Short Trips from London

Short Trips from London

Yep, we messed up. That's the word out of the Cambridge-based consulting firm Monitor Group. Between 2006 and 2008, the company maintained a highly questionable business relationship with the regime of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator. Monitor helped Muammar Qaddafi's son Saif write his PhD dissertation at the London School of Economics. It also hired some of the US and UK's foremost international relations experts to write glowing editorials and essays about the Qaddafi regime's efforts to clean up its act and enact democratic reforms. And the firm never revealed that it was all was part of a coordinated—and well-funded—effort to end Libya's status as a pariah state.

Not long after Mother Jones reported on Monitor's Libya project, questions arose about whether the firm had taken the proper steps to register as a lobbyist for Libya with the Justice Department. Offering advice on economic or governing reform without registering isn't illegal. But the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) stipulates that groups like Monitor must register if they're planning on conducting "acts in a public relations capacity for a foreign principal"—which, as we reported, is primarily what Monitor's Libya project was all about. As we wrote back in March, Monitor decided to conduct an internal investigation into whether it had violated FARA, initially led by Eamonn Kelly, a senior partner at the firm. Later, the company brought in outside lawyers from the firm of Covington & Burling to finish the job.

The lawyers' conclusion: yes, Monitor most certainly did break FARA law. Today, the company announced that it is retroactively registering some of its past work in Libya, as well as its more recent work with Jordan. And on Tuesday, Monitor CEO Mark Fuller, who played a key role in the Libya project, resigned. Monitor also issued a press release on the findings of its internal investigation:

These decisions reflect a thorough fact-finding and legal investigation initiated by Monitor after issues concerning its work in Libya were raised earlier this year. The investigation, conducted by the law firm of Covington & Burling, included a review of Monitor engagements with foreign governments. That review concluded that some elements of Monitor’s work in Libya from 2006 through 2008 should have been registered under FARA. It also became apparent that a more recent item of work on behalf of the Kingdom of Jordan should have been registered. Monitor will now take all appropriate measures to remediate these errors.

The Boston Globe reports that Monitor is also likely to release details on how much it paid its academics, including British academic Sir Anthony Giddens. How did Monitor mess this up so bad? From the Globe:

[Eamonn] Kelly said the failure to register was due to a misunderstanding about legal requirements. But others said it reflects a deeper problem: The company was not transparent about the fact that it was engaged in a calculated effort to burnish Khadafy’s reputation, even to professors recruited in the effort.

"If I had known that a primary purpose of the visit to Libya was to influence public opinion in the United States, I would not have gone," Robert Putnam, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Other professors said they did not feel misled.

Whether the DOJ actually brings charges against Fuller, et. al, remains to be seen. But given the intellectual firepower and general worldliness of the people involved in its project, Monitor's excuse—"We didn't know, sorry"—is less than satisfying. Hopefully, the DOJ feels the same way. 

Yep, we messed up. That's the word out of the Cambridge-based consulting firm Monitor Group. Between 2006 and 2008, the company maintained a highly questionable business relationship with the regime of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator. Monitor helped Muammar Qaddafi's son Saif write his PhD dissertation at the London School of Economics. It also hired some of the US and UK's foremost international relations experts to write glowing editorials and essays about the Qaddafi regime's efforts to clean up its act and enact democratic reforms. And the firm never revealed that it was all was part of a coordinated—and well-funded—effort to end Libya's status as a pariah state.

Not long after Mother Jones reported on Monitor's Libya project, questions arose about whether the firm had taken the proper steps to register as a lobbyist for Libya with the Justice Department. Offering advice on economic or governing reform without registering isn't illegal. But the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) stipulates that groups like Monitor must register if they're planning on conducting "acts in a public relations capacity for a foreign principal"—which, as we reported, is primarily what Monitor's Libya project was all about. As we wrote back in March, Monitor decided to conduct an internal investigation into whether it had violated FARA, initially led by Eamonn Kelly, a senior partner at the firm. Later, the company brought in outside lawyers from the firm of Covington & Burling to finish the job.

The lawyers' conclusion: yes, Monitor most certainly did break FARA law. Today, the company announced that it is retroactively registering some of its past work in Libya, as well as its more recent work with Jordan. And on Tuesday, Monitor CEO Mark Fuller, who played a key role in the Libya project, resigned. Monitor also issued a press release on the findings of its internal investigation:

These decisions reflect a thorough fact-finding and legal investigation initiated by Monitor after issues concerning its work in Libya were raised earlier this year. The investigation, conducted by the law firm of Covington & Burling, included a review of Monitor engagements with foreign governments. That review concluded that some elements of Monitor’s work in Libya from 2006 through 2008 should have been registered under FARA. It also became apparent that a more recent item of work on behalf of the Kingdom of Jordan should have been registered. Monitor will now take all appropriate measures to remediate these errors.

The Boston Globe reports that Monitor is also likely to release details on how much it paid its academics, including British academic Sir Anthony Giddens. How did Monitor mess this up so bad? From the Globe:

[Eamonn] Kelly said the failure to register was due to a misunderstanding about legal requirements. But others said it reflects a deeper problem: The company was not transparent about the fact that it was engaged in a calculated effort to burnish Khadafy’s reputation, even to professors recruited in the effort.

