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BEIJING – The bloody riots in China’s Muslim far west are a disturbing reminder of anti-Chinese violence in another troubled region — Tibet — and show how heavy-handed rule and radical resistance are pushing unrest to new heights.
The clashes between ethnic Muslim Uighurs and China’s Han majority in Xinjiang that left more than 150 dead signaled a new phase in a region used to seeing bombings and assassinations by militant separatists but few mass protests.
“We haven’t had anything like this, really, ever,” said Dru Gladney, a Uighur expert at the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College in California. “It really gives strong evidence of widespread unrest and discontentment.”
Xinjiang’s problems are strikingly similar to those that set Tibet boiling last year: decades of Chinese rule, from radical communism to free-market reforms, that have failed to win over ethnic minorities living on China’s vast western fringe.
Activists, exiles and ordinary people from Tibet and Xinjiang — a third of China’s territory — have for years complained of unfair treatment. Growing migration by Han Chinese and controls on religious practices — Islam for Xinjiang’s Uighurs, Buddhism for Tibetans — have struck at the core of their identities and made them feel besieged in their homelands.
Discontent has sputtered for decades, carried on by a militant Uighur underground and Tibetan monks and nuns. But most protests have been quickly quashed by authorities.
In the past year, however, incidents have escalated and become bolder, in part because radical groups, once on the fringe, appear to be growing in influence and voice. Among them are the Tibetan Youth Congress, which advocates full independence for the Himalayan region, and the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which China has accused of leading a violent separatist movement in Xinjiang.
In March 2008, Tibet saw its most sustained anti-government uprising in decades in its capital of Lhasa after police moved in to quell a peaceful commemoration by Tibetan monks of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. The demonstrations exploded into violence, which spread to Tibetan communities in neighboring provinces.
Less than six months later, Uighur separatists were blamed for a series of high-profile bombings and stabbings around the Aug. 8-24, 2008, Beijing Olympics, although no one claimed responsibility. In one instance, militants tossed homemade bombs at government buildings and officials said 12 people were killed, including 10 assailants.
“One protest movement will infect another protest movement,” said Rohan Gunaratna, an expert at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore. “To a significant extent, the protest in Tibet has influenced the protest in Xinjiang.”
Like last year’s Tibet clashes, the Xinjiang unrest was rooted in a peaceful demonstration, this one centered around a demand for justice for two Uighur factory workers killed during a fight last month with their Han Chinese co-workers in southern China. Violence broke out Sunday after police showed up to disperse a crowd of between 1,000 to 3,000 demonstrators in the provincial capital, Urumqi.
Witnesses say rioters attacked vehicles and homes, and fought violently with officers. By Tuesday, the ethnic protest had spread to a second city, Kashgar.
The government and state media have launched a campaign to decry the “beating, smashing, looting and burning incidents” — the exact phrase used to characterize the rampage in Tibet.
Similarly, state television is filled with scenes of destruction, including smoke-filled streets, overturned and burning cars and ordinary citizens, who appeared to be Han Chinese, sitting dazed on the ground, their faces swollen and bloody.
In both cases, the government blamed an exiled force as the instigator of the unrest. In Tibet, it was the spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his followers. In Xinjiang, it is Rebiya Kadeer, a former prominent Xinjiang businesswoman now living in Washington, who heads a U.S.-based Uighur rights group.
Beijing has accused Kadeer of having a hand in many of Xinjiang’s problems since her release from prison into U.S. exile in 2005. The Foreign Ministry has accused the 62-year-old of links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the U.S. put on its terrorist blacklist and China accuses of links to al-Qaida.
Beijing has not provided evidence to support the allegation, and Kadeer denies the claim. She has repeatedly called for nonviolent protest.
It’s possible the authorities will respond to the ethnic tensions in Xinjiang the same way they did in Tibetan communities — flooding them with troops and keeping most foreigners out.
Or Xinjiang could “open up a whole new avenue of inquiry with regard to ethnic policies in China” and cause the leadership to do some soul-searching, said Barry Sautman, a social science professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
While the East Turkistan Islamic Movement “has radicalized and politicized and mobilized some Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang,” they are still a very small minority, Gunaratna said.
“The Chinese have a golden opportunity to co-op the Xinjiang elite and to work with the community institutions … to reach out to the Uighurs and to repair the bridges,” he said.

At the beginning of his professional career, he made a name for himself as the wunderkind who reformed the ailing Ford Motor Co. At the end, he tried to rehabilitate his reputation, as a do-gooder striving to save the globe’s poorer nations as head of the World Bank. But Robert McNamara, who died early Monday morning in his sleep at home at the age of 93 (his wife Diana told the Associated Press he had been in failing health for some time), will always be best known for his role as the architect of Washington’s failed Vietnam policy in the 1960s.
McNamara waited 30 years before conceding in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, that he had waged the war in error. “My voice would have had no impact at all at that point,” he told TIME when the book came out, explaining why he hadn’t revealed his doubts when he stepped down as Secretary of Defense in early 1968. “My voice would have had no impact whatsoever.” (See pictures of the China-Vietnam border.)
But to the baby boomers who came of age during the Vietnam War, McNamara’s actions at the time spoke louder than the words of contrition he would utter three decades after 58,000 Americans had lost their lives in Vietnam. In their youth, they referred to the Vietnam conflict as “McNamara’s war.” Tens of thousands of them marched to protest against it in Washington, while thousands of young men burned their draft cards or fled to Canada to avoid the draft. One poured gasoline on himself outside McNamara’s Pentagon window in 1965 and set himself ablaze, dying to protest the war. (Read a piece written for TIME by McNamara.)
When President John F. Kennedy put McNamara in the Pentagon, he gave him two orders: strengthen civilian control of the military and make the nation’s armed forces work better. McNamara, educated at the University of California, Berkeley and the Harvard Graduate School of Business, tilted power away from the uniformed Joint Chiefs, who had held sway during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and toward his own team of brainy young civilian experts. McNamara’s “whiz kids” engaged in the kind of “qualitative analysis” he had used to turn Ford around and which he believed would lead to a better and less costly military. But their approach didn’t work so well during peacetime – McNamara spent a lot of time developing a “flexible response” strategy for nuclear war – and, combined with overly compliant military leaders during Vietnam, his team failed miserably.
McNamara stepped down in 1968 to run the World Bank. During his 13 years there, he tripled the bank’s loans to developing nations and focused its funds on rural development. Perhaps most important, he helped the international community see that the world’s poorest citizens needed food and shelter more than huge industrial projects.
But the publication of the 1995 memoir revived the debate over his role in the war. McNamara admitted in his book that the U.S. government had never answered key questions that drove its war policy, such as whether the fall of Vietnam would lead to a communist Southeast Asia and if such an occurrence would really have posed a grave threat to the West. “It seems beyond understanding, incredible, that we did not force ourselves to confront such issues head-on,” he wrote. He said he wanted to help prevent the country from making similar mistakes in the future and that he fretted that just as Washington misperceived Vietnam a generation ago, it remained in danger of making a similar mistake. “We ought to learn the history of the Muslim religion,” he told TIME in 1995. “Most Americans don’t know the difference between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, but we need to know that because that’s going to be a major issue in the world of the future.” (See pictures of modern-day Vietnam.)
McNamara continued to wage his campaign to make amends for Vietnam through the end of his life, most notably in Errol Morris’ Oscar-winning 2003 documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. And he was a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq. Still, there were those who found it hard to forget or forgive his handling of the war he helped lead. Inevitably, its failure is now his epitaph.
See TIME’s Vietnam War Covers.
Read “The Particular Tragedy of Robert McNamara.”
See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.
View this article on Time.comRelated articles on Time.com: Robert McNamara Dies: No Escape from Vietnam

