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Noticias del Reino Unido
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The Guardian World News Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:07:57 GMT |
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UN calls for war crimes investigation in Burma
Special rapporteur on human rights details 'pattern of gross abuses' as junta unveils restrictive electoral laws A senior UN official has called for Burma's military rulers to be investigated over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated against Burmese civilians, in a move that will sharply increase pressure on the isolated regime ahead of controversial national elections due later this year. In a draft report to the UN Human Rights Council [pdf] in Geneva, Tomás Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, described "a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights" which he said has been in place for many years and still continued. "There is an indication that those human rights violations are the result of a state policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels," he said. The draft, published on the council's website, goes on: "The possibility exists that some of these [violations] may entail categories of crimes against humanity, or war crimes, under the terms of the statute of the international criminal court." In this context, Quintana said the UN security council should consider setting up a "commission of inquiry with a specific, fact-finding mandate to address the question of international crimes". The unusually tough assessment came as the junta today published a tranche of new electoral laws that restrict the ability of opposition parties to participate in the coming elections. The special rapporteur said national elections, expected in October, provided an opportunity for positive change, but he was pessimistic that the junta would allow the chance to be seized. "During his last mission [in February], the special rapporteur received no indication that all prisoners of conscience will be released, that freedom of opinion and association will be guaranteed in the context of these elections, and that ethnic communities will be able to fully participate," the report said. The pressure group Burma Campaign UK today welcomed what it said was an unprecedented UN intervention, calling it a "major step forward" that would increase pressure on the US, British and regional governments to take a tougher line with the generals. The US and EU have imposed limited sanctions on the regime. But since taking office last year, Barack Obama has pursued a policy of diplomatic engagement, holding several senior-level meetings. In a break with the past, Obama met General Thein Sein, the Burmese prime minister, at a regional summit in Singapore in November. Analysts say Burma's military ties to North Korea are a major concern for Washington. It fears the generals may follow Pyongyang in developing nuclear weapons. The possibility of war crimes proceedings against members of the junta may complicate US efforts at dialogue, which are already under hostile fire in the US Congress. Pressure to set up an international commission of inquiry into Burma has previously come from NGOs and activists involved in the country, and from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In Britain, more than 170 MPs have signed a parliamentary motion calling on the British government to support an inquiry. Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by the jailed Nobel peace prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi, has repeatedly drawn attention to widespread, ongoing human rights abuses, including the jailing of 2,000 political prisoners. It also says the planned elections will not be free or fair. The junta's unveiling of new restrictive electoral laws today has strengthened the impression that the polls will be closely controlled and designed to lend the regime a veneer of democratic respectability. The new rules effectively prevent Aung San Suu Kyi and her jailed supporters from standing for election. They establish a government-controlled election oversight body with the power to prevent or annul voting in any part of the country for "security reasons". The junta has also formally declared the 1990 elections, which the NLD won in a landslide, to be invalid. "Instead of passing laws that strip away more of their rights, the Myanmar [Burmese] authorities should immediately release all political prisoners," Amnesty International said. It said it was concerned that "activists are going to come under increased repression in the lead-up to the elections". By allowing the NLD to reopen 100 regional offices closed since 2003, the regime appears to be hoping that, despite the restrictions, a decapitated opposition will participate in the poll, boosting the junta's credibility. This has created a dilemma for those NLD leaders who are not in jail. "I think they want us to take part in the election, but we still haven't made up our minds about this," said spokesman, Nyan Win. He described new electoral provisions, such as a requirement that parties uphold the generals' gerrymandered 2008 constitution, as "completely unacceptable". Tin Oo, the NLD deputy chairman, said the junta was trying to split the opposition. "They have been trying to decimate the party and now they are doing it with utmost force. But the NLD will never collapse."
MPs deny expenses charges in court
David Chaytor, Jim Devine, Elliot Morley and Lord Hanningfield say the workings of parliament should be dealt with by parliament Three Labour MPs and a Conservative peer facing charges over their expenses appeared in court today to argue that their cases should be dealt with by parliament rather than the criminal justice system. Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield answered summonses at City of Westminster magistrates court to be charged with false accounting under the Theft Act. Their cases were referred to Southwark crown court after lawyers for the men said the case was of "high constitutional importance" and they would be arguing their right for it to be heard by parliament. Morley, Chaytor and Devine appeared together in the dock of court No 1 as their lawyer, Julian Knowles, said that they "unequivocally and steadfastly maintain their innocence of the charges against them". Knowles told the chief metropolitan district judge, Timothy Workman: "They also maintain that to prosecute them in the criminal courts for their parliamentary activities would infringe the principle of the separation of powers, which is one of the principles which underpins the UK's constitutional structure." He continued: "They would argue: 'The workings of parliament should be dealt with by parliament.'" He said the subject matter of the prosecutions was covered by parliamentary privilege conferred upon them by article nine of the Bill of Rights 1689: "Article nine provides that proceedings in parliament cannot be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside parliament." He said: "My clients should not be understood as saying they are above the law. That would be quite wrong. Parliamentary privilege is part of the law, and it is for parliament to apply the law in their cases." He added: "The issues raised by these three cases are of high constitutional importance." Morley, a former agriculture minister and MP for Scunthorpe, faces two charges relating to £30,000 mortgage claims to which, it is alleged, he was not entitled. Chaytor, the MP for Bury North, faces three charges relating to claims of £1,950 for IT services and £18,000 relating to rent. Devine is alleged to have claimed £3,240 for cleaning services and £5,505 for stationery using false invoices. All three entered not guilty pleas. A move to allow the three MPs to remain in the main body of the court and not to stand in the dock was refused by the judge. All three were granted unconditional bail. Hanningfield appeared separately to plead not guilty to six charges relating to claims for overnight stays in London on nights when he was at home in Essex. His lawyer, Rupert Bowers, indicated he too would be arguing that his case was covered by parliamentary privilege. Hanningfield made no attempt to avoid standing in the dock. The former Essex county council leader, who appeared under the name of "Paul Edward Winston Lord Hanningfield, previously White", was also granted unconditional bail. The judge declined jurisdiction of the cases. The parliamentary privilege argument will now be argued at Southwark crown court. The three MPs have been barred from standing as Labour candidates at the forthcoming general election. They left court without commenting to journalists and got into a waiting black cab accompanied by their lawyers and escorted by police officers. There was a brief crush around the vehicle as protesters hurled abuse, shouting "pigs" and "oink, oink". After the hearing, Hanningfield issued a statement saying he was "devastated" by the affair. His spokesman, Mark Spragg, said: "Lord Hanningfield has devoted the last 40 years of his life to public service including both as leader of Essex county council since 2000 and as a member of the House of Lords since 1998." The charges in full David Chaytor, the MP for Bury North, is accused of providing false information on an allowances form under the Theft Act 1968. The charge states he falsely claimed rent between September 2005 and August 2006 for 152 Hide Tower, Regency Street, London, from Sarah Elizabeth. It adds that he claimed £12,925 by lodging a claim for £1,175 a month in rent when he was in fact the owner of the premises. A second charge states that on or about 19 May 2006, he dishonestly filed two invoices for computer IT services worth £975. The court document adds that they purported to show the services had been provided in February and March 2006 by Paul France. A third charge states that between November 2005 and September 2006 he dishonestly made use of a short-hold tenancy agreement in a claim form. This showed that between August 2007 and January 2008 he rented Delph Cottage, Castle Street, Summerseat, Bury, from Olive Trickett for £775 a month plus a month deposit. The charge adds that Trickett was his mother and it was not permissible to lease accommodation from a family member. The total sum claimed was £5,425. Jim Devine, the MP for Livingston, is accused of falsely claiming costs for parliamentary duties in March 2009. The charge sheet alleges he submitted two misleading invoices worth a total of £5,505 for services provided by Armstrong Printing Ltd. A second charge alleges that between July 2008 and May 2009 he dishonestly claimed allowances for repair, insurance or security. The document alleges he intended to gain by submitting false invoices for services, cleaning and maintenance worth £3,240. The services were allegedly provided between April 2009 and March 2010 by Tom O'Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning Services. Elliot Morley, the MP for Scunthorpe, is accused of falsely claiming a furnishing allowance between March 2006 and November 2007. The charge sheet alleges he submitted a deceptive mortgage application. This showed £800 mortgage monthly interest was charged by the Cheltenham and Gloucester when in fact the mortgage was paid off. A total overpayment of £16,000 was made. A second charge alleges that between April 2004 and February 2006 Morley made a further false mortgage interest claim. Again he is accused of claiming £800 a month, a total overpayment of £14,428.67. Lord Hanningfield, also known as Paul White, faces six charges. The offences are alleged to have taken place in March 2006, May 2007, April 2008, July 2008, May 2009 and April 2009. One charge states that on or about 1 April 2009, at Westminster, he made a dishonest claim for travelling allowances. It states that Hanningfield "purported to show that you were entitled to be paid expenses when the conditions entitled you to payment of such expenses had not been fulfilled".
Liz Cheney targets 'al-Qaida 7' of law
Keep America Safe group draws backlash after dubbing lawyers who defended terrorist suspects 'al-Qaida seven' Not long after the Twin Towers fell, Dick Cheney declared the death of more than two centuries of American tradition. "It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws," he said. The then vice-president did his best to follow through by riding roughshod over the constitution and international laws by promoting torture, indefinite detention without trial and support for secretive military tribunals in which defendants were stripped of many of their rights. Now Cheney's daughter, Liz, has taken up the cudgel by heading what some are describing as a McCarthyite campaign to purge the government of lawyers who dared to defend men, and even a child, accused of terrorism. The lawyers drew particular ire by sometimes defeating in court the Bush administration's attempts to declare itself beyond the law. Liz Cheney and her organisation, Keep America Safe, have dubbed lawyers who acted on behalf of accused terrorists, and who now work for the department of justice, the "al-Qaida seven". The group has rebranded the justice department the "department of jihad". Liz Cheney, who trained as a lawyer and served as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the same administration as her father, is backed by some Republican members of congress, relatives of 9/11 victims and parts of the conservative press who have accused the lawyers, some of whom worked pro bono, of "coddling" and "abetting" terrorists. Keep America Safe – whose mission statement says the current administration is "unwilling to stand up for America" – has recently launched a television attack advert questioning the loyalty of the targeted lawyers and sinisterly asking: Whose values do they share? But the assault has prompted an unexpected backlash from some former Bush administration lawyers and officials who have joined liberal critics in denouncing the campaign as unAmerican and violating the principle that even the most unpopular defendant is entitled to a lawyer. People for the American Way, a liberal pressure group, accused Liz Cheney of using fear and smear tactics. "Character assassination, attacks on loyalty, guilt by association ... they are textbook McCarthyism," it said. "What makes this cowardly political attack all the more outrageous is that the lawyers in question were asked by the Bush administration to represent the detainees." The targets of Keep America Safe's campaign include the deputy solicitor general, Neal Katyal, who represented Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, in a case that led the supreme court to declare the Bush administration's original plan for military tribunals to be unconstitutional. The campaign against Katyal is in part led by the conservative Weekly Standard, whose editor, Bill Kristol, is a board member of Keep America Safe. The magazine attacked Katyal over his courtroom description of Hamdan as a "simple driver" and for demanding that the accused man's constitutional rights be protected. It accused the lawyer of being unable "to tell the difference between us and our terrorist enemies". The assault has also focused on an assistant attorney general at the justice department, Tony West, who defended John Walker Lindh, an American captured fighting with the Taliban, and Jennifer Daskal, another justice department official who previously worked for Human Rights Watch against the Bush administration's detention policies. Daskal has been attacked for describing a 15 year-old detainee, Omar Khadr, as a child soldier. "Khadr is a terrorist, not a soldier ... We regularly try 15-year-olds for crimes as adults in America," said the Weekly Standard. The campaign is in part driven by a broader attempt to portray Barack Obama as soft on terrorism because of his intent to close the Guantánamo Bay detention centre and his plan to give accused terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, a civilian trial. But the attempts to portray the Obama government as riddled with fifth columnists has drawn stinging criticism from some prominent conservatives, including former officials in the last Bush administration. Nineteen former officials and lawyers – including Kenneth Starr, the former solicitor general and independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton, and George Bush's former acting attorney general, Peter Keisler – described the attacks on the lawyers as "shameful" and as undermining the struggle against terrorism. "As attorneys, former officials, and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues, we consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications," the letter said. "The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams's representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre." In 1770, John Adams, who went on to become the second US president and one of the most influential of the founding fathers, defended eight British soldiers who were accused of killing five innocent civilians during a riot. The letter denounced what it said was the maligning of the lawyers "who have taken honourable positions on contested questions" and the demanding of a uniformity of views among those who serve in government that will not benefit the country. Starr told MSNBC that the lawyers deserved to be commended not criticised. "This was very unwise and really an out-of-bounds characterisation and challenge to good, honourable lawyers," he said. "It's very important for lawyers to be willing to take on unpopular causes to make sure that power is checked, that there are, in fact, arguments being advanced on behalf of those who have been subjected to governmental power." Other Bush administration officials have come to the defence of the lawyers including the former solicitor general, Ted Olson, who told Politico that representing unpopular defendants is "in the finest tradition of the profession". But he said that he wished some of those now critical of Keep America Safe had spoken out on behalf of lawyers in the defence and justice departments who wrote the legal advice defending waterboarding of terrorist suspects. Liz Cheney's tutor at the University of Chicago law school, Richard Epstein, has joined the criticism and expressed bafflement at the position taken by his former pupil. Keep America Safe has responded to the criticism by saying that lawyers who defended alleged terrorists could now be deciding policy toward the same people. "The American people have a right to know who in the department of justice is setting policy regarding detention of terrorists and related national security issues," the groups director, Aaron Harison, told ABC news. "Lawyers in private practice have the right to volunteer pro bono to defend terrorists. However, membership in the legal profession does not immunise a person from questions or criticism of their prior actions."