"If I had known that a primary purpose of the visit to Libya was to influence public opinion in the United States, I would not have gone," Robert Putnam, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Other professors said they did not feel misled.

Whether the DOJ actually brings charges against Fuller, et. al, remains to be seen. But given the intellectual firepower and general worldliness of the people involved in its project, Monitor's excuse—"We didn't know, sorry"—is less than satisfying. Hopefully, the DOJ feels the same way. 

What a shocking day for progress outside of Scotland. The minor improvement of AV spurned, hopes of PR dashed, and the Tories escaping not just unscathed, but positively emboldened. Today was not ‘a good day for the left’; it was a victory for tribalism and mendacity. Today we, the people, opted for a return to a solid two-party state in Westminster. If the Tories pull off their boundary fix, and the Scots vote for independence, even a two-party state may be a distant dream. What a shocking day.

The one bright flame that flickered in the darkness of the UK was in Scotland, where even under a proportional system the Scottish National Party have secured an historic victory. The grip of the major Westminster parties on British politics has taken a serious blow, as has the notion that PR can only deliver coalitions. Cameron has acknowledged the enormity of the result by pledging to “campaign to keep our United Kingdom with every fibre I have” (Gerry Hassan covers the result in full here). But South of the border, things are looking exceptionally bleak.

Looking back at May 2010, the decisions taken by Clegg and senior Lib Dems have proved to be disastrous. Not only have they weakened their party immeasurably, they have empowered the Conservatives without gaining a single concession of any substance.  Electoral reform, the reason I and many others voted for them, has now been kicked into touch for who knows how long. Neither Clegg nor the Coalition is likely to survive until 2015. For all this carnage, what has been gained?

It has now emerged that Brown offered a referendum on full proportional representation – the choice of reformers, the choice of the Lib Dems and the choice of all honest democrats. Clegg turned it down. He accepted instead a referendum on AV, another lopsided majoritarian system which no one had asked for, coupled with a gerrymandering of constituency lines in favour of the Conservatives. True, it’s unlikely Brown could have delivered a PR referendum, but STV should have been the primary ‘red line’ – take it or leave it. If neither party were able or willing to offer it, the Lib Dems still had options, and they still had public support.  

With purple protesters in the street and wide support for electoral reform, Clegg could have declined coalition, leaving a Tory minority government. The old LabCon duopoly, unwilling to grant the public a say on how they elect their government, would have shouldered much of the blame. Public support for PR would have grown, not shrunk. The Lib Dems would have been strengthened, and a Tory minority government would never have lasted the distance. But they wanted to play the statesmen, the guardians of the “national interest” – they wanted to be in government, whatever the cost. And how dear that cost has been.

In accepting the vote on AV, they opted to fight on the weakest ground possible. Had they battled for an honourable coalition, gaining concrete and substantial concessions, even AV would have been winnable. They needed to show coalitions could work for the public – they failed. Had they secured a vote on STV, even their dismal servility in this coalition would not have stemmed the tide. Instead – they got the worst of both worlds, and today they have been blown apart.

As for Labour’s role, the sight of Margarett Beckett and David Blunkett campaigning alongside the Noes was a good reminder of just how reactionary Labour can be. Blunkett even acknowledged the No campaign’s dishonesty:

 “We are in the middle of an election campaign. People in elections use made-up figures”

When the duopoly is threatened, they have few qualms about hugging the Conservatives close. One of the most astonishing things about this Coalition is how quickly it has erased the memory of New Labour in power, turning pink-Thatcherites into heroes of the common people. “A little less, and a little slower” will hardly ring through the ages as a revolutionary cry.

Dreams of proportional representation, some have said, will be strengthened by this result, not weakened. I would only ask that this view is backed up with a credible plan of how this is going to happen. I had an interesting exchange with David Rickard on this issue, and he makes some persuasive arguments, but on this point it’s hard to be optimistic:

 “If AV loses, on the other hand, the left-of-centre parties can start pressing for PR and other reforms right away, and pressure could be brought to bear on Miliband's Labour to back PR. We could then have a pro-PR electoral alliance and coalition in waiting at the 2015 election”

The Lib Dems perished today, they are no more, they have ceased to be; they are the yellow parrot of British politics. Labour have shown themselves divided over AV, let alone PR – something that would all but guarantee the end of Labour majority governments. Asked by John Humphrys what a No vote would mean for reform, Miliband replied: “we won't be coming back to this very quickly.”

The Conservatives could hardly have asked for a better day. FPTP has been retained, and they will be encouraged by the results of the local elections. How tempted will they be to call an early election? They failed to win last year, in the most benign circumstances they could have dreamt of. Since then, the public has had a sharp reminder of just how noxious and untrustworthy they can be: the forest sell off, the NHS “reforms”, the desire to privatise everything except “the judiciary and the military”, corporate tax cuts and a complete failure to bring the banks to heel. Labour remain rudderless and ill-prepared, but a snap election would still be a brave move.  If they can hold out until the boundary changes are passed, assuming they get them through, England will be a Tory fortress.

The Coalition may well crumble before then; tensions will reach new highs on the back of today’s events. The Lib Dems would be annihilated in an election tomorrow, but the longer they remain propping up this destructive Conservative government, the more contaminated they will become. They are now in a lose-lose situation, facing either a swift beheading or a slow and painful poisoning.  

