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School meals target ‘set to fail’
The government looks likely to miss its target to increase the take-up of school meals by 10% in England by this autumn, the BBC has learned.Figures due to be published by the School Food Trust are expected to show the proportion of pupils eating school meals is roughly stable. The take-up of secondary school meals in Scotland has dropped by 10% in the last five years, recent figures show. In England, more primary school pupils have been begun choosing school meals. Former schools minister Jim Knight said in a parliamentary answer in 2007: “Increasing take-up of school lunches is a priority for this department and for the School Food Trust (SFT). “The SFT has a target to increase take-up of school lunches from a 2005-06 baseline by four percentage points by March 2008, and by 10 percentage points by autumn 2009.” Figures published in July 2008 from the SFT showed a modest rise among primary school pupils. In 2007-08 the proportion eating school dinners rose by 2.3% to 43.6% of pupils. CampaignHowever, it appears secondary school pupils are still more likely to be tempted by local shop food and shun healthy options. The proportion of secondary school pupils eating in the school canteen declined by 0.5% in the school year 2007-08. But this was a much smaller fall than the previous year, when it declined by 5%. In England, roughly 40% of pupils overall eat school meals. In Scotland, 39% of secondary school pupils now eat in school – but five years ago the figure was 49%. Again there has been a rise among primary pupils.. The last time school meal take-up increased in England was in 2004 – the year before TV chef Jamie Oliver highlighted the poor quality of some school dinners and began a campaign to improve them. New guidelines on healthy eating in schools were introduced by the Westminster government from September 2006 and standards for vending machines, breakfast clubs and tuck shops came into force a year later. Last year, strict nutrition content guidelines for primary schools were introduced, and they will be extended to secondary schools from this September.
School caterers have warned that choice will become a casualty of the new guidelines, as it is so difficult to create meals which adhere to the rules. The Liberal Democrat spokesman for Children, Schools and Families, David Laws, said: “Ministers must expect to fall woefully short of their own target to have the majority of children eating school dinners. “Since the government set a target that there would be around 700,000 more children having school meals, the reality is that the take-up has actually fallen. “The government needs to urgently address the big weaknesses in its plan – over-prescriptive nutrient standards which schools are struggling to deliver, the lack of time and facilities for sitting down to have lunch, and high prices which put off many parents. “

Source:BBC

LIMA, Peru Thousands of police and military forces were dispatched in capital’s streets Wednesday to maintain order during the second day of a national strike led by unions and civil groups.
Public transportation service workers protest in Lima, Peru, on Wednesday during a strike against the government.
But the force proved largely unnecessary as street protests were limited. The country’s largest workers union, along with the teachers and transportation union, among others, called for a sustained protest this week against the free-market policies of President Alan Garcia. Since his election in 2006, Garcia has forged a free trade agreement with the United States and used decree powers to make it easier for companies to gain concessions in the Peruvian Amazon regions. The laws affecting the Amazon created a strong backlash from indigenous groups. An ensuing protest and police action left at least 35 dead near the Amazonian city of Bagua in northwest Peru on June 5. The smaller protest Wednesday may have been influenced by Garcia’s announcement Tuesday that a shakeup of his Cabinet is imminent, as some striking groups had called for. The government induced workers to return to the workplace Wednesday by offering bonuses of 20 soles, or about 7, for whose who were on the job, CNN en Español’s Maria Elena Belaunde reported from Lima. While protests were smaller in Lima, there were reports of demonstrations outside the capital. Train service in the Andean tourist destination of Cusco was suspended, school were canceled because of protests in the city of Ayacucho, and a highway was blocked in Arequipa, Belaunde reported.
Source:CNN

Ethnic tensions taboo in China
By Vaudine England
BBC News, Guangzhou
Among the Uighurs who have settled in south-eastern China, it is hard to find anyone prepared to talk openly about life in the Han-majority country.In Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, even people running restaurants that advertise Xinjiang food, have pictures of mosques on the wall, and employ staff wearing headscarves, insist they are not Uighur. “We are from another minority,” said a restaurateur, refusing to say which one. On 26 June Han and Uighurs at a toy factory in the Guangdong town of Shaoguan fought each other for hours, leaving at least two dead and 118 injured. It was over this violence that Uighurs in Urumqi, in the north-western Xinjiang province, rallied on Sunday, leading to much more deadly clashes. Keeping heads downThe restaurateur in Guangzhou did admit to discomfort when watching state television images of recent deadly unrest in Urumqi, but discussing ethnic tensions remains taboo.
The teenage son of another restaurateur, further along San Yuan Li Road in Guangzhou, was even more reticent. “We don’t have time to watch the news,” he said. Prospering in their new life, it seemed the last thing his family wanted was to be associated with rioting back in Xinjiang. Around Guangzhou’s old railway station, what was once a lively and extensive Muslim community has shrunk. Those left seem determined to keep their heads down in times such as these. Xinyue Muslim Restaurant in the Xinjiang Mansion – an official home to the representative office of the Uighur Autonomous Region’s provincial government – offers nightly floor-shows by Uighur dancing girls. But before a question about how the unrest in Xinjiang was affecting business could be completed, a waitress interjected. “This is a very safe place – you don’t need to worry,” she said. Factory repairedGuangzhou newspapers have followed the government line, reporting that the trouble in Xinjiang could only have happened because of outside manipulation. Coverage has focused on the injuries suffered by the Han. The Guangzhou Daily recently reported that in Shaoguan, repairs to the assembly line, dormitories and canteen needed after the 26 June fighting at the toy factory had already been completed.

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“More than 700 Xinjiang migrant workers could resume their work thanks to the Xinjiang and Guangdong relevant departments’ officials’ endeavours,” it said. Alongside were pictures of happy, smiling Uighur women, back at work at long tables in the toy factory. Censored TVTwo people in Guangzhou who were prepared to speak were Han taxi drivers, one of whom turned up his radio when the news came on to hear updates from Xinjiang. Another went so far as to give his surname, Huang, and confide that he watched TV reports from Hong Kong channels, just across the border, to get a clearer picture of events. “Any time there’s anything sensitive, they interrupt the signal and throw in another advertisement or jumble up the pictures,” he said.
His views on the unrest in Xinjiang were firm. “The government treats the Uighur so nicely, yet the Uighurs don’t feel satisfied,” he said. “They just create so much trouble. They should be satisfied with what they have.” He agreed with the crackdown now under way by Chinese security forces in Urumqi. “The Communist Party has already done so much for the Uighurs,” he said. His views are common in commercial centres where Uighers have thrived. The communities were included in former Chinese leader Deng Xiao-ping’s plans for economic reform from the early 1980s, and have been resident in south China since then. But as in other parts of the world, problems between different ethnic groups have endured. The difference in China is that people are reluctant to discuss the issue, and the tensions are hard to measure.