NEW YORK A rarely seen portrait of Michael Jackson is on display inside a Harlem luxury car dealership. Macky Dancy, a partner at Dancy-Power Automotive, said the oil painting titled “The Book” is believed to be the only portrait for which Jackson sat.
The oil painting titled “The Book” is on display at Dancy-Power Automotive in Harlem, New York.
A different portrait of the entertainer was among items auctioned from his Neverland Ranch in April. It is not clear whether Jackson sat for that painting. The painting on display in Harlem belongs to Marty Abrams, a friend and customer of the owners of the high-profile dealership. The 40-inch by 50-inch portrait, by Australian painter Brett Livingstone-Strong, sold for 2.1 million in 1990. Abrams acquired it as part of an unrelated business deal in 1992 and had it stored. The painting shows Jackson sitting in Renaissance-era clothes and holding a book. Jackson sat for the portrait because he was a friend of Livingstone-Strong’s. The painting was unveiled at the Dancy-Power Automotive Group showroom on Thursday but was removed Friday because of crowd concerns. It returned to the showroom floor Monday morning.
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Dancy said the painting’s owner chose the showroom because it’s near the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where the Jackson 5 won their first taste of fame by winning Amateur Night in 1967. He said Abrams hopes the painting in some way can raise money for charities in the Harlem neighborhood. Dancy said Abrams is not necessarily interested in selling the portrait. When news broke about the resurfacing of the painting, Dancy said, he received a phone call from representatives of Livingstone-Strong, the artist. Now, Dancy said, “We are in the middle of possibly putting together the artist with the painting again. Maybe for some auctions or charitable shows or something of the sort.” The showroom features Rolls-Royces, Ferraris and other pricey cars and is famous for its celebrity clientele.
Source:CNN

Worst of the recession ‘is over’
The worst of the recession is over, according to the business group the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), but talk of a recovery is premature.Its report based on a survey of 5,600 companies found there had been “welcome progress” in confidence levels between April and June. But the BCC is still predicting that unemployment will reach 3.2 million by the middle of 2010. It warned that the increase in confidence was fragile. “It is absolutely vital that the improvement in business confidence is nurtured,” said BCC director general David Frost. “Our economy is based on confidence, and wealth-creating businesses need to know they will be given the freedom and flexibility to drive the UK out of recession and into a sustainable recovery.” He added that the proposed increase in National Insurance contributions in 2011 was a “tax on jons”, which should be scrapped.

Source:BBC

Post Office undervalued say MPs
The government has undervalued the Post Office network as a link with citizens, according to a committee of MPs.The Business and Enterprise Select Committee also said the government’s response to an inquiry aimed at saving post offices had been “inadequate”. Committee chairman Peter Luff argued that there was “no reason why the network cannot flourish again”. Business Minister Pat McFadden said the Post Office was in good health but “cannot survive on nostalgia”. ‘Narrow focus’The committee was asked by the the government to study how the network could be improved, but, according to the report, “most departments failed to suggest any way in which they might use the post office network”. The report said it would be “easy” to compose a list of services that could be made available through post offices, such as provision of government forms, payment of fines and applications for energy-saving schemes.
It also said the government had exacerbated the problems faced by post offices by moving services online. “The committee is profoundly disappointed by the narrow focus of departmental concerns and the lack of attention to citizens’ needs displayed in many of the answers to our questions about departments’ use of the post office network,” the report said. “It is bizarre that government policy recognises the value of the network, but that individual departments do not see that they have a role in making sure that everybody, not just the web enabled, has access to their services, and that taking this seriously by using the post office network more could contribute to wider policy aims.” ‘Political will’The report criticised the fact that the earnings of many postmasters were below the national minimum wage. Mr Luff said the network could be revitalised “given sufficient political will from both central and local government”. He added: “The government’s support of 150m per year is welcome, but it is absurd to be paying this each year to support a post office network which offers limited services when it could simply pay the network to offer services people actually want.” But Mr McFadden said the government had already awarded the Post Office the new card account contract for benefits and pensions, as well as the new contract for driving licence renewal. He added: “We are absolutely clear that identifying new opportunities and new ways of doing business are the key to ensuring a positive long-term future for the post office.”

