Next Gen News

08/29/2010 Treasury secretary Danny Alexander defends budget cuts as coalition comes under fire

In his first newspaper interview since becoming the government's axeman-in-chief, Danny Alexander says making tough economic decisions does not make him any less of a Liberal Democrat

On Thursday morning, Danny Alexander called a taxi to take him from his Highland home in Aviemore to the train station. During the journey, the driver turned to the politician â€" now chief secretary to the Treasury â€" and told him: "You must need skin like a rhino for your job."

From the furthest reaches of Scotland to the coastal towns of southern England, people can see that it has been a tough few months for the Liberal Democrat MP who has been catapulted into the position of the government's axeman-in-chief. Now, in his first newspaper interview since taking the role, Alexander explains the rationale behind what will be the harshest public spending cuts in generations.

This is the week that the tense â€" and perhaps angry â€" negotiations begin, leading to the publication in October of the comprehensive spending review that will lay out the scale of what is to come.

Just over five years ago, Alexander was a press officer at the Cairngorms National Park (something sketch writers have pointed out with glee). By July he was ordering secretaries of state â€" including Ken Clarke, Iain Duncan Smith and Vince Cable â€" to draw up plans for cuts in departmental spending of up to 40%. Supporters say the action is unavoidable after years of indulgence by Labour ; critics claim it is an ideologically driven mission to scale back the state in a way never witnessed before.

To those who suggest he is not up to it, Alexander does not hesitate: "I know that I am â€" and that is all there is to it."

This week, the 38-year-old will take his seat as deputy chair in what has become known as the "star chamber" of senior ministers â€" the team that will start to trawl through each spending submission. Chaired by George Osborne, the committee will begin with just three other members: William Hague, Francis Maude and Oliver Letwin. Some have claimed it could represent a "chamber of horrors" as the men scour plans, challenge ministers and demand revisions.

Ministers are all desperate to protect their departments and are already battling it out in Westminster. Some have approached those in the Department for Work and Pensions, pleading with them to cut the welfare bill and free up more money for other areas. Transport, policing, prisons, school buildings and the armed forces are all in the line of fire.

As the discussions go on, the "star chamber" will expand as ministers whose plans have been signed off join it and turn their attention to their colleagues' ideas instead.

For Alexander, it is not just about convincing the public â€" it is also about reassuring his increasingly restive Lib Dem party that he is not being taken prisoner by a Tory party that some see as less impassioned by the desire to protect the poor. With his party's first conference since the formation of the coalition upon them, the challenge for Alexander and leader Nick Clegg is to sell austerity not just as necessary, but progressive. "I worry about making sure we make the right decisions, that we make cuts with care," he says.

It is a claim that is being increasingly questioned. Last week the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies rejected government claims that the budget measures were progressive, claiming instead that they would clearly hit the poor hardest. It followed a legal challenge from the Fawcett Society amid claims that women would bear the brunt of the cuts. A stark warning was also delivered by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which wants evidence that ministers are doing everything they can to protect the most vulnerable.

Things are unlikely to improve quickly. A study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research today claims that unemployment is likely to breach 10% in half of UK regions over the next five years. The research suggests that the more affluent south, east and London are to escape the largest increases, but the outlook is bleak for weaker economies in the north, west and Northern Ireland.

Tomorrow, Alexander will receive a letter - also sent to the Prime Minister, his deputy and the chancellor - has accused the government of failing to put one of them say that the most value based on its agenda - justice. Among the 15 prominent signatories Chapter Child Poverty Action Group Barnardos, TUC, Oxfam, children and equality Trust.

Nevertheless, Alexander insists that "fairness and social mobility" have been at the core of all discussions and will continue to be so in all future decisions.

The reality he says, more than once, is that there is no choice but to cut. "The least progressive thing is to deny there is a problem," snaps Alexander, claiming that it was Labour that created the mess and accusing the party of "hypocrisy".

"That budget deficit means we are spending £150bn more this year than we raise in taxation. It is genuinely unavoidable that we bring our public finances back in order... There is absolutely nothing progressive about leaving a rapidly growing burden of debt for the next generations to inherit."

It is that message that the politician is desperate to get out to people â€" and he is travelling across the country to do it.

On Thursday, the minister boarded a small plane in Inverness. He was travelling to Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, for a question and answer session at the local council offices. The 6,000 residents of the town want to know how decisions being made 660 miles away in London will affect their rural community.

It was to be a rough ride. As soon as Alexander had finished a short introduction, a man leaned forward, turned on his microphone and began almost spitting out his words: "Mr Alexander, I'd like to ask what convinced you to have what was probably the most dramatic conversion since St Paul on the road to Damascus, which made you fall hook, line and sinker for the Tories' policy of reverting progress on public services over the last century... People are bitterly disappointed by the Liberal Democrats' betrayal... People are angry that we are going to be made to suffer for something we had no part in."

It was the bankers who got us into this, not Labour, he says.

Alexander was quick to point out that the man â€" Donald John MacSween â€" was a local Labour councillor. But it wasn't the only anger. Another resident claimed the private sector was virtually nonexistent on the island and pointed out that cutbacks to public spending would destroy livelihoods.

If Alexander wants the charge that senior Lib Dems have betrayed their party to go away, he knows he has to work hard. Fighting his party's corner in negotiations over cuts is crucial. The MP will point to victories such as the pupil premium, but still raging are battles over Trident and tuition fees.

Whatever he does, Alexander risks unpopularity. When the Tories were in opposition, Philip Hammond, then shadow chief secretary, ruminated that he was "likely to become a great figure to pin on the dartboard, and throw darts at" should he do the job in government.

But the Lib Dem incumbent says he can take it: "Those things don't bother me really â€" it goes with the territory." He tells the story of the taxi driver, and then admits that both he and the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg have thick skins: "I spend all my time worrying about doing the right thing in government. We have seen previous governments spend all their time worrying about this newspaper or that columnist." That is what stopped New Labour being radical, he claims.

But one thing that is unavoidable is the Liberal Democrats' dramatic decline in the polls since joining the coalition. Surely that is a huge concern?

Alexander says he has spoken to Jim Wallace, the former leader of the Lib Dems in Scotland who formed a coalition with Labour: "They got a lot of scrutiny at the start because people weren't used to a coalition, but by the end people saw that the Lib Dems had made a real difference." The party went on to improve its position in the next election, he adds.

"We signed up to this because we believed the country needed stable government. And I think over five years people will see we have made a real difference to government."

Could the Lib Dems one day work with Labour? "Let's get this coalition out of the way first. Ask me that in five years' time," he says.

And when it comes to Labour, Alexander wants to push the point. "I just think from a party that presided over increasing child poverty, that failed to reintroduce the earnings link for pensions, that had the most centralised control over public services â€" I will not take lectures on fairness from them," he says. "They are irresponsible, [they] deny the problem the country faces â€" that puts them at the least credible end of politics."

But he knows Labour are not his only critics. Tomorrow's letter is signed by people who have worked in the field of poverty for years. Shan Nicholas, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, says that it is unfair and excessive rewards for reckless behaviour in the City that led to the recession: "It is certainly not fair for those who were not responsible for the economic crisis to foot the bill. We will put economic recovery at risk if we think we can afford to cut people loose at the bottom. It will leave us hit by the same kinds of social and economic costs that have been the legacy of the culture of inequality that took hold in the 1980s."

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, says the IFS study undermines the government's claim that fairness is its guiding principle. And then there is the challenge from the Fawcett Society, which is seeking a judicial review that could brand the budget unlawful. The women's rights group is claiming the government failed in its duty to carry out an equality assessment looking at the impact on women.

"The Treasury looked more comprehensively across the spectrum of the budget as a whole than has ever been done before," says Alexander, pointing to an analysis that looked at how the measures affect the poorest and richest. He argues it would have been "almost impossible" to break that down beyond a household level and compare the impact on men and women because it requires making impossible assumptions.

Ceri Goddard, the chief executive of Fawcett, says it is an admission the assessment was never carried out. And she insists that it is possible to gather the information. She says any man or woman on the street could tell that the plans would hit women harder. Even Theresa May, the home secretary who is responsible inside government for the equalities agenda, has warned about the issue in a letter to colleagues.