Adonis sets high-speed rail on track
Minister says building work on 250mph route cutting journey times between London and Birmingham could begin in 2017 The government unveiled plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said building work on the 250mph route could begin in 2017 once a formal public consultation was completed. The route linking the capital and England's second city, which will cut journey times from 84 minutes to 49 minutes, will originate at London Euston and pass through Old Oak Common, in west London, where a Crossrail interchange will provide transport to Heathrow airport. Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, before arriving at an intermediate stop near Birmingham airport. A press conference today given by Adonis revealed that 440 homes would be demolished between London and Birmingham to make way for the project. The plans include a new terminal in Birmingham city centre, and the main body of the line sweeping through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys would continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional rail speeds. "The time has come for Britain to plan seriously for high-speed rail between our major cities," said Adonis. "The high-speed line from London to the Channel tunnel has been a clear success, and many European and Asian countries now have extensive and successful high-speed networks. I believe high-speed rail has a big part to play in Britain's future." In a nod to Tory objections to the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. The first phase will cost up to £17.4bn for 128 miles of track from London to the west Midlands, with the full 330-mile network costing £30bn. The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go westwards to Manchester and east to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would fall from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes. Formal planning for the route from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds will be completed next summer, with a consultation to follow in 2012. Adonis said today: "I would envisage the network over time being extended to the north-east and Scotland." But he admitted that financing the line to Scotland was not an issue now as there was no firm proposal yet for a line to be built. Under the current proposal, the trail route to Scotland would be completed on existing lines, even when the Manchester and Leeds sections are finished. Despite the Mawhinney gesture, the Tories, who have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow and to start construction in 2015, attacked the detailed proposal. Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: "In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour's plans are flawed by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it." The government-backed company that drew up the plans, HS2, believes there is no business case for a direct link to Heathrow airport and some industry experts argue that the Old Oak Common interchange provides an equally good link. Ralph Smyth, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "By using existing and disused transport corridors as well as tunnelling the impact on the Chilterns is less than feared. But the impact on Warwickshire, where the line [would] run through open countryside, is a major concern. There is a strong need for more than just fine tuning." Green groups also warned that the proposals must not squeeze funding for the conventional rail network. Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: "The danger is that a high-speed line will suck money out of the current transport network. The last thing people want is service cuts, higher fares and more potholes, while the executive classes are treated to gleaming new high-speed trains."
Maliki leads early Iraqi poll results
Prime minister's coalition ahead in southern Shia provinces as electoral commission releases first preliminary results Early results from Iraq's election show a coalition headed by the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, leading in two southern Shia provinces. The first preliminary results to be released by the electoral commission showed Maliki leading in Najaf and Babil provinces, south of Baghdad. Results from the rest of the country are still being counted after the election on Sunday. Although Maliki was expected to lead in the Shia-dominated south, the results foreshadow a victory for the prime minister in an area where he was opposed by hardline religious parties with close ties to Iran. In an effort to cast himself as an inclusive leader for all Iraqis, Maliki left the main Shia coalition last year to create the State of Law alliance, which includes some Sunni groups. In Babil province, Maliki's political bloc won about 42% of the estimated 160,870 votes that have been counted so far. In neighbouring Najaf province, al-Maliki's win was even stronger – about 47% of the ballot count of 116,600 votes. The Iraqi National Alliance, which is Iraq's top Shia religious coalition, was coming second in both provinces. The non-sectarian Iraqiya coalition, led by the former prime minister Ayad Allawi, a fierce critic of Maliki, was coming third. Some of Maliki's rivals from the main opposing Shia coalition said earlier that his coalition appeared to be in the lead across the country. The official results will not be declared until the end of March, but whoever wins is likely to have to form a coalition in order to build a government. Even if Maliki, or his bloc, ends up with the most votes, his claim on the prime ministership remains heavily contingent on his ability to gather partners from the myriad of political and religious factions, and appease any enemies he has made during the past four years.
Juventus v Fulham - LIVE
Click the auto-refresh button or batter F5 for the latest news. Email your thoughts to paul.doyle@guardian.co.uk. And click here for all the latest scores in the Europa League 1 min: To the sound of Fulham fans out-singing the muted locals, the game gets under way ... Premable:
No time for pre-match niceties. Teams:
Juventus: Manninger, Zebina, Cannavaro, Legrottaglie, Grosso, Salihamidzic, Poulsen, Marchisio, Candreva, Diego, Trezeguet.
Subs: Pinsoglio, Iaquinta, Del Piero, Camoranesi, Grygera,
Sissoko, De Ceglie. Fulham: Schwarzer, Baird, Hangeland, Hughes, Konchesky, Duff, Davies, Etuhu, Greening, Gera, Zamora.
Subs: Zuberbuhler, Kelly, Nevland, Dempsey, Smalling, Marsh-Brown. Referee: Florian Meyer (Germany)
BA computer expert 'planned bombs'
Court told Rajib Karim offered to join BA cabin crew in event of strike and had planned his own martyrdom A British Airways computer expert who allegedly offered to cover for cabin crew in the event of a strike appeared in court today charged with plotting suicide bombings. Rajib Karim, who was born in Bangladesh but now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, faced three charges under counter-terrorism legislation. The 30-year-old is accused of planning his own martyrdom. One of the charges involves the UK and another alleges that he conspired with contacts in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Yemen. The prosecutor, Colin Gibbs, told City of Westminster magistrates court that the charge sheet alleged Karim shared information about his work – including security measures – and offered to take advantage of planned strikes by BA staff to join the airline's cabin crew. It is claimed that he deliberately stayed in Britain, obtaining a passport and getting a job at the airline in order to further the conspiracy. The software expert also faced a third charge, alleging that he collected money and transferred it through intermediaries and wire services to terrorist associates overseas. The three offences are alleged to have taken place over a four-year period between April 2006 and February this year. Karim was arrested by officers from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command and local detectives in the north-east of England on 25 February. They targeted the Newcastle office complex where he worked as an IT developer and searched his home in the city. Hundreds of computer files seized from the workplace and home are being examined. Karim spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth during the 15-minute hearing. District Judge Timothy Workman remanded him in custody and adjourned the case until 26 March at the Old Bailey. Scotland Yard arrested three men in Slough, Berkshire, during the inquiry. They were released without charge on Tuesday.
Celibacy link to sex abuse - Cardinal
Christoph Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna, calls for 'unflinching examination' of possible reasons for paedophilia The Archbishop of Vienna today said priestly celibacy could be one of the causes of the sex abuse scandals to hit the Catholic church. In an article for Thema Kirche, his diocesan magazine, Christoph Schonborn became the most senior figure in the Catholic hierarchy to make the connection between the two and called for an "unflinching examination" of the possible reasons for paedophilia. He wrote: "These include the issue of priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution. "It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole." Schonborn is not the first person to suggest a link between celibacy and paedophilia – the theologian Hans Kung has made the same assertion. A spokesman clarified the archbishop's words, insisting he was "in no way" seeking to question the celibacy rule or call for its abolition. Schonborn's remarks followed further revelations of abuse across Europe, with new incidents coming to light in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, and followed claims by an Italian academic that a greater presence of women in the Vatican could have prevented clerical sexual abuse from taking place. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, Lucetta Scaraffia said women might have helped remove the "veil of secrecy" surrounding the abuse. She used the word "omerta" – the Mafia code of silence – to describe the conspiracy involved in hiding the offences. "We can hypothesise that a greater female presence, not at a subordinate level, would have been able to rip the veil of masculine secrecy that in the past often covered the denunciation of these misdeeds with silence," she said. "Women, in fact, both religious and lay, by nature would have been more likely to defend young people in cases of sexual abuse, allowing the church to avoid the grave damage brought by these sinful acts." In an attempt to contain the fallout from abuse cases, Vatican officials expressed concern that the church's insistence on confidentiality in its treatment of priestly sexual abuse cases was seen as a ban on reporting serious accusations to the civil authorities. Earlier this year, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the head of the Congregation for Clergy group, said instances of sexual abuse by priests were "criminal facts" as well as serious sins, and required co-operation with the civil justice system.
A man for no seasonings
City politician proposes £600 fines for restaurants that use salt in recipes Over the past few years New York has gained a reputation for taking the health of its citizens seriously – or nannying them, depending on your point of view. Now a member of the city's legislative assembly has gone a step further by introducing a bill that would ban the use of salt in restaurant kitchens. Bill A10129 would forbid the city's chefs from using salt in any of their recipes. The ban's proposer, Felix Ortiz, a Democratic member from Brooklyn, says it would give consumers the choice about whether to add salt to their meal. Restaurants trying to sneak a bit of sodium chloride on to the plate would be fined $1,000 (£600) every time they were caught. The idea of an outright ban, except for salt cellars on diners' tables, has led to raised eyebrows across the city, which prides itself on its cuisine. "If state assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way," quipped the Daily News, "the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef's tears." Tom Colicchio, who owns the restaurant Craft, told the paper: "If they banned salt, nobody would come here anymore." Ortiz's bill comes on the back of a high-profile attempt by the city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to encourage New Yorkers to consume less sodium. The city estimates about 1.5 million residents already suffer from high blood pressure, which can be exacerbated by overconsumption of salt. In America as a whole, the average daily intake of 3,400mg is well above the recommended maximum of 2,300mg. Bloomberg's campaign aims to cut the amount of salt in pre-packaged and restaurant food by a quarter, in five years. Unlike Bill A10129, however, it is purely voluntary.