Source:BBC

Bolivia raids ‘huge cocaine lab’
Drug enforcement officials have raided what they call the biggest cocaine laboratory ever found in Bolivia.The facility, said to have the capacity to produce up to 100kg (220lb) each day, was discovered in a rural area of the department of Santa Cruz. The government described the raid as the most important success against drug traffickers for a long time. A senior Bolivian anti-narcotics officer, Oscar Nina, said five Colombians were arrested. The factory is the fourth major facility of its kind to be discovered so far in 2009, Bolivian authorities say. They say that in all cases a number of Colombian nationals were arrested, accused of working in association with local groups of Bolivian drugs traffickers. Bolivian Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said it appeared the factories had been operating for about a year. He accused US anti-narcotics agents of having failed to detect them. Tension with USBolivia suspended the activities of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) within its borders in November 2008, after accusing US officials of conspiring against the left-wing government of President Evo Morales. Last week. the US confirmed that it would cut trade benefits for Bolivia, and re-impose some import duties on Bolivian goods. Washington alleged that senior Bolivian officials were encouraging the production of coca, the raw material that is used to make cocaine. Bolivian President Evo Morales accused US President Barack Obama of slander and lies over the decision.

Source:BBC

To: STATE EDITORS
Contact: Tina Varjian, Attorney for Katherine Varjian (310) 486 8478
Beverly Hills to Jail 65-Year-Old for Feeding Stray Cats
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Wednesday morning, July 1, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. in Beverly Hills Superior Court, 9355 Burton Way, Division 2, Katherine Varjian, age 65, could be sentenced to jail for feeding stray cats. Varjian has been doing this for 12 years at her own expense. Without her, the cats would starve, or be picked up by the shelter, or be euthanized.
Each morning and each evening, the little group of 20 or so cats come quietly padding into an alley in the lushly landscaped and star-studded City of Beverly Hills The cats are so hungry, but not starving thanks to Varjian who has reduced the stray/feral cat population and found homes for as many as 40 cats and kittens yearly, for the last 12 years.
Neighbors, blaming Varjian for the profound increase in coyotes have signed a petition to force her to stop feeding the cats. They claim that Varjian, feeding only a two block area, is responsible for the increase in predatory coyotes throughout the entire Beverly Hills. The reality is that park like conditions, access to water, mansion-ization in the hills and canyons and drought conditions have sent the numbers of coyotes on residential streets sky rocketing in search of food.
SUPPORTERS CONSTITUTE HUGE BASE
Her supporters, which include local residents, veterinarians and animal advocates are saying Varjian should be commended for the good she does, rather then be jailed. They are appalled that a small number of nasty and uninformed individuals can undermine the humane efforts of reducing the stray cat population. Her opponents film her activities, block her access to alleys and claim their children are in danger from coyote attacks as a result of the 65-year-old's dedication to saving homeless cats and kittens.
Her supporters will be out in force to convey their message and feel strongly that Beverly Hills needs to set an example of the humane and compassionate way to deal with stray animals. Jailing Varjian, imposing fines or a conviction or criminal record won't solve the larger issue of homeless animals or the rampant coyote problem. Tina Varjian, Katherine's daughter and attorney, is hopeful mediation with stray/homeless cat and animal control, coyote experts will be the outcome.
The Hearing/Sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at Beverly Hills Superior Court, 9355 Burton Way, Beverly Hills 90210 in Division 2, Judge Marsha Revel. (310) 288-1360
SOURCE Attorney for Katherine Varjian
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LONDON (Reuters) –
Chester Zoo, Britain's most popular wildlife attraction, was evacuated on Sunday after 30 chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure.
The animals made their escape at lunchtime and found their way into a keeper area where their food is normally prepared.
Visitors were asked to leave the 110-acre zoo as keepers rounded up the chimps.
“We had an army of chimps eating their way through the keeper's kitchen and the decision was taken, quite rightly, to evacuate,” a spokeswoman said.
“By around 4 pm we had managed to get all the chimps back in their enclosure, some of them with very full bellies.”
There were no injuries to members of the public or staff and the zoo said the decision to evacuate was taken as a precautionary measure. It apologized for the incident and an investigation was underway into how the animals escaped.
Chester Zoo, in Cheshire, north west England, is home to more than 7,000 animals and attracts more than a million visitors each year.
(Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – NASCAR asked a federal judge Monday to reverse the ruling that lifted driver Jeremy Mayfield’s indefinite suspension for failing a random drug test.
The motion filed in U.S. District Court asked Judge Graham Mullen to reverse the injunction he issued last Wednesday that cleared Mayfield to return to competition. NASCAR also filed notice of its intent to appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.
Mayfield was suspended May 9 for a positive drug test, and NASCAR has identified the substance as methamphetamine.
Despite his reinstatement, Mayfield did not attempt to qualify for Saturday night’s event at Daytona International Speedway, and he is not on the preliminary entry list for this weekend’s race at Chicago.
NASCAR in its filing disputed Mullen’s conclusion that the chance of a false positive on Mayfield’s drug test was “quite substantial,” and contended that Mullen relied on facts “outside the record, including the purported existence of reliable hair sample tests and same-day tests for methamphetamine.”
NASCAR said Mullen failed to properly consider the reliability of assessments by Mayfield employees that the driver did not ingest methamphetamine; the sophistication and sensitivity of NASCAR-commissioned Aegis Laboratories drug-testing procedures that prevent false positives; and an affidavit from a Mayfield expert that found the level of methamphetamine in Mayfield’s sample would make him a chronic user.
Mayfield attorney Bill Diehl argued to Mullen that Mayfield shows none of the physical characteristics of a chronic meth user, and if he tested positive at the levels NASCAR claimed, Mayfield would be “either a walking zombie or he’s dead.”
NASCAR also questioned in its filing Mullen’s belief that Mayfield can be tested daily, including hair samples, to see if he is a safety risk.
“The Court improperly decided without the benefit of any evidence in the record that a reliable and accurate same-day test for methamphetamine exists which can ensure Mayfield’s drug-free participation in upcoming NASCAR events,” court documents state, adding there is no evidence a hair test for methamphetamine exists.
“Mayfield continues to pose a threat to public safety, thereby warranting NASCAR’s immediate appeal of this Court’s decision.”
Mayfield, who could not find a full-time ride following his 2006 firing from Evernham Motorsports, started his own team this season and qualified for five of the first 11 races. He was randomly drug-tested May 1 at Richmond International Speedway, and suspended eight days later. He’s missed eight straight races since his suspension, and his team has not traveled to the last six events.
He’s repeatedly blamed the positive test on the combined use of Adderall for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Claritin-D for allergies, but that theory has been rejected by NASCAR’s drug testing administrator.
In seeking an emergency injunction, Mayfield’s attorney attacked NASCAR’s testing program as flawed because it doesn’t follow federal guidelines. Among their issues was Mayfield’s inability to challenge the positive result with an analysis from an independent lab.
In reinstating Mayfield, Mullen found the harm to the driver outweighed the harm to NASCAR. But NASCAR on Monday questioned why Mayfield needed the emergency injunction if he was not prepared to compete at Daytona last weekend.
“It is clear that Mayfield misled the Court about the need for a preliminary injunction to protect his livelihood given that — contrary to his representations to the Court — he failed to seek eligibility for the Fourth of July NASCAR race,” NASCAR said in its filing.
Mayfield said lack of preparation time between the ruling and the entry deadline prevented him from taking his Mayfield Motorsports-owned car to Daytona. He also cited the media attention and the distraction it created as his reason for not attending the race.
He said in a statement issued two hours before the event that Mayfield Motorsports “will do everything in our power to race next weekend,” at Chicago.
But the No. 41 was not on the entry list released Monday. He still can meet the late entry deadline of Thursday afternoon, but the registration fee increases from 3,630 to 5,005 — money Mayfield might not have.
The suspension has left Mayfield’s fledgling program financially strapped. In court documents, he said he has laid off 10 employees, borrowed money from family and sold personal assets to cover his living expenses. Triad Racing Technologies also filed a lawsuit after his suspension, accusing Mayfield of owing more than 86,000.