For Alexander, October will be the climax of a stressful year. Since January it has been "non-stop", as he wrote the Lib Dem manifesto, helped plan the election campaign and then prepared for coalition talks. In the middle of all this, Alexander's second daughter, Isla, was born on 22 May. The family were with him in London and she was delivered at St Thomas' overlooking the House of Commons. Alexander had taken three days of leave to spend with his daughter when David Laws suddenly resigned as chief secretary after being engulfed in an expenses scandal.

"I still haven't finished my paternity leave and I don't suppose I ever will," he says with a laugh.

But he quickly became serious: "I 'm not sure if someone said that they came into politics, to reduce public spending, but this should be done." "He says he harbors no illusions Decisions effect Oct. 's will be - from Stornoway in London and beyond.

Next Gen NEWS

08/29/2010 Peter Stanford examines talk of a crisis in the Catholic church and its members' reluctance to confront their critics on the eve of the pope's visit to Britain

As the pope heads for Britain amid a chorus of militant criticism, the UK's Catholics remain reluctant to confront their detractors

There has also been a growing chorus of complaint about why British taxpayers, in this age of austerity, should pay £12m towards the cost of the pope's three days in Britain. And now Penguin is to publish, on the eve of the visit, The Case of the Pope, a polemical tract by a leading human rights barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC, arguing that Benedict should be stripped by the international community of his status as "the one man left in the world who is above the law".

Confronted by this assault on their spiritual leader, Britain's six million Catholics are under scrutiny as never before â€" and many seem to be uncomfortable in the spotlight. That, at least, is one explanation being offered for their reluctance either to cough up their required £7m contribution for the visit, or take up the tickets that have been sent to their parishes by organisers, but which are now being returned unclaimed, despite the announcement last week that Susan Boyle, the overnight singing sensation from Britain's Got Talent, will serenade Benedict in Glasgow.

To stand up publicly and be counted as a Catholic in Britain right now can be to invite a tirade, as I found when I accepted an invitation from the Oxford literary festival to defend the role of faith schools against an author who had published a book questioning them.

Five minutes before we went on stage, the organisers announced to me that philosopher AC Grayling had kindly agreed to chair the event. That is AC Grayling, the second-best known militant atheist in the country, hardly your typical neutral chair. And then as we were walking into the hall, Grayling informed me that "Richard" had agreed to make a contribution â€" Richard Dawkins, that is, the best-known atheist in the country on account of his diatribe against religion, The God Delusion. Equal conditions? Of course not, and was a representative of any other minorities have been created in such fashion the entire literary world would have been signing petitions. But I was the protection of the Catholic Church, so the usual rules And not t "Apply".

There is, granted, much that many mass-goers feel ashamed about in their church's recent conduct. The number of Catholic priests in this country accused of sexually abusing children may stand at 0.4% of the total â€" accused, that is, not convicted â€" but the revelation that they had so degraded a vocation that Catholics have always been taught to hold in the highest esteem came as a profound shock.

As did the efforts of bishops worldwide, up to and including the future Pope Benedict, according to some unsubstantiated but well-publicised allegations, in covering up these crimes. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales until 2009, had, while a bishop in the 1980s, moved a known paedophile priest from one posting to another where he continued to prey on children.

There is a debate by proxy going on here. The real concern of many who attack faith schools appears to be the granting of voluntary-aided status (state funding) to Muslim schools, where there is some evidence that it is not always being spent in the cause of toleration and mutual respect. But the critics are nervous of being seen to attack Islam, lest they are labelled bigots, but Catholic schools â€" where the evidence of abuse is, according to the government's own inspectors, slight â€" apparently provide a useful and risk-free alternative.

In a recent interview, composer and devout Catholic James MacMillan, who has produced a new setting of the mass to mark the papal visit, labelled the current wave of anti-Catholicism as "the new antisemitism of the liberal intellectual". So why don't other Catholics follow MacMillan's example and speak up more often in their own defence?

One reason is history, the lingering sense that Catholics are here in Britain "on tolerance" and so attacks are something to be endured â€" or offered up, as my Christian Brother teachers used to tell us. For almost three centuries after Henry VIII's break with Rome, those who remained Catholic in Britain faced something much worse than verbal attacks. It was a period of intense persecution with penal laws, Catholics barred from holding public office and even, at times, owning land, and the prospect of imprisonment, torture and execution if caught attending mass. It was only in 1829 that the Catholic Relief Act allowed Catholics once more to vote and sit in parliament, and, even then, it took until the late 1940s for a Catholic â€" Richard Stokes â€" to be appointed a government minister.

The fact that today it is scarcely noticed whether MPs or ministers are Catholics is a mark of how far tolerance and integration have progressed, but the experience of persecution has left its mark in a church that instinctively keeps a low profile and shrugs off criticisms rather than confronts them.

While they may feel different from their fellow citizens, most Catholics would dismiss the idea that they face much by way of prejudice because of their beliefs â€" or any more prejudice than other people of faith in secular times. "It is really not something that I have ever experienced," says author Mary Kenny, master of The Keys, the Catholic writers' guild, "except from old-style 70s feminists who will say, 'Oh you're so Catholic, you're so rightwing'."

The difference between the experiences of Kenny and MacMillan, both high-profile Catholics living in Britain, is instructive and points to some of the internal tensions in British Catholicism that make it less effective in tackling its external critics.

There seem to be almost as many forms of Catholicism here as there are Catholics. There is, in simple terms, no single, shared template for the British Catholics who will be greeting Pope Benedict next month.

For a start, the Vatican regards Britain as two separate entities, for reasons that date back to the time when England and Scotland were independent kingdoms. So the pope will be greeted on his arrival in Edinburgh by Cardinal O'Brien as the leader of an 800,000-strong Scottish Catholic church, and in London by Archbishop Vincent Nichols as head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, which numbers 5.2 million.

This figure â€" produced by an Ipsos Mori poll in 2009 â€" shows a steep increase from the 4.2 million (or 8% of the population) reported by the 2001 census and is usually ascribed to the influx in recent years of immigrants from the Catholic countries of eastern Europe. Even vocations to the priesthood are currently showing a gentle upturn, after decades in freefall, with 150 men now in seminaries and another 40 expected to join them in September.

la carte approach of the current generation of believers to what were once the non-negotiables of the faith. A church that likes to present itself as unchanging in the face of the modern world is, in fact, changing pretty rapidly.

And then there is the wide divergence in parish life around Britain. I have been spending August in Norfolk, where our local Catholic parish is 100% white and quietly prosperous, and where my wife and I, in our late 40s, still qualify as "that nice young couple".

Similarly difficult is any attempt to neatly divide British Catholics into factions. Yes, at the extremes there are organisations (usually tiny, but articulate) that bang the drum for their particular causes. Cwo (pronounced "Quo"), for instance, supports female priests and plans to mark the pope's visit to London with advertisements on buses shouting "Ordain Women".

At the other end of the spectrum, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice offers "an orthodox response to the crisis in the church" but struggles to muster more than a dozen protesters for its vigil in London where, to its fury but with the blessing of the bishops, a mass is said each week for the gay and lesbian Catholic community.

Such demarcations tend to go over the heads of most British mass-goers, who seem effortlessly to combine so-called "traditionalist" and "liberal" approaches to their faith. "We have always been a broad church with 57 varieties," says Mary Kenny, "which is why we need the magisterium[Teaching the power of the pope] to extricate us. "

It is a point echoed by Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton. "I am often told by those Catholics who dislike the way our church operates in this country that they are the 'silent majority', denied a voice by people like me in the hierarchy," he says. "The reality is that they are a very small minority. Pope Benedict is coming to a country where Catholicism is unusually stable, cohesive and vibrant enough in the current overall context of decline of interest in the church in western Europe. Indeed, I think he may well be relieved to be coming to a place where, unlike some of his other recent trips, there are no big problems for him to sort out."