Israel plans settlement building as talks collapse
NGO list shows how plans stand after latest settlement announcement brought Palestinian peace talks to halt Israeli authorities are considering plans for at least another 8,000 homes in settlements in East Jerusalem, it emerged today, despite the latest collapse in proposed peace talks with the Palestinians. US vice-president Joe Biden, who earlier condemned Israel for approving plans to build hundreds of new settler homes, took a more conciliatory tone in a speech today, urging Israel and the Palestinians to restart direct peace negotiations. "The only path though to finally resolving the permanent status issues, including borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem, are direct talks," he said. He also moderated his earlier criticism of Israel, saying the US had "no better friend". Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert at Israeli group Peace Now, compiled a list of planned East Jerusalem settlements that are at one of the several stages of approval. She counted 8,253 proposed homes, including the 1,600 new homes announced on Tuesday for the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Ramat Shlomo. After the latest approval this week, Palestinian leaders promptly pulled out of a new round of indirect "proximity" talks with Israel that the US administration had spent months setting up. The 10 numbered plans Ofran has identified, some of which are years from construction, are in East Jerusalem settlements including Givat Hamatos, Pisgat Ze'ev, Neve Ya'acov, Gilo and Ramot. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published a similar list of 19 plans, identifying 7,038 housing units awaiting approval. Another newspaper, Ha'aretz, said as many as 50,000 homes - nearly all in Jewish settlements - were in various stages of planning and approval for east Jerusalem, citing planning officials. The paper said the city's construction plans for the coming years focused on east Jerusalem because a plan to expand west had been cancelled three years ago. Israel regards East Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 war, as sovereign territory and the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has spoken frequently in defence of Jewish settlement there. But the international community does not recognise Israeli sovereignty and settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law. Palestinian officials say they will not return to direct peace talks unless all settlement-building is stopped, a demand also made last year by the US administration. Netanyahu has ordered only a temporary, partial curb on construction. Yesterday, Netanyahu gave his interior minister, Eli Yishai, a dressing down about the timing of the Ramat Shlomo plans, which came as an embarrassment to Biden during his visit. But there was no suggestion the plans would be cancelled. "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and construction there will be carried out like in Tel Aviv or any other city – in every part of Jerusalem according to the plans," Israeli cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser told Israel Radio. "Jerusalem is a big city. It is a city that has to grow" Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, that the Palestinians would not take part in the newly agreed indirect talks. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the Palestinians would not take part unless the US forced Israel to cancel the Ramat Shlomo construction – although that seems an unlikely step. Palestinian officials said they saw no reason to negotiate while settlements continued to grow and no direct talks have been held since Israel's war on Gaza more than a year ago. Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent independent Palestinian politician, said: "Israeli deliberate measures at expanding settlement activities, at carrying out further building of illegal settlements in and around Jerusalem – all these are designed to scuttle all American efforts at trying to relaunch any kind of talks be they direct or indirect, proximity or long-distance."
Egg boss jailed for 'free range' fraud
• Supermarket customers duped in two-year, £3m scam
• Lawyer claims client is far from industry's only bad egg A Midlands businessman was jailed for three years today after admitting making a fortune by fraudulently passing off battery farm eggs as free range or organic. Around 100m mislabelled eggs sold by Keith Owen ended up on the shelves of supermarkets including Sainsbury's and Tesco. That the fraud was able to carry on for two years while he made a £3m profit raises questions for the food industry about the provenance of goods. Owen, 44, from Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, ran Heart of England Eggs Unlimited, which supplied eggs to major packing companies that in turn supplied them to supermarkets and smaller retailers. He pleaded guilty at Worcester crown court to three charges of fraudulent accounting, relating to altering his records to disguise the fact he was buying in eggs laid by caged hens and selling them on for a profit after relabelling or "misdescribing" them in paperwork. Prosecutors said Owen had "dishonestly and systematically passed off millions of battery farm eggs as free range/organic eggs". Amanda Pinto QC said: "The victims of Keith Owen's false accounting were not only the direct customers of Heart of England, but also the public, as well as the legitimate egg producers. "The ultimate customer, a member of the public buying these eggs, would have received inferior eggs – sometimes even eggs not fit for sale to the public – or eggs produced by hens kept without the stringent welfare schemes from which they were said to benefit." Owen's barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, suggested his client was far from the only one creating what he described as "mischief" in the egg industry. "It's not the case that all those who Mr Owen supplied eggs were concerned to ensure that the provenance of the eggs was as described," he said, adding it would be "inappropriate" to elaborate. At the time of Owen's fraud, between 2004 and 2006, farmers could expect to receive a price of around 90p per dozen for organic eggs, 70p for free range and 35p for cage eggs. As a "middleman" wholesaler, Owen would normally make a few pence profit per dozen, but by passing off cage eggs as free range he could make an extra 35p profit for every 12 eggs he sold. The court heard that Owen not only bought in cheap battery hen eggs, he also bought in huge quantities of so-called "industrial eggs". These do not meet the quality requirements for sale to the public, and instead are meant to be used only in processed foods. The fraud came to light in 2004 when allegations began circulating in the egg industry that there were vastly more British free range and organic eggs being sold in shops than could ever possibly be laid in UK farms. At the same time, investigators from the Egg Marketing Inspectorate noticed during routine checks that eggs coming from Heart of England were not at all what they purported to be. Because all eggs look the same to the naked eye, the law requires that each egg is stamped with a unique number indicating where the egg was laid and in what conditions. Paperwork must accompany eggs transported through the supply chain to indicate their origin and type. When inspectors checked a selection of Owen's allegedly free range eggs using ultraviolet light, the shells bore telltale wire marks – a sure sign that they had been laid not on a bed of straw or even Astroturf, as farming regulations stipulate, but in a metal cage. There were also complaints from lorry drivers who arrived at Owen's farms to drop off consignments of caged eggs and then to pick up free range or organic eggs. A number of drivers reported to their trade union that they were made to wait hours to pick up their deliveries and suspected that the same eggs they had delivered were being relabelled and then sold back to them the same day. All of Owen's major contracts were to supply British eggs bearing the British Lion hallmark. But investigators from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered that he was regularly buying eggs from the continent and passing them off as home-grown. He used another of his companies, Owens Eggs, to disguise the accounting fraud. Owens Eggs was a legitimate business selling organic eggs laid in a barn, on the same site as the Heart of England egg-packing business. Owen tried to mask the fraud by selling organic eggs from Owens Eggs to Heart of England at an extremely inflated price – £10-£40 per dozen at a time when other producers were selling a dozen for no more than £1. Owen agreed under a confiscation order to surrender £3m of the profit he made from selling the misdescribed eggs, and will not be allowed to be a company director for seven years.
Bosnia accuses UK of mistreating ex-president
Chairman of joint presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina says Ejup Ganic, arrested in London after extradition request from Serbia, was denied access to medicine The British government should apologise to a former Bosnian president for his "mistreatment" in prison, the chairman of the joint presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina said today. Ejup Ganic, who served as vice-president and president of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the break from the former Yugoslavia, was arrested at Heathrow airport on 1 March after an extradition request from Serbia. Haris Silajdzic said he was "shocked" by Ganic's claims that he was denied access to consular assistance, to a telephone and to his medicine for three days. He said the foreign secretary, David Miliband, had promised to investigate the complaint. Ganic had been in the UK for several days before being detained by police. The Serbian government has accused him of being responsible for the deaths of 42 Bosnian-Serb soldiers in May 1992, a month after the start of the Bosnian war. Silajdzic said that he had met Miliband earlier today to discuss Ganic. He said: "I drew his attention to the fact that he didn't have for three full days access to the telephone and he had problems even with his medicine that he takes usually for treating high blood pressure." This was a "clear contravention" of European conventions, he added. "I said that I believe that an apology is owed so that Bosnia-Herzegovina will know that our relations are normal, that this was an aberration of otherwise good and friendly relations with this country," he said. Ganic's bail request was adjourned last week to give the Serbian authorities more time to submit evidence backing their war crime allegations and oppose bail. Lawyers for Ganic said moves to make him face trial in Serbia were politically motivated and his arrest was illegal. Lord Justice Laws today granted the former president bail on what he described as "stringent" conditions. Under the conditions, Ganic – who is currently being held in Wandsworth prison, in south-west London – has to live at a specified address in the capital and must remain "within the confines" of the property between 10am and 7pm. He is not allowed to apply for a passport or travel document, and must report to a London police station every day. Laws said £300,000 had been provided as security by a wellwisher who the court understood was "a lady of substantial means". Terence Kealey, the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, paid a further £25,000 surety to be retained if Ganic breached his bail conditions. Ganic is president of the Sarajevo school of science and technology (SSST). He had been in the UK to attend events at Buckingham University, which is partnered with the SSST. "Prof Ganic was visiting Buckingham to attend the graduation ceremony of the second cohort of SSST students to have graduated with a degree from Buckingham," a spokeswoman for the university said. Earlier, a Foreign Office spokesman said Miliband had met Silajdzic this morning. "They discussed a range of issues, including the UK's strong support for Bosnia and Herzegovina's European perspective," the spokesman said. "The foreign secretary underlined that the arrest of Dr Ejup Ganic in London on 1 March is a judicial matter, which in no way amounts to a diplomatic or political statement by the British government or any UK point of view on past events in the western Balkans. "The foreign secretary confirmed that the UK takes its obligations towards foreign nationals in detention very seriously, and that officials will continue to look into any concerns raised by the Bosnian authorities in this regard."
Man found dead at home 'tormented' by youths
Neighbours say 64-year-old David Askew had been targeted by gangs at his home in Hattersley, Greater Manchester A man with learning difficulties who died at his home last night was "tormented to death" by local youths, neighbours claimed today. Police had been warned that 64-year-old David Askew was being targeted before he was found dead in Hattersley, Greater Manchester, nearby residents said. They criticised police and officials, claiming they had not supported Askew, his brother, Brian, and his mother, Rose, who uses a wheelchair. Officers were called to the family home last night after being told youngsters were causing "annoyance". When police arrived, the youths had vanished, but officers discovered Askew, who was pronounced dead at the scene. "This has been going on for about 10 years," Avona Davies, a 49-year-old neighbour, said. "We have complained to the police and council, and they put cameras in their back garden about three years ago. "They tormented David for money and cigarettes. They harassed him every night without fail." Davies said she had stopped complaining to police because "nothing gets done", adding that yesterday's harassment, by people who were "about 18 or 19 years old", had begun at around 6.30pm. "David had learning difficulties, and I think that is why they tormented him, because he would scream out of the window at them," she said. "Sometimes it would be two of them, others it would be six kids or a big gang. David would throw money and cigarettes into our garden to get rid of them, but they would always go back. That's why they did it." Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she had lived near the Askews for 39 years. "Last night, I came out to talk to a neighbour and there was a body on the ground under a white sheet," she said. "We didn't know who it was then. I said: 'If it is David, his misery is over.'" The woman said she believed the gang had come from a neighbouring area to target Askew. "Not that many children live around here, so this gang comes from elsewhere," she added. "They would come and bait David ... he was a harmless soul. They would wind him up something dreadful. Every year, the youngest brother would join in – the next generation. "They always knew he would retaliate. It is tragic – like bear-baiting – tormented to death." The case has echoes of the death of Fiona Pilkington, who killed her disabled daughter and herself by setting fire to her car after suffering years of abuse from youths. It is unclear how Askew died. The results of a postmortem examination later today, but Chief Superintendent Zoe Hamilton, of Greater Manchester police, said he had not been physically attacked. "My team and the neighbourhood team have been in daily contact virtually with David and his family to address the problems they have been having," she said. "It's a sad fact that if people are different in a community, sometimes they end up being targeted. "I think we have done everything we can. The level of personal involvement my staff and housing officers have had cannot be stressed enough."