What next. The gloves must come off. Labour desperately needs to find some bite and some ideas. On elected Lords, touted as a sweetener to the Lib Dems, expect lots of committees, consultations, reviews, reviews of consultations…. Forget it. The Lib Dems failed to secure anything concrete on the issue. Either the Lib Dems secure solid and fundamental concessions or this Coalition needs to end.

 

LONDON: Singaporeans who are out of the country can vote at nine overseas polling stations in the United States, Australia, Japan, China and Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

Thomasm007's Great Adventure

This week, voters in the United Kingdom went to the polls and decided strongly against a referendum on switching federal elections to alternative voting, or "AV," also known as "instant-runoff voting" (IRV).

One of the reasons I was always proud to be an American is that unlike the United Kingdom where I lived for 15 years, we are, in theory, a meritocracy.

Khalid al-Fawwaz charged with helping al-Qaida plan 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania

A Saudi man accused of conspiring with Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two US embassies expects to be extradited to face charges after more than 12 years in British custody, according to documents which have emerged from a US court.

Prosecutors in New York have charged Khalid al-Fawwaz with helping al-Qaida to orchestrate the 1998 car bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people.

A letter from a lawyer seeking to be appointed as Fawwaz's US defence counsel said: "He [Fawwaz] anticipates extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States within the next few months to face these charges."

The lawyer, David Kirby, told Reuters that he had been in touch with Fawwaz's British lawyers, who he said had told him they had exhausted all efforts to fight Fawwaz's extradition, and he could arrive in the US in the next few weeks.

Kirby's request to be appointed as Fawwaz's US defence lawyer was denied by Judge Lewis Kaplan of Manhattan federal court, who is presiding over the case. He asked him to renew his application once Fawwaz arrives.

Fawwaz, who was arrested in 1998, moved to London in the 1990s from Kenya with his family, and established an organisation called the Advice and Reformation Committee, a political group headed by Bin Laden that was said to be campaigning for peaceful reform in Saudi Arabia.

US investigators said Bin Laden, through Fawwaz, published several threats against the US in the 1990s for keeping troops in Saudi Arabia, and also against so-called crusaders for allegedly waging war on Muslims.

Fawwaz has fought against his extradition, denied any involvement with Bin Laden and rejected allegations that the committee was a British arm of al-Qaida.

Ahmed Ghailani, a former bodyguard for Bin Laden, was sentenced to life in prison in January over the embassy bombings, following a six-week trial in Manhattan. He was the first former Guantánamo Bay detainee to face a civilian trial in the US.

He was captured in 2004 in Pakistan after a battle with government troops, and was later found guilty of being part of the plot in which hundreds of were killed in twin bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Four co-defendants of Ghailani were convicted of all charges, including joining an al-Qaida conspiracy to kill US nationals, during a 2001 trial in New York.

Among the fears communication service provider executives sometimes have is that customers will not pay for better service or new features. A new survey of 2,500 mobile subscribers by Amdocs, including mobile consumers in five European nations suggests subscribers are willing to pay for an improved customer experience and new services.

Fully 90 percent of Russian subscribers indicated they are willing to pay higher premiums to receive the products and services they want.

Only 30 percent of subscribers from all of the surveyed countries said they would be unwilling to pay for additional services.

Connectivity and the ability to make mobile payments were cited by European consumers as the top reasons they would increase their mobile usage. Subscribers also expressed a willingness to pay a
premium for the ability to consume all services from any device and for a single data bundle option.

Forty-three percent of respondents from all five European countries viewed connectivity as the most important industry development of the next decade.

Fifty-two percent of surveyed Russians and more than half of the Germans felt connectivity and synchronization between all devices would be the most important development of the next 10 years, and
almost 50 percent of German end users felt that the connected world would encourage them to increase their mobile usage.

In the U.K., more than 70 percent of respondents cited connection to other devices as the first or second most influential factor in increasing their mobile consumption.

European respondents chose improved network quality as the service they would be most likely to pay a premium for and 46 percent said this is the aspect they would most like to change or improve about their current mobile reality.

Users in the United Kingdom are most likely to pay a premium for increased network quality (39 percent) and 50 percent of surveyed consumers in the United Kingdom cited network improvements as their top concern, reflecting a growing reliance on access to mobile communication and information wherever they are.

The survey also included subscribers in France, Germany and Sweden.

As with all such surveys, there often is a difference between what consumers ay they will do, and the ways they actually behave.

Still, as with any product, the notion that customers will not buy new features, products or applications can be wrong. Whether they will, or will not, depends on the value of the innovations and the cost of using those new innovations.

Nobody seems to think "paying" is an issue with iPhones, iPads or virtual goods used in online games. What service providers must do is what all suppliers must do: create more compelling products.

read more here

British voters have rejected changing the electoral system in a humiliation for the Lib Dem party - who are in a Tory-led coalition government – who championed the reform. The party was also thumped in the local elections held on the same day.