Source:BBC

‘Record numbers’ aim for college
Almost eight out of 10 secondary school pupils aim to go to university, a survey suggests.Research for the Sutton Trust found 77% of students aged from 11 to 16 thought it likely they would go on to higher education, up from 72% in 2008. Figures on university admissions, due out later, are expected to show a 10% rise in applications in the past year. Opposition parties warn of a looming crisis over places, but ministers say record numbers are going to university. Traditionally, recessions lead to an increase in applications to universities and colleges, as young people see fewer immediate job opportunities. The government is committed to increasing the proportion of young people going to university to 50%, but this year has had to lower a cap on extra places from 15,000 to 10,000, increasing the likelihood that more young people will not get the places they want. Rich and poorThe Sutton Trust’s research involved 2,447 pupils. The proportion saying they aim to go to university is the highest since the charity began its survey, seven years ago. But there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers saying their parents cannot afford to send them to university – up from 7% in 2008 to 13% this year. The proportion of pupils who said they did not want to go to university because they wanted to start earning money dropped markedly – from 53% in 2008 to 34% this year. The report authors said this might be due to the recession. Researchers also found a gap in the aspirations of children from rich and poor homes. Among those in families where no parent was working, 66% wanted to go to university, but the figure rose to 79% for young people in families where both parents worked. Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: “The survey suggests that efforts to increase participation have been buoyed by the economic crisis and the shortage of jobs, which has made further study a more attractive prospect for many young people.
“While this is good news in some respects, we must ensure we don’t build up students’ expectations early on in school, only for them to be dashed at age 18. “Sadly, these findings confirm that it continues to be non-privileged youngsters who are least likely to progress, so efforts to raise the aspirations and achievement of bright students from poorer homes must continue.” The government has been coming under pressure over university places. It originally estimated that universities in England could take 15,000 additional students in 2009-2010, but reduced this to 10,000 in October, after learning that many more students than anticipated would receive grants to help them pay for their studies. Phil Willis, a Liberal Democrat MP who is chairman of the Commons select committee covering higher education, has called for the cap on places in England to be lifted. EncouragingUniversities Minister David Lammy said: “The UK will need more graduates to win the highly skilled jobs of the future so it is encouraging to see that so many young people want to go to university. “We remain committed to making this ambition a reality for more of them, whatever their background, and we are progressing well towards getting 50% of all young people into higher education with record numbers of students currently at university.” Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, which represents university vice-chancellors, said: “It’s very encouraging to see from the Sutton Trust’s report that young people from state schools are showing increased interest in higher education. It’s vital that this interest results in students taking up places at university. “Universities agree that anyone with the potential to benefit from higher education should have the opportunity to do so, regardless of background.”

Source:BBC

Tests raise life extension hopes
A drug discovered in the soil of a South Pacific island may help to fight the ageing process, research suggests.When US scientists treated old mice with rapamycin it extended their expected lifespan by up to 38%. The findings, published in the journal Nature, raise the prospect of being able to slow down the ageing process in older people. However, a UK expert warned against using the drug to try to extend lifespan, as it can suppress immunity.
Rapamycin was first discovered on Easter Island in the 1970s. It is already used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, and in stents implanted into patients to keep their coronary arteries open. It is also being tested as a possible treatment for cancer. Researchers at three centres in Texas, Michigan and Maine gave the drug to mice at an age equivalent to 60 in humans. The mice were bred to mimic the genetic diversity and susceptibility to disease of humans as closely as possible. Rapamycin extended the animals’ expected lifespan by between 28% and 38%. The researchers estimated that in humans terms this would be greater than the predicted increase in extra years of life, if both cancer and heart disease were prevented and cured. Researcher Dr Arlan Richardson, of the Barshop Institute, said: “I’ve been in aging research for 35 years and there have been many so-called ‘anti-ageing’ interventions over those years that were never successful. “I never thought we would find an anti-ageing pill for people in my lifetime; however, rapamycin shows a great deal of promise to do just that.” Professor Randy Strong, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, said: “We believe this is the first convincing evidence that the ageing process can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age.” Calorie restrictionRapamycin appears to have a similar effect to restricting food intake, which has also been shown to boost longevity.
It targets a protein in cells called mTOR, which controls many processes involved in metabolism and response to stress. The researchers had to find a way to re-formulate the drug so that it was stable enough to make it to the mice’s intestines before beginning to break down. The original aim was to begin feeding the mice at four months of age, but the delay caused by developing the new formulation meant that feeding did not start until the animals were 20 months old. The researchers thought the animals would be too old for the drug to have any effect – and were surprised when it did. Professor Strong said: “This study has clearly identified a potential therapeutic target for the development of drugs aimed at preventing age-related diseases and extending healthy lifespan. “If rapamycin, or drugs like rapamycin, works as envisioned, the potential reduction in health cost will be enormous.” ‘Don’t try it now’Dr Lynne Cox, an expert in ageing at the University of Oxford, described the study as “exciting”. She said: “It is especially interesting that the drug was effective even when given to older mice, as it would be much better to treat ageing in older people rather than using drugs long-term through life.” However, she added: “In no way should anyone consider using this particular drug to try to extend their own lifespan, as rapamycin suppresses immunity. “While the lab mice were protected from infection, that’s simply impossible in the human population. “What the study does is to highlight an important molecular pathway that new, more specific drugs might be designed to work on. “Whether it’s a sensible thing to try to increase lifespan this way is another matter; perhaps increasing health span rather than overall lifespan might be a better goal.”

Source:BBC

Sania Mirza admirer is arrested
By Omer Farooq in Hyderabad
A young Indian man turned up at the home of tennis star Sania Mirza and threatened to kill himself if the tennis player did not marry him.Mohammad Ashraf told Imran Mirza, Sania’s father, that the tennis star could not marry anyone else as she “was born for me”. He also demanded that her engagement with family friend Sohrab Mirza, scheduled for Friday, be cancelled. An alarmed Imran Mirza called the police who have taken him into custody. He has been produced in court and remanded for a fortnight. Mirza, 22, is one of the top ranking players. She ranks 85 in the world. ‘Threatening’In his complaint to the police, Mr Mirza says Mr Ashraf claims to be in love with the tennis star ever since he saw her playing a match in Bangalore two years ago. Mr Mirza has also complained that the youth was sending text messages and making threatening calls to his daughter for some time. Mr Ashraf arrived at Ms Mirza’s home in Hyderabad city’s upmarket home in Banjara Hills area on Tuesday evening accompanied by his friend Devadeesh Mohanty.
“How can you engage Sania to another person when she was born for me?” Mr Ashraf is reported to have asked the tennis player’s father. “He was threatening to commit suicide if Sania did not marry him,” Mr Mirza told the police. The two men have been arrested and have been charged with trespass and creating a nuisance. Mr Ashraf has been identified as a civil engineer from Bangalore. Police say they have contacted Bangalore police to find out whether Mr Ashraf is mentally sound. It is the second time in less than a month that Mirza has hit the headlines for the wrong reason. Last month, the Andhra Pradesh state government found that a man had secured a white ration card showing Sania Mirza as his wife. The ration card carried photos of the tennis star. White ration cards are meant for the people living below the poverty line.