Unrest spreads in western China
Unrest in China’s volatile western region of Xinjiang spread to a second city on Monday, with police breaking up fresh protests in Kashgar.Chinese state media reported that police dispersed more than 200 “rioters” at the city’s main mosque. At least 156 people died and more than 800 were hurt on Sunday when protests in the city of Urumqi turned violent. Beijing says ethnic Muslim Uighurs went on the rampage, but one exiled Uighur leader says police fired on students.
Demonstrators said they had been demanding justice for two Uighurs killed last month in a fight with ethnic Han Chinese at a factory in southern China. The bloodshed drew international concern, with the US calling for all sides to “exercise restraint”. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Monday that police believed agitators were “trying to organise more unrest” in other cities in Xinjiang, a mountainous and desert region that borders Central Asia. About 200 people “trying to gather” at the Id Kah mosque in the centre of Kashgar, on the ancient Silk Road, were dispersed by police early on Monday evening, Xinhua said. Police also revealed they had information about efforts to organise unrest in the city of Aksu and the Yili prefecture, Xinhua added. Yili is a border region that was hit by ethnic unrest in the late 1990s. Calm in UrumqiAs relative calm returned to the bloodstained streets of Urumqi, paramilitary police patrolled the main bazaar – a largely Uighur neighbourhood – carrying batons, bamboo poles and slingshots.
Mobile phone services were said to be blocked and internet connections cut or slowed down. Witnesses and state media said that rioters overturned barricades, attacked vehicles and houses, and clashed with police in Urumqi on Sunday. State television showed footage of protesters beating and kicking people on the ground. There were graphic images of people who appeared to be ethnic Han Chinese sitting dazed with blood pouring down their faces. Wu Nong, news director for the Xinjiang government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked and more than 200 shops and houses damaged.
Several hundred people were arrested after the violence. Accounts differ over how the violence happened. The Xinjiang government blamed separatist Uighurs based abroad for orchestrating attacks on Han Chinese. But Uighur groups insisted their protest was peaceful and had fallen victim to state violence, with police firing indiscriminately on protesters in Urumqi. Liu Weimin, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in London, told the BBC’s The World Tonight that extremist forces had been involved. “The local government in Xinjiang has evidence that extremist forces inside and outside of China communicated with each other intensively before the incident erupted on Sunday,” he said. Rebiya Kadeer, exiled president of the Uighur American Association, denied claims that she had incited the riots. She said she had learned about the protests from websites and only called her family in China to warn them to stay away from any trouble. There has been widespread international concern at the clashes, which some analysts say are the most serious in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led the calls for restraint, a sentiment echoed by Britain and the US. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “We are deeply concerned over reports of many deaths and injuries from violence in Urumqi in western China. We call on all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint.”

Source:BBC

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) –
Ramzi Abu Redwan says he remembers waiting in the halls of Al-Fara'a prison as a boy, holding his grandfather's hand and staring up at the walls as he waited to see his father, jailed by Israel.
Now, those same walls echo, not with the footsteps of Palestinian prisoners, but with music and children's laughter.
The prison, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus, was used in turn by the British, Jordanians and Israelis.
It was made into a youth sports center in the 1990s, after limited Palestinian self-rule began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war.
Now, each summer, Abu Redwan turns the facility into a music camp for Palestinian youth from poor families and refugee camps.
Abu Redwan is not the only one whose past meets the present in the halls of Al-Fara'a. The parents of some 20 youngsters who have attended the camp have been imprisoned there, and one teacher is a former prisoner.
Palestinians jailed by Israel for anti-Israeli activity or violence are widely seen by their brethren as heroes of what Palestinians describe as resistance against occupation.
“We're trying to liberate people. We're giving our children a kind of internal freedom,” Abu Redwan said. “Maybe (my generation) didn't have the means of expressing ourselves, but our children will have a different means of resisting occupation that is better, and stronger.”
Abu Redwan, who got an opportunity to leave his home in Al-Amari refugee camp to study music in France, wants to offer the same chance to other Palestinian children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
INTERNATIONAL INSTRUCTORS
His project, called “Al-Kamanjati” (“The Violinist”) offers youngsters musical training from September to June. They are given instruments, and to wrap up the school year, they spend a week at Al-Fara'a and perform in an end-of-session concert.
About 25 instructors come from Europe and the United States to participate at the summer camp.
Ethan Cardoze, a member of the Paris Orchestral Ensemble, has come to the camp for the past two years. He said he benefits as much from the experience as his pupils.
“Each day I'm learning Oriental music, and that's something that makes me richer. I love the freeness (of Oriental music). Western music is really square, with bars, with rhythms. It's very strict. Oriental music is much more supple. You have to listen more, you have to adjust your personal sense of rhythm.”
This year, the project will fund a visit to London by 18-year-old Shehadeh Shalady, where he will study violin-making. At the camp, he proudly shows off the first two violins he has made. One has a tiny Palestinian flag painted on it.
Asked if he feels strange using a former prison as a music camp, Abu Redwan shook his head.
“It's true that this was a prison, but walls don't hurt you. It's the people who use them that do. It's true that this place brings back a lot of memories, but it's great that now we can fill the place with something positive,” he said.
(Editing by Richard Williams)