Well, that might be going a bit far. Catherine Pepinster, editor of the influential Catholic weekly the Tablet, offers a more nuanced assessment. "If you developed an interest in British Catholicism by reading the various 'Catholic' blogs that have sprung up in recent years, you would conclude that we are in the midst of vicious cultural wars," she says. "But when you get to the parishes, nobody seems to be at anyone else's throat. The idea that there is a crisis is mistaken, though the church should nevertheless be asking itself why there are so many lapsed Catholics."

One blogger popular with more conservative Catholics is writer and Catholic Times columnist Joanna Bogle. "Yes, I write passionate things sometimes," she says, "and I criticise our bishops who scarcely can be counted as men of vigour and vision in these turbulent times, but blogs aren't necessarily the real world. I do think there is a crunch coming between the grassroots movement of young Catholics in groups like Youth 2000 who are interested in liturgy, in prayer, and above all in Jesus Christ, and the bishops who won't be able to control these movements as they challenge and renew Catholicism here."

Her criticism of the bishops reflects a minority view within the British church that would like to see them be more assertive and disciplinarian. Yet another legacy of the history of the faith here and its accommodation to the prevailing norms of the wider society has been a reluctance on the part of the hierarchy (save, perhaps, in Scotland, where they are more outspoken) to hammer home from the pulpit contentious Catholic teachings that deem homosexuality, abortion and the use of condoms sinful.

In this, the bishops are simply being realistic. Survey after survey of Catholic opinion has, for example, reported that very few follow papal teaching against contraception â€" hence the near extinction of the once traditional Catholic family of eight children and upwards.

Yet that pragmatism, coupled with an innate reluctance to be drawn into public confrontation, today comes at a cost when the church is being attacked from without by militant secularists. Pope Benedict may indeed want to stiffen the collective Catholic resolve.

Bishop Conry professes himself puzzled by the secularists' claims. "No one ever defines secularism," he complains. "If they mean an absence of interest in spirituality, for instance, then I would say that there is plenty of evidence of exactly the opposite." But he concedes there may be a case for him and his colleagues to engage in "a little more searching and even brutal debate". It will be music to the pope's ears.

Peter Stanford is a former editor of the Catholic Herald. His latest book, The Extra Mile: A 21st Century Pilgrimage, is published by Continuum

Next Gen NEWS

08/24/2010 What is the Foreign Affairs 's report on human rights for?

The question of whether the annual survey does any good is much more important than whether it's printed on glossy paper

What ought we to make of the stories that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has "scrapped" its annual report on human rights?

Foreign Ministry made a rather strongly worded statement referring not to scrapping the report but to "alternatives to the expensive glossy colour publications of the past, for example online publication or publication by command paper".

It insists: "[Our] foreign policy will always have consistent support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core ... The only question is how that report can most cost-effectively be produced." But Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, says she has deep concerns about plans to axe the report. "Amnesty International's fear is that this is the latest step in putting economics before human rights."

It is tempting therefore to use the all-purpose excuse: it's too early to say. We have to wait and see whether the report appears in a new form and whether the government's actions match the words in the statement.

However, some things can be said. First, the government's decision to apply sharp cuts in the budgets of all departments was bound to include some that will be painful, all the worse because ringfencing a few big budgets such as the NHS and international aid makes the impact on the others all the sharper.

The core expenditure of the Foreign Office is on posts overseas, and the only way to cut expenditure sharply is to close posts. Incidentally, is it really sensible to ringfence (or increase) aid to say Tanzania, and at the same time pull our diplomats out of Dar es Salaam? I choose Tanzania simply as an example of a country where our interests other than aid are relatively small. If we do not close Dar es Salaam we will have to close some other post where non-aid interests may be more substantial.

If the path can be found on the savings, without closing positions, the better. Already in the fashion house magazine was an ax, he won 't be missed. Maybe there are more "glossy color publications. Unfortunately, these savings are only a drop in the sea.

Next, the prime minister's repeated calls for a step change in our approach to foreign and diplomatic relations, massively upgrading the importance of trade imply, if one takes them seriously, readjustment of priorities and a shift of resources away from other functions towards trade.

I say "if one takes them seriously" not to cast doubt on the sincerity of David Cameron's intentions but because I can recall many ministerial and prime ministerial attempts to reinvent the wheel that have led nowhere. The priorities of the Foreign Office are obviously largely dictated by factors outside its control, sometimes by the British government, usually by events.

And although I believe in the importance of human rights, I have serious doubts about the value of the annual report. This is not so much because I doubt its quality, which I am not particularly well-qualified to judge, but because I doubt whether it is effective, value for money.

The report for 2009 issued in April this year prints out at 189 pages. Unlike the American versionnot attempt to cover the whole world. "Country" section covers 22 selected "countries of concern" in 90 pages. Inevitably, the choice reflects a certain political compromises, as well as countries such as Congo or Tajikistan are omitted, what is perhaps more surprising is the fact that not even mentioned in the index.

This selectivity may be wise. Trying to fit everybody in can lead to some strange anomalies. One of the earliest attempts I remember to quantify aspects of foreign relations was an initiative by George Brown, foreign secretary in Harold Wilson's government, to rank our relations with all countries, in order to provide a guide for the allocation of resources.

What nobody expected was that the table showed that the weight of relations with Dublin, whether political, commercial, human, cultural or whatever, put the Republic of Ireland way ahead at the top of the list. Since nobody thought it was a good idea to beef up our embassy in Dublin bigger than the embassies in Washington, Paris, Moscow and so on, the project was quietly dropped. (The same exercise led to a desperate search to identify the objective of our relations with Ecuador, which came bottom of the list of countries in which we had embassies. In the end we settled for "stopping the Ecuadorians selling us cheap bananas".)

Finally, there is the question of stones and glass houses. Any non-Americans, and no doubt many Americans, reading the state department report are likely to be prompted to think "how does America's record compare with all these lesser breeds?" The same applies to the UK.

American secretary of state Hillary Clinton has announced that next year's report will include a section on human rights in the US. Anybody who can't wait could consult the Chinese government's report on human rights in the US â€" proof that in world affairs, a pot really can call a kettle black. But is this what foreign ministries are for?

If pruning or even axing this report is the worst that budget cuts impose on the Foreign Office, we will have got off lightly.

Next Gen NEWS

07/03/2010 \\ "I wrote this big and crazy '

Reboot of the Schwarzenegger action franchise marks start of a remarkable return for the Desperado director, who may yet team up again with Quentin Tarantino

"Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream world," says director-producer Robert Rodriguez, "because it doesn't always seem too logical how things work out." Indeed, this year the film-maker is feeling a distinct case of deja vu. His first release this month will be a sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1987 film Predator, helmed by Hungarian director Nimród Antal, produced at his Troublemaker Studios outfit in Texas, and based on a script Rodriguez wrote as a writer for hire during a brief production hiatus in the mid-90s. The second is Machete, a self-directed (with Ethan Maniquis) "Mexploitation" flick about a Latin hitman who takes revenge on the gringos who double-crossed him. "I came up with them both in the same year," Rodriguez marvels, "and now they're coming out within months of each other, 15 years later. It's pretty surreal."

At 42, Rodriguez is coming back to public life with a vengeance. His last film, the children's comedy Shorts, was a disappointment, and after the debacle of the Grindhouse double-bill project, made in tandem with Quentin Tarantino, it seemed the pioneering one-man band of US indie cinema might have finally lost his mojo. But, just as Tarantino bounced back with Inglourious Basterds, So that Rodriguez was taking time for regeneration, with a bunch of projects, as well as the aforementioned, include the long-awaited sequel to "Sin City" and that most curious of all, another reboot, all new parties Spy Kids, child-fantasy movie franchise he started in 2001 year.

This reinvention of sorts begins with Predators, a bloody horror sci-fi thriller based on the only script Rodriguez ever wrote to spec. "I thought, 'If I only have to write it, I can make it as big as I want,'" he recalls. "Twentieth Century Fox just wanted a script that would entice Arnold back into the mix. I knew Arnold personally, and I knew he liked the first film's jungle setting, so I decided to write something with a jungle setting but set on another planet. I wanted to make it more of a sequel to the first one, pretending the real Predator 2 didn't exist.