The single most important consequence of Thursday's voting is the sheer bloodiness of the bloody nose delivered to the Liberal Democrats

So many of the most potent themes of British politics came together for a few hours in Thursday's elections that the contests, and the simultaneous AV referendum, seemed as important as a mini-general election. Except that a general election has only one overridingly large story to tell – the new government. This week's Super Thursday, by contrast, produced such a bulging goody-bag of resonant local and national stories – the defeat of electoral reform, the nationalist triumph in Scotland, the nationalist setback in Wales, excellent news for the Conservatives, grim news for the Liberal Democrats, something in between for Labour – that it is hard to know where to start.

On any other day, the triumph of the Scottish National Party in winning an outright majority in the Holyrood parliament – the very outcome that the devolved electoral system was expressly designed to prevent – would take the palm. While the United Kingdom survives, however, the single most important consequence of Thursday's voting is the sheer bloodiness of the bloody nose delivered to the Liberal Democrats. The damage is truly shocking. One in three Lib Dem voters from 2010 abandoned the party. At least 550 councillors were lost and the party was bundled from power in cities like Newcastle and Sheffield. The Lib Dem presence at Holyrood was decimated and in the Welsh assembly is now vestigial. The writing is on the wall for many of the party's biggest names in the House of Commons. And the AV referendum, so central to the party's hopes of having something distinctive to show for the coalition, was swept away by two-to-one.

There is something for the Lib Dems to cling on to all the same: the 15% share of the poll is grim not catastrophic; council victories in Burnley, Eastbourne, Watford and elsewhere serve notice that this was not an all-out rout, while in Eastleigh (the seat of Chris Huhne) there was even some Lib Dem advance. Yet Nick Clegg now presides over the rubble of his party's 20-year incremental forward march through British politics. This defeat is the all but inescapable price to be paid for an all but inescapable decision to enter government a year ago. Much the same may happen next year too. The bottom-line is that a large swathe of liberal Britain, more than this party can afford to lose, feels abandoned by Lib Dem membership of a coalition which is overwhelmingly defined by the slashing of public services, the overturning of the health service and the about-face on tuition fees. Mr Clegg and his party must confront this or face a decade of marginalisation.

The contrast with the fate of the Conservatives makes this all the more dismaying. If liberal Britain feels abandoned, conservative Britain feels vindicated. The Tory vote held up. There were even some council gains. And AV was crushed. True, there were Scottish and Welsh setbacks yet again. But the party of David Cameron, George Osborne, Andrew Lansley and Michael Gove – the real architects of the coalition's core policies – went not merely unpunished but has been majorly rewarded. In some ways, the Conservatives have more to cheer than Labour, who should have done better, not just in Scotland, but everywhere outside its traditional heartlands. For Labour, feeling good about winning well in Wales and about attracting back voters who should never have been lost in the first place are the easy bits – Labour's eight-point boost since 2010 and its nearly 700 new councillors are in one sense the Gordon Brown departure dividend. The larger point is that Labour's electoral counter-attack against the Tories is still almost non-existent. Yet without a credible strategy for turning some Tory votes into Labour ones, Labour's hopes of governing again may remain stillborn.

Both Scotland and electoral reform also remain crucial to any future centre-left advance of any kind. Yet Alex Salmond's stunning SNP win – amazing under a proportional system as well as the biggest personal electoral triumph for any party leader since Tony Blair's 1997 Labour landslide – poses a double challenge to Labour aspirations: it threatens Labour's future Westminster election chances and if – big if – the SNP win their way on independence, it may mean the end of any Scottish MPs at Westminster at all. In the wake of the abject failure of AV to win public backing, meanwhile, many will conclude that electoral reform is off the agenda for a generation. Yet if British voters go on producing general election outcomes with which the two-party Westminster system cannot cope, electoral reform may get back on the agenda sooner than now seems likely.

Lucas, Katarina, Reinhart and Anjali stand united in their quest to save the Kingdom of Ehb Square Enix has released a new trailer for Dungeon Siege 3 , the RPG sequel developed by Obsidian Entertainment with input from the original developer, Gas Powered Games .

• Historic victory gives SNP working majority in Scotland
• Overwhelming 'no' vote in AV referendum on 40% turnout
• Collapse for Nick Clegg; triumph for David Cameron

Potentially the most serious threat to the UK in its 310-year history moved a step closer to fruition as the Scottish National party swept to untrammelled power in the Scottish parliament, giving its leader, Alex Salmond, a mandate to hold a referendum on independence at the time of his choosing within the next five years.

The stunning result in Scotland – giving Salmond a working majority of nine at Holyrood – gave David Cameron a new constitutional headache as he saw off the introduction of the alternative vote for Westminster elections. The no campaign, of which Cameron was a vocal supporter, won the nationwide historic referendum on AV by an overwhelming margin of 68% to 32% on a 42% turnout.

In a presidential campaign Salmond turned round a Labour poll lead and swept through Scottish Labour's heartlands taking 69 seats, to Labour's 37. The SNP reached its majority by taking Kirkcaldy, the home turf of former Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown.

The stunning result in Scotland caused by a collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote in Scotland and a rudderless Labour campaign, led Salmond to announce he would be holding conversations immediately with Cameron to "lay down markers as to what this result, what this mandate, means in terms of Scotland's relationship with the United Kingdom".