LONDON (Reuters) –
Rafael Nadal woke up on Monday with a bruised ego to go along with his aching knees after losing his world number one ranking.
That status was snatched away from the 23-year-old Spaniard on Sunday the moment Roger Federer leapt high into the air to celebrate winning his sixth Wimbledon crown.
As Federer grabbed all the headlines for landing a record 15th grand slam title and declared “I don't know if I've had a more happy period in my tennis life,” Nadal has undoubtedly endured the worst month of his career.
His four-year French Open reign was ended in the fourth round by eventual finalist Swede Robin Soderling but things went from bad to worse when he did not even manage to defend his Wimbledon crown after his body let him down.
His misfortune cleared the way for Federer to win the Paris-Wimbledon double and after his titanic All England Club win over Andy Roddick, the Swiss was back on top of the tennis summit and he likes the view from the top.
“I'm sad for Rafa that he didn't get a chance to defend Wimbledon… and having a chance to defend his number one but at least I got it by winning Wimbledon which is at least fitting. It's fantastic,” Federer, whose record run of 237 consecutive weeks as world number one was snapped by Nadal last August, told a small group of invited reporters on Monday.
Ominously, the Swiss feels he has regained the mental belief to begin another long stint as the world's best player.
“When you lose number one, you never know if you're going to return to it. I always thought it was easier staying number one than getting there,” said Federer, who will turn 28 next month.
“Some reason getting there was awfully hard. Back in 2002 and 03, I was playing unbelievable and still I wasn't able to get to number one.
“Then it took a huge effort at the (2004) Australian Open to win there to finally get to number one. Once I was number one, everything just clicked and everything was easy.
“I beat all the other top 10 guys, I won every final I played and so I hope that's going to return again and I'm able to dominate the fellow rivals again,” added Federer referring to his feat of stringing together 24 consecutive final victories.
Federer has already started a new run of titles, he is undefeated in his last three tournaments, but some critics were still asking if his success at the last two majors was devalued as he did not have to beat Nadal to win either.
“No. Not at all. Sure people might see it this way and I wish I could have played him again. But I've played Rafa here (at Wimbledon) three times,” said Federer, who has a 15-5 record in major finals with all five defeats coming against Nadal.
“I always say you've got to beat the guy who is opposite to you. Rafa was part of the French Open. I didn't play him in the final and it didn't take anything away in my opinion.
“Some people will always say 'oh you should've beaten him to do that'. I disagree. (Bjorn) Borg walked away from tennis at 27, does that take anything away from John McEnroe or the legacy he had. No. You only have to beat who's across the net and that's what it takes.”
(Editing by Nigel Hunt, To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

NEW YORK The British are coming, the British are comingto Brooklyn? By subway?
Barclays has paid 300 million for the naming rights to the New Jersey Nets arena.
New York’s struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sold the naming rights to the second-busiest subway stop in Brooklyn. The Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street Station will now have the name of a British bank, Barclays, added to it. Several subway riders are outraged that Barclays has purchased the naming rights to this subway stop, which sees about 10 million people go through it each day. One straphanger said, “A London Bank shouldn’t be the name of this train station; it’s something that belongs to the public domain.” Another said, “It’s just everywhere we go, everything we do, it’s just branding, branding, branding. It’s America now.” Renaming the Atlantic-Pacific Station is tied to the construction of Barclays Center, the new sports arena for the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets. Barclays is paying developer Forest City Ratner 300 million for naming rights to this arena. Ratner, in a separate deal, will be paying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 200,000 a year for the next 20 years to rename this commuter hub. Authority Press Secretary Jeremy Soffin said, “Like transit systems all over the U.S. and around the world, we are facing budget deficits.” In an effort to bridge the authority’s 1 billion deficit, the transit giant that oversees the operation of the city’s subways, buses and rail lines wants to follow the Barclays example with stations throughout the system. Though the Atlantic-Pacific subway station is the first in New York for which naming rights have been sold, across the country, there have been several cases of public transportation systems using naming rights to increase revenue. In 2003, the Las Vegas monorail system signed a 12-year, 50 million deal with Nextel to put its name on the station in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Cleveland Bus System sold station names to two hospitals for 1.1 million a year. Internationally, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority has been selling the naming rights of 23 metro stations. However, not all naming rights deals are successful. In 2001, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority tried to raise 22 million by auctioning the naming rights to four historic “T” stations. It received no bids. Reassuring the public that there are certain lines they won’t cross when it comes to renaming stations of historical value, Soffin said, “It’s a very clear line there, and we want to be as open as possible, but we’re not sort of selling the shop here.”
Source:CNN

Iran’s supreme leader blamed enemies and outsiders on Monday for the turmoil that followed last month’s presidential elections, according to an Iranian news agency.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the West on Monday of meddling in Iran’s affairs.
To a gathering in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Western governments of having “clearly meddled in the internal affairs of Iran” and the American and European media of depicting Iranians “as rioters,” according to Fars News Agency. He warned that meddling from presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers would hurt those nations’ relations with Iran, according to Fars. He said Iranians would see through the “lies” of Western governments and “know that your objective is to create doubt amongst them and propagate hate against the system of the Islamic Republic.” While “disappointment and sorrow” from voters when their candidate lost the June 12 election was “natural,” Khamenei said, he condemned involvement by “outsiders” in the civil unrest that gripped the country after the balloting. Government results showed that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad won in a landslide over his nearest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi.
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Widespread street protests followed, during which at least 20 demonstrators died and more than 1,000 were arrested, according to Iranian state-run media. The numbers of casualties and arrests could not be independently verified by CNN because the Iranian government has banned international journalists. The crackdown on the media followed widespread dissemination of video of the mass protests. Khamenei described American and European media coverage of the protests as “disrespectful to the people of Iran.” Despite any internal differences, Iranians would come together against their “enemy,” he said, referring to outsiders. “When it comes to confronting the enemy, even with various differences and viewpoints, [Iranians] will become united and be as one punch against them,” he said.
Source:CNN