Facebook threatens to sue Daily Mail
Social networking site fears reputation permanently damaged by false claim that it let older men pressure teenage girls for sex Facebook has threatened to sue the Daily Mail for damages after the paper wrongly claimed in a piece published on Wednesday that 14-year-old girls who create a profile on the social networking site could be approached "within seconds" by older men who "wanted to perform a sex act" in front of them. The paper apologised in print today and online yesterday for the error, which the author of the piece, Mark Williams-Thomas, insisted had been introduced by editors at the paper despite being told it was wrong. In fact, Williams-Thomas – a retired policeman who now works as a criminologist – had been using another, unspecified social network. But the giant social networking site, which has 23 million users in the UK alone, said that although the Mail has changed the headline of the article online – so that it now reads "I posed as a girl of 14 online. What followed will sicken you" – it had not at first changed the page title of the article online, used by internet search engines to index content, nor the URL of the piece, which is also a factor in search-engine indexing. At 10am today the title still read "I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you" while the URL contained the text "i-posed-girl-14-facebook-what-followed-sicken-you". The title and URL were, however, amended before noon. A UK spokeswoman for Facebook said the company was still considering legal action and looking at the "brand damage that has been done". Charles Garside, assistant editor of the Daily Mail, said that the apology had been produced in consultation with Facebook, and that representatives of the paper and Facebook would be meeting today. The changes to the URL and page title were "a technical matter", he said, adding: "We are removing elements of that". The incorrect naming of Facebook is understood to be blamed on "a matter of miscommunication". Facebook staff claimed that attempts to add a comment to the piece, as readers are able to do, were repeatedly blocked by the Daily Mail. The company is concerned that the article may have done permanent harm to its reputation in the UK. "If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us," said the Facebook spokeswoman. Tensions over Facebook's position in the UK as a popular site among people of all ages, allowing them to contact each other, have been magnified in the past week after Peter Chapman was convicted of murdering Ashleigh Hall, a 17-year-old girl who thought that Chapman, 33, was also a teenager. Chapman had got in touch with Hall via Facebook, leading to criticisms from some senior police officers over the measures that the site takes to protect susceptible individuals . But the Daily Mail piece, which carried Williams-Thomas's byline, suggested that anyone who signed up as a 14-year-old girl would be approached "within minutes of the profile going up". The piece also said that "messages from men poured in" and that "the first three who approached me were aged between 20 and 40". However, Williams-Thomas and his agent, Sylvia Tidy-Harris, both insisted on their Twitter feeds that he had not used Facebook for the Mail article. It "was on another well-known SNS [social networking service], not Facebook", said Tidy-Harris, echoing Williams-Thomas. Tidy-Harris said that yesterday had "Been a hellishly tough day trying to juggle @mwilliamsthomas misquote in daily mail along with meetings and literally 100ks of calls/emails". At Facebook, the anger at the misrepresentation was magnified because, they say, they were initially unable to get any response from the paper to their appeals for corrections. "The people at Facebook in the US were reading this and knew at once that it couldn't have been our platform," said the Facebook UK spokeswoman. "We have made Facebook much more favourable to the safety of minors – minors under 18 cannot receive messages from somebody over 18." That means it would be impossible for the scenario described by Williams-Thomas to happen on Facebook. Facebook's representatives said that they tried to get a response from the Mail throughout Wednesday without success, and that attempts by people at its PR agency to post comments on the piece with clarifying text failed. The Mail uses moderators who on that story approved comments before they could appear. By this morning the article had 380 comments. Williams-Thomas has not responded to requests to specify which social networking service he was using by the time of publication. • 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".
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Politics Weekly: The unmentionables
There are exactly eight weeks to go before 6 May – the probable date of the general election. As polling day approaches, hardy perennial issues such as the economy, crime and education will get plenty of attention. But what of the issues we won't be hearing about? Michael White explores the topics that candidates will be sidestepping on the doorsteps. Meanwhile in the studio Seumas Milne, Polly Toynbee and Deborah Orr provide their own examples. Leave yours in the comment section below. Also on this week's show we hear from Conservative frontbencher David Willetts. He appeared at an event at Guardian HQ this week to argue that a breakdown in trust between the generations has helped to bring about what his party calls a "broken society". Why has the phrase resonated above all others for the Tories – and is it backed up by evidence? Polly Toynbee, who took part in the debate, disputes the premise of the Tory argument. Next week Politics Weekly will be recorded live at Manchester University. For details of how you can get tickets for the event on Tuesday 16 March click here.
Lille 1-0 Liverpool
A lucky late goal from the excellent Eden Hazard put Liverpool's Europa League hopes in jeopardy Preamble Hello. It's been easy to laugh at Liverpool this season, and we'll come to that in due course, but they of all clubs know that what happens in March stays in March. When a season is appraised, all that really matters in what happens in May: the 1981-82 season, when Liverpool were 12th at the turn of the year only to end up as champions, shows that. So if Liverpool can win the two competitions they are left in, the Europa League and the race for fourth – and they are the most accomplished side left in each of those, even if their form might not suggest as much – they will have redeemed their 2009-10 season to a large extent. Conversely, if they finish fifth or worse and go out of the Europa League in the last 16, even Rafael Benitez might admit that it's time to call the whole thing off. What happens depends on which Liverpool is most in evidence fof the rest of the season: the granite-willed scrappers who earned hugely deserved victories at home to Manchester United and Everton this season, and should have done the same in their vital Champions League match in Lyon; the irresistible force which produced a stunning 41 goals in the final 13 games of last season; or the demoralised shower that have already lost 14 games this season. They will get a good test from Lille, who are the top scorers in Ligue 1 (try pronouncing that during a particularly debilitating constipation) and who have one of Europe's hottest teenagers in the brilliant Belgian Eden Hazard, the first foreigner ever to win France's Young Player of the Year award. Now, after Steven Gerrard's noble attempt to bring back the V-sign – last unironically delivered by an adult in 1987 – I wonder what other retro classics footballers could reintroduce into society. Perhaps John Terry could assert his throbbing masculinity by wearing shorts so tight that it's touch and go whether you'll self-vasectomise by the end of the 90 minutes. Or perhaps that popular wordsmith Wayne Rooney could bring back words and phrases from the eighties, like crud or aces or did you see that TV show, Gaylords Say No? I have no idea where I'm going with this, to be honest. Team news Glen Johnson starts for the first time this year and, with the possible exception of Martin Skrtel, this is probably what Rafael Benitez regards as his strongest team. Lille (4-3-3) Landreau; Beria, Chedjou, Rami, Emerson; Balmont, Mavuba, Cabaye; Obraniak, Frau, Hazard.
Subs: Butelle, Vandam, Aubameyang, Toure, Dumont, Souare, Souquet. Liverpool (4-2-3-1) Reina; Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Insua; Mascherano, Lucas; Kuyt, Gerrard, Babel; Torres.
Subs: Cavalieri, Aquilani, Riera, Kyrgiakos, Ngog, El Zhar, Kelly. Referee Alan Larsen (Denmark) A simple way to improve Liverpool's form Tell each player that, if they produce a performance of, say 5/10 or less, they will be locked in a darkened room with only a loop of this film for company. Have you ever seen anything so jauntily sinister? David Lynch would kill to have seen this in a nightmare. One good thing about Liverpool being on Channel Five is that I've just accidentally stumbled across Neighbours on that channel while waiting for the game to start. All our yesterdays. I defy anyone to watch this video and not weep their heart out with joy at a youth well spent in Ramsay Street. You did cry, right? Right? Sample Neighbours dialogue Boy: "This has been the best day of my life"
Girl: "Ever?"
Boy: "The clue's in the word 'life' you brainless wench, I never want to see your stupid face again Ever" And then they kiss.
And then it cuts to a scene involving Lou Carpenter and Toadie. No way can the game top this. I wish I went to Tom Hopkins' pub quiz department "How many houses are there on Ramsay Street? This question came up at a recent pub quiz. I was sure I had got it right and when it turned out I hadn't I was so incensed that I checked on the internet the minute I got home; this confirmed that I was in fact completely wrong. P.S. I am aware that there are at least three points there than individually or collectively may suggest that I am powerfully uncool." The answer's six, Tom. Also, did you know that Ramsay Street is a fictional cul-de-sac featured in the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours, it is set in the equally fictitious suburb of Erinsborough. Pin Oak Court, in Vermont South, is the real cul-de-sac that doubles for Ramsay Street.[1] All of the houses featured in the show are real and the residents allow Neighbours to shoot external scenes in their front and back gardens.[2] Neighbours has been filmed in Pin Oak Court since the series began in 1985. Neighbours interior scenes are filmed at the Global Television studios in Nunawading, Forest Hill[3], and there are occasionally differences between the appearances of the inside and outside of the houses. Ramsay Street is named after the Ramsay family, who were a prominent family in the area historically when the show began. By 2001 all members of the family had left the show, but during 2009 three new members of the Ramsay family moved into the street.[4] I wish I had Tom Bason's life department "The boy and girl in that scene were Zeke Kinski, and his new piece Mia, an animal rights activist. Zeke is Susan's stepson (who divorced Karl, got married and widowed, picked up three step-children and is now back married to Karl. Karl fathered a baby himself during this period). Other characters still in it you might remember: Paul Robinson, Steph and Lynn Scully Erm, thats about it." His new piece. Now that's a phrase I haven't heard for a while. A question for Liverpool fans Can anyone explain the Aquilani signing? Me no understand. 1 min Lille, in red, kick off from right to left. Liverpool are in white. 2 min A fast start from Lille, and Cabaye works Reina with a good strike from the edge of the box. Reina gets down to hold on pretty comfortably. 3 min "Erinsborough is an anagram of Neighbours," says Mike Gibbons. "Send me a catalogue of lives so I can pick one." I'll swap yer. 4 min Lille have started much the better, dominating possession and moving the ball around with real menace. 5 min "Rafa refuses to take Kuyt of the pitch," says Garry O'Connor. "Aquilani plays the same role as Gerrard. So until Gerrard moves to the wing and Kuyt comes of the pitch, Aquilani stays on the bench." This I all understand. But it does invite the question: why buy him then? 6 min The pitch is very poor by modern standards, bobbly and a bit sandy, but it hasn't really impacted upon on Lille's passing yet. As Graham Taylor says on Five, "they know how to play the pitch". 7 min Liverpool haven't started yet. "Rob," says Tom Bason. "There are only six houses featured in the show (numbers 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32) but those numbers would suggest there are at least another 24 houses somewhere, who's residents have no interaction with anyone else at all. Yours in pedantry." If they're not in Neighbours they are dead to me. 8 min Gerrard stabs a pass into Mavuba's chest, appeals for handball and gets it. Agger's long free-kick is headed away easily. 9 min "It shames us as a society that we no longer make the gesture involving moving a partially opened fist back and forth from the forehead to signify that the recipient of this gesture was something that rhymes with a tickhead," says Mike Gibbons. "It's much quicker to say it and get on with your life having saved precious seconds - but that's the broadband generation for you. Wayne Bridge would have aced the PR War had he done that to John Terry." 10 min There's a real confidence, almost a swagger, about Lille's play. Hazard goes on a superb run down the right, past Insua and Agger before driving a beautiful ball right across the face of goal between keeper and defenders. It would have been an open goal had anybody been on the end of it. They weren't. 12 min "The problem here isn't Kuyt or Gerrard," says Adam Wood. "It is Rafa and Lucas. Gerrard and Mascherano should be playing centre mid, with Aquilani just behind Torres. Two defensive mids are unnecessary, especially when playing with wingers like Kuyt, who are defensive-minded. Kuyt shouldn't even be starting, as Riera, Maxi, Yossi, and Babel are all more worthy than him." This is understand (although I'm not sure I agree about Gerrard), but the more relevant point is surely that Benitez is always going to play two deep-lying midfielders, which makes you wonder why on earth he bought Aquilani. 14 min Fantastic play from Torres, who moved smoothly past Chedjou in the centre of the pitch and then touched a pass behind Rami for Babel. He was just about to shoot first time from 15 yards when the stretching Rami got the slighest touch to divert the ball for a corner. 15 min "Erinsborough isn't an anagram of Neighbours – there's a superfluous 'O'," says Alex McGillivray. "I have no life. Here's the creepiest thing I found on YouTube." 17 min For all Lille's possession, Reina has only had one rudimentary save to make so far. Liverpool are extremely good, away in Europe, at keeping their opponent at arms' length. 18 min "I once did a knick-knack on Harold Bishop's door," says Alan Belton, who I hope is talking about knock-door ginger. "My Australian wife was less than pleased with my immaturity at the time, but I think hindsight has given us both the appreciation that it needed to be done." 19 min Can someone wake me up when something happens please? 20 min "Are you sure this match isn't being played on my high school soccer field?" says Richard Whittall. "The colour resembles a slightly under-ripe banana." 