Source:BBC

Nationwide offers 125% mortgage
Nationwide Building Society has introduced a mortgage allowing borrowers to take loans worth 125% of the value of the home they are buying.It will only be available to existing customers in negative equity who want to move house. Negative equity means that the value of someone’s home is worth less than the amount they owe on their mortgage. The Financial Services Authority is considering limiting mortgage loans to 100% of a house’s value. Nationwide only offers new customers mortgages worth 85% of the value of the home they want to buy. There has been much criticism of the loans above 100% that were available at the peak of the housing boom, which immediately placed borrowers in negative equity. Under Nationwide’s new product, borrowers would take out a loan for 95% of the value of their new house at a fixed rate of 6.73% for three years or 7.48% for five years. They would then be able to add on the negative equity from their old home, up to another 30% of the value of the new property, at a higher fixed rate of 7.23% for three years or 7.98% for five years.

Source:BBC

US federal security lapses found
Undercover investigators managed to smuggle bomb-making materials into key US government buildings on 10 occasions last year, a congressional report says.The Government Accountability Office said that once inside the buildings, investigators were able to assemble bombs and carry them around freely. The infiltrated buildings included the offices of a senator and a congressman. The report cited instances of guards falling asleep on the job or failing to detect explosives at x-ray scanners. EmbarrassingWashington spends around 1bn a year protecting thousands of government buildings across the country. The BBC’s Jon Donnison in Washington says the report makes embarrassing reading for the Federal Protection Service, which employs over 13,000 contract security guards. The report flagged up an incident where one guard accidently fired his gun into a mirror in a public lavatory while practicing pulling it out of its holster. On another occasion, a security officer did not notice that he had sent a baby through an X-ray machine. The Senate Homeland Security Committee is due to hold a hearing into failings at the agency. The committee chairman, Senator Joe Lieberman, said that eight years after the 9/11 attacks, it was “simply unacceptable” that federal employees and visitors remained exposed to potential terrorist attacks.

Source:BBC

BENNINGTON, Vt. – For years, a man regularly confined his adolescent stepson to a bedroom rigged with an alarm, molested him several times a week and often denied him food, water and access to a bathroom, authorities said.
The 17-year-old boy, who lived with his stepfather for nearly six years, told police Robert J. Pratt would smash his head into a wall when he resisted his advances and sent him to school in long-sleeved shirts and pants so no one would see his bruises and scars.
Pratt was being held without bail on sex assault charges, accusations that surprised acquaintances who know him as a quiet, helpful neighbor.
The boy came forward after Pratt, 37, of Bennington, kicked him out of the apartment they shared and he moved in with his mother, who lived in the same apartment complex.
Once there, he told her and a counselor about his life with Pratt. He had moved in with him when he was 10 or 11, when Pratt and the mother split up. He said the abuse started about a year later and he never told anyone of it because Pratt threatened him, sometimes with a loaded gun.
Investigators, trying to verify the boy’s claims, had the boy wear a wire to record a conversation with Pratt. In that conversation, the victim asked Pratt why he sexually abused him.
“I have tried to block that out,” Pratt replied.
Questioned by police, Pratt didn’t deny the sexual activity but attributed it to the victim’s “desires,” according to an affidavit filed by Vermont State Police Trooper Tyler Burgess.
“When this was brought to the attention of law enforcement, we all were taken aback at the pervasive and lengthy abuse that was going on, and had been going on for years,” prosecutor Erica Marthage said Wednesday. “It was concerning to all of us that this was something we potentially missed for this long. It just makes you wonder.”
Pratt, who has no prior criminal record, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to six charges including aggravated sexual assault, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and unlawful restraint.
He was ordered held without bail. His lawyer, public defender Marie Wood, didn’t respond to two messages left by The Associated Press on her voicemail. There was no answer to a knock at his apartment door at the Applegate Apartments, where the abuse allegedly occurred.
The boy’s mother no longer lives in the complex; she could not be located for comment Wednesday.
Neighbors and acquaintances interviewed Wednesday were surprised by the charges against Pratt, who goes by R.J. They described him as a quiet, slightly built man who was into camping, hunting and fishing.
“He’s not that type. … I don’t think he’s got a mean bone in his body,” said Mary Hunt, who said she’s known Pratt since they were children.
Another neighbor, Stanley Brookins, said Pratt was always quick to help others, especially if it involved fixing a car.
“I’ve never seen him argue with anyone, never heard a cross word,” Brookins said.
That’s not the picture painted by police and prosecutors.
They say Pratt sometimes threatened the boy with a loaded rifle, threatened to kill him or grabbed his genitals, asking “Whose is this?” as he pulled.
“I’d have to reply ‘yours’ or he’d pull harder,” the boy told investigators.
The boy was confined to an apartment bedroom with no toilet, sometimes for so long that he had to relieve himself into a wall-mounted telephone jack.
The homemade alarm system consisted of a magnet that stuck to a metal strip on the floor so that when the door opened, it signaled, according to the affidavit.
At Christmas, Pratt would let the boy open gifts, then put them in a box, duct tape it and store it in the basement.
“There are days I cried myself to sleep and wanted to die,” he said.
Pratt’s decision to part ways with the victim coincided with the boy’s maturation, according to Marthage, the prosecutor. He’s now 6 feet tall and has put on about 100 pounds since moving in with his mother.
“It all fits. He got too big. Once the kid gets to be bigger than the defendant, then both control and persuasion are affected,” Marthage said.
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Associated Press correspondent John Curran contributed to this report from Montpelier, Vt.