"As James Cameron's Aliens was to Alien," he continues, "this would be Predators to Predator. So I just wrote it â€" wrote it big, wrote it crazy â€" and it was completely undoable, especially back then. The CGI just wasn't available like it is today. So I turned it in and kinda forgot about it. Arnold decided he was just not interested in doing another Predator and moved on to other things and so, because my script was all Arnold and they couldn't just get someone else in without changing it considerably, Fox went the route of the Alien Versus Predator films."

'To put these ideas forth and then have the script disappear, not knowing if it was gonna get made was like getting pregnant, having a baby then giving the baby away!'

Fast-forward over a decade, and Rodriguez was surprised to find this long-lost work back on his desk. "Fox came to me and said, 'Would you take on the reins of bringing this franchise back for us?' Now, I wasn't able to, because I was committed to another directing job at the time. However, I did say that I could produce it at Troublemaker Studios with my crew and oversee it, because I didn't want it to slip away again." He sighs: "It was always a strange feeling. That's why I didn't take another writing job afterwards. To put these ideas forth and then have the script disappear, not knowing if it was gonna get made or get changed or made without me, was almost like getting pregnant, having a baby then giving the baby away!"

This reboot, which Rodriguez insists stands alone as its own entity, is now an ensemble piece, in which Adrien Brody (Arnold was "too busy doing his governor stuff") heads up a band of killers who find themselves stranded in a strange world. "My original draft was about the dual meaning of the title. The 'predators' were also the humans; you have all these killers on this planet who could very easily do each other in before they even meet one of the creatures! Adrien plays a mercenary, but the others are even more hardcore. There's a yakuza, somebody from death row, a serial killer, a sniper and a cartel enforcer, and they're all picked for a reason: this is how the predators evolve, basically, by training on these different types of prey. Not just humans but other creatures too."

Rodriguez remembers the 1987 original with fondness and a perverse awe. "I saw it at the theatre," he laughs, "and audiences didn't really know what to make of it at the time; people thought they were going to see an Arnold, Commando-type movie, and then it turned into more of a sci-fi film. Arnold doesn't even kill it â€" it kind of blows itself up â€" and Arnold is left in a helicopter looking completely shell-shocked, like he's off to the loony bin! People enjoyed it but they didn't quite know what to make of it. But it caught on later and became a cult movie, because it does have that unique mix of genres, which I've always loved to do. Films like From Dusk Till Dawn that mix genres, I find them more entertaining. Also, I think the Predator itself is such a great character. It's more humanoid than the Alien creature. You can identify with it, because he looks very human. He's badass and he makes total sense; he's just a hunter, doing what he does best."

It's a theme that recurs in Rodriguez's next film, Machete, a full-length version of the fake trailer that preceded Grindhouse. "All the stuff from the fake trailer is in the movie," Rodriguez enthuses. "That was a bizarre way to do it, but, creatively, it was a great challenge. It was like, 'OK, he's in a pool with two nude girls; how did we get there?' I had to work backwards, to put him in there in a way that you wouldn't expect." Then after Machete comes Spy Kids, his first film in digital 3D, then (possibly) Sin City 2, and then â€" though Rodriguez claims he has no immediate plans to work with Tarantino again â€" there's every chance of a QT/RR rematch ("We do something every 10 years," he grins).

Next Gen NEWS

08/24/2010 University crisis to hit GCSE students

Domino effect caused by huge demand for degree places, could see A-level students taking opportunities from 16-year-olds

Pupils who do less well in their GCSEs face being squeezed out of further education opportunities as colleges snap up higher-performing students who have failed to get into university, the lecturers' union warns today as GCSE results are published.

A domino effect stemming from the crisis in degree places could force out some of those who have traditionally turned to vocational qualifications at the age of 16, leading to a rise in the number of Neets â€" young people not in education, employment or training â€" according to the University and College Union (UCU).

More than a quarter of students who applied to university still have no place and vacancies are fading fast, figures revealed yesterday. Some 187,488 applicants were still searching in clearing, according to the university admissions service, Ucas. At the same time last year the number was 141,130. Only 18,000 courses are thought to still have vacancies, compared with 32,000 in 2009, and at a number of universities many of the places are reserved for foreign students.

Labor pledged to extend the warranty for another three years, but Balls has accused the coalition for failing to commit to appropriate it, and raised concern that students from 2-year course of this fall may find funding withdrawn within 12 months.

Dan Taubman, further education policy officer at UCU, said that with between 150,000 and 200,000 students with A-levels set to fail to get a university place, some would turn to apprenticeships and qualifications such as BTec and HNDs, or seek to do resits or more A-levels. They would be eagerly taken on by sixth forms and colleges keen to boost their performance indicators, he predicted, reducing the number of places available to those getting GCSE results.

"Schools and colleges are to a large extent judged to be a success or failure on their exam results," he said. "That's a big incentive not to take kids who have just failed. It's just like the universities â€" they can be more selective, and the kids without are not going to get in."

Balls said: "Young people are working harder than ever to get good qualifications, but this government is quickly pulling away the ladder of opportunity from thousands of them.

"We don't yet know how big the cuts will be from next year, but this looks set to be the last summer for the school leavers guarantee before the cuts bite. Michael Gove must come clean on the scale of cuts he is planning for next year and give young people about to start a two-year course a firm assurance that their place will not be taken away after the first year."

Earlier this month the TUC said the numbers of long-term unemployed young people were still rising across two-thirds of the country, reporting that although the economy returned to growth at the end of last year, long-term youth unemployment was up more than a fifth on a year ago.

The DfE said decisions about funding for the September guarantee would be taken in October's spending review. A spokesman said: "This government is working to give all young people, regardless of background, the best opportunities to progress. We are committed to the continued expansion of the apprenticeships programme and, by summer 2011, the work programme will offer the personalised support that young people require, regardless of their circumstances."

Meanwhile a thinktank claims today that "educational apartheid" is developing under which lower-income students are considerably more likely to be entered for "sub-standard" vocational qualifications. Civitas said schools were urging pupils to take qualifications that boost their standing in league tables because they are worth the equivalent of four GCSEs at good grades, but some were "practically irrelevant". "Despite their value in the league tables, all too often a bogus vocational training route is being used simply as a way to take lower achievers off academic subjects," its report said.

In one case referred to Civitas was the BTEC first certificate in the hospitality industry, which includes a block of student learning are food and beverages, as well as a section on 'investigation Airports "for the citizens of OCR Level 2 Travel and Tourism.

A spokesman for Pearson exam board said it stood by the "rigour of the BTec vocational qualifications".

"Plenty of schools and colleges say that BTec qualifications stretch and engage their pupils in very different ways from GCSEs."

A spokesman for OCR said: "Civitas is wrong. OCR Nationals incorporate inherently practical, applied learning â€" founded on a solid base of knowledge and understanding. OCR has never claimed they fully prepare somebody for work in that sector â€" any more than a GCSE in an academic subject equips you to become a university don in a discipline."

Meanwhile it was reported in the Telegraph today that pupils who do not excel in their GCSEs are discriminated against by universities, who use the exams to weed out candidates for degree courses. Martin Stephen, the head of St Paul's school, west London, said: "The A* is being used as a crude, preliminary filter which is hugely regrettable because it simply discriminates against the late developer."

Next Gen NEWS

07/20/2010 South Africa's rooibos farmers go wild to take on commercial growers

Less than the fair trade tea cooperatives in the Western Cape to choose wild rooibos beat climate change and major producers

When rooibos, South Africa's naturally caffeine-free tea, made the jump from health food store to supermarket staple it provided a lifeline for a small group of indigenous farmers. Then drought and the entry of commercial growers into the market threatened them with ruin. But they are fighting back by planting wild rooibos.

George Kotze's great, great, great- grandparents were among the first farmers to grow rooibos tea in South Africa's wild and desolate Western Cape, the only place in the world where the bushes are found.

Despite great difficulties, including losing their land to European settlers and discrimination under apartheid, the community grew Khoisan Tea so far.

"Uncle George", as the field workers call him, is on his way to meet the other farmers at the "tea court" at the Heiveld tea co-operative, where they come together to chop, ferment and dry their rooibos tea. It's a bumpy one-hour drive over gravel roads, which usually wash away when the winter rains come. Although it is only lunchtime, 66-year-old George has already walked 52km to Nieuwoudtville, the closest town, and back. He got up at 2am to walk by the light of the moon just to buy a bar of soap.