22 min Balmont has looked good for Lille. Balmont. With a name like that he should be a butler in a particularly farcical episode of Frasier. 23 min Frau is getting treatment; he's leaking what really, really, really, really tough middle-class boys call "claret" from his right eye following an accidental clash of heads with Lucas. He's back on now. 24 min "Re: the Aquilani signing," says John T. "It's simple, really. If Rafa didn't buy him for £20m, then he wouldn't be able to Keane him back to Roma this summer for £15m and subsequently complain that he didn't have £20m to buy a proper player." 25 min "Although I should point out that I'm not a Liverpool fan, I do live in Italy and know what pushed the deal through," says Jonny Mills. "Roma needed loads of money to stay in business. They couldn't sell any of their good players though. But Aquilani wasn't one of them, and Benitez doesn't have a clue what he's doing. There." 26 min Babel almost scores a fabulous goal. He and Torres sliced right through the centre of the Lille defence with a nice one-two. That put Babel through on goal, 15 yards out and slightly to the right of centre, but his shot across goal was saved by the legs of Landreau. That was delicious football. 28 min It's gone extremely quiet around the stadium, and Liverpool will be well pleased with how this is going, particularly after such a lively first five minutes. 30 min "I lost faith in Neighbours when shouty Max left and his previously unknown brother nicked all his lines," says Charlie Bird. "As for weird YouTube... 31 min A summary of the highlights so far: 33 min Lille's first half-decent attack for a while. Cabael muscles past Lucas and then passes it down the right to Hazard; he plays a low cross towards the near post, where Frau, under pressure from Agger, spanks it high and wide. 34 min Gerrard shoots over from 30 yards after a nice turn. 35 min "Alex McGillivray isn't far off, but Episode 7 is way creepier," says Paul Whaley. "And of course to get there, you have to watch all the creepy episodes inbetween. I saw all that four years ago and haven't slept since." 36 min "Give me some excitement, please" says Mike Down, mistaking me for a pimp. 37 min Lille are still attacking with an endearing and entirely misplaced enthusiasm, unaware that Liverpool have a complete grip on this game defensively and are going to squeeze every bit of joy out of all our lives for the next 50 minutes. When you see defensive performances as unyielding and accomplished as this, you wonder how Liverpool how made such a Horlicks of their season. 38 min Babel is limping off after a (fair) challenge from Obraniak. It looks like a hip injury, and I'm not sure he'll be back. 39 min "Here's one theory about the Aquilani transfer: alpha-male posturing," says David Wall, our expert on said subject. "Having just established in his freshly signed contract that he had control of transfers, Benitez was looking to make a show of it so needed a high-cost, flashy signing. With most people who would really make a difference to Liverpool from last season nonetheless out of their price-range (or extent of their ambition) Aquilani fitted the mould. Or at least, he was at the limits of Rafa's imagination (or perhaps he thought it would appear imaginative?). And in that context, the transfer has been successful - Benitez has shown himself to be the Bull-goose looney around Anfield." I know Benitez has started to lose it a bit this last year, but I don't think he'd do that. The only credible explanations that I can see are a) the signing was imposed upon him (unlikely, in view of the above) and b) he had grand plans to reinvent the side as swashbucklers and then bottled it, sticking to his beloved pair of holding midfielders. 40 min Balmont goes down a little easily on the right wing, giving Lille a free-kick. It's whipped in towards the six-yard box by Obraniak and headed away excellent under pressure by Carragher. 41 min A double chance for Liverpool. Torres goes on a wonderfully direct run from the halfway line, right to the edge of the area until he is taken down. I'm not sure who the defender was there but I'm surprised he wasn't booked. Anyway, it's a free-kick 20 yards out, just infield from the left corner of the box. Gerrard's low curling shot is saved by Landreau, diving to his left. When the loose ball is clipped back in by Johnson, Torres climbs at the far post to head towards the bottom corner, but Landreau plunges to his right to make a superb save. Torres was only six yards out, and Landreau had to dive almost backwards. That was a fine stop. 43 min "You want creepy YouTube?" says Peter Corway. "I give you Mittens - The Crime Solving Cat." Don't give him to me. I don't want him. 45 min Hazard slaloms infield classily from the right, starting with a dragback away from Lucas, but his left-footed shot from the edge of the area goes tamely through to Reina. 45+1 min Mascherano tackles Frau from the side and, despite getting a stud on the ball, is penalised because of the angle of the tackle. It's a free-kick 25 yards out, a little left of centre, but Cabaye curves it a couple of yards over. Reina had it covered. Half time: Lille 0-0 Liverpool A job well done by Liverpool. They have largely bored the pants off us, but that isn't their problem and they are repelling Lille with increasing comfort while carrying a not inconsiderable threat through Torres at the other end. See you 10 minutes. Half-time emails "Has anyone else theorized that Aquilani is actually a quality player and not an inherently bad signing, but rather one that has been horrendously mishandled by Benitez? That's my theory" - Johnathan Kaszynski. (Isn't that what most of us were saying?) "Could I point out to Johnathan Kaszynski that 'quality' is a noun, and should have an adjective to describe it (i.e. high quality). I realise it's a fairly irrelevant and mundane point, but my football comments never get posted, so I will try for editorial pedantry instead" - Tim. "This football chat is getting a bit wearing. There must be some points to be made in respect of Mrs Mangel and/or Dr Karl Kennedy" - Tom Hopkins. "Eat this, furball" – Paul Whaley. "Sorry you have to watch this tripe. If it makes you feel better, I'm spending the day staring through a microscope and looking at brain slices which is quite monotonous as most brains look the same (fortunately)" - Peter Campbell. 46 min Shall we? Oh alright then. Liverpool kick off from right to left. 47 min "Webster's Dictionary has entries for quality both as a noun and as an adjective. I'm just saying," just says Johnathan Kaszynski. 49 min Liverpool have started the half authoritatively. Or, to put it another way, can someone please ends this torture. Nothing is happening. 50 min "If you want creepy YouTube look no further than 'Disturbing Strokes' it's a great example of how music can influence what you are watching!" It's so true. When I watch bongo I turn the volume down and put this on the stereo. 51 min Hazard has a goal wrongly disallowed for offside. I say 'goal'; Reina didn't try to save the shot clipped back across him from the left corner of the six-yard box, but Hazard was definitely onside when the ball was played through. 52 min "Evening Rob," says Phil Sawyer. "I miss the shit on a stick days." These days they don't even bother with the stick. 55 min "I'm studying for an economics exam while reading the MBM and have just discovered that a Lucas wedge is the ever widening gap between what is and what could have been," says John Walker. "Sums up my thoughts exactly." I would sum up my thoughts on this game, but this is a family MBM. 57 min When you see pitches like this and think that it would have been one of the better pitches in the eighties, and then when you think about the things defenders could previously get away with, you can't help but fall in love with this little fella all over again. 58 min Now, as this game is the most depressing thing I've seen since I put Monster's Ball on, turned down the volume and put Hallelujah on loop on the stereo, why not entertain yourself by watching some hot bald-man action: James Richardon's European paper review. 59 min Johnson appeals for a penalty when he is bundled over in the Lille box. They haven't shown a replay yet but my first thought was that the defender got the ball first and then took the man in his follow through. 60 min Babel comes infield from the left and then lashes a stinging shot towards goal from 22 yards. Landreau, who was on the way down to his right, thrust both hands above his head to beat it away. That was a good save and a lovely strike from Babel, who has one of the bigger sweet spots in English football. Lille break immediately and Frau, put through on the right wing, is erroneously flagged offside. 62 min "Is Eden Hazard any relation to former Spurs and Swindon stalwart Micky?" says David Wall. "I hope so, if only to maintain a focus of English interest in the Europa League into the next round after Lille put Liverpool out." No need. Lille have Emerson, who used to play for Middlesbrough. PLUS WE INVENTED FOOTBALL SO IT'S OUR GAME ANYWAY DO YOU WANT SOME. 63 min Insua is booked for what looked a very clean tackle to thwart a Lille break. Maybe he was booked for dissent; the free-kick certainly looked harsh. Moments later Torres pulls Obraniak down and then goes looking for a fight with him, accusing him of diving. That's rich given who he plays with. Obraniak ssshs Torres, who comes reasonably close to losing it and is eventually shoved away by Carragher. 64 min "After the Wigan debacle I took myself to oneside and told me not to follow football anymore," says Ian Copestake. "Three days later I'm rushing home excitedly to catch the second half. Why doesn't hope just stay dead?" I've made myself emotionally ex-directory so that Hope can't keep preying on me. 65 min "A palette cleanser to the earlier clips," says William Marzouk. "But beware - you're entering an irony free zone. A time before most of us were born, when men were men and women screamed at them." 66 min As the ball kicks up just a little off the bobbly pitch, Frau welts it towards goal from 30 yards with his right foot. It wobbles this way and that really awkwardly, so Reina sensibly punches it wide for a corner with both fists. From that corner, Balmont bursts past a defender on the right of the box and drives over a low cross that deflects off Agger and just wide of the far post. That's as close as Lille have come to a goal. 67 min The increasingly brattish Torres is booked for dissent. He's been in a funny mood this season. 69 min The game has gone quiet again. 71 min What an effort from Cabaye! He had the ball 35 yards out and, with nothing on, decided to cut across a swirling, dipping strike that only just cleared the bar as Reina leapt desperately backwards. He probably did have it covered but it was a wonderful effort. 72 min "Rob, you're on fire right now," says Alexander Sharkey. "Liverpool's dreary play brings out the best of your literary talents. Why don't you write us a poem instead of reporting on this shitty match?" Do you think he's being sarcastic? 73 min A substitution apiece: Riera for Babela and Dumont for Cabaye. 74 min "When you say 'brattish' do you mean Torres is frustrated by the absence of any quality balls in to him while being bossed about by their defence?" says Ian Copestake. "If not, do you want some?" 76 min Another nice, hip-swinging run from Hazard – who clearly has a touch of class – takes two Liverpool players out of the game. He finds Dumont, and his tame shot from 20 yards bounces out of a divot and smacks Reina in the face. Reina gets down to smother the loose ball but that could have gone anywhere. 77 min Another Lille substitution: Frau is replaced by the Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who is on loan from AC Milan. 81 min This is awful. 82 min Lille have a slight appeal for a penalty when Hazard falls off under a challenge from Carragher. Hazard came back inside Carragher, who didn't get the ball but did brush Hazard's face with his arm. That's all Hazard to go down with what was a fairly risible dive, although I'm not sure why Carragher was waving his arms like a gentlemen at closing time. Lille make their final substitution: Larson Toure replaces Obraniak. GOAL! Lille 1-0 Liverpool (Hazard 84) The best player on the pitch scores the opening goal, but it was a fluke. Lille had a free-kick wide on the left, 35 yards out, and he dipped it beautifully into the corridor of uncertainty between defenders and goalkeeper. It missed everyone and, with Reina staying on his line, bounced four yards out and kicked up into the far corner. It's hard to know who to blame, if anyone, as that was a really wicked ball in. 85 min Larsen Toure is booked. 87 min He hasn't done a lot, Hazard, but he is the one player who has sprinkled class on the game. The rest have sprayed something else all over it. 88 min Aubameyang hits the post! Belmont lifted a smart first-time pass over a crowded defence and, as it sat up awkwardly, Aubameyang contorted his body to lash it towards goal from around eight yards. It deflected off the covering Agger, flew to the left of the motionless Reina and struck the outside of the post. 89 min Nabil El Zhar replaces Kuyt, while Aubameyang is booked for a foul on Insua. Moments later there is a farcical scramble in the Lille box, which includes blocked shots by Gerrard and Torres. It lasted for a good 10 seconds, with the ball ricocheting everywhere. 90 min There will be a minimum of three minutes' added time. 90+4 min Gerrard misses a very good chance. Riera slipped a nice angled pass to him in the inside-left channel, 10 yards out, but Gerrard – reluctant to use his left foot – couldn't sort his feet out quickly enough and Aubameyang got round to deflect his shot away for a corner. Apart from that weird spell in 2001, I don't think I've seen Gerrard play as consistently badly as this. Full time: Lille 1-0 Liverpool That's a little harsh on Liverpool, who defended very well for the most part in a diabolical game, but the lack of an away goal means that they will approach next Thursday's return leg with a fair bit of trepidation. They have had a couple of famous second-leg victories against French opposition at Anfield – Saint Etienne and Auxerre – and, on balance, you'd expect them to come through next week. Thanks for your emails; I'll leave you with this from Ian Copestake. In an effort to cheer myself after this I need to decide whether to
watch The Reader or The Lives of Others? Nazi Surfing Babes had
already been taken.
Portsmouth administration accepted
• Pompey owe £15m to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs
• 'The Revenue has accepted the administration is valid' Portsmouth's hopes of survival were today given a major boost when Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs accepted the club's move into administration. Pompey escaped being wound up after HMRC, which is owed around £15m by the club, abandoned its claim that the the club's owner, Balram Chainrai, did not have the legal right to put the club into administration. A spokesman for the club said: "The Revenue has accepted the administration is valid." The club yesterday made more than a quarter of their staff redundant. Eighty-five of 320 employees will lose their jobs but the administrator, Andrew Andronikou, said the chief executive, Peter Storrie, would remain on a salary of "under £500,000" until the club is sold.