PERPIGNAN, France – In less than 48 hours, Lance Armstrong will have answered the last unresolved question about his capacity to win an eighth Tour de France: Can he still climb?
The 37-year-old Texan is second overall, but about to face his toughest test in this year’s Tour as the grueling three-week race arrives in the Pyrenees mountains.
“That’s my question mark, that’s your question mark, that’s everybody’s question mark,” Armstrong said. “But we don’t have to wait long until we’ll find out, that’s the good thing.”
Armstrong is again eliciting fear among his rivals after an astute move that earned valuable time over his rival and teammate Alberto Contador, plus an impressive show at the team time trial.
He couldn’t be in a better position before heading into the mountains. But a lurch Friday in Arcalis, Andorra — the finish of the first of three Pyrenean stages — would bring him back down to earth.
Armstrong didn’t take any risks during Wednesday’s fifth stage with the mountains looming. Thomas Voeckler of France won the 122-mile ride along a windy Mediterranean Sea from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan after a long breakaway.
Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland retained the overall lead, with Armstrong a fraction of a second behind. Armstrong spent the day in front of the main peloton with his Astana teammates, trying to avoid any trouble on roads opened to strong winds.
Usually, Armstrong would dominate rivals on the race’s first hilltop finish, but this time he is preaching caution, knowing Friday’s stage will be crucial. At the top of the 7,350 foot summit, the seven-time champion will have to answer any doubts about his ability to scale punishing ascents.
“I think I’ll be good,” he said.
With defending champion Carlos Sastre 2:44 back, two-time runner-up Cadel Evans lagging 2:59 behind and Denis Menchov 3:52 back, the Tour could come down to Armstrong and Contador. The Spaniard is third overall, 19 seconds behind Armstrong. Former Tour runner-up Andreas Kloeden is fourth, 23 seconds back, and Levi Leipheimer of the United States is fifth, 31 seconds behind.
Contador, the 2007 Tour winner, will ride with the support of home fans in the coming days. The stage Thursday is a 112-mile trek in Spain between Gerona and Barcelona, scheduled a day before the big rendezvous in Arcalis.
To Contador’s advantage, he’s the best climber in the world and his legs are 11 years younger than Armstrong’s. He’s rejoicing that the race is finally reaching his usual playground.
“I can’t wait to get to the mountains because it’s my territory. The sensations are good, but I always like to confirm them,” he said.
Because he’s behind Armstrong, Contador probably won’t get carte blanche from Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel and won’t be allowed to attack the Texan if he responds well in the climbs.
Armstrong, who underwent a doping test Wednesday, seems perfectly aware that Contador will be physically stronger than him in the mountains. But the seasoned veteran believes his mental resources will prevail.
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will,” Armstrong said on his Tweeter account, quoting Mahatma Gandhi.
Five years to the day after he put on the yellow jersey, Voeckler claimed his first stage victory at the Tour. He who wore the coveted leader’s jersey for nine days in 2004.
The Frenchman made his move 3.1 miles from the finish, bursting ahead to escape a small breakaway. He arrived at the line with tears in his eyes.
“I dedicate this victory to myself, my son and my wife, who actually didn’t see me win as she was returning home in a plane,” the 30-year-old said.
Voeckler clocked 4 hours, 29 minutes, 35 seconds — seven seconds faster than the peloton that was barreling down on him. Mikhail Ignatiev of Russia was second, and Britain’s Mark Cavendish was third, winning the sprint in the trailing peloton.
Voeckler is 138th overall, 6:48 behind Cancellara, and has almost no chance of winning.
“I don’t think he is a fluke,” Cancellara said. “It has been difficult for him because when he wore the jersey in 2004, a lot of people thought he was the new Bernard Hinault.”
A five-time Tour winner, Hinault is the last Frenchman to win in 1985.
“I’m not one of the best riders in the world,” Voeckler said. “I don’t have the possibility to win a big Tour. But I’m still ambitious and I’m happy with my career so far.”
Voeckler, who broke his collarbone earlier this season, and five other riders — Ignatiev, Anthony Geslin, Yauheni Hutarovich, Marcin Sapa and Albert Timmer — were involved in the breakaway after 7 1/2 miles.
Less than four miles from the finish, the leading group was reduced to four riders following an attack from Ignatiev, a track specialist making his Tour debut. Voeckler then bolted out from a roundabout and went all out to the line.
Rising star Robert Gesink of the Netherlands withdrew after breaking his wrist in a crash.

PARIS (AFP) –
Astronomers on Wednesday said they had found the farthest supernova ever detected, a giant star that ripped apart around 11 billion years ago.
A new technique enabled the cosmologists to make the find, which should help advance knowledge into these rare phenomena and their role in generating other stars, they said in a report published by the British journal Nature.
A supernova occurs when a massive star runs out of fuel, collapses in upon itself under the force of its own gravity to become a tiny, ultra-dense object called a neutron star.
The star then explodes, sending out a shock wave that reverberates around the galaxy.
The blast distributes elements that are heavier than oxygen, such as iron, calcium and silicon, and enriches the molecular clouds that over the aeons cluster together and form new star systems.
The ancient supernova was found after astronomers compared several years of images taken from a portion of the sky, enabling them to look for objects that changed in brightness over time.
The universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old, so the supernova marks the death of one of earliest stars in creation.
The previous supernova record was an event that happened around six billion years ago.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Americans are getting heavier than ever, with more than 26 percent of the population now fully obese, the U.S. government reported on Wednesday.
Despite warnings that the population must stop layering on the fat and frightening statistics that show two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, the weight trend continues, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
“The proportion of U.S. adults who are obese increased to 26.1 percent in 2008 compared to 25.6 percent in 2007,” the CDC said in a statement.
“If this trend continues we will likely see increases in healthcare costs for obesity-related diseases,” said the CDC's Liping Pan, who headed the study.
“Obesity is a major risk factor for many chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes,” the CDC's Dr. William Dietz added in a statement. “As obesity increases among all age groups, we are seeing chronic diseases in much younger adults compared to a few decades ago.
“For example, we now see young adults who suffer from heart disease risk factors and other conditions such as type 2 diabetes that were unheard of in the past.”
The agency used its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a telephone survey of 400,000 adults, to gather its data.
At least 30 percent of adults are obese in six states — Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, the CDC found.
Only Colorado can claim that fewer than 20 percent of its residents are obese.
Last week the Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a similar report showing residents of 23 U.S. states are fatter now than they were a year ago.
Body mass index, a measure of height to weight, is used to calculate obesity. A person is considered overweight with a BMI of 25 or more and obese with a BMI of 30 or above.
BMI is equal to weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Someone 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 240 pounds (109 kgs) would be obese and would have to get below 195 pounds (88.5 kg) to be no longer considered overweight.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has an online BMI calculator at http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/.
(Editing by Bill Trott)

STRATFORD, Conn. – Police say a Connecticut man has been arrested because he showed up at a dental office naked. Police say 41-year-old Christopher Hoff, of Stratford, also was five days late for his appointment. Authorities said Hoff entered Optimus Dental’s office Monday with nothing on. A startled female receptionist screamed, and he ran away.
Officers went to his home, and Hoff told them he had been sleeping all day. Police took Hoff to the dental office, where the receptionist identified him.
Hoff was charged with disorderly conduct, public indecency and failure to comply with fingerprinting.
He did not immediately return a telephone message left Wednesday at his home. It’s unclear if he has an attorney.
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Information from: Connecticut Post, http://www.connpost.com