Tea farmer Drieka Kotze, 49, worked as a labourer on white-owned commercial tea farms until 1986, when she came back to her tiny family homestead to work her land. Gesturing to a point beyond the horizon, she says: "It is better here than on a white farm because we are no longer onderdruk [oppressed]. But my family is not originally from here. We owned the Sewefontein farm over there. Whites took it from us in 1870."

In 2003 Heiveld, located approximately 400 square meters of land in drought-prone Sud Bokkeveld, 5 hours drive from Cape Town is one of the two cooperatives of small farmers in South Africa, supplying 100% organic, fair trade rooibos market. But now large-scale commercial farmers dominate the market.

"They've taken away Heiveld's market share and had a strong downward impact on prices," says Noel Oettle, rural programmes manager at the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG), a local NGO that helped Heiveld set up as a co-operative in 2000.

To make matters worse, changing climate conditions are threatening production.

When a major drought hit the area in 2003, the springs upon which the farmers had always depended for water dried up and the tea plants' three-metre-deep tap roots were unable to draw moisture from the soil. By the time the drought broke three years later many plants had died.

At that time, they were growing cultivated rooibos, which originates on the Cedarberg mountain range about 150km away. "Cultivated rooibos grows very fast and produces a lot of seed but needs a regular, high rainfall," said Oettle.

So the Khoisan turned to wild rooibos, the plant discovered by their ancestors.

Dr Rhoda Malgas, a scientist at South Africa's Stellenbosch University, together with the farmers, monitored and assessed both wild and cultivated crops of rooibos. They found wild rooibos to be more heat and drought resistant. It grows more slowly and it can store up water reserves in its enlarged roots, enabling it to survive greater extremes of climate than its cultivated cousin.

Malgas questions how long cultivated rooibos can be grown in the area. "Climate forecasts for this region predict general warming and drying over the next five decades," she says. "Sustained high levels of production [of cultivated rooibos] during times of drought stress result in increased use of water at a time when water reserves are low."

The wild rooibos plants produce tea for up to 50 years, while cultivated crops last up to six years. The wild plants also thrive on the regular natural fires caused by summer lightning. The fires burn the top off the plant, helping it to grow faster, while the ash fertilises the nutrient-poor soil. Farmer Maans Fontuil says: "Here it is about survival. It is an extreme environment. Wild tea feels at home in poor-nutrient, sandy soil."

The Heiveld Co-operative now claims to be the world's first supplier of sustainably harvested wild rooibos, hoping to carve a niche in a market dominated by big commercial farms.

Back at the Heiveld tea court, several older farmers take a break from their work to talk about how they wish more South Africans would buy their tea.

Younger farmers, like 32-year-old Hugo Kotze, say that the small piece of land owned by the co-op's members is not big enough to produce enough tea to lift the families above the poverty line. The year's harvest netted the farmers just over $1,500 each.

He points to the white-owned sheep farms surrounding the tea court.

"This land is too small for us to plant further," he says. "We need more land if we are to continue with tea farming. I would be happy if the government could help us by buying up one of the farms for us but they are very slow."

Another downside for farmers is the wild plants cannot be grown from cuttings and are only harvested every second year.

Absolute small farmers French tea buyer, Arlette Romer of Paris Les Jardins de Gaia. She has sold 6 tons of tea Heiveld the French market each year during the past 11 years.

"These people are fighting to have a better life and I really fight to sell the small farmers' products. The big enterprises destroy both the soil and the small farming activities. We buyers really have to lead in showing the difference between the products of big organised businesses and the small farmers who care about biodiversity."

Andy Good, a tea buyer at fair-trade co-operative Equal Exchange UK, has been buying tea from Heiveld for the past six years. Breaking into an already saturated market won't be easy for the farmers, he says. "From a climate point of view it makes a lot of sense to plant wild rooibos. But in the UK, I think the market for wild rooibos will have to be built. There is immense oversupply in the industry: a few strong commercial companies who have good capital bases, and agents across the world who have contacts with supermarket buyers."

"The small farmer has to compete against that. It has been such a struggle just for Heiveld to be in existence against these big companies. It is a David and Goliath situation."

Next Gen NEWS

07/14/2010 David Cameron defends NHS plans at PMQs

Harriet Harman questions the prime minister, compared with the previous Tory claims that the reorganization is a waste of money

Harriet Harman, the acting Labour leader, today challenged David Cameron to spell out the cost of the radical reforms planned for the NHS in light of previous Conservative claims that reorganisation causes disruption, demoralisation and an "inexcusable" waste of money.

Acting Labour leader also called on Cameron to confirm that planned reorganization will cancel the warranty, which provides cancer patients visiting a specialist within two weeks of seeing their GP - First Trust before work.

In a robust exchange, Cameron refused to be drawn on the specifics, telling Harman that targets that contribute to "good clinical outcomes" will stay.

He also claimed Labour was more interested in defending NHS bureaucracy than ensuring money reaches the frontline, and seized on comments made by the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, who has criticised the decision to ringfence NHS spending.

The prime minister said: "We will only keep targets where they actually contribute to clinical outcomes. We all want to see a higher survival rate for cancer. After 13 years of Labour government I'm afraid we have not the best cancer outcomes in Europe. We want the best outcomes. That means rapid treatment, yes, but it also means rapid follow-up. It also means getting the radiotherapy and the chemotherapy and the drugs that you need, those are all essential."

He went on: "We will continue to put real-term increases into the NHS, whereas, as I understand it, it's now Labour policy to cut the NHS."

Harman said Cameron's failure to give a specific answer on the two-week cancer target suggested he was "ditching the guarantee", but health minister Simon Burns later told the BBC's World at One programme that it was staying in place.

However, a statement subsequently issued by the Department of Health suggested it might be removed in the future by the new NHS commissioning board in favour of a more "refined" measure.

A DoH spokesperson said: "The cancer waiting time targets are clinically justified, and have been retained. The NHS commissioning board may in the future decide that the cancer waiting time targets can be replaced with more refined measures that are even more clinically justifiable - but these will have to be in support of our overall aim of improving cancer survival rates above the European average."

Harman pressed Cameron to be "more straightforward" on the overall cost of reorganisation plans outlined in a white paper published earlier this week by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley.

\\ "Of course, he must know the figure. How many more will it cost next year?" Asked Harman.

The document, entitled Liberating the NHS, presents plans that could represent the biggest shakeup of the NHS in a generation, with a whole tier of the NHS decapitated. Under the proposals 10 strategic health authorities will be abolished by 2012 and the 150 primary care trusts scrapped by 2013. Up to 30,000 managers face losing their jobs or being redeployed.

Cameron told MPs that as a result, the Government will cut ?? 1 billion in the administration of the NHS, and 45% for the whole parliament, unlike Labour, who according to him, "to protect the vast bureaucracy."

While the opposition was defending the managers who face the axe, the government was focusing on putting the money on "treatment, patients, doctors and nurses", said Cameron.

Harman said he was not answering the question: "He's talking about longer term, speculative savings, but he has not answered my question. And it's no good him resorting to his usual ploy of asking me questions. I'm asking about the real costs of his re-organisation next year ... The white paper admits there will be extra costs because of loss of productivity, staff relocation, redundancy. Does he stand by what he said just a few months ago about NHS reorganisations?

He said: "violation awful. Demoralization worse. And a waste of money is inexcusable."

Cameron said the plan was not to reorganise the bureaucracy, but to scrap it altogether. "We are scrapping the bureaucracy. Is she really going to be left, is this Labour's great new tactic, to be left defending the bureaucracy of PCTs and SHAs and all the quangos and all the bureaucrats, all of whom are paid vast salaries and huge pensions? So is that the new divide in British politics?"

The 30-minute PMQs session also saw the PM brand parliament's expenses watchdog "overly bureaucratic and very costly", and called on its staff to "get a grip".

Cameron hit out at the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) following numerous complaints from MPs over late payments and a complicated computerised system.