Tories promise superfast broadband
Conservatives try to outdo Labour by promising broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps in technology manifesto The Conservatives have launched a technology manifesto that aims to increase broadband speeds and improve access to government data as the government's digital economy bill moves quickly through parliament. The manifesto pulls together a number of technology proposals that the Conservatives have floated in the runup to the general election, including promising superfast broadband connections of 100Mbps to most Britons and opening up data on contracts and public sector salaries. The Tories are looking to outdo Labour by promising improved broadband speeds. Labour set a target of universal access of 2Mbps by 2012. The Tories promise 50 times that but to most citizens, not to everyone. Most current superfast broadband technologies are limited to short distances from central switching offices, and most companies focus on cities where the cost of deployment is offset by lots of customers in a relatively small area. Virgin Media has announced a trial using telegraph poles to connect rural areas to its fibre optic network, which will offer 50-megabit per second broadband to Woolhampton in Berkshire. If this proves successful, the company says that more than a million homes could be connected to its network via telegraph poles. The government is considering a change to planning guidelines that would allow for the large-scale building of overhead cabling for faster broadband, and the Conservatives have said part of their technology plans rely on changes to easing planning rules. However, the last mile will only be part of the challenge. Geoff Bennett, product director at network technology company Infinera, said: "Without a complete examination of core (and metro, and so-called second mile) networks and a technology overhaul, there is a risk that the entire network would come to a screaming halt the day the 100 megabit access pipes were turned on." Rather than the controversial 50p a month levy on fixed-line phones proposed in the digital economy bill to pay for broadband rollout, the Tories promise to "unleash private sector investment to build this superfast broadband network by opening up network infrastructure, easing planning rules and boosting competition". The party points to Singapore and South Korea, where such strategies have worked. However, Singapore is a city-state with the third highest population density in the world. Unlike the UK, it has very few rural areas. South Korea has a population density 10 times the global average and most its residents live in major cities, also making it much easier to deploy superfast broadband to most of its population. If private sector investment does not achieve the desired target, the Conservatives would consider taking some of the licence fee settlement from the BBC currently dedicated to digital switchover. In addition to trying to best Labour with their broadband plans, the Conservatives are trying to outdo the government's open-data plans, pledging to open up data on smaller contracts and information on public sector pay. Their technology proposals also include changes to IT procurement so that large projects would be broken into smaller components and opened to small and medium-size businesses. They also want to create a "government skunkworks" to speed the development of low-cost IT projects. The technology manifesto is couched in terms of economic development. Quoting Nesta, the Conservatives say their plans for a superfast broadband network will create 600,000 jobs and add £18bn to Britain's GDP. For their open-data proposals, they cite new research by Dr Rufus Pollock of Cambridge University which says open-data programmes could create £6bn in additional value to the UK. Apart from the internet and IT, the manifesto also called for the creation of a high-speed rail network and a smart electrical grid. The Conservatives' technology manifesto contains little about controversial changes to copyright and the anti-piracy measures in the digital economy bill. It says only: "We recognise the need to tackle digital piracy and make it possible for people to buy and sell digital intellectual property online. However, it is vital that any anti-piracy measures promote new business models rather than holding innovation back." The Open Rights Group, which campaigns for on digital rights issues, called the Conservatives' plan "contradictory". Its executive director, Jim Killock, said: "These are welcome ideas, but it is totally contradictory to propose building a future dependent on the internet and support Labour's plan to disconnect families as a punishment. The Open Rights Group calls for Cameron to ditch support for disconnection, which would kill open Wi-Fi, damage businesses and libraries and punish the innocent."
Brain scans reveal thoughts
Brain scans revealed with reasonable accuracy which short film clip volunteers were thinking about Scientists have used brain scans to delve into people's minds and predict what films they are thinking about from one moment to the next. This is the first time brain imaging has been used to decipher such complex thoughts, which take place in the base of the brain in a region known as the medial temporal lobe. The work follows an earlier study in which neuroscientists at University College London showed they could read a person's thoughts about where they were standing in a virtual reality simulation. "In the previous experiment we were able to predict where someone was in a simple, stark virtual reality environment. What we wanted to know is can we look at 'episodic' memories that are much more naturalistic," said Eleanor Maguire, who led the study at the university's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. "The kinds of memories we form day-to-day are far more complex – they involve people and buildings and all kinds of actions." The scientists recruited six women and four men, with an average age of 21, to watch three film clips, each lasting seven seconds. All three films were similar, and showed an actress performing a particular activity in a street. In one film, for example, a woman drank a coffee before binning the cup, while in another, a different woman posted a letter. After watching the clips, the participants practised recalling the three films as vividly as they could. The scientists then used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to look for memory traces in the participants' brains when they thought about each of the films in turn. At first, they were told which film to recall while the scanning was in progress. Using a computer program, Maguire's team was able to identify consistent and characteristic memory traces for the three films in each participant. In a second series of experiments, the volunteers were asked to remember the movie clips at random while having their brains scanned. The computer program was not good enough to predict which film a person was thinking about every time. With three films to choose from, a blind guess would be right 33% of the time on average. The computer predicted the right film 40-45% of the time. The memory traces associated with each film stayed the same throughout the experiment, suggesting the memories were fixed, at least for the duration of the study. More striking was the finding that the memory traces for each of the three films looked similar in all 10 volunteers. "The patterns of neurons that are able to represent these different movies are certainly in a similar place across the group," Maguire said. The researchers recorded memory traces from three different areas of the medial temporal lobe, including the parahippocampal gyrus, the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus. Of these, the hippocampus was the most important for recording everyday memories and held the most reliable memory traces. The study appears in the journal Current Biology. The researchers are now trying to understand which aspects of people's memories they were reading. They may be only partial memories, such as the location each movie clip was set in. Previous studies have shown that the neocortex plays a major role in storing the content of memories, while the hippocampus orchestrates the recollection of the memory. "Now that we are developing a clearer picture of how our memories are stored, we hope to examine how they are affected by time, the ageing process and by brain injury," said Maguire.
Baby elephant begins life after 'death'
Asian calf doing well after being declared dead in the womb during six-day labour
Fashion Statement: A fitting farewell
For a unique take on the world of fashion, sign up to the Guardian's fashion email and get all the latest news delivered straight to your inbox FASHION DILEMMAWas Alexander McQueen's posthumous show a fitting farewell? Jess Cartner-Morley witnessed an exclusive unveiling of 16 looks completed by Alexander McQueen's team after his death: "For fifteen minutes today, in a grand Paris drawing room with soaring white ceilings gloriously flounced with gilt, Alexander McQueen came back to life. When the first model walked into the room, there was an audible intake of breath. Four weeks after the designer's death, the collection he had been working on was finally unveiled. And his spirit was right there - in the skullcap of bandages dissected by a mohican of lacquered feathers, in the fierce black boots with gold angels sculpted into the heels, in the muscular power of the tight crimson bodice and the way the pleated and ruffled skirt appeared to have come not from the past or the future but from some other dimension where the two meet. Every piece was cut on the stand by McQueen, the audience was told beforehand; once the clothes appeared, there could have been no doubt. Of the outfits, 16 were 80% finished - they were completed by his team and seen for the first time today. The collection was truly spectacular; the mood, in the face of the evidence of what fashion has lost, was bleak." Read Jess's full report here and view more pictures of the collection here. FASHION HIGHSThe soundtrack at Balmain Held in a fancy Parisian ballroom with a chandelier the size of a black cab dangling over the catwalk, the Balmain show was a two-fingered salute to the pared-back, strict aesthetic that pervaded Paris. The show was as OTT as it gets - lots of trashy gold, big shoulders (still), and brocade tailoring. Sort of disco-highwaymen-meets-glam-rockers. But the soundtrack had the most impact. Even the more uptight members of the front row were bopping along to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy". The audience left and duly downloaded. Celine Celine Celine The fashion world has the biggest ever crush on Phoebe Philo at the moment, and don't expect us to be all difficult and contrary, because we're totally besotted too. Throughout the week the fashion press corps was in and out of the Celine boutique, ferreting around for strict camel coats, the perfect Breton tee and beautifully boring handbags. By the time of the show, held at the Tennis Club de Paris, the excitement was feverish - or as feverish as minimalist Celine-ites get. And we weren't disappointed: from the gold-heeled riding boots to the stand-up collar navy wool coats, the show was perfection. Even the pale lime carpet on the catwalk filled our hearts with joy. Merci, Phoebe! Loewe's café catwalk We quite enjoyed the lightbox grid-come-catwalk assembled in the Hotel de Crillon for the Balenciaga show, but on balance our favourite catwalk was the runway arrangement at Loewe. Round cafe-style tables lined the room, combining our two favourite Parisian things - sipping champagne in cafes and catwalk-watching. Did we like the 40s-inspired show? Yes. Did one British glassy magazine editor threaten to steal the beautiful champagne glasses afterwards? Yes, she did. FASHION LOWSThe Rick Owens soundtrack First up, why did almost every member of the audience look like they were related to the long-haired designer? But more to the point, why on earth did he have a soundtrack that was so unbelievably loud and aggressive that we felt ill? Now, we like the idea of a second skin leather Rick Owens jacket with a flap of a lapel as much as the next girl, but the 4am Berlin trance music was distracting to say the least. We're not too keen on the fur helmet hoods, either. No French Vogue at Balenciaga A bit like having a croissant without the jam - somehow not quite the same. We loved the presence of Charlotte "she inspired the perfume" Gainsbourg, but we missed the presence of La Roitfeld. The reason for the blacklisting is rumoured to be a misdemeanour with a sample which somehow found its way to the Maxmara design studio - where Carine is a consultant - and was copied. But nothing has been confirmed by either side. "Ask them", was Carine's enigmatic response to trade sheet WWD. Absent friends Two British-based designers paid tribute to Alexander McQueen in their show notes. Stella McCartney wrote: "This one is also for Lee - you're missed", and Roland Mouret simply typed "Goodbye Lee" at the corner of his. TRENDWATCHHidden knees. A slightly 70s, below-the-knee hemline is the New Length according to Ms Philo, and she is the style lawmaker right now. You might want to think about wearing it with a precise polished leather top to keep things the sharp side of dowdy, mind. QUOTE OF THE WEEKSince 'tis nature's law to change, constancy alone is strange.
That's John Galliano quoting Jon Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester and a 17th-century poet. You see - he's not just the Dior designer with flowing locks, a cavalier moustache and a penchant for taking the longest, most over-dramatic bow in fashion. He's deep. OFFCUTSWho wore what to the Oscars 2010? Rachel Dixon assessed all the outfits on the night, while Jess Cartner-Morley and Imogen Fox chose the 20 best-dressed celebs the next day. Why didn't Lindsay Lohan turn up at the Ungaro show? Looks like the actor/designer has been quietly dropped. Want perfectly shaped eyebrows? Check out makeup artist Alex Byrne's video guide to brow beauty. Are you a man? Then grow a beard! Imogen Fox explains what your style of facial hair says about you. Interested in shoes? Of course you are, so take a look at our video about John Lobb, one of the last remaining bespoke shoemakers in Britain. For all the latest fashion news, visit guardian.co.uk/fashion News to tell us? Email kate.carter@guardian.co.uk Follow us on Twitter
What is British food?