S Lanka medics recant on deaths
By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Colombo
Five doctors who worked in Sri Lanka’s combat zone in the last weeks of the war say they exaggerated figures for civilian casualties.They did so, they told reporters, because of pressure on them from the Tamil Tiger rebels, who controlled the area where they were working. Sri Lanka’s government declared victory in its war with Tamil Tigers in May. The five have been in detention since then, but say they have been under no pressure to recant. The appearance before reporters was an extraordinary event, which took place at the Sri Lankan government’s Media Centre for National Security. The centre is usually a venue for military spokesmen to talk about Sri Lankan war matters. One by oneThe doctors were introduced not by government officials but by a Mr J Yogaraj, who described himself as a freelance journalist.
He said that two of the doctors belonged to the Tamil Tigers’ medical corps, while the other three were government appointees. One by one they said they had overstated the civilian casualties during interviews with reporters during the fighting because they were told to by the rebels. Regularly during the war some of the doctors said people had died in shelling which appeared to come from government-controlled territory. The five doctors remain in government detention. But in this public recantation, they looked calm and well-groomed, wearing immaculate shirts and ties, even nervously smiling. One, though, Dr T Varatharajah, had his arm in a sling because, he said, of a shell injury sustained just before the doctors crossed to government-held land on 15 May, three days before the military declared all-out victory. “Every day the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) people came to the hospital, they gave the list,” he said. “This amount got injured, this amount dead, this area shells fell. We had to tell that list. Read it out. The list was wrong, exaggerated number.” Dr V Shanmugarajah said that on one day, some 60 people were killed but they were instructed by the rebels to say 1,000 were dead. He and his colleagues said they believed a total of 600-700 civilians had been killed, and nearly twice that injured, between the start of January and the end of the war. United Nations figures for those killed are roughly 10 times higher, while on 12 May the Red Cross said it had evacuated nearly 14,000 sick or wounded people and their relatives since mid-February. Dr Varatharajah said it was not in fact true that a hospital had been shelled in an incident in early February. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, who had staff on the ground, both said that it was, with the ICRC saying nine people had died. Indeed the doctors now say medical facilities were little damaged overall. Uncertain futureThe medics also said shortages of food and medicine in the war zone arose only because the Tamil Tigers appropriated large quantities. “Do you now regret giving false information?” one pro-government journalist asked later. “Yes, of course we regret it,” said Dr V Satyamoorthy. He said there was no pressure being exerted on them; Sri Lanka was a democratic country and they were no longer lying. But the changed nature of the information they gave is leading some to speculate otherwise. “There are very significant grounds to question whether these statements were voluntary, and they raise serious concerns whether the doctors were subjected to ill-treatment during weeks of detention,” said the human-rights group Amnesty International. A United Nations spokesman in Sri Lanka said the UN stood by its own statements on casualties. The doctors’ immediate future is uncertain. Although they say they were speaking under Tamil Tiger pressure, last week a senior presidential aide said they could not be allowed to “go scot-free” as they had been “lying through their teeth”. Last month a minister said they were suspected of “collaboration” with the Tigers and were being investigated on those lines.

Source:BBC

Germany ‘not silent’ on stabbing
Germany has defended its response to the stabbing of a pregnant Egyptian, saying Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Egypt’s president to discuss it.Marwa Sherbini, 32, was stabbed to death last week in a court in Dresden, a killing that caused outrage in Egypt. She had been giving evidence against her killer after he called her a “terrorist” in a playground. The head of the Arab League told the BBC the incident reflected a failure of dialogue between civilisations. Ms Sherbini was stabbed 18 times by a 28-year-old Russian identified as Axel W, who leapt across the courtroom during an appeals hearing and attacked her in front of her husband and son. Prosecutors said the Russian, who had been found guilty in November of insulting and abusing the woman, had a deep hatred of Muslims and acted alone. ‘Hate crime’Ms Sherbini’s husband was attacked by the assailant as he tried to defend his wife and was also accidentally shot by German police. He is in hospital in critical condition.
The Egyptian media have expressed outrage, asking how the incident was allowed to happen and dubbing Ms Sherbini “the martyr of the Hijab”, in reference to her Islamic headscarf. The German government was criticised for what was seen to be a muted reaction. On Tuesday, spokesman Thomas Steg defended the government’s reaction, saying Germany had “not been silent”, and that early details about the case had not been sufficiently clear for a “spontaneous reaction”. “This is an abhorrent deed, one that has left us all dismayed and shocked,” he said. He added that Chancellor Merkel would discuss the incident with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at this week’s Group of Eight summit in Italy. The Egyptian Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, called the incident a “totally unjustified hate crime”. “I believe and many of us here believe that what happened is one dimension of the failure of international dialogue and the dialogue of civilisations,” he told the BBC’s Newshour programme. “Many of us believe that it did not trickle down to individuals in so many countries.” Mr Moussa said he was confident that the German authorities would ensure a just outcome to the affair.

Source:BBC

Nuclear dawn delayed in Finland
By Rob Broomby
BBC World Service, Olkiluoto, Finland
When it is finished, Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor will be the biggest the world has ever seen, the excavation site alone is the size of 55 football fields.It was to have been a pilot project for bigger, better, cleaner, Generation III reactors, which would lead the charge back to nuclear power in a continent which had gone cold on atomic energy after the accidents at Chernobyl and Thee Mile Island. But hopes of an early nuclear dawn on the Baltic coast are fading – the May start up date came and went and the OL3 is now not expected to begin pumping out electricity until 2012 – three years later than planned and about 2.4bn dollars (1.7bn euros) over budget. The soaring cranes tell the tale: this project is far from complete. There have been a string of problems starting with the concrete, then the welding. Now, the safety regulator is questioning the designs for the reactor’s nerve centre – the Instrumentation and Control system.
STUK – the Finnish safety regulator – has shown signs of irritation with the French company Areva who want to build many of Europe’s future reactors. For Jukka Laaksonen, director general of STUK, getting the instrumentation and control right is absolutely critical to the safety of the plant. He says the experts at Areva understand the problem but, “the company’s management is not going along”. Areva, which is mainly owned by the French government, says it is “strengthening” its team to help implement STUK’s requests, with a “significant increase” in the taskforce working to sort out the problem. It says part of the problem lies with the regulator who has been slow in approving design documents. DisappointmentFor his part, Jarmo Tanhua, chief executive of Finnish utility TVO, the ultimate end customer of the plant, admits to being disappointed.
“A lot has been going wrong,” says Ariane Sains of Platts Nuclear Publications. “They have had many problems with subcontractors who simply have not understood the very strict requirements for delivering to a nuclear project.” Even Philippe Knoche, Areva’s chief operating officer, admits things have not been going well. “It’s no secret that Areva is losing money on this project,” he tells me. The two sides are now fighting over compensation for the delays. TVO is trying to claim back 3.3bn (2.4bn euros) from Areva for the soaring costs, not least to cover having to buy-in electricity to plug the gap until the plant is finished. On the other side Areva is claiming 1.4bn (1bn euros) from the Finns and the relationship on the Baltic has shown signs of icing. “If Greenpeace had said at the start that after four years of construction its going to be three and a half years late and 60% over budget everybody would have laughed at them,” says Steve Thomas, Professor of Energy Policy at Greenwich University in the UK who has been monitoring the project. “But that’s what has happened. It’s hard to think of it going more wrong than it has.” ‘Teething troubles’Britain’s safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), now seems to be echoing Finnish concerns. The NII must decide whether to approve the design of Areva’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) for use in the UK. In a letter to Areva, the NII has warned that if questions regarding the instrumentation and control systems are not resolved it could, “prevent a successful outcome”.
In the worst case, the EPR could be struck-off the list of reactor designs approved for use in the UK, a devastating blow to the French company and the British nuclear programme. Areva’s Philippe Knoche says it is not that “black and white”. By knowing the requirement of the regulators upfront, he says they can solve the problems. “We are clearly confident we can answer these requirements,” he adds. The French say what they are encountering are just teething troubles, and that when the problems are solved, the EPR will be rolled-out as a global energy solution. They have invested so much in the nuclear future they are unlikely to walk away, but if the safety questions are not adequately answered, the delays could occur yet again in both Britain and Finland. The Finns may be frustrated but they are showing no sign of losing confidence in the nuclear option and they may even go ahead with another reactor after this one. And at least they have a plan and a location for their underground nuclear waste repository and that does put them among the world leaders. The nuclear dawn may be delayed but like the returning sun after the long northern winters, it will eventually come. The question for Finland is when and at what cost.