He will call for specific transfers of power to Scotland in an attempt to assemble slowly a consensus for independence, leading to a referendum at some point after 2013.

Cameron said: "If they want to hold a referendum, I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have." Despite the SNP's big win, polls showed most voters in Scotland oppose independence.

In a rejection of the Liberal Democrats' 90-year quest for electoral reform and Nick Clegg's supposed big prize of the coalition, the yes camp won only a few of the 440 voting areas and not a single region in the AV referendum.

Clegg accepted the result without complaint. "When you have such a overwhelmingly clear answer you just have to accept it and move on. This is a bitter blow for all those people who believe in the need for political reform, but the answer is clear and the wider job of the government, and the Liberal Democrats in government will continue, to repair the economy, to restore prosperity and jobs and a sense of optimism in the country. That is the job we started and we will see it though. We will dust ourselves off and move on."

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who also campaigned for a yes vote, said: "I am disappointed, but the people have spoken clearly on this issue, and it is a verdict I accept."

The result reignited angry Liberal Democrat cabinet accusations, led by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, of bad faith by Cameron.

Senior yes campaign figures accepted they had never managed to persuade voters that there was a problem that needing fixing. They said in retrospect they needed as long as five years to build a consensus for change.

In probably the worst day since the Lib Dems' formation in 1998, Clegg also saw his painstakingly constructed citadels in northern town halls dismantled by swings to Labour in local council elections.

In his first nationwide electoral test, Miliband won more than 800 seats in the English council elections. Labour plans to govern alone in the Welsh assembly after making four gains that left them one seat short of an overall majority.

But Labour lost seven seats in the Scottish parliament, and Miliband's officials are disturbed by the way in which the Tories, across most of southern England, escaped serious punishment despite council spending cuts and an unprecedented squeeze on the living standards of middle England. The Tories made net gains of three councils and 154 seats, many from the Liberal Democrats, a fact Conservative headquarters refrained from advertising.

The Tory achievement, put alongside the Lib Dem reverses, underscored the contrasting fortunes of the two coalition partners.

Despite the reverberations from his reverses, in terms of Scottish independence, electoral reform and his party's cherished local government base, Clegg only faced isolated calls to resign from second string councillors.

But the former Liberal leader Lord Steel was one of many Lib Dems elders to demand a different kind of relationship. "Cosying up to the Tories has been wrong. Coalition now will have to be much more businesslike, less giving the impression of hearts and minds joining, which they are not," Steel said.

Clegg will respond sympathetically to these appeals to be more open about differences, and to the demands to push harder for favoured political projects such as Lords reform and social mobility.

Clegg himself admitted the results were dire. "In politics as in life sometimes you get these ups and down and we have taken a real knock," he said. Voters wanted reassurances that there was not going to be reliving Thatcherism.

Cameron tried to smooth relations with his coalition partners without making any specific concessions. He said: "Of course, the government has had to take difficult long-term decisions in the national interest and that always makes local elections difficult."

On the AV vote, Cameron said: "There will be no celebrating, there will be no congratulations."

He said that while the Tories and their coalition partners had "different histories and traditions and sometimes quite different views", the parties were working together to sort out the long-term problems the country faced.

"That is what we are committed to do and I am absolutely committed to make this coalition government, which I believe is good for Britain, work for the full five years of this term," the prime minister said.

"It is then that I believe the coalition and its parties will be judged by the electorate."

Some Tory rightwingers , such as Peter Bone and Bill Cash, pressed Cameron to exploit his electoral advantage and end the coalition before 2015.

In order for a Scottish referendum to take place, the Scottish parliament would first have to pass a bill setting up a referendum. If that was passed by Scottish voters, the Scottish government would negotiate with the UK government terms of independence including such issues as division of the national debt, North Sea oil, the future of the defence bases on the Clyde, Scotland's membership of the EU.

Westminster would then have to authorise a second and final referendum, asking the people of Scotland to confirm that they want independence on these terms. Successive British prime ministers have recognised the right to self-determination.

Guesties_os's Great Adventure

Pipe bombs, a targeted car crash, a lone gunman: Western intelligence officials said Friday they are seeing increased Internet and phone chatter about cheap, small-scale terror attacks to avenge the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Veiled Egyptian women chant slogans during a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, May 6, 2011, to denounce the U.S. commando raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaida on Friday confirmed the killing of Osama bin Laden and warned of retaliation, saying Americans' "happiness will turn to sadness.

Police stand guard as a pro-Bin Laden protest takes place outside the US Embassy in London, Friday, May 6, 2011. Radical cleric Anjem Choudary led a protest against the killing of Osama bin Laden outside the US Embassy in London.

Police officers try to keep apart a supporter of the right-wing English Defence League, left, from pro-bin Laden supporters marching to the U.S. Embassy in London to protest against the killing of Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden by U.S.'s special force in Pakistan, Friday, May 6, 2011.

A member of the English Defence League holds up a poster in support of the United States, during a counter demonstration to an Islamic protest against the killing of Osama Bin Laden, led by radical cleric Anjem Choudary, outside the U.S. Embassy in London, Friday May 6, 2011.(AP Photo/Gareth Fuller-pa) UNITED KINGDOM OUT: NO SALES: NO ARCHIVE:

The Liberal Democrat party, in a national coalition with the Conservatives party, was pummeled in local elections across England, results showed Friday. It also appears that British voters rejected the Lib Dems much touted electoral reform.