Jay Rayner asks three bloggers to suggest a quintessentially British three-course menu
Farmers look to improve crop yields
Amref works with farmers' groups to investigate how to protect crops from drought and prevent soil erosion As rains begin to fall heavily in Katine sub-county, farmers are equally busy opening up their gardens for the first season planting. Nearly everyone can now be seen working on their garden, desperately hoping there will not be a repeat of last year, when a serious drought in the region wiped out harvests and left many people facing serious food shortages. In some parts of the Teso region, where Katine sits, people died of starvation. The drought undid some of the efforts carried out by the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref), which is implementing the now four-year development project in Katine, to support farmers. Some farmers had been given seeds through the project, but the crops they produced were destroyed. The drought-resistant variety of cassava planted by some of Katine's farmers was successfully harvested. At the end of last year, farmers had managed to harvest sorghum. However, according to Amref, it was not just the drought that had an impact on harvests; the fertility of the soil was an issue and efforts are now being directed to find solutions to the problem. Amref, under its livelihoods component, has set up demonstration plots in Olochoi village to work with farmers to test different techniques to help farmers understand the reasons for poor productivity. With the help of new farming technologies, farmers are being helped to compare yields resulting from traditional and modern techniques. Farm-Africa, which is giving Amref technical support in livelihoods, hired a local consultant, Joshua Zake, to train the leaders of the 66 farmer groups so they can share information with their group members, who, in turn, can teach others. Leaders will document lessons learned from the demonstration plots, which can then be shared among the groups. Soil and water conservation practices, use of manure, fertilizer and intercropping are some of the techniques being studied. Soil and water conservation practices include digging water channels to reduce the force of running water that can wash away the top soil, causing erosion. This technique also helps conserve water in the garden that can then be used to help crops survive longer during times of drought. The intercropping of legumes and cereals is meant to help maintain levels of soil fertility. Legumes, like groundnuts and beans, add nitrogen to the soil, while cereals, like maize, rice and sorghum, protects the soil from direct exposure to rain. "The purpose is to ensure soil conservation and improve farmers' yields," said Amref's project assistant for livelihoods, David Ogwang. "Our worry is the repeat of extreme drought like last year. In such circumstances, even these techniques cannot help." Although the use of fertilizer helps a farmer realise higher yields, the project is encouraging farmers to use manure instead to avoid future damage to the soil. However all techniques are being examined to help farmers determine what is best for them.
Forbes rich list is Slim pickings
Only lack of ability, inheritance and money keeps the rest of us off the Forbes list of world's billionaires. It's not fair There's a scene in the satire How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in which two workers are vying for promotion. When their manager tells them he will award the promotion on the basis of merit, one of the workers – who is the chief executive's nephew – complains: "That's not fair!" Similarly, looking at the latest Forbes list of the world's billionaires, it's just not fair that rich lists should be confined to only those with the most assets. What about the rest of us? Looking at this so-called "list" of billionaires, there's a strong theme in that all of them appear to be very rich indeed. But what else sets them apart? And how did they get to be so rich? More importantly, how can the non-billionaires among us get some of that action?
1. Invent somethingInventing things seems to be an aid to acquiring shedloads of cash. Hence, Bill Gates, who invented the computer with Al Gore and Alan Turing, is second on the list. Also, Warren Buffett, who invented the buffet style of dining, is number three. Then down at number 11 is Ingvar Kamprad, who invented flat-pack furniture, a simple idea of selling sawdust-planks encased in cardboard. Just buy enough of those "packs" and stack them on a floor and you have a bench. Put a mattress on top and voila: a dining table. Kamprad's genius was to sell these planks with random assortments of screws and brackets, along with keys belonging to a guy named Alan and "instructions" – or to use the Swedish term, "Rappakalja Ikea dumheter" – that show a man smiling with a screwdriver and then a line drawing of the finished product without any intervening steps. He gave them exotic names such as SKRÄP and GOJA ... and the rest is history. Also, excellent meatballs. 2. Come from a rich familyComing from a rich family appears to be a useful encouragement to becoming rich yourself. Extraordinary. Maybe all that money rubs off on you? Yes, nothing helps like being able to say: "Hey mom, pop, can I borrow the car? And $500m?" That doesn't mean that some of the wealthy families on the rich list didn't start from humble beginnings. Look at the list's entries for billionaires 12, 15, 16 and 18: the Walton family. Many readers will recall how the Waltons struggled during the Depression and the saw-mill business that Paw and Grandpaw worked so hard on to make ends meet. Well, the family turned that reality TV show into mega-bucks thanks to founding a chain of cut-price mega-stores known as Wal-Mart. (One question: why doesn't John-Boy appear on the list? He always seemed like the clever one.) 3. Be AmericanThere's been some concern among American bloggers that the US has lost its No 1 billionaire spot, now that Carlos Slim, the legitimate Mexican businessman, is top of the Forbes list for 2010. Many of them blame Barack Obama's socialist regime of crippling public healthcare for this. And yet, being American still seems to be a big help nonetheless, based on the fact that Americans make up the single largest billionaire nationality: 400 of the roughly 900 billionaires in the world (measured in US dollars, naturally). Also, Carlos Slim, being from Mexico, is North American (true fact) and that's practically the same as the US, and anyway President Clinton signed that secret treaty known as Nafta which merged the US, Canada and Mexico into one country. USA, still number one! So here's our recipe for billionaire success: get born into a rich family, invent something and sell it to Americans. Win.
In Kansas City, school's out
The closure of almost half of Kansas City's schools shows what can happen when the wealthy opt out, and services suffer Twenty-nine out of 61 Kansas City, Missouri, schools will soon be shuttered in a desperate bid by the struggling school district to stave off bankruptcy. At the same time, close to one-quarter of the city's school employees will lose their jobs. While many districts around the country are closing under-enrolled-in or low-performing schools in an effort to save money, the scale of KC's decision puts it in a league of its own. Students around the city will be disrupted by the changes, as they lose teachers, have to travel further to school each morning, and possibly see their class sizes grow. The number of students in Kansas City's public schools – 18,000 – would indicate that it is a small town. But there's not much that's small about Kansas City. In fact, the core of the city, which is Missouri's largest urban hub, has nearly half a million residents, and the broader metro area is home to approximately 2 million people. Yet for decades its public schools have been in crisis and have haemorrhaged students. For 26 years, Kansas City was under the largest court-ordered desegregation plan in American education history. At first this provided an opportunity to improve the system, injecting $2bn into local schools. But over time the benefits unleashed by the case were undermined by opposing demographic and political trends: Kansas City was bedeviled by white flight; and, eventually, it saw a near-total exodus of the middle classes, of all colours, into suburban school districts, charter schools and private schools. A few years ago, eight schools went so far as to secede from the school district, joining a suburban district that provided more resources to students. By the time the desegregation case ended, in 2003, the city was no longer discriminating against African American students; but at the same time it was increasingly unable to provide quality public school education to any student. It had become a poster-child for educational dysfunction.
As a result, the schools that remained under the jurisdiction of the Kansas City school district saw their enrollment shrink by about 75% in recent decades, even as the region's total population has grown. A number of schools were more than half-empty.
In many ways, Kansas City represents the depressing end-point I warned about last week in my article on California's education cuts: a setting in which those with options have exercised them by opting out of the state school system, leaving the rump public sector both shrivelled and denuded of influential supporters in the community. This week's decision to downsize the system by close to 50% might well be the least bad option remaining to the board of education in the city given these harsh realities; but necessity doesn't make these truths any less depressing. If there are lessons to be learned from Kansas City's dismal experiences, they are about the importance of holistic thinking: of looking for ways not just to desegregate schools but to preserve integrated, economically diverse urban cores; of providing middle-class families with reasons to continue using public services; of building up the notion of common community again so that the public sector flourishes rather than withers. Absent this, Kansas City might well represent a glimpse of a depressing American future: one in which those with resources opt out, en masse, from any and all public services, leaving the public sector to stumble drunkenly from one crisis to the next, a miserable-looking shadow of once-great glories.
A Galaxie far, far away
Galaxie 500 were once lumped in with many of the shoegazing outfits currently hopping on the revival bandwagon. But their reissued albums show they were heartbreakingly apart, writes Alexis Petridis If you came of musical majority as the 80s bled into the 90s, if your age means you can remember when a chart placing of 38 and Snub TV showing a homemade video represented a dizzying peak of mainstream acceptance that an indie band could scarcely dare to dream about, then recent events in rock may have left you feeling discombobulated. First, virtually every alt-rock band from that era reformed. It was all profoundly odd, like waking up one morning to discover that everyone you'd copped off with in your teens had assembled in your front garden and started batting their eyelashes at you. But it comes to us all: eventually, almost everyone reaches an age at which the music industry starts trying to divest you of cash in exchange for a wallow in your youthful memories, whether those memories involve Freddie and the Dreamers or the Butthole Surfers' Locust Abortion Technician. What happened next was more surprising. New artists started emerging who sounded exactly like the late thirtysomething's youthful memories: not, it has to be said, something your Freddie And The Dreamers fan ever had to cope with. Indie dance is back, so is Balearic music, there's talk of a grunge revival, and you can't move for shoegazing, albeit under the guise of chillwave, a title arrived at after a lengthy, quarrelsome but ultimately successful meeting called to devise an even worse name for a genre than shoegazing. Then there's the Drums, who have become a hotly tipped NME band while modelling themselves on Sarah Records shamblers the Field Mice, a state of affairs that would have seemed extraordinary and hilarious in 1989, somewhat akin to becoming Knightbridge professor of philosophy at Cambridge while modelling yourself on Vinnie Jones. It all makes the reissue of the three albums US trio Galaxie 500 released before splitting acrimoniously in 1991 perversely timely: heard 20 years on, Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music prove not every aspect of that era's indie rock as been stripmined in recent years. No one is currently offering Galaxie 500's melange of trebly guitar, serpentine basslines, fragile vocals and oddly jazz-inflected drumming (This Is Our Music borrowed its title from Ornette Coleman). Certainly, no one currently sounds like singer Dean Wareham. Listening to his high voice floating wildly off-key in a way that simply wouldn't be allowed these days for fear of upsetting daytime radio play, you're reminded of a vanished age before Auto-Tune, when alt-rock's aims and ambitions and audience were noticeably different. That said, no one really sounded like Galaxie 500 at the time. If they didn't appear as bafflingly other as their contemporaries Pixies – who, with their Spanish lyrics, biblical references and bass player who billed herself as Mrs John Murphy, gave every impression of having arrived on the British indie scene in a UFO – they still seemed alien compared to their peers. For one thing, all three had been educated at Harvard: after the band split, drummer Damon Krukowski and bass player Naomi Yang started a publishing house specialising in reprinting experimental literature by, among others, Artaud, Apollinaire, and Gertrude Stein, not a career path Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers was ever likely to take. For another, their influences were different from the norm. Like every indie band before or since, they were in thrall to the Velvet Underground; but not the black-clad, feedback-riven John Cale Velvets, upon whose ouevre the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and the umpteen bands that followed in their wake were founded. Instead, they drew on the hushed, introverted sound of the Velvets' eponymous 1969 album. They were clearly Beatles obsessives – not that common a reference point in late 80s alt-rock – and their cover versions suggested an infinitely more intriguing and tangential approach to the Fabs oeuvre than the endless rewriting of Hey Jude and Tomorrow Never Knows that became Britpop's lingua franca: George Harrison's Isn't It a Pity?; Yoko Ono's Listen Snow Is Falling; a surprisingly wracked-sounding version of the Rutles' Cheese and Onions. "Come ride the fiery breeze of Galaxie 500!" implored one of their sleevenotes, and that's how their records sounded: simultaneously hushed and sweltering, as if they were recorded at the dead of a summer's night. The reverb that invariably swathed their spare arrangements meant they were lumped in with the shoegazers, but while shoegazing indulged in the rather adolescent practice of amping up vague emotions until they assumed mammoth importance – if they had enough effects pedals, they could make feeling a bit sad sound like a matter of earth-shattering importance – Galaxie 500 did the opposite. There was something stark and understated about their sound, which pointed up both their talent for an effortlessly simple melody – Today in particular abounds with them – and their keen ear for affecting lyrical detail. "I'm listening to the weather, and he's changed his tone of voice," sang Wareham on Snowstorm. "The TV's going wild, they've got nothing else to think of," he adds, to which anyone who endured interminable news footage of abandoned cars and sledging children during the recent big freeze can only add: yeah, tell me about it. They didn't really change or develop their sonic blueprint so much as hone it: the odd overdubbed acoustic guitar notwithstanding, there's not much to set 1991's This Is Our Music apart from their debut. Maybe it was better they broke up when they did, before diminishing returns set in (the three extra CDs here don't add much to the legend, a deeply improbable Peel Session cover of the Sex Pistols' Submission aside, suggesting Galaxie 500 did all they had to do on their three official albums). As it is, the simplicity of those three albums still cuts through – their cover of Jonathan Richman's Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste stretches one chord out for nearly seven minutes, but the result is heartbreaking rather than numbing. And it still sounds unique, even in the current climate: testament to the fact that the past can still be a foreign country, no matter how many people seem intent on emigrating there. Rating: 5/5
Malkovich set to slay them
The Infernal Comedy, based on true story of Austrian serial killer, among highlights of Barbican's plans for coming year It might not be the cheeriest night out, watching John Malkovich as a resurrected Austrian serial killer on stage with a baroque orchestra and two sopranos singing arias about murder and abandonment, but it will, the Barbican's artistic director cheerfully suggests, be one of his personal highlights. "It's a kind of 21st-century version of an 18th-century melodrama," said Graham Sheffield. "Absolutely brilliant and completely unique." The Malkovich piece, The Infernal Comedy – part drama, part concert – is based on the true story of Jack Unterweger, who killed at least 11 prostitutes. "Probably not a thing to take a person on a first date," Sheffield conceded. The show was announced today as part of the Barbican's plans for the coming year, along with the return of big-name regulars such as Peter Brook, with The Magic Flute; Michael Clark, with the next instalment of his production come, been and gone; and Robert Lepage, with a new multimedia production called Blue Dragon. The centre's managing director, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, painted a rosy picture of the Barbican's last 12 months. "We are building on success because last year the Barbican had its best year ever with 1.2m tickets sold and attendances 13% up, and that is continuing this year. People are buying tickets through the recession. We are in a period of remarkable success across the arts." Other highlights announced today include screening the latest Nasa outer space footage for the Houston Symphony's performance of The Planets; the Dutch theatre group Toneelgroep Amsterdam restaging three Antonioni films; a new version of Peter Pan from the National Theatre of Scotland; and Peter Sellars directing his version of György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments. The Barbican's move into east London will continue: for example, when the jazz legend Wynton Marsalis arrives with the Jazz at Lincoln Centre orchestra from New York there will be jam sessions at Dalston's Vortex and a family concert in Hackney. "We are creating a new model for the future of what an arts centre can be," said Kenyon. "It depends on the interaction of excellent names with as diverse an audience as possible." In visual arts, the Barbican art gallery's big summer show will be an exploration of the relationship between surrealism and architecture, with the architects Carmody Groarke designing a "house" in which there will be the work of artists from Man Ray to Dalí to Louise Bourgeois. Then in the autumn the gallery will host the first European exhibition devoted to avant-garde Japanese fashion from the early 1900s to the present. The Barbican's main resident orchestra, the London Symphony orchestra, will see the principal conductor, Valery Gergiev, take on Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich as well as a less familiar name, the living Russian composer Rodion Schedrin. Sir Colin Davis will continue his series of Nielsen symphonies, Bernard Haitink will conduct Schumann, André Previn will conduct Strauss and Vaughan Williams and Sir Simon Rattle will conduct the LSO for the first time since 2000.