Source:BBC

‘Sober, gloomy and realistic’
By Frank Gardner
Security correspondent, BBC News
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has given his first major speech in the job. He said Britain’s safe future was dependent on achieving success in Afghanistan – but that would not come without a price in lives lost.There were no huge surprises in Bob Ainsworth’s speech. He has been an understudy for this job for some time, working under John Hutton and has long been immersed in the whole issue of Afghanistan. Broadly speaking, it was a sober, fairly gloomy and quite realistic speech. Put simply, Britain is going to take more casualties in Afghanistan and we’re going to be there for some time. The military put these things in terms of operations. Herrick is the codename for Afghanistan – Telic was the codename for Iraq. Britain is currently on Herrick 10 and every six months that number goes up. They are currently planning for Herrick 15 and there are probably plans for further ahead than that, certainly as far as 2012. The intention then is to keep thousands of British troops there for a very long time – or at least the foreseeable future – until Afghanistan is stabilised. And that’s not going to happen quickly. ‘Credibility gap’Mr Ainsworth – and John Hutton before him – have tried to set out clearly why Britain is in Afghanistan in the first place. But there is a credibility gap here. Most of the country doesn’t really understand why we are there.
Indeed, there are holes in the government’s argument too. If we are trying to stop al-Qaeda building bases from which to attacking us – well, al-Qaeda doesn’t have proper bases in Afghanistan. Their bases are on the Pakistani side of the border. The idea that if you have forces in Afghanistan it’ll stop al-Qaeda attacking Britain doesn’t completely hold water because ministers have said themselves that 75% of the terror plots in this country are linked back to Pakistan. Really, it would be more accurate to say Nato is trying to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, while admitting that it has successfully transplanted itself elsewhere. Moreover, the very fact that there are Western troops in Afghanistan is an incentive, a recruiting agent, for al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups to go and fight the West and drive them out. It is certainly quite a complicated jigsaw. Bad governanceThe priority for Britain and other international troops is to stabilise Afghanistan and to improve people’s standard of living. But it’s not just about military success; it’s about improving governance too. Afghanistan is in many provinces quite badly governed with very corrupt policemen who are taking bribes and extorting money from people. To look at the big picture, Nato and the Brits think they can win pretty much every tactical engagement that they encounter the Taliban in.
Sometimes with difficulty – because they are a very tenacious enemy – but with superior weaponry, training, air support and so on the Taliban can be beaten on the ground. Crucially, though, that victory is only at a tactical level. The bigger picture is that fighting is only a small part of the problem in Afghanistan. One of the major problems is bad governance. Ordinary Afghans are having to decide if life is better in areas contested by Nato or in areas controlled by the Taliban, where they might have to live under draconian rules but at least things are stable.

Source:BBC

Mr Berlusconi aims to be perfect host
By David Willey
BBC Rome correspondent
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s billionaire prime minister, is playing host this week to leaders of the world’s other seven most powerful industrial nations in the unlikeliest of all venues.The central Italian mountain town of L’Aquila was all but wiped out by an earthquake last April, and continues to shudder with aftershocks. He has also invited along to his mega-meeting the leaders of another two dozen countries including the economic giants of the future and a handful of much poorer African nations. The event is called G8. And it is already turning into something of a logistical nightmare. The VIP guests are being ferried by helicopter to and from the party venue – a rather unattractive but reputedly seismically safe police barracks, just outside L’Aquila, dressed up for the occasion. A military exclusion zone has been set up around the barracks with roadblocks to ward off any potential party poopers in the shape of anti-global demonstrators. CriticismThousands of police and soldiers with sharpshooters all around the perimeter are providing security, virtually cutting off the sorely tried citizens of L’Aquila from any contact with the celebrations.
True, Mr Berlusconi is already conducting his guests on guided tours of the heavily damaged city to demonstrate how well the Italian state is responding to the disaster which killed 300 and left 50,000 homeless. However many of the homeless of L’Aquila are still living in tented camps just nearby, and to judge by some of their reactions expressed in the Italian media in recent days, they are not at all amused at being showcased to world leaders. The local mayor, who belongs to the opposition Democrat party, says he is furious at the lack of progress so far in repairing the damage and rebuilding homes. He spoke angrily on Italian state TV about his city having disappeared into a “financial black hole” and Mr Berlusconi’s failure to live up to to his generous promises of financial aid immediately after the quake. Mr Berlusconi is also furious at what he claims is unfair criticism of his last-minute organisation of the G8 summit by the foreign press, egged on, he claims, by the left-wing opposition Democrats. The summit was originally planned to be held on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia at a former US nuclear submarine base, with heads of state and their delegations accommodated on a luxury cruise liner. Image problemLogistically this also presented problems, but nothing like those created by the sudden switch to an earthquake zone where ordinary life, and the telecommunications network necessary for the summit to function, remain precarious as a result of the recent natural disaster.
Some areas in the region of L’Aquila still lie in ruins
One of the principal guests, the Chinese President Hu Jintao, has already left before it all begins. He had a different disaster to attend to – a revolt in remote Xinjiang. President Barack Obama is getting a private basketball net, thoughtfully provided by his Italian host outside his private quarters at L’Aquila. But the US president’s scheduled visit to see the Pope at the Vatican, cutting the final session of the G8, is arousing as much interest among many observers, as his presence at the summit. In other words, Prime Minister Berlusconi has an image problem when he deals with foreign leaders. His recent private parties at his luxury homes in Rome and Sardinia, have been documented and reported ad nauseam during recent weeks in the Italian and international media, because of the reported presence of dozens of attractive young women, including paid escorts.
Mr Berlusconi has cause to rue past G8 summits. During the one held in Naples during his first term in office in the summer of 1994, he was served with notice that he was under judicial investigation for alleged bribery – a move that led to the collapse of his government later that year. Then the Genoa G8 summit in 2001 was marred by extensive violence. One demonstrator died, and trials regarding heavy police brutality towards protesters continue to this day. But the Italian leader is by nature an optimist and an obsessive when it comes to small logistical details. “I am serene,” he says. “Italians like me the way I am.” So it could be that Silvio Berlusconi’s guests will enjoy their visit to Italy. This informal meeting of world leaders may actually turn out to be a useful private forum as well as an enjoyable event. After all, the weather is good, the food is always marvellous in Italy, and for those not living in tents in L’Aquila, it’s summer time.