Mugabe calls US envoy ‘an idiot’
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has branded a top US envoy “an idiot” with a condescending attitude.He said that Johnnie Carson, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, wanted to dictate what Zimbabwe could and could not do. The two spoke on the sidelines of last week’s African Union meeting in Libya. The Obama administration has been sceptical of the power-sharing government formed between Mr Mugabe and his opposition rivals. Mr Mugabe told The Herald newspaper in Zimbabwe that nothing came out of his talks with Mr Carson – his first meeting with a US government official for many years. “You would not speak to an idiot of that nature,” he said. “I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what to do and what not to do.” Mr Mugabe pointed out that the South African Development Community (SADC) supported the unity government. “We have the whole of SADC working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like Carson, you see, wanting to say: ‘You do this, you do that.’ “Who is he? “I hope he was not speaking for Obama. I told him he was a shame, a great shame, being an African American.”
Mr Mugabe was also not fond of Mr Carson’s predecessor, Jendayi Frazer, who is also black. In May last year he described her as “a little American girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute” after she suggested that the then-opposition Movement for Democratic Change had won the disputed presidential election. Meanwhile, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has apologised to Mr Mugabe after ministers from his party, the MDC, boycotted a cabinet meeting last Monday. The ministers had decided instead to head to Harare airport to welcome Mr Tsvangirai back from a tour of Europe and the United States, where he had been lobbying for aid for Zimbabwe. He raised just 200m (121m), not the 7bn the country’s finance minister said the country needed to revive its economy. President Obama committed 73 million, but said: “It will not be going to the government directly because we continue to be concerned about consolidating democracy, human rights, and rule of law.”

Source:BBC

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) –
Ramzi Abu Redwan says he remembers waiting in the halls of Al-Fara'a prison as a boy, holding his grandfather's hand and staring up at the walls as he waited to see his father, jailed by Israel.
Now, those same walls echo, not with the footsteps of Palestinian prisoners, but with music and children's laughter.
The prison, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus, was used in turn by the British, Jordanians and Israelis.
It was made into a youth sports center in the 1990s, after limited Palestinian self-rule began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war.
Now, each summer, Abu Redwan turns the facility into a music camp for Palestinian youth from poor families and refugee camps.
Abu Redwan is not the only one whose past meets the present in the halls of Al-Fara'a. The parents of some 20 youngsters who have attended the camp have been imprisoned there, and one teacher is a former prisoner.
Palestinians jailed by Israel for anti-Israeli activity or violence are widely seen by their brethren as heroes of what Palestinians describe as resistance against occupation.
“We're trying to liberate people. We're giving our children a kind of internal freedom,” Abu Redwan said. “Maybe (my generation) didn't have the means of expressing ourselves, but our children will have a different means of resisting occupation that is better, and stronger.”
Abu Redwan, who got an opportunity to leave his home in Al-Amari refugee camp to study music in France, wants to offer the same chance to other Palestinian children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
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His project, called “Al-Kamanjati” (“The Violinist”) offers youngsters musical training from September to June. They are given instruments, and to wrap up the school year, they spend a week at Al-Fara'a and perform in an end-of-session concert.
About 25 instructors come from Europe and the United States to participate at the summer camp.
Ethan Cardoze, a member of the Paris Orchestral Ensemble, has come to the camp for the past two years. He said he benefits as much from the experience as his pupils.
“Each day I'm learning Oriental music, and that's something that makes me richer. I love the freeness (of Oriental music). Western music is really square, with bars, with rhythms. It's very strict. Oriental music is much more supple. You have to listen more, you have to adjust your personal sense of rhythm.”
This year, the project will fund a visit to London by 18-year-old Shehadeh Shalady, where he will study violin-making. At the camp, he proudly shows off the first two violins he has made. One has a tiny Palestinian flag painted on it.
Asked if he feels strange using a former prison as a music camp, Abu Redwan shook his head.
“It's true that this was a prison, but walls don't hurt you. It's the people who use them that do. It's true that this place brings back a lot of memories, but it's great that now we can fill the place with something positive,” he said.
(Editing by Richard Williams)

PARKERSBURG, Iowa – The man accused of killing an Iowa high school football coach has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Coach Ed Thomas was fatally shot on June 24 in a weight room in front of about 20 students at Aplington-Parkersburg High School in northeast Iowa.
Twenty-four-year-old Mark Becker, a former player, pleaded not guilty in a written plea on Thursday.
Online court records show that Becker demanded a speedy trial, which means he will have to stand trial within 90 days. No trial date was immediately set.
Becker remains in the Cerro Gordo County jail on 1 million cash bond.
Thomas coached for 34 years in the community about 80 miles northeast of Des Moines and had guided several players to the NFL.