Another week has passed, and ... well ... you know this by now: yet another sneak peek of a custom Cavey for the Cavey Birthday show has popped up on the Hey Cavey website. This time, the artist is Sneaky Raccoon, who's created this little fellow named Sneaky Munchin. According to Holly, this little fellow has a very elaborate design on both the front and the back ... looking forward to seeing the whole thing!

The party's happening on May 26th from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Fleet River Bakery (Holborn, WC2A 3JF, London, United Kingdom). All of the Caveys will be available for auction ahead of the show. Which custom's been your favorite so far, Tomopop readers?

Alex Salmond wins overall majority at Holyrood and promises to hold referendum on break from United Kingdom

Alex Salmond touched down on the manicured lawns of one of Edinburgh's exclusive hotels in his campaign helicopter, Saltire One, after securing the most stunning victory in recent Scottish political history – a win that has the potential to change the fabric of the United Kingdom.

The scale of the SNP's victory was clear: Salmond had won Holyrood's first overall majority and a total of 69 seats – a result he believes has swept aside his opponents' last hopes of blocking his plans for a referendum on independence. No wonder he gave waiting reporters and supporters the thumbs up.

The statistics were devastating: the SNP took Labour seats in every city in Scotland and, Orkney and Shetland aside, wiped out the Liberal Democrats. The SNP's vote jumped by 13%, while Labour's dipped.

The SNP leader stated he had the "moral authority" to deliver a referendum within the next five years, setting in train one of the most significant constitutional battles to face a modern UK government. Lawyers and opposition parties insist the referendum plan is outside Holyrood's powers, a claim Salmond has previously dismissed.

Salmond declared: "Just as the Scottish people have restored trust in us, we must trust the people as well. Which is why, in this term of the parliament, we will bring forward a referendum and trust the people on Scotland's own constitutional future."

David Cameron, the prime minister, acknowledged that the SNP had won an "emphatic" victory but warned that he would vigorously oppose Salmond's referendum plans.

After pledging to work constructively with Salmond where possible, he stated: "On the issue of the United Kingdom, if they want to hold a referendum I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have."

Labour's Scottish leader, Iain Gray, announced he would stand down in the autumn after watching Labour lose seven seats. He very narrowly avoided a humiliating defeat in his own constituency, East Lothian, surviving an SNP challenge by 151 votes, and said there were "many hard lessons" to learn.

The scale of the SNP victory is also wounding for Ed Miliband, who had pledged that a Labour victory in Scotland would give his party a new platform to challenge Cameron at Westminster, and humiliating for Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader.

The SNP's landslide was substantially due to a Scotland-wide collapse in Lib Dem support in protest at its coalition in London, with hundreds of thousands of voters switching to the SNP.

The Lib Dems lost former strongholds in North East Fife, the seat held at Westminster by former UK party leader Menzies Campbell, and in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, where the previous UK leader, Charlie Kennedy, holds the equivalent Commons seat.

The SNP took 45.4% of the constituency vote and 44.7% of the regional vote. Salmond said: "For the first time, we're living up to the idea that we're the national party of Scotland, all classes, all communities, all parts of Scotland; we will do our absolute best to redeem the people's trust."

The UK government faces an immediate battle with Salmond over his demands to greatly strengthen existing proposals in the Scotland bill which is currently going through Westminster.

The bill – which was devised by Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems in an ill-fated attempt to quash SNP demands for independence – already proposes to give Holyrood powers to set its own income tax rates, modest new legal powers, and authority to borrow up to £2bn to finance public works.

Within days, Salmond is likely to set out fresh demands for Scotland to be allowed to set its own corporation tax, similar to plans for the Northern Ireland government, and to significantly raise borrowing powers to £5bn.

From early on Friday there had been roars of victory from SNP activists and candidates in counting halls across Scotland as some of the strongest seats held for decades by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories were toppled. Across much of Scotland, Salmond's party cleared the board.

The SNP won every constituency seat in Aberdeen and the surrounding area, it has every seat in Dundee and Tayside, it won five out of eight constituencies in Glasgow and four out of five in Edinburgh. Its victory also increases the tension with Labour, which still dominates Scottish seats at Westminster, holding 41 to the SNP's six.

Labour lost a host of MSPs who have served since 1999 and former ministers Tom McCabe, Andy Kerr and David Whitton. Their rout came despite doorstep campaigning on polling day by former prime minister Gordon Brown, his wife, Sarah, and 10,000 activists branded "Labour's volunteer army".

Labour now has only two seats north of the central belt, in Dumbarton, near Glasgow, and Cowdenbeath, after losing several key seats in Fife.

The scale of its defeat forced Labour to grapple with an immediate leadership crisis and bitter, public recriminations on the quality of Labour's campaign. Henry McLeish, a former Labour first minister, said his party had suffered "a drubbing". He added: "It has been the most negative campaign I have seen. What do we stand for? What are we offering Scotland? The obvious conclusion is that they didn't want us."The unexpected losses of possible leadership contenders such as Andy Kerr and David Whitton dramatically reduced Labour's options, officials admitted. "We're having to make a radical reappraisal of the situation," said one official.