Source:BBC

China seeks control through openness
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Beijing
“Let the facts speak for themselves,” was the unusual statement of intent from Xinjiang regional government official Li Wanhui after Sunday’s violence in Urumqi that officials say left 156 people dead.It was unusual because China is a country where the authorities like to exert tight control over what its people read, watch or listen to. Yet here was a local official suggesting they would help journalists to cover one of the most serious incidents of ethnic unrest in the country’s history. Last year, when there were riots in Tibet, the whole region was sealed off. Foreign journalists were prevented from going there. For two days the Chinese released no pictures of what had gone on there. Different tacticIt is clear China learnt lessons from its suppression of the violence in Tibet and the perception it created that it had something to hide by trying to restrict the information that came out. This time we have seen a different tactic – a clever and effective effort to shape the story to fit its own agenda, using the kind of techniques familiar to any major PR firm anywhere in the world.
China’s leaders realised months ago that this was the approach they needed to take when dealing with potential problems. They have studied hard the mistakes they and others have made in the past, and they are determined they will not repeat them. This time within hours they welcomed journalists from more than 60 foreign media organisations to Xinjiang to cover the aftermath of Sunday’s violence. Foreign journalists arriving in Urumqi were offered official trips to the hospital and to some of the parts of the city worst affected by the violence accompanied by official minders, but other than that they were free to move around the city as they wished. Greater accessZhou Bing, a political commentator in Hong Kong, said this represents a loosening of the controls the foreign media might have expected in such circumstances. He believes that the authorities in Beijing had a clear message they wanted to get out. “They wanted the rest of the world to understand that this was a clash between two ethnic groups, rather than a separatist movement, to frame it as people fighting over local issues, not independence,” he said.
He said they decided that by allowing the foreign journalists into the hospitals to see the victims, or to talk to Han Chinese and Uighurs on the streets, the foreigners would start to share that view. Even though the government in Beijing has accused Uighurs in exile of inciting the violence, Zhou Bing said this was different from the Tibet issue and so it made sense to give journalists greater access to try to ensure they understood that. For Chinese journalists reporting for the domestic media, there was less freedom. Their reports were censored, as they always are by the central authorities. Attempts to calmThe story was covered in the Chinese press with, initially at least, much of the focus on the Han Chinese who had been targeted by rioters. This continued until the Han took to the streets on Tuesday in Urumqi and confronted security forces, demanding protection and in some cases vengeance. By Wednesday morning the official media seemed to have been directed to focus more on attempts to calm the situation. An editorial in the China Daily warned: “If a wrong is avenged with another wrong, there would be no end to it.” Articles in the paper included interviews with workers at the factory in southern China, the scene of a deadly clash between Uighur and Han Chinese workers last month, which was said to have been one of the sparks for Sunday’s protest. The paper said the workers had not expected their dispute to trigger such bloodshed in Xinjiang. The fight at the factory had begun over a false allegation, posted on a website, that six Xinjiang boys had raped two innocent girls at the factory. One other notable response from the authorities to Sunday’s clashes, was their efforts to shut down the internet in Xinjiang and to prevent a free exchange of information on the web throughout China about that violence. Officials here would no doubt try to argue there is a danger that in a situation where tensions are running high, unsubstantiated rumours gain greater currency and greater circulation when they are repeated on websites like Twitter or Facebook. So while they tolerate the demands of the “traditional” overseas media, and go a long way towards facilitating their coverage of the story, they have clamped down on “new media” sources on the internet – either by blocking access to sites completely, or by removing comments or posts referring to Xinjiang. They fear unrest within their own borders far more than they do public opinion in other countries. China wanted to ensure that, within its own borders, its coverage did not inflame ethnic tensions any further, so the restrictions on all but the official coverage were rigorously enforced. Difficult anniversariesBut China’s netizens are smart. Some got around the restrictions by posting comments on older threads about Xinjiang rather than trying to create new ones, and so some “unofficial” information did get out. Twitter was blocked in China, and despite the fact that the internet was blocked all over Xinjiang, many correspondents there and others, both foreigners and Chinese, posted updates on the scenes unfolding in front of them minute by minute on the site, by passing them on to colleagues elsewhere who then tweeted them. This year there are a lot of potentially difficult anniversaries for the government to deal with – 20 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, 60 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China to name just two, and so since the start of 2009 control over the internet has begun to be tightened. “The Chinese government has learnt a lot from incidents that have occurred recently in the cyber universe, both at home and abroad,” said Zhou Bing. “Even before this, there were incidents about corruption and scandal here which were publicised by people using the internet so the tools to suppress them were already there. “They had the technical means to take down photos, or videos, or comments they didn’t like and they were removed swiftly.”

Source:BBC

Bid to delay Standards Bill fails
An attempt to delay plans to “clean up” Parliament in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal has failed.Peers rejected calls to postpone a bill which will set up a new independent body to oversee claims, despite arguments it was being rushed. But a proposed new offence of paid advocacy by MPs has been shelved, ministers have said. And in a further U-turn, the government has agreed that the measure will only affect the Commons, and not the Lords. Lord Norton of Louth, who had introduced an amendment calling for the bill to be delayed, said the legislation had been “hastily drafted”. ‘Further consideration’Under the Parliamentary Standards Bill, an independent Parliamentary Standards Authority would be established as well as a new Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigation. The government has already dropped proposals for a legally-binding code of conduct for MPs after fears that it would prompt a flood of legal challenges. Ministers had planned to change the law so that breaching advocacy rules would become a crime punishable by a fine of up to 5,000. But Lords leader Baroness Royall said the measure has been dropped following cross-party consultation. She said it needed “further consideration” and ministers would return to it. Lady Royall also said that the bill “categorically” would not apply to peers as well as MPs, following earlier suggestions to the contrary from Justice Secretary Jack Straw. She added that the primary purpose of the bill was to deliver “an independent, transparent and accountable system for handling MPs expenses”.
Several peers had highlighted comments made by Mr Straw, who said he expected its arrangements to apply “in due course” to the House of Lords and that eventually the Parliamentary Standards Authority would cover both the Commons and the Lords. Lady Royall said she had “fully reported the very strong, very proper and very cogent views of this House to the government, and the government have listened to me”. As a result, she added, “this bill does not and will not apply to the House of Lords – I categorically state that fact”. Ministers want to rush the bill through Parliament so that it can become law before the start of the summer recess. But peers rejected a proposal from a Conservative Lord Norton, who is the professor of government at Hull University, that would stop the bill being fast-tracked onto the statute book. Lady Royall said: “It is critical for MPs currently in the Commons that the new system should be up and running as soon as possible, but it is also crucial that it is established and properly embedded before the forthcoming general election, so that any new MPs elected at that time are not sullied by the problems of this Parliament.” Former Conservative Leader of the Commons Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market said it was wrong to force the bill into law so quickly. He added: “There are some serious and fundamental flaws in it and it raises serious constitutional issues as a result of the thoughtless haste with which the government did the drafting.” Labour backbencher Lord Peston argued that putting the deadline for passing the bill back to October would result in a “much better piece of legislation”. For the Lib Dems, Lord Shutt of Greetland, argued that there should be a “sunset clause” to limit the bill’s provisions. He added: “This has been done in a rush.”