David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: "As far as I'm aware, it's not standard practice in the public sector for workers to fund their offices and equipment out of their own pockets â€" and then to negotiate a bureaucratic obstacle course in order to get the money back if they're lucky.

\\ "Could you tell us what you think it's a good system for members of parliament, or he 's undermining efforts with members of all parties at home."

Prompting cheers from MPs, Cameron replied: "I have to say â€" and I will answer you seriously, I think it is important â€" what we wanted to have and what is necessary is a properly transparent system, a system with proper rules and limits which the public would have confidence in," he said.

"But what we don't need is an overly bureaucratic and very costly system and I think all those in Ipsa need to get a grip on what they are doing and get a grip on it very fast."

Ipsa was set up in the wake of last summer's expenses scandal and now has sole responsibility for processing, validating and paying or rejecting MPs' claims.

Next Gen NEWS

08/05/2010 Student bank accounts: Overdrafts and incentives

Banks and building societies are attempting to woo students with flashy introductory offers. But which accounts are actually best?

In September a new wave of students will set off for university, fresh faced and ready to face a heap of challenges. For most, one of the biggest will be managing their finances. This typically starts with the selection of a suitable student account. The banks have announced their offers for the next academic year, but which should you pick?

Overdraft

The most immediately attractive thing about student accounts are the freebies. However, they are just a distraction. The thing you should be looking at first is the size of the interest-free overdraft.

The maintenance loan students receive rarely covers much more than the cost of accomodation for the year, so most students end up having to venture into their overdraft.

The biggest interest-free overdrafts are with Barclays and Halifax, which offer up to £2,000 and £3,000 a year respectively. Most other banks operate a tiered system starting at about £1,000 with the amount increasing annually. Using any more than the interest-free overdraft can be very expensive, with rates for further authorised borrowing running at about 9%-10%.

Andrew Hagger from moneynet.co.uk says: "If you've done your sums and you are likely to need to borrow £1,500-plus from year one, then Halifax and Barclays should be your first port of call."

If you only need to use a little bit more than the standard overdraft, then HSBC's rate is easily the best at 3% above the Bank of England base rate, which is currently at 0.5% and expected to stay that way for quite some time .

Going beyond the authorized limit of the overdraft is a dangerous business with the majority of banks charge between 16% and 29%, while HSBC again more intelligently as it charges is 3% above base rate, which authorized overdrafts.

Incentives

Students are always told that freebies should be no more than a perk and shouldn't define their choice of bank. The reality is they will probably be too tempting to ignore completely, so the key is to get ones which are actually useful.

"Most of the incentives are a waste of time," Hagger says. "The exception to this is probably the offer from NatWest."

The NatWest account comes with a free five-year railcard for those aged 16 to 25, which gives a third off UK train tickets. If you are going to travel by train to get to university or to visit friends this could be very useful, and could potentially provide enough savings to soften the difference between NatWest's overdraft charges and the better rates charged by other banks.

It also offers student discount tickets, which offers money to a few shops. However, it ISN 't as good as the NUS Extra card offered by Lloyds TSB , Which also offers free three-year Youth Hostel Association membership which gives discounts at hostels throughout the country.

Interest

Most banks offer Don t 'any credit intrerest, or do so at a very low rate. HSBC and Santander Both offer 2% for the first £ 500, while HSBC will pay only for the first year in education.

Credit cards

There are two main things to avoid in student banking: unauthorised overdrafts and credit cards. The interest rates are massive and debts can build up very quickly. All charge just under 20% for borrowing on credit card and most impose a limit of £500, although Santander allows you to choose a lower limit of £100, while with Lloyds £500 is the minimum amount. HSBC's credit card gives the most room to manouver with the first eight weeks being interest free.

The offers in full

Lloyds TSB Up to £1,500 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to £2,000 over six years; three-year Youth Hostel Association membership; 0.1% credit interest.

NatWest Up to £1,000 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to £2,000 over five years; five-year 16-25 railcard; 0.1% credit interest.

BarclaysUp to £ 2000 interest-free overdraft for up to 5 years; discount on mobile phone, laptop and broadband connection.

HSBC Up to £1,000 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to up to £2,000 over five years; free travel insurance for two years; 2% credit interest up to £500 for the first year.

Halifax Up to £3,000 interest-free overdraft for up to five years of study; 25% off AA breakdown cover; 0.1% credit interest.

Santander £1,000 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to £2,000 over five years (or longer if study continues); mobile, gadget and laptop insurance; 2% credit interest on first £500.

Royal Bank of Scotland Up to £1,000 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to up to £2,000 over five years; discount on laptops; 1% credit interest.

Co-operative £1,400 interest-free overdraft in the first year rising to £2,000 over three years; no incentives or credit interest.

Next Gen NEWS

[[[Mophie Mueva Wraptor Bevy for IPod Shuffle 2G (Pink)]]]

Discription : Gear for your next tailgate party with Bevy, protective liners case with the film, charm and, of course, a church key all in one.


More review coming soon.

Case could not be held IPod Shuffle safe letting him fall, if I wrapped it in with headphones. Nice concept, but needs a snugger fit.

This thing really took a lot of thought, but is so simple. Great gift for the guy who has an ipod shuffle. Might not even be necessary to have an ipod as long as you have a beer.

It's a good product so far. I've had it for a couple weeks. I lost 2 shuffles before this, now it stays with my keys, so as long I don't drop them in a puddle I'm all set. It snaps in easily but the wear and tear from that leaves some scratches which don't personally bother me but might bother someone else. You can listen to headphones and adjust the songs and volume from it easily. The only thing you can't do with it is sync it but a cheap usb/ipod adapter on amazon should do the trick... haven't tried it yet.

5 stars because I'm not sure you could make it any better despite my small issues, it does its job well.

The Bevy includes an integrated church key (bottle opener). The green version is pictured.

What's in the Box
Bevy case/keychain.
Amazon.com Product Description
Buy Here (for discount) Mophie Mueva Wraptor Bevy for iPod shuffle 2G (Pink)

08/24/2010 What is the Foreign Office's human rights report for? | Oliver Miles

The question of an annual survey does any good is more important than whether it 's are printed on glossy paper

What ought we to make of the stories that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has "scrapped" its annual report on human rights?

The FCO has made a rather strongly worded statement referring not to scrapping the report but to "alternatives to the expensive glossy colour publications of the past, for example online publication or publication by command paper".

It insists: "[Our] foreign policy will always have consistent support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core ... The only question is how that report can most cost-effectively be produced." But Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, says she has deep concerns about plans to axe the report. "Amnesty International's fear is that this is the latest step in putting economics before human rights."

It is tempting therefore to use the all-purpose excuse: it's too early to say. We have to wait and see whether the report appears in a new form and whether the government's actions match the words in the statement.

However, some things can be said. First, the government's decision to apply sharp cuts in the budgets of all departments was bound to include some that will be painful, all the worse because ringfencing a few big budgets such as the NHS and international aid makes the impact on the others all the sharper.

The core expenditure of the Foreign Office is on posts overseas, and the only way to cut expenditure sharply is to close posts. Incidentally, is it really sensible to ringfence (or increase) aid to say Tanzania, and at the same time pull our diplomats out of Dar es Salaam? I choose Tanzania simply as an example of a country where our interests other than aid are relatively small. If we do not close Dar es Salaam we will have to close some other post where non-aid interests may be more substantial.

If ways can be found to make savings without closing posts, so much the better. Already a trendy in-house magazine has been axed; it won't be missed. Perhaps there are more "glossy colour publications". Unfortunately these savings are only a drop in the ocean.

Next, the prime minister's repeated calls for a step change in our approach to foreign and diplomatic relations, massively upgrading the importance of trade imply, if one takes them seriously, readjustment of priorities and a shift of resources away from other functions towards trade.

I say "if one takes them seriously" not to cast doubt on the sincerity of David Cameron's intentions but because I can recall many ministerial and prime ministerial attempts to reinvent the wheel that have led nowhere. The priorities of the Foreign Office are obviously largely dictated by factors outside its control, sometimes by the British government, usually by events.

