the US and Israel ? has agreed to get rid of its stockpiles of land-fired and air-launched cluster weapons. British diplomats were trying to persuade the US to get rid of stockpiles at its bases in the UK, officials said yesterday.Today's convention excludes weapons that fire fewer than 10 explosive submunitions and are designed to locate a "single target".Israel and the Palestinian territoriesMiddle EastDefence policyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The German car market is suffering an unprecedented slowdown, the country's main trade body warns.
Lawyers for Roman Polanski asked a judge to dismiss the case against him based on claims of judicial wrong-doing revealed in a documentary film.
Nokia demonstrates a mobile phone that could eventually turn on the oven or the kettle
Is George Bush preparing to give himself a presidential pardon? On first hearing, the idea sounds utterly incredible and outrageous. How can the head of a state in which respect for the law remains an active part of the national DNA even contemplate such an arbitrary and shameless act of apparent lawlessness? Amnesties and pardons of this kind are the stock-in-trade of tinpot dictators, not constitutional leaders. And yet ...A Bush pardon would be a sensational final act to the most divisive presidency in modern America. But he certainly has the power to grant it. Article 2 section 2 of the US constitution gives the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons. The US courts have traditionally interpreted this power widely, to include amnesties, conditional pardons and blanket pardons. And all presidents have used the power ? Harry Truman's 1,913 pardons is the postwar record.And these final weeks of a presidency have become, by convention, the pardoning season. Compared with Truman, Bill Clinton was a light pardoner. He awarded just 396 of them in his eight years as president. But as many as 218 of Clinton's pardons were issued during his final month in office in 2001 ? beneficiaries included his brother Roger Clinton and his longtime Arkansas politicial ally Susan MacDougall. This settling of accounts could be the pattern which Bush is about to follow.As of now, Bush has issued just 157 presidential pardons in nearly eight years in the White House. They have covered crimes from the manufacture of untaxed whiskey to the sale of migratory bird parts. Most of the Bush pardons involve drugs, gambling and frauds. But Bush has not issued a pardon since March 24 ? when the beneficiary was a South Dakota native American called Lonnie Two Eagle who was pardoned for an assault on a reservation. But in just under seven weeks Bush's power to pardon will expire.Not even Richard Nixon pardoned himself. It fell to his hapless successor Gerald Ford to announce, a month after Nixon's resignation in August 1974, that it was time to draw the line. Nixon had been at the centre of "an American tragedy in which we all have played a part", Ford announced in a broadcast. "It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."But can Bush rely on Barack Obama to be so magnanimous? And can Obama be relied on to grant the wide-ranging executive pardons to the whole range of Bush administration officials that the outgoing White House may wish to protect? Maybe ? but no, in the end, I don't think so either. Magnanimity is all very well when it comes to your defeated Democratic opponents. But it is a whole other ballgame when the petitioner is the outgoing president himself. Be clear that this issue is without question in Bush's rapidly diminishing intray. Be clear too that Bush is fully prepared to protect his political allies and hitmen. He has, after all, made his own stance clear by using his powers to commute Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby's prison sentence for obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame affair in 2007. So, if the matter is on Bush's agenda then it is also, in some way, on Obama's too.The possibility of a Bush pardon is not a conspiracy theorist's fantasy. It is a real and present political possibility ? and Americans are beginning to wake up to it. This week, Human Rights Watch and eight other organisations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and the Open Society Policy Centre, wrote a public letter urging Bush not to issue a preemptive pardon of past or present officials implicated in torture or other abuses related to the "war on terror". The groups pointed out that formal legal investigations into US torture, rendition and other abuses have so far been only patchy ? a reflection of the Bush administration's determination over several years to handle detainees outside the legal process. There is a very serious possibility that dozens of cases will make their way through the US courts in the coming months and years ? and it is therefore possible that hundreds of administration officials will ultimately be forced to answer for their conduct.I do not know for certain that Bush is considering a comprehensive pre-emptive pardon for officials right through to his own Oval Office. Nor do I know for certain that the matter has been discussed with the Obama team. But common sense says these things must be taking place in some form or other. It says, moreover, that Bush and Obama may have a common interest in such an outcome. Bush wants it because it protects him and his lieutenants. Obama may want it too, because he wants a clean slate and does not want to have his presidency blighted by the legal cleaning-up operation that might ensue.If that analysis is correct, then prepare for an unprecedented act of self-pardon by Bush that extends to dozens ? perhaps hundreds ? of civilian and military officials. It would be a stunning challenge to America's self-image as the upholder of law and freedom in the world. It would be a lawless outcome to a lawless war. For Bush, it would be a climactic act of the untramelled presidential authority that he and Cheney have so determinedly forged. It would send waves of outrage through America and the world. And yet, for Obama, it might nevertheless be the cleaner outcome.George BushUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Some California residents are all shook up after a moderate 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck about 150 miles west of Eureka on Friday, and a handful of minor quakes rattled interior Southern California over the weekend.
US folk singer Odetta, a civil rights campaigner and major influence on Bob Dylan, dies aged 77.