Salmond was jubilant at the scale of the SNP's triumphs and scathing about his Labour opponents. "This idea that Labour had ownership of parts of central Scotland, well that's gone for ever, hasn't it?" he said, shortly after winning the new seat of Aberdeenshire East with a 15,295 majority. "It's a bit like the American bison. I dare say we will still see one or two dotted about here and there, but the great herds of Labour they have gone for ever."

Salmond said voters were motivated by the SNP's positive and optimistic campaign, and repulsed by Labour's negativity and its attacks on the SNP's plans for independence.

"A positive campaign will always trump a negative campaign," he said. "People are motivated by that, that's why they come out and vote. They're not going to be motivated by Labour's ridiculous scare mongering and fearmongering against Scottish independence."

On Monday all 129 new MSPs will be sworn in. Many of them had never expected to be elected. Some are political novices. The SNP admitted it was shocked by the scale of its victory; its internal estimates had shown it would take up to 56 seats. Holyrood's proportional system, which ensures all parties are equally represented with 56 regional "top-up" seats, was designed to prevent one party gaining overall control.

The Tories were saved from losing some of their best-known figures, including David McLetchie, the former party leader who was stunned to lose his once safe seat of Edinburgh Pentlands by 1,758 votes to the SNP. The party had insisted all its candidates "doubled up" by also standing in the regions: McLetchie is top of the Lothians regional list.

Annabel Goldie, the Tory leader, said: "More than ever Scotland needs a party which will stand up to the excesses of nationalism and bring reality to Scottish politics. That will be the Scottish Conservatives' task in the months and years to come. We will be driven by one consideration: what is in the best interests of Scotland."

Based on his new lead over Labour, Salmond will now be able to push through a dramatic programme of policy and public service reforms, including a minimum pricing scheme for alcohol that his opponents insist is illegal; cutting Scotland's eight police forces to three or one; freezing the council tax for a further five years; and pressing ahead with contentious plans to generate 100% of Scotland's electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

But there will be a bigger mission: to persuade the people of Scotland, who currently disapprove of independence by more than two to one, that they should leave the UK. For some party loyalists that dream is now very much alive. When Salmond arrived for his final day of campaigning in the Borders town of Peebles on Wednesday, one father, cradling his daughter in his arms, invoked the ancient folk hero of Scottish independence, shouting out: "You're our modern William Wallace, Alex!"

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1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald. 1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1844 – The Glaciarium, the world’s first mechanically frozen ice rink, opens. 1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened [...]

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Although I’m no longer an editor here at Above the Law (*tear*), you know my byline occasionally still pops up to bring you news of lonely lawyers and goings-on in the world of privacy. This week, I asked Elie and Lat if they were interested in a lawsuit against a computer rental store accused of…

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The Scottish National Party won a majority in Scotland's parliamentary election and its leader promised Friday to hold a vote on independence from the United Kingdom.

A coroner has cleared British security services of any responsibility in the deaths of 52 people in the 2005 London suicide bombings, rejecting calls for a full public inquiry into the worst ever terrorist attacks on British soil.

In his native United Kingdom, Ben Drew’s second album under the moniker Plan B , “The Defamation of Strickland Banks,’’ hit number one in 2010 and has been certified triple platinum. On the heels of its recent US release, the hip-hop soul artist hopes to win over the hearts and minds of America as the opening act for the Bruno ...

Former prime minister feared devolution and dismissed declaration by George Robertson that it would 'kill nationalism stone dead'

Tony Blair always had reservations about Scottish devolution even though he campaigned vigorously in favour of a Yes vote in the 1997 referendum.

As an English chap Blair never understood the deep passion among acolytes of the late John Smith, his predecessor as Labour leader, for a Scottish Parliament. Blair's expensive education at Fettes, the Eton of Scotland, did nothing to help.

A key moment for Blair came when Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, the widow of the late Labour leader John Smith, told the future prime minister that he should create a Scottish Parliament if he wanted to live up to her husband's legacy. Lady Smith repeated her husband's claim that a Scottish Parliament represented the "settled will" of the Scottish people.

Blair delivered, though there were a series of internal Labour rows in the run up to the 1997 Westminster election, not least when he likened a future Scottish Parliament to a parish council.

Blair had two fears about Scottish devolution:

• It would inevitably loosen Scotland's links with the rest of the United Kingdon. Blair never quite bought the famous line by the former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, a prominent opponent of devolution, who said:

Devolution is a motorway without exits to independence.

But Blair shared the concerns of sceptics such as the Labour trade minister Brian Wilson. He never quite signed up to the famous declaration by George Robertson, then shadow Scottish secretary, who said in 1995:

Devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.

Blair thought that devolution could destabilise the delicate balance of relations within the United Kingdom. He was one of the first to spot one of the greatest threats to the Union – English resentment at the favourable funding arrangements for Scotland under the Barnett Formula.

• It would entrench Labour in Scotland which embodied for him the loathsome Old Labour which had made the party unelectable in Middle England. This is why Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who were the driving forces behind the creation of the parliament, agreed on a proportional voting system that was designed to guarantee that Labour would find it difficult to form a majority.