And although I believe in the importance of human rights, I have serious doubts about the value of the annual report. This is not so much because I doubt its quality, which I am not particularly well-qualified to judge, but because I doubt whether it is effective, value for money.

The report for 2009 issued in April this year prints out at 189 pages. Unlike the American version it does not attempt to cover the whole world. The "countries" section covers 22 selected "countries of concern" in 90 pages. Inevitably the choice reflects some political compromises, and countries like Congo or Tajikistan are omitted; what is perhaps more surprising is that neither is even mentioned in the index.

This selectivity may be wise. Trying to fit everybody in can lead to some strange anomalies. One of the earliest attempts I remember to quantify aspects of foreign relations was an initiative by George Brown, foreign secretary in Harold Wilson's government, to rank our relations with all countries, in order to provide a guide for the allocation of resources.

Nevertheless, one is left with the question: who reads the report, and what for? It is not enough to say that dropping it somehow symbolises giving less priority to human rights, any more than it is enough to boast that Robin Cook introduced this series of reports in 1997 "to promote human rights". Can anybody show that the reports have actually contributed to anybody's human rights? I am sceptical.

Finally, there is the question of stones and glass houses. Any non-Americans, and no doubt many Americans, reading the state department report are likely to be prompted to think "how does America's record compare with all these lesser breeds?" The same applies to the UK.

American secretary of state Hillary Clinton has announced that next year's report will include a section on human rights in the US. Anybody who can't wait could consult the Chinese government's report on human rights in the US â€" proof that in world affairs, a pot really can call a kettle black. But is this what foreign ministries are for?

If pruning or even axing this report is the worst that budget cuts impose on the Foreign Office, we will have got off lightly.

Next Gen NEWS

07/01/2010 Kenneth Clarke hints at prison sentencing reform with attack on 'bang 'em up' culture

Justice Minister launches major attack on the prison 'of the Orthodox Church' for former Conservative home secretary Michael Howard

Kenneth Clarke today launched a scathing attack on the "Victorian bang 'em up" prison culture of the past 20 years.

The justice secretary's speech, to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in London, marked a major assault on the "prison works" orthodoxy launched by the former Tory home secretary Michael Howard â€" and was believed to be causing nervousness in Downing Street in advance of its delivery today.

Clarke warned that simply "banging up more and more people for longer" is actually making some criminals worse without protecting the public.

\\ "In our worst prison, he makes tough criminals," said Clark. "Many a man went to prison without the drug problem and came out addicted. And petty prisoners can meet some new friends recidivist."

Clarke faces mounting pressure to halt Britain's £4bn prison-building programme â€" the largest in Europe â€" and his speech will fuel expectations that he intends to divert thousands of offenders away from short-term prison sentences when the government's review of sentencing is published in the autumn.

The justice secretary faces a battle if he is to stabilise the growth of the prison population, which is forecast to rise to 94,000 before the next general election.

Clarke was last in charge of prisons when he was home secretary between 1992 and 1993, when the prison population in England and Wales stood at 44,628.

He said today that the current population of 85000 it "a surprising number of which I would have dismissed as impossible and absurd, if the prediction was put to me in the forecast in 1992".

He said he "as long as I can remember" in political debates on law and order was reduced to a competition about the government spends more public funds, and locked up more people for longer than its predecessor.

It now costs more to put someone in prison â€" £38,000 â€" than it does to send a boy to Eton.

The justice secretary said: "The consequence is that more and more offenders have been warehoused in outdated facilities and we spend vast amounts of public money on prison. But no proper thought has been given to whether this is really the best and most effective way of protecting the public against crime."

Clarke pointed out that prison is the necessary punishment for many offenders, but questioned whether "ever more prison for ever more offenders" always produces better results for the public.

He provided his own answer by observing that the record prison population and the crime rate in England and Wales are now among the highest in western Europe.

He said that just locking people up without actively seeking to change them is "what you would expect of Victorian England" and notes that reoffending rates among the 60,000 prisoners given short sentences has reached 60% and rising.

"This does not surprise me. It is virtually impossible to do anything productive with offenders on short sentences. And many of them end up losing their jobs, their homes and their families during their short time inside," Clarke said.

The justice secretary's speech will fuel expectations among prison reform groups that the sentencing review will lead to a drive to divert short-sentence inmates away from prison.

But Clarke was careful not to spell out that solution in today's speech. He said that a "far more constructive approach" is to make prisons places of education, hard work and change, and to provide rigorous enforced community sentences that get offenders off drugs and alcohol and into jobs.

In doing so he put his weight behind "the most radical" Conservative plans for a "rehabilitation revolution", involving the voluntary and private sectors in programmes to change offenders inside and outside prison, and paying them by results.

"They would have clear financial incentives to keep offenders away from crime. And success would be measured by whether or not they are reconvicted within the first few years of leaving prison," he said.

David Cameron defended the proposals at prime minsiter's questions in the Commons today. He said the government was having to clear up the "complete mess" in the criminal justice system left by Labour.

He insisted "radical reform" was needed, and highlighted the cost of a prison place, as well as the "appalling" drugs problem in jails and high recidivism rates among ex-prisoners.

But Cameron was careful to point out that he believed prison could work. "The fact is, I believe that prison can work, the fact is it is just not working properly at the moment," he told MPs.

Howard's "prison works" approach was outlined in October 1993 and has held sway ever since.

Clarke's speech marks a return to the language of former home secretary Douglas Hurd's 1991 white paper, which said prison "was an expensive way of making bad people worse" â€" and the prison population then stood at only 42,000.

In an article in the Mail today, Jack Straw, the shadow justice secretary, says that sending more people to jail has cut crime. "In the crazy world of coalition government, Kenneth Clarke shows that he has learnt nothing about fighting crime in the time since he was in charge of prisons 17 years ago," Straw writes.

\\ "Anybody seriously believe that the crime would go down and left without these additional prison places [by Labour]" And it's just not true that prisons - as the Liberal Democrats claim - college 'crimes' . "

Straw says David Cameron defended the need for short sentences during the election campaign. Cameron said that his mother had been a magistrate and that her experience had taught him that short prison sentences were necessary when other remedies did not work.

Responding to these claims in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Clarke said he was not at odds with Cameron.

He said that I think that was the case in the short term of imprisonment in some cases, for example, solutions "type trouble offender, who is a recidivist".

But it was important to examine alternatives to prison, Clarke said, adding: "I take a very practical approach. What I want to use the taxpayers' money for is results. The real challenge, if you are faced with a difficult, inadequate, not very nice person, is to try to make sure that he does not commit another criminal offence.

"By whatever reasonable method you use, if you succeed in ensuring that he does not commit another criminal offence for a year, or two years, or three years, I suggest we pay for that."

Next Gen NEWS

08/23/2010 Blood feuds and hospitality: al-Qaida in Yemen

In the second of his special reports from Yemen, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad finds a population for whom the constant danger of tribal feuds is exacerbated by the presence of al-Qaida

Read Part 1 of a special report

The sky was dark on the road from Aden to Shabwa, even though it was the middle of the day. "There will be rain," said the driver of our dilapidated 1980s Land Cruiser, and soon afterwards heavy drops hammered the car, as water ran down the jagged black mountains, leaving them glittering like marble.

The Yemeni province of Shabwa is host to the most significant al-Qaida presence in the country. As well as jihadi training camps, many of the leaders of this new "franchise" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are believed to be based here. Foremost among these men is Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric the Obama administration designated in April as a legitimate target for assassination, and who was once described as the US's "terrorist number one".

The Guardian spent a week travelling around this lawless region, talking to tribespeople about the al-Qaida presence and trying to understand why the organisation had become so established here.

Land Cruiser was filled with men, the Bedouin tribe Awalik. Together, we jumped into the potholed mountain roads, which are controlled by various bandits, separatists, jihadis and government security forces. Most of the time he 's gang.

We found our first bandits just across the border into the province, on a bend in the road between two mountains. Seven young men were sitting in the shade of a tree clutching guns, some covering their faces with kufeyas. Less than 50 metres away across a small bridge and under another tree sat a group of soldiers, slouching in the shade.