When the new GI Bill kicks in Aug. 1, the government’s best-known education program for veterans will get the biggest boost since its World War II-era creation. But the benefit is hardly the “Government Issue,” one-size-fits-all standard the name implies.
In fact, depending on where service members and veterans decide to attend college, they could receive a full ride, or very little.
An Associated Press review of state-by-state benefits under the new bill shows huge discrepancies in the amount veterans can receive.
For example:
• Veterans attending New Hampshire colleges like Dartmouth might get 25,000 from the government each year, and in Dartmouth’s case essentially a free ride, thanks to an additional grant from the Ivy League school. But in neighboring Massachusetts, it is a different story. At that state’s numerous private schools — many just as expensive as Dartmouth — the government’s baseline tuition benefit is only about 2,200 a year.
• Veterans who choose a private school in Texas could get close to 20,000 a semester from the government for a typical course load. Those picking schools in California will get nothing for tuition.
The explanation stems from the formula the government created, as well as a much-criticized decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs on how to implement the law.
The new GI Bill covers full in-state undergraduate tuition and fees at any public college. That’s far more generous than the old GI Bill, which provides a monthly stipend that is the same from state to state.
But Congress also wanted to help veterans attend often pricier private schools. So the new bill offers them an amount equal to the tuition at the most expensive public college in the same state.
That penalizes veterans going to private colleges in states that have kept their public university tuition low.
As a result, the new GI Bill is a great deal for such vets in states like New Hampshire, New York and Texas; a pretty good one in states like Ohio; and hardly any deal at all in Massachusetts and especially California, where the state constitution prohibits public universities from charging tuition. Instead, California’s public universities typically charge “fees” of several thousand dollars per year.
Critics argue the Department of Veterans Affairs misinterpreted the law and should have combined tuition and fees in coming up with reimbursement levels. That would have put the total California benefit at around 13,000 per year.
Anthony Brooks, a 26-year-old former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, will get a mere 5,000 toward the 38,570 tuition charged at the private University of Southern California — and half of that comes from USC through the government’s Yellow Ribbon matching-grant program.
“It’s depressing, actually. It’s putting states up against each other,” said Brooks, who plans to become a doctor. He added: “We all fought for our country. It just seems unfair.”
The VA says its hands were tied by Congress.
“It is a valid question concerning why we would pay X in State A versus how much we would pay in State B, but the statute defines the kinds of programs we would account for,” said Keith Wilson, the department’s director of educational services.
Congress passed the Post 9/11 GI Bill last year, offering veterans the most significant expansion of educational benefits since the original GI Bill in 1944. The VA expects nearly half a million veterans to participate in the coming year.
The benefits — including new, separate stipends for housing and books — kick in after three years of active duty, and some of them are transferable to family members.
Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., has introduced legislation that would correct the discrepancy in California.
“California’s generosity on state tuition was intended to keep college costs down, not inadvertently increase costs for the state’s veterans,” said Lindsey Mask, a spokeswoman for McKeon.
In the meantime, education and veterans groups are fielding calls from veterans confused over how much they can get.
“What should be a simple number has turned into some kind of Frankenstein-like monster that nobody will be able to understand,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education.
About 80 percent of veterans tapping the new bill are expected to attend public institutions. But some of the remaining 20 percent — those planning to attend private colleges, graduate schools, and the for-profit institutions that are hugely popular with veterans — are angry.
“On paper, this is an amazing new GI bill. It’s an amazing plan,” said Matthew Collins, a former Army specialist who started a Facebook group criticizing the system.
He plans to attend California Baptist University, affordable only because it is making a 10,000-per-veteran contribution under Yellow Ribbon — something many California colleges are unable to offer.
“I just don’t think they truly thought it through,” Collins said.
___
Associated Press Writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report from Washington.

ID scheme is ‘without a purpose’
The government’s plan for national ID cards is a “scheme without a purpose” which will not tackle crime or terror, the shadow home secretary has said.Chris Grayling said Home Secretary Alan Johnson was “off his rocker” for spending billions on cards which would only help “young drinkers in pubs”. Mr Johnson denied he had backtracked on ID cards, insisting he was “accelerating their introduction”. Previously, he dropped plans to make them compulsory for some airport staff. ‘No real grasp’Debating a Conservative motion calling for the scrapping of ID cards, Mr Grayling said neither drug smugglers, traffickers nor benefit fraudsters were “rushing to sign up” for the scheme, rendering it pointless. He reaffirmed the Tories’ pledge to scrap ID cards if it won the next election, and attacked the government’s argument that the voluntary scheme would be effective. Mr Grayling added: “Where is the benefit to an individual of buying an ID card, and more to the point where is the benefit to the country of spending literally billions of pounds in the hope that enough people may buy enough of the cards to get the money back?”
But Mr Johnson said the National Identity Register – which will contain name, date, place of birth and address of passport and ID card holders – would help authorities “deal more effectively with the problems of identity fraud”. The home secretary added: “To scrap the scheme now, as the motion demands, would be an extremely expensive mistake which would deny the British people the practical and pragmatic step which they voted for in 2005 and have supported ever since.” For the Liberal Democrats, Chris Huhne suggested that “ministers have no real grasp of why they want ID cards and the database other than that it can be done”. He added: “The government believe that they can create an un-forgeable database using advanced technology, but history tells us this is completely misguided.” Keith Vaz, Labour chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said he still supported the government’s plans, but “less enthusiastically” than before they were scaled back. On 30 June, Mr Johnson said he was dropping plans to make ID cards compulsory for pilots and airside workers at Manchester and London City airports. As a result of Mr Johnson’s announcement, foreign nationals living and working in the UK will be the only group of people who will have to have the cards, with 50,000 already having been issued. The rollout of the ID card scheme will be accelerated on a voluntary basis for UK citizens, starting in Greater Manchester by the end of the year. Residents in other locations in the North West of England will be able to apply from early 2010, while the government’s intention is to roll out the scheme in London in the same year – 12 months early. Some 3,500 UK citizens have already applied for the cards. But the Tories – who say they will scrap the scheme if they win the next general election – have written to five firms bidding to supply ID cards warning them not to sign any long-term contracts.