Cambodia's watery heart
Marcel Theroux goes paddling in Tonlé Sap lake and tries street food in Siem Reap
The Great Himalayan Trail
For the first time walkers can take a guided trek traversing the entire length of the Himalayas in Nepal
In pictures: The Great Himalayan Trail Have you got six months off? Do you fancy a long walk? If so, World Expeditions may have just the holiday for you. They have become the only trekking outfit to offer a guided trip along the first completed section of the Great Himalayan Trail (GHT). Stretching for 1,700km along the length of Nepal, the GHT will take you a mere 157 days to complete. You'll see eight of the world's 14 peaks over 8,000m, including Everest, and cross passes reaching up to 6,000m, climbing a total of 150,000m. That's a Snowdon every day for half a year. Oh, and it will set you back £20,500. The GHT isn't the world's longest long-distance footpath. The Continental Divide Trail in the US is 5,000km and the Trans Canada will be three times that. But this steroidal version of the Pennine Way looks like being the most coveted of all. Eventually, the trail's originators hope it will stretch from the mighty 8,000m peak Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, considered the westernmost outlier of the Himalaya, to Namche Barwa in Tibet. It will connect five Asian countries - Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. That version will stretch for 4,500km, a with a predicted completion date of February 2011. But for now the focus is on Nepal. For as well as being an enormous challenge, the GHT could also prove to be a welcome money-spinner for a country still recovering from 10 years of civil war. Some parts of Nepal have benefited hugely from tourism, like the Everest and Annapurna regions. Those areas without such famous mountains, particularly in remote western Nepal, haven't fared nearly so well. Last year, I trekked along a section of the GHT through the Mugu district of western Nepal, a remote region peopled by Tibetan traders and animist tribes. Thousands of people were relying on aid from the World Food Programme, flown in by helicopter with the nearest roads a week's walk away. Many young men leave to find work abroad. Tourism, for all its faults, could really make a difference here. Several adventurous souls have travelled the arc of the Himalaya before, while Richard and Adrian Crane, cousins of television presenter Nicholas Crane, actually ran it in 1983. But the idea of a defined and designated route for trekkers is more recent. In 2006, the Dutch development agency SNV and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development based in Kathmandu committed to developing the idea, and have brought together government agencies and local people. But it's the hard work of one man, Australian trekker Robin Boustead, that has moved the project along most. After years of research (read his account here), he completed the trek in two sections, and has drawn an excellent free map of the trail's route as well as writing a guidebook. Every water source, camping ground and elevation has been meticulously logged with GPS, but he says that the route will undoubtedly develop as more people do it and discover better alternatives. For those without the time – or the knees – to do the whole thing in one go, Boustead has broken the GHT down into nine sections, which you can pick off at your leisure. And if you think 20 grand is a lot of chapatties to spend on an adventure holiday, it's still a lot less than the current price of a trip up Everest – and a lot more exclusive. There have been four thousand ascents of the world's highest mountain, but only one man has done the GHT. • The full-length Great Himalaya Trail opens in February 2011. Currently, only the Nepal section (1,700km) is available to traverse, as it is the only part that has been walked and mapped thoroughly. It costs £20,500, not including interntaional flights. It takes 157 days to complete, although it can be broken down to seven smaller stages up to 34 days. For more information and bookings call World Expeditions on 0800 0744 135 or visit worldexpeditions.co.uk
BP joins Brazilian oil rush
• Firm buys 10 exploration blocks from Devon Energy
• Oil fields give BP up to an extra 40,000 barrels a day BP has bought into the Brazilian oil rush with a $7bn (£4.65bn) deal that will boost the group's potential reserves by about 2bn barrels of oil. The deal, with Devon Energy of the US, will also create a joint venture to develop BP's controversial oil sands in Canada. A number of recent huge finds in water up to two miles deep and below a thick layer of salt on the seabed off the coast of Brazil has made the country the focus for international oil companies looking for new sources of oil and gas. By 2020, Brazil hopes to produce almost 6m barrels of oil a day – triple the country's current output. BP is one of the few major oil companies not to have any assets in Brazil. The deal means Brazil is likely to provide a major source of future production for BP, depending on how successful its exploration there is. BP has total global potential reserves of 64bn barrels of oil and gas. In total, BP will pay $7bn cash for Devon Energy's interests in 10 exploration blocks in Brazil, as well as deep-water exploration acreage and prospects in the US Gulf of Mexico, and an interest in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan. The Brazilian assets are the most valuable part of the deal, which will immediately add 20,000–40,000 barrels a day to BP's production. Andy Inglis, BP's chief executive of exploration and production, said: "Through our entry into Brazil, BP will add a major position in another attractive deep-water basin. Together with the additional new access in the Gulf of Mexico, it further underlines our global position as the leading deep-water international oil company." BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, added that the deal was in keeping with the company's avowed aim of focusing on "high margin" oil in relatively low cost locations. BP assumes an oil price of $60 a barrel when investing in projects, but a spokesman declined to give estimates of production costs from its new fields. BP is also selling a 50% stake to Devon Energy in its Kirby oil sands interests, which are not yet in production, in Alberta, Canada, for $500m. Devon Energy already has a neighbouring oil sands block in operation and BP wants to tap its expertise to bring Kirby onstream. The oil rush in Brazil began in earnest in 2007 when the Brazilian state-owned firm Petrobras discovered the Tupi field which may have as much as 8bn barrels of oil. This would make it the largest find in the Americas for over 30 years. The British firm BG has a stake in the Tupi field, as well as Guará field, which holds as much as 2bn barrels of crude. The oil industry is expected to invest between $150bn and $200bn in exploration and production over the next decade to tap Brazil's new-found reserves. Analysts warned that challenges remained to start production. The new oil finds are known as "pre-salt" because they lie as much as four miles below the seabed beneath a massive layer of compacted salt. It is harder to drill through salt rather than rock because the salt is more unstable and can shift. The pre-salt cluster lies in an 500 mile strip lying about 170 miles off the coast of Brazil in the Altantic Ocean. Estimates of these pre-salt reserves range from 60bn to more than 150bn barrels. Juliette Kerr, analyst from IHS Global Insight, said: "There has been deep-water exploration for quite some time, but as technology has developed in recent years, companies have been able to go deeper and deeper and get more of an idea of the potential reserves. "But technical challenges remain for the pre-salt fields: temperatures tend to be higher, which can damage drill bits, carbon dioxide levels are higher too, while they are further away from the coast than Brazil's other offshore fields."
John Lewis staff to share £151m
Staff bonus amounts to 15% of basic salary and is higher than last year The John Lewis Partnership has handed a bigger-than-expected annual bonus of £151m to its staff after enjoying a near-10% rise in profits. The group, which operates 224 Waitrose supermarkets as well as 29 department stores, announced annual profits of £306.6m this morning, excluding bonuses and tax. The John Lewis group is a partnership owned by its 70,000 permanent staff, and all of them – from the chairman Charlie Mayfield and the managing director Andy Street down to shop assistants and shelf-stackers – get the same percentage payout. Analysts had expected a bonus pot of £140m. The staff bonus amounts to 15% of basic salary this year, equal to nearly eight weeks' pay. Last year workers received 13%, while in 2008, before the recession set in, they were handed 20%. About 1,000 partners were in the flagship Oxford Street store this morning, hanging over the balconies, as the store's managing director Noel Saunders asked: "Will you be disappointed if it's 8%?" and everyone booed. He asked "What if it's between 8% and 10%?" and everyone shouted "No!" He then did a countdown from 10. The envelope containing the bonus figure was opened, amid much cheering and clapping from staff, by Frank D'Souza, a partner for the last 23 years who works in the furniture department and has achieved excellent sales despite the recession. After a hard year on the shop floor most people are going to treat themselves to a holiday with their bonuses. "I didn't expect 15%," said Ali Cook, a manager in the beauty department. "We had to work really hard and pull together to achieve this." Marcelo Cueva from Ecuador, who works in the post room as an admin assistant, said: "I'm going to pay off my debt and have a bit extra for a holiday in Italy. I want to go back to my country but not yet – maybe with the next bonus." Charlotte Clark, who works on the shop floor, is going to put the money towards horseriding lessons, and joked that "it's not quite enough for a horse". Street is going to spend the payout on a modern landscape painting this Saturday. "This is a genuine bonus. It's for people who are not fantastically well paid and enables them to share in the success of their business," he said. "The economic climate is very hard to read, but our sales since the start of the year have been remarkable." John Lewis gross sales were 17.5% higher in the first five weeks, and up 14.9% on a like-for-like basis, while Waitrose gross sales have grown by 11.3% (2.8% like-for-like). "But all the data we see about the market shows it's really flat," Street added. Asked whether he deserved his bonus, Street said: "The partners must judge whether I've earned my bonus this year." At the half-year, the group's profits were down 20% and would have been far worse without its upmarket Waitrose chain, which defied expectations that shoppers would defect to cheaper rivals during the downturn. Waitrose enjoyed like-for-like sales growth of 3.6% last year, with gross sales 9% higher at £4.5bn. The grocer outperformed the John Lewis department stores, where like-for-like sales grew by 2.3%, and gross sales hit £2.9bn. Mayfield said: "Waitrose has made enormous progress in the year with significant investment in both price and in the development of new shops, new formats and strategic partnerships. Each week up to 400,000 more people are now choosing to shop at Waitrose." Waitrose introduced an Essentials range of over 1,400 basic foods which has been popular with shoppers, and has been the star performer among grocers over the past year. Last week, its managing director, Mark Price, said that he aimed to double sales to £10bn in a decade. The John Lewis chain, known for its 'Never Knowingly Undersold' slogan, also had big expansion plans, but has ditched its goal of opening 10 new department stores because of the recession. Instead, it is launching smaller John Lewis at Home stores in retail parks. The first, opened in Poole last October, has beaten its targets and a second is planned in Croydon. Two more were approved last week, and if they also perform well, a further 50 will be rolled out.
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