A team led by Stanford researchers has developed a prototype blood scanner that can find cancer markers in the bloodstream in early stages of the disease, potentially allowing for earlier treatment and dramatically improved chances of survival.
At least half a million tracker mortgage customers may not see their repayments fall in line with this week's expected interest rate cut, it was predicted today.That figure could more than double if the UK's largest lender, Halifax, implements a clause in its home loans allowing it to change borrowers' rates.The Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) is widely expected to reduce the base rate by between 0.5% and 1% when it announces the result of its two-day meeting tomorrow. But clauses in some tracker mortgages will mean lenders no longer have to pass on the cut to their customers, while those on standard variable rate (SVR) deals are also unlikely to benefit from the full reduction.Despite the fact that tracker deals automatically move up and down in line with the base rate, some have so-called floors or collars which state that lenders will stop passing on rate cuts once the base rate falls below a certain level.On Nationwide deals a collar kicks in when official interest rates fall below 2.75%, while on a Skipton or Yorkshire building society tracker the cut off point is 3%.Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at mortgage broker John Charcol, said up to 1.2 million people - a sizeable proportion of the estimated 3.9 million who have tracker deals - may not see the full reduction passed on to them.He said up to 600,000 people had tracker mortgages with lenders such as Nationwide and Skipton, while up to a further 600,000 have a tracker deal with Halifax, which may choose to exercise its option not to pass on the rate cut in full.HalifaxThe small print in Halifax's mortgage gives it the option not to pass on all or any cut once the base rate falls below 3%. It tells customers: "We can also change the tracker margin to your disadvantage, but only at a time when the tracker base rate is less than 3% per year. "By 'to your disadvantage' we mean increasing the tracker margin where it is positive or zero, reducing the tracker margin where it is negative, or changing a negative tracker margin to a positive one." However, comments made yesterday by a representative of the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), suggest the bank could be in trouble if it tries to implement the clause.Jon Pain, the FSA's retail markets managing director, told the Council of Mortgage Lenders annual conference that while tracker interest rate collars could be a legitimate term of a mortgage, "it can only be if it is clear and unambiguous to the consumer, and is consistently and prominently spelt out in the initial KFI [key facts illustration] and offer document throughout the sales process".A spokesman for the FSA said it would not comment on individual companies, but it seems likely Halifax will be under pressure to pass on any reduction in full. If it doesn't, Boulger said it could face a legal challenge from borrowers. "I had a call last week from one borrower with a large Halifax lifetime tracker mortgage who said he would do just that," he said.Standard variable ratesBorrowers on SVRs are also unlikely to benefit from the full reduction. Lloyds TSB, which also lends under the Cheltenham & Gloucester brand, is the only major lender which links its SVR to the Bank base rate. Its terms and conditions pledge that its SVR will never be more than 2% above the base rate, which means it could fall as low as 4% if the MPC does opt for a full 1% cut.Last month, a number of major lenders were quick to reduce their SVR by the full 1.5% after coming under pressure from the government, but many others only passed on smaller cuts.Overall, 87 out of 95 lenders with an SVR passed on some of the reduction, but 57 did not pass it on in full, with some only reducing their rates by 0.25%. The Woolwich, Barclays' lending arm, has not passed on anything.Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, said: "If we see a 1% cut to [an overall rate of] 2%, it will be very, very difficult for lenders to pass that on."They have to have an eye on profitability and 2008 has been about lenders wanting to get profit rather than volume lending."Boulger agreed, saying that if rates were cut by 1% he would expect lenders to pass on between 0.25% to 0.5% to SVR customers, unless the government puts pressure on the major lenders to pass on the cut in full again.If the MPC cuts interest rates by 0.5% and lenders pass on the reduction in full it would save borrowers with a typical £150,000 mortgage around £43 a month, while a 1% reduction would reduce monthly repayments by £85.MortgagesPropertyBorrowing & debtBanks and building societiesHousing marketInterest ratesInterest ratesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The past usually finds a way of catching up with us. Could Britain's colonial sins pose a risk to our relationship with the soon-to-be most powerful person on Earth?According to the Times, Barack Obama's grandfather was imprisoned and tortured by the British during Kenya's Mau Mau uprising.The claim is spread across three pages of the newspaper and illustrated with black and white photographs of detention camps operated by British soldiers in the 1950s.Hussein Onyango Obama, the president-elect's paternal grandfather, had served with the British army in Burma during the second world war and later found work back in Kenya as a military cook.Like many army veterans, he returned to Africa hoping to win greater freedoms. But his aspirations soon turned to resentment of the occupying British.He became involved in the Mau Mau independence movement and was arrested as early as 1949, probably on charges of membership of a banned organisation.During two years' detention he was subjected to horrific violence, according to the story's authors, Ben Macintyre and Paul Orengoh. Tortures inflicted on Kenyan prisoners sometimes involved such barbaric implements as "castration pliers"."The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed," Sarah Onyango, 87, tells the Times.The behaviour of British soldiers is the subject of continuing legal action in the UK courts from victims seeking reparations for torture and mistreatment suffered more than 50 years ago. The Kenyan Human Rights Commission is still gathering