Source:BBC

NEW YORK – Music lovers weren’t the only ones drawn to the King of Pop. Wooed by his global fame and earning power, a bevy of financial firms ponied up tens of millions to finance the singer’s luxe lifestyle and kick-start his troubled career.
Now they’re in line with other creditors and business partners awaiting word on the state of Michael Jackson’s murky financial empire. Financial firms including Colony Capital LLC, Fortress Investment Group and Barclays Bank PLC poured tens of millions into the singer over the years. The cash allowed Jackson, a notorious binge spender, to maintain a lavish lifestyle befitting a global pop star.
But the potential peril of owning a portfolio tied to an eccentric entertainer became apparent with the singer’s surprise death at the age 50. It also highlighted Wall Street’s fascination with the entertainment industry — a trend that could cool depending upon how much Jackson’s creditors manage to recoup from their investments.
“There’s always been a nexus between the worlds of celebrity and finance, and it’s only grown in recent years,” said Ian Peck, president of Art Capital Group, which specializes in making loans to celebrities and rich clients who put up artwork as collateral.
Jackson’s lenders seemed to “get a kick out of having a big celebrity as a client” despite his checkered finances and 2005 child molestation trial, Peck said. The pop star also benefited from the same credit boom that ensnared ordinary Americans and led to the financial meltdown.
“Today, I don’t think he’d be able to obtain the same kinds of loans,” Peck said.
Jackson died June 25 in Los Angeles of what his family said was cardiac arrest. According to financial documents obtained by The Associated Press, he claimed 567.6 million in assets as of March 31, 2007, including his Neverland Ranch and his share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which holds the rights to songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan and other artists.
The documents also show that Jackson had debt of 331 million. Even so, Jackson’s singular earning power and worldwide appeal seemed to make him a safe bet to lenders, who sometimes seemed starstruck.
“You are talking about a guy who could make 500 million a year if he puts his mind to it,” billionaire investor Thomas Barrack, owner of Colony Capital, told the Los Angeles Times a month before Jackson’s death. “There are very few individual artists who are multibillion-dollar businesses. And he is one.”
Such faith in Jackson didn’t always come cheap.
In March 2008, the singer defaulted on a 23 million loan to Fortress and nearly had to give up Neverland, the 2,500-acre Santa Barbara property he used to secure the loan. Barrack’s Colony Capital stepped in at the last minute and agreed to cover the owed amount. Jackson later signed Neverland over to a joint venture between Jackson and an affiliate of Colony Capital. Jackson got 35 million in the deal — money Colony hoped to recover from the eventual refurbishing and sale of Neverland.
Colony was also reportedly involved in plotting Jackson’s planned comeback, which included 50 sold-out dates in London to begin this month. The shows, which were being staged by promoter AEG Live, brought in some 85 million in ticket sales, according to Billboard magazine. AEG says it will offer full refunds on the tickets.
Colony’s main business is investing in real estate, non-performing loans and distressed assets. It has invested more than 39 billion in more than 8,500 assets since 1991, according to its Web site. Neither Colony nor Fortress, an investment company with 26.5 billion in assets, would comment.
Jackson wasn’t the first music superstar to woo Wall Street.
In 1997, glam rocker David Bowie raised 55 million upfront by offering “Bowie Bonds” that paid interest from royalties on some of his past hits. The bonds, which provided a 7.9 percent return over 10 years, were snapped up by insurer Prudential Insurance Co. of America and helped usher in the era of asset-backed securities.
This so-called securitization of intellectual property rights was followed by other entertainers, including James Brown and Isley Brothers.
Wall Street has also had some notable missteps with the music industry, including private equity firm Terra Firma’s 2007 buyout of recording company EMI Group PLC. The label has struggled amid the decline of CD sales, the rise of digital music downloading and the departure of major acts like Radiohead and the Rolling Stones.
“Unquestionably, Wall Street has gotten into the entertainment industry. In some cases it has been smart and in others not so much,” said John Scher, a New York concert promoter who put on three Jackson shows in the 1980s.
For other investors, the glare of celebrities like Jackson is simply too much.
Art Capital Group was approached by Jackson for financing years ago but turned down the singer, Peck said. The firm was concerned about how to value Jackson’s proposed collateral, which included a collection of 19th century paintings by Adolphe Bouguereau. The French Old Master was known for his nude portraits — including many featuring cherubic-faced children.
“Frankly, it was just too intense a spotlight for us,” Peck said.
Others say Jackson’s death and the massive interest it has spawned only makes the star more bankable.
David Reeder, vice president of GreenLight, a Los Angeles firm that handles intellectual property rights for celebrity estates, predicted Jackson’s estate is sitting on a cash cow of reissued and unreleased music, merchandise and endorsements like those seen with late actors Steve McQueen or Lucille Ball.
“There’s a huge opportunity to leverage his brand going forward,” Reeder said.
Another sign of Jackson’s investment value is the lofty prices being fetched for the pop star’s memorabilia. The day after he died, 21 items sold at auction for a 205,000, including a painting of Mickey Mouse that Jackson made as a child that went for 25,000.
“From a collector’s standpoint, he’s a very good investment. He’s already at the level of Elvis Presley,” said Darren Julien, principal of Julien Auctions, which has overseen several auctions of Jackson items.
Another big advantage for Jackson’s creditors: They no longer will incur the risk from the singer’s lavish spending habits, which over the years have included a chimpanzee named Bubbles and a hyperbaric chamber.
“The sad irony is that the estate will likely be run in a very profitable way from here forward,” said Peck of Art Capital Group. “There’s not the X-factor of somebody going out doing crazy things.”

Labour must change, says Miliband
The Labour Party needs to change the way it is organised, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.In a speech to commemorate former Labour leader John Smith, Mr Miliband argued there was a “real and pressing” need for organisational renewal. Mr Miliband added Labour now needed to be a different kind of party because traditional politics was “dying”. But he also acknowledged that some policy areas had not seen the change that some expected from New Labour. ‘Failed to deliver’In his speech, the foreign secretary called for greater involvement of trade unionists in party structures and said Labour should give some of its income to charity to give an example of corporate responsibility. He also praised the ability of the Obama campaign to involve so many individuals in his campaign and cites favourably open primaries – something favoured by David Cameron – to elect local politicians. Mr Miliband said Labour needed to be different, not “in its decency and diligence, but different in its structures and role” because “the traditional political structures of mainstream political parties are dying”.
He added: “Shrinking membership, declining affinity, fuzzy identity lead many to proclaim that death has already happened, with few tears at the funeral.” Appraising Labour’s record in office, Mr Miliband said transport had not “fundamentally changed”, a shift in power from Whitehall to local government “has not yet happened” and, on the environment, “our low carbon revolution is still to come”. He added: “New Labour promised a ‘change not a revolution’ in its 1997 manifesto. “The charge against us today is that people wanted a revolution – or at least disruptive changes of course – and that we have failed to deliver it.” Concluding his speech, Mr Miliband said: “As we face the massive challenge of seeking a fourth election victory, we miss John Smith. “We miss his decency, his calmness, his eye for the devastating attack. But we go forward stronger for his example.” Mr Miliband’s speech echoes his comments on Sunday’s Andrew Marr show, when he said Labour must reinvent itself for the 21st Century. BBC political correspondent Gary O’Donoghue said some will regard that as an implicit criticism of Gordon Brown and his style of leadership, and will see Mr Miliband’s foray into the debate over Labour’s future as a sign that the foreign secretary has not given up any leadership ambitions.

Source:BBC