The bandits and soldiers would not attack each other, said one of my companions in the car. Why? "They and the soldiers are from the same tribe," he said. We met a second group of bandits a few hours later, further along the road. They were more active. It was night by then and they had blocked the road with boulders and rocks. A lone gunmen stood in our path while a dozen men sat to the side. The gunman thrust his head in the car window and looked around: "Anyone of you work for the government?"

We met with mumbled "no", he gave us the drive on our way.

Arriving in the small Bedouin settlement of Hateeb after dark, the men carried their bed mats away from their concrete houses and laid them on the rocks under the sky and chattered for hours before they fell asleep.

The situation between the tribes and the al-Qaeda is tense.

The tribes can't deny them shelter and hospitality: in the Bedouin code of honour there are few crimes graver than insulting or betraying a guest or refusing him hospitality.

At the same time, they have became weary of their presence and the unwanted attention they have brought. Every night I was in Shabwa, drones flew slowly around the skies, keeping watch on the rocky landscape. The pictures sent back must be familiar to other drone-infested war zones.

A few nights later, as I sat chatting with Ali, the young nephew of the tribal sheikh, and other men at night under the gaze of distant drones, we heard the distant sound of a car. A warning bullet rang from a distant scout and all the men picked up their guns.

"Qaida!" came the shouts from one house to the other.

The men ran into the middle of the village, waiting to intercept the jihadis' cars, but just as the headlights came into view someone shouted that the convoy were of tribesmen from the next village taking a relative to hospital.

"Al-Qaida is in that mountain," said Ali, pointing at a distant peak.

At first, he said, they had been much closer to the settlement, but after an airstrike in which five militants were killed, the tribesmen asked them to move away. "We asked them to leave after the bombing."

Tribal feuding

Ferocious blood feuds have been raging for years in Shabwa. Almost every tribesman in the region finds himself entangled in the cycle of revenge.

The barren desert and mountain are divided into patches of small tribal war zones. As we travelled in Shabwa we often had to leave the main track and drive deep into the desert to avoid passing through the land of a tribe with which someone in our car had a blood feud.

"We would like to go to school," says Ibrahim, a hazel-eyed 16-year-old tribesman who was sitting in the back of the car with a wrapped head shawl. "But we had to stop, because someone might track us there and kill us."

I asked him if he had seen much fighting. "Yes," he answered. "Many times."

Tribes exist in persistent poverty in this harsh landscape. When - if - the water goes, he moves quickly down the thin rocky valleys, resulting in the desert as thirsty as before. Except for a few plots of cultivated land, the rest is desert.

Being so poor, the people have little to fight over except their honour.

The only way for an insult to be avenged was by killing the enemy, calling his name so he would turn â€" it's a shame to kill a man in his back â€" and shoot him while looking into his eyes. The culture of hospitality is taken so seriously that one tribal feud that has been going for two years was over a guest who was insulted.

Ali tells how the inter-tribal battles sometimes included heavier armaments. "Last year we besieged a neighbouring tribe. We took anti-aircraft guns and mortars. We shelled them for three days and we besieged them for weeks, until they had nothing to eat but biscuits."

Against this backdrop of armed, perpetually fighting tribes, where it sometimes seems every other man is wanted by the authorities for a murder or two, al-Qaida can easily blend in. Their gunmen are little different from any other gunman wanted by authority and seeking shelter among his tribe.

\\ "There are a few believers [of jihad], who live in the mountains," old man in Hateem said to me: ", but we haven 't see anything wrong here. We do not care' if they t killed anyone in America, and here in Shabwa they haven 'crimes, and they must be respected, just like any other man. "

Wrap enemies

The village of the sultan of the Awalik sits on a hill surrounded by lush green fields and palm groves, in the middle of the hostile desert.

Said is an architectural treasure of high towers and sloping dirt and shaded strip of dirt. Some of the fortified compounds pockmarked with bullets from tribal feuds and many rebellions that raged in the area for decades.

Next to the ruins of one mud castle destroyed by the RAF back in the 1950s is the new concrete and marble compound of the sultans of the Awalik.

Inside the compound I met the sultan, Fareed bin Babaker. He is tall, old and frail, with a hooked nose and a thin white goatee, but carries the weight of tribal authority in his soft yet imposing voice.

His pronouncements are adhered to by almost two million Awalik in southern Yemen. He is a close ally of the government, yet at the same time his tribes are giving shelter to the enemies of the government and the west. The most notorious jihadi he is currently protecting is Anwar al-Awlaki.

Awlaki, a once-obscure 30-something cleric has been linked to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, and to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. He is now among the US's most-wanted targets.

Sultan Fareed almost an hour after the enlargement of the history of South Yemen, told me that Awlaki lived in the village and that he knew his movements.

"Anwar, and with him four or five people, spend the night in their homes [in the village] and in the morning they do their morning prayers somewhere not far away," said Fareed. "We know about it."

Why, I asked, was such a wanted man allowed to live in the village. He replied that he had committed no crimes in the tribal community, nor had the government asked him to hand Awlaki over.

t kill anyone "al-Qaeda harbor 'here, so we [don' t have to] accept or reject transfer them to the authorities," he said. T Government have not asked us to convey to him, if they are then we will think about it. But no one asked us. "

Connections Awlaki family is just a few meters away from Sheikh 's. I approached him to see if I could get some idea or talk to him, but all the windows and doors were locked.

A boy opened a small window in the upper floors, looked down at me, then disappeared back inside the building and the window was shut.

Casualties

Sometimes, the ever-watchful drones do more than merely observe the people in Shabwa. After leaving the sultan's village we travel to the Majala valley in the Awalik mountains. Here, a series of small graves marked by stones lie by the side of the highway.

An old man sat nearby in his relatives' tent sipping sweet tea. He and his five-year-old daughter were the only survivors of a double missile strike that is said to have killed dozens of people, including his wife and sons, and their wives and his grandchildren.

He was one of Bedouin settlements in the collection of his camels to 17 last year, when he heard a huge explosion. "I though fuel truck exploded, but the mountains around me shook so hard," he said.

It took him a few hours to reach the camp where his relatives had settled. By that time other villagers were already there. Abdul Mutalib, a thin-faced young man who was one of the first to reach the area, said he saw people, cars and animals on fire. "A woman was burning in her tent. I tried to get her out but I couldn't."

We drove to the first bombsite. Shreds of soiled clothes and scraps of yellow plastic buckets used by the Bedouin to collect water or milk dangled from the twisted branches of a dead tree.

Bleached bones of animals were scattered. Twisted metal rocket engine was lying on the edge of the crater 2m.

A few metres away lay the long grey shell of the rocket that had carried the deadly cluster bomb canisters.

According to the villagers, a Yemeni parliamentary report and Amnesty International, a dozen men, women and children of the Haydara family were killed here in one of two Bedouin encampments targeted on 17 December, 2009.

There were more shreds of plastic and few black clothes scattered around two more craters, and then a long trail of animal bones.

We walked for 20 minutes over boulders and thorny shrubs to reach the other campsite that was hit on the same day. Here, the remains of austere Bedouin life dangled from another tree: plastic and bits of clothes, blue tarpaulins that are used to make shelters. Among the wreckage were dozens of melted black plastic shoes of varying sizes, men's, women's and children's.

This is where the Ba Kazim family were killed, the villagers said. According to the Yemeni parliamentary commission, in total 41 civilians were killed in the two strikes, and 14 al-Qaida fighters.

Some among the rubble of destroyed lives of the colorful yellow objects, engineering forms contrasts sharply with the shapes of objects more than rag-tag Bedouin.

They carry the bald stencilled words "BOMB FRAG", "US NAVY" and a serial number. These were cluster bombs, scattered like candy.

I asked one of those who showed me the site, Muqbel al-Kazimi, about reports that al-Qaeda was in the camp.

Muhammad al-Kazimi, who is wanted by the government over al-Qaeda ties, was here a few people, "he said. He is believed to have been killed." There were at least 10 people, and they lived in two tents on the edge of the camp Ba Kazim . "

Why Bedouin shared their camp with al-Qaeda, I asked?

\\ "The fighters said they would dig the Bedouin and to attract water," he said.

In this poor, arid region, that must have seemed like a good price.

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