Source:BBC

‘Racism’ CV project cost 170,000
A project which involved sending out fake CVs in a bid to expose racism cost the taxpayer almost 170,000, the government has acknowledged.As part of the scheme, civil servants submitted false job applications to see if employers discriminated against foreign-sounding names. Employment Minister Jim Knight said in written answers it would cost 168,700. He said the this had been for “fieldwork, analysis of data and the production of the final report”. In several written answers to Tory Peter Luff, chair of the Commons Business Select Committee, Mr Knight said the application forms and CVs had been sent out between November 2008 and May 2009. Mr Knight said the practice, known as “matched CV testing”, had been recommended by the Business Commission on Race Equality “to measure progress towards eliminating the ethnic minority employment gap”. It was carried out by the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force (EMETF) after the chancellor approved the recommendation. Mr Knight added that example copies of the fake CVs would be placed in the Commons library when the report is published in December 2009.

Source:BBC

M&S boss Rose survives key vote

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Marks & Spencer executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose appears to have won a key vote at the retailer’s annual meeting, but there was significant opposition.The motion presented by the Local Authority Pension Fund called on M&S to seek a new chairman by July 2010. Excluding abstentions, 37.7% of voting shareholders were in favour while 62.3% were against. There has been criticism of Sir Stuart’s role as both chairman and chief executive of the company. He is currently due to retire from M&S in July 2011. ‘Reflect seriously’
Councillor Ian Greenwood, who sponsored the motion, told the BBC he hoped that the board would see the level of support the resolution had received, and decide to bring in a new chairman before 2011. “I hope they will reflect seriously on this result,” he told the BBC. “If you concentrate too much power in one place it unbalances the governance.” When abstentions are taken into account, it is expected that 40% of voting shareholders will have failed to back the board’s position on the combined roles. ‘Not a wounded beast’Sir Stuart told the BBC that while there had been a protest vote, he was still perfectly relaxed about the result. “It doesn’t matter if it was 51% – 49% or 60% – 40%; a win is a win,” he said. I don’t feel like a wounded beast – I feel like a chief executive and a chairman, because after all I am both, who wants to carry on and take our company through this recessionary period.” A blog from Manifest, the proxy voting agency, stressed that shareholder resolutions at FTSE 100 companies are very unusual. “What is notable about the result… is that it managed to attract twice as much support as any previous FTSE 100 shareholder resolution,” the blog said. Executive bonuses

M&S has made concessions to shareholders in recent weeks over the issue of executive bonuses. Sir Stuart and marketing director, Steven Sharp, are to forego a third of their long-term bonus awards, following criticism from the Association of British Insurers. It was thought that shareholders might still express their anger at the bonus system by voting against the re-election of Lady Patten, chairman of the remuneration committee. In the event, 90.2% voted in favour of her re-election with 9.8% voting against.

Source:BBC

Sink immigrants’ boats – Griffin

The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC.The MEP for the North-West of England said the EU had to get “very tough” with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: “Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya”. Libya has long been a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe. Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before. But with the prospect of a new immigration and asylum policy being voted on this autumn by MEPs, Mr Griffin is advocating measures to destroy boats used by illegal immigrants to reach the EU’s southern coastline. ‘Combating the flow’In an interview with this week’s edition of BBC Parliament’s The Record Europe, he said: “If there’s measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we’d support that.
“But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over. “Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. “Anyone coming up with measures like that we’ll support but anything which is there as a ‘oh, we need to do something about it’ but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe’ we will oppose.” The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: “I don’t think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea.” Mr Griffin replied: “I didn’t say anyone should be murdered at sea – I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya. “But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World.” In May, the Italian government gave Libya three patrol boats as part of a deal aimed at combating the flow of illegal migrants making the crossing to Italy. Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Lega Nord party, hailed the first 200 migrants picked up by the boats and returned to Libya as an “historic” moment. But human rights groups have raised concerns about Italy sending migrants back to Libya without first screening them for asylum claims or to discover whether they are sick, injured, unaccompanied children or victims of human trafficking. Libya has no functioning asylum system and is not a party to the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees. ‘Influence’Separately Mr Griffin, who will next week formally take up his seat in Brussels, has admitted that the BNP has failed to convince other like-minded parties to form an alliance in the new European Parliament. Talks with France’s Front National, Lega Nord, and other groups fell apart, with Lega Nord now joining the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, led by Britain’s UK Independence Party. Mr Griffin told The Parliament.com: “We needed at least 25 members from seven different member states to form a group. There is no doubt that we would have been able to wield a lot more influence if we could have formed a group. “No one was prepared to commit themselves knowing that we had not got Lega Nord on board. “Even so, we will continue to work together with these other groups and share ideas. We will have less access to things like speaking time and committee votes but it’s too bad.” The BNP advocates British withdrawal from the European Union and an end to all immigration to the UK and last month won its first two seats in the European Parliament. Mr Griffin and the party’s other recently-elected MEP Andrew Brons will sit in the “non-attached” section of the Parliament, which means they will be entitled to less administrative and financial support. You can watch the full interview with Nick Griffin on The Record Europe on BBC Parliament, BBC World and the BBC News Channel on Saturday and on the programme’s website.

Source:BBC

News of the World ‘bugging claim’
The publisher of the News of the World paid 1m in court costs after its journalists were accused of involvement in phone tapping, it has been claimed.The Guardian says three cases were settled out of court after journalists allegedly hired private investigators who obtained the information illegally. It claims News Group paid 700,000 in damages and costs to the head of the professional footballers’ association. News International told the paper the case “means nothing to anyone here”. A spokesman said: “This particular case means nothing to anyone here, and I’ve talked to all the people who would be involved.” The BBC has yet to receive a response from News International. Mobile phone messagesOther high-profile figures allegedly targeted include model Elle Macpherson, former deputy prime minister John Prescott and the publicist Max Clifford. The News of the World editor at the time, Andy Coulson, said: “I have made it clear to the Guardian that I knew nothing about the Taylor settlement.”
Mr Coulson, now the Conservative Party communications director, declined to comment further. A spokeswoman for David Cameron said the Conservative leader was “very relaxed” about the story. “The ramping up of this story is ridiculous – this is about a payment made well after Andy (Coulson) left the News of the World,” she said. The Guardian says evidence alleging journalists used investigators to hack into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures was presented in High Court proceedings. It claims the investigators went in search of information such as bank statements and tax records. Police investigationMr Prescott told the BBC he had not been told his phone may have been tapped. “I had no evidence of this though frankly, a lot of the stories in the paper were coming from information that was highly private,” he said. “It’s quite staggering really.” Two years ago, the News of the World’s royal reporter Clive Goodman was jailed after pleading guilty to hacking into the phone messages of royal staff. A private investigator was also jailed and Mr Coulson resigned. The Guardian now says it has evidence of repeated involvement by the group’s journalists in illegal activity, which could open the way for police inquiries and legal action by the victims. A Met Police spokesman said an investigation had been carried out into the alleged unlawful interception of telephone calls. “Two people were charged and subsequently convicted and jailed. We are not prepared to comment further,” he said.

Source:BBC