evidence. The alleged torture of Onyango reportedly left him permanently scarred and bitterly anti-British. Barack Obama's memoirs, the paper observes, show that he too is no admirer of British colonialism.Obama's family connection to the Mau Mau was already known ? some US commentators have even used the label to smear him as a "Mau Mau insurgent". Obama, with more pressing contemporary problems on his plate, is unlikely to be fixated on extracting revenge from the UK. But he may draw the broader historical conclusion that the imposition of torture and repressive violence has a habit of undermining the political legitimacy of world-class powers.He has already signalled his determination to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and speed up withdrawal from Iraq. We will have to wait and see whether his grandfather's experience has a bearing on his policies on Afghanistan and international terrorism.Barack ObamaUnited StatesKenyaUS elections 2008Militaryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Gordon Brown today announced plans to help borrowers who are struggling to keep up with their mortgage repayments stay in their homes.The move, announced this afternoon by the prime minister in a debate on the Queen's speech, is designed to slow the rising tide of repossessions as job losses and increasing household costs push more and more households into mortgage arrears.Under the scheme households that have temporarily lost some or part of their income will be able to defer mortgage interest payments for up to two years. "Hard-working households that experience a redundancy or severe loss of income as a result of the downturn will be able to defer a proportion of their interest payments for up to two years as they get their family finances back on track," Brown told MPs."The result will be more affordable monthly payments for homeowners who are needing a bridge through difficult times."The prime minister said eight lenders had signed up to the scheme: HBOS, Nationwide, Abbey, Lloyds TSB, Northern Rock, Barclays and HSBC.A spokesman for the Treasury said that by guaranteeing the payments in this way the government was encouraging banks to consider requests for payment breaks.However, he added that lenders would need to take a commercial decision on each case, subject to guidelines on treating customers fairly outlined in the banking code. He refused to confirm reports that the scheme would be available to borrowers with mortgages of up to £400,000.The scheme is similar to one aimed at households who claim benefits which was announced in last week's pre-budget report.Brown was speaking in a debate overshadowed by the Speaker's statement on the arrest of Tory frontbencher Damian Green, which dominated the first exchanges of the new parliamentary year and threatened to sink the Queen's speech. In a concise statement in the morning Her Majesty outlined 14 government bills designed to show the government was "committed to helping families and businesses through difficult times"."My government's overriding priority is to ensure the stability of the British economy during the global economic downturn," the Queen said.The government's legislative plan was scaled back from the 18 bills listed in May's draft Queen's speech to make way for new measures to deal with the financial downturn.The first piece of legislation to be announced was the banking reform bill to protect people's savings and reduce the likelihood of banks getting into difficulties. However, the speech also contained a range of new measures on equality, crime and welfare, marking a break by the prime minister from his focus on the economic crisis. The move suggests he believes he needs to widen his government's programme if he is to claw back lost votes.The speech paved the way for a crackdown on benefit cheats with claimants compelled to take lie detector tests. Those found guilty of fiddling the system will lose benefits for a month, in a "one strike and you're out" initiative.The government is also proposing to give the public clearer information, mainly via the internet, on how criminals are sentenced in local courts. Communities are to be given a bigger role in deciding what form of community punishment local criminals should be forced to undertake.New legislation will be drawn up to improve policing, and reduce crime and disorder.Lap dancing clubs will be reclassified as sex establishments, allowing councils greater scope to close them.Airport security will be enhanced and border controls strengthened by bringing together customs and immigration powers. Newcomers to the UK will have to earn the right to stay.The government also intends to introduce an equality bill to promote fairness, fight discrimination and introduce transparency in the workplace to address the pay gap between men and women.The introduction of a lie detector test for benefit claimants is the most striking shift to a more populist programme, similar to Tony Blair's so-called "respect agenda".The government currently withdraws 13 weeks of benefit from anyone found making a fraudulent claim twice in five years, but said yesterday it intends to tighten this process by withdrawing four weeks' benefit for first-time fraudsters.The benefit withdrawal will be taken against both those that suffer an administrative penalty as well as those found guilty in a criminal court. Currently the Department for Work and Pensions seeks court penalties only where the alleged fraud is worth more than £2,000.A bill enshrining in law the government's commitment to end child poverty by 2020 was the only bill not contained in the draft Queen's speech introduced in May.Three bills ? the heritage protection bill, the communications data bill and the Geneva conventions and UK personnel bill ? were dropped to make way for beefed-up legislation to help tackle the financial crisis, while two other bills, on transport security and constitutional renewal, were consumed into other pieces of legislation.Queen's speechWelfareCriminal justicePublic services policySocial exclusionPrisons and probationMortgagesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The US $700bn bail-out plan is being implemented without adequate safeguards, a Congressional watchdog says.
A quote from Duke U's Daily News, "In ?Virtual Peace?, students can practice real-life diplomatic skills and learn first-hand the necessary tools for sensitive and timely crisis response".