There was meant to be another benefit – the SNP would also never be able to form a majority. This would mean that the nationalists would struggle to hold a referendum on independence.

In the wake of the SNP's stunning breakthrough the former prime minister may allow himself a small "told you so" moment, though that sort of behaviour is not usually within his nature. A referendum on independence is closer than ever before, though Alex Salmond will proceed with care because a vote for the SNP does not necessarily equate to support for leaving the UK.

Blair's only hope will be that the more proportional voting system, which deprived Labour of a majority at Holyrood even when it dominated the political landscape, will also deprive the SNP of a majority. But at lunchtime today that is looking uncertain.

Whatever the final result at Holyrood one thing is clear. Scotland is already detaching itself from the rest of the UK, as my friend and former Herald political editor Benedict Brogan blogged today. One of the strongest examples of the parting of the ways was the role the UK Labour party played in this year's Scottish election: none.

Labour was always heading for defeat in the Scottish election, but no one predicted an SNP rout on this scale

It was a bad night for monkeys. It has long been said that, in Glasgow and west-central Scotland, if you put a red rosette on a monkey it would still be elected in most constituencies. The Labour vote, so the saying goes, is not counted here, it is weighed. Not any more. Suddenly, Labour's century-long hegemony over Scottish politics appears to be over. Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party is forecast to achieve what most political analysts believed was not possible: an overall majority in a proportional electoral system. The political map of Scotland has been transformed, as the SNP has punched a massive yellow hole through the heart of Labour territory in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, leaving only a handful of red fragments.

The Labour frontbench has been destroyed: the former health minister, Andy Kerr, gone; former finance minister, Tom McCabe, gone; transport spokesman, Charles Gordon gone. Nearly all the Labour MSPs with any kind of public profile, like Pauline McNeill, Karen Gillon, David Whitton, have been thrown out of politics. Ironically, the one seat Labour might have been rather relieved to lose, that of their leader, Iain Gray, remained red by a wafer of 151 votes. He will certainly have to step down as leader, after a dismal campaign, the abiding image of which was Gray being pursued into a Glasgow sandwich bar by a posse of anti-cuts protesters.

Labour's campaign insulted the intelligence of the Scottish voters by insisting that, as their manifesto put it: "The Tories are back" when they emphatically are not – in Scotland at least. The voters have returned the insult by applying to Labour the kind of tactical voting they used to destroy the Scottish Tories in the 1990s.

We thought Labour was going to lose this fourth Scottish parliament election, but no one predicted a rout of this scale. Certainly not the SNP. They were very measured in their forecasts about the result in west-central Scotland, having seen too many false dawns over the last 44 years.

Constituencies like Hamilton, Govan, Glasgow East have been held briefly by the SNP in Westminster byelections over the years – but never all at once. And never with Labour bastions like Glasgow Shettleston, Glasgow Cathcart Glasgow Anniesland, Stratkelvin and Bearsden, East Kilbride. This was certainly Labour's worst result in Scotland since 1931, and possibly since Labour supplanted the Liberals as Scotland's party after the first world war.

It's not just a bad day for Labour monkeys. The Liberal Democrat parrot, while not dead, has suffered a near-death experience. I lost track after the 20th lost Lib Dem deposit. Seasoned political hacks were lost for superlatives in their efforts to encapsulate the scale of the Liberal Democrat defeat. Their vote didn't just collapse, it was vaporised. In the Lib Dems' Highland stronghold, the SNP has swept to victory, wiping out a tradition of rural liberal radicalism that goes back to before the Labour party was formed.

In the north-east, another Liberal hunting ground, the SNP won all 10 constituency seats, and then went on to win yet another seat on the top-up regional list vote, which is also supposed to be impossible with the d'Hondt method of calculating the top-up list. And then in the east, in Edinburgh, Liberal and Labour seats were also crushed by the SNP steamroller. The Nationalists even took Pentlands, from the Scottish Tories, who had a bad night, which, by comparison with the other results, looked almost a success. Only one Labour MSP will return from the Edinburgh constituencies: the maverick leftwinger Malcolm Chisholm.

What does it all mean? Well, we can pencil in the date of that referendum on independence, which will now certainly happen. Will the SNP win the referendum? Almost certainly not, which makes this result even more astonishing. The SNP dominates Scotland even though only a third of Scottish voters support their headline policy of withdrawal from the United Kingdom. But what we can say is that Scotland has lost its fear of independence, and its blind allegiance to the Labour party. It will take time to understand the full implications of this epic result. But Scotland, and the UK, will never be the same again.

Dave's winning return Dorset Echo A PAST Olympian returned to Weymouth to test out a new sail and triumphed in round one of the United Kingdom Windsurfing Association's 2011 national championships. David Hackford, 47, who competed in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los ...

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SNP leader's stunning election success means he can rewrite public policy and demand greater fiscal freedom for Holyrood

The scale of Alex Salmond's triumph in the Scottish elections is already dramatic. With 82 of the 129 seats declared, the first minister is on the brink of forming Scotland's first majority government at Holyrood.

Labour has endured its worst performance in Scotland since 1931, with many of the party's best-known and most experienced figures routed by Salmond's Scottish National party, while the Tories have suffered their worst result ever.

The Liberal Democrats have been ruthlessly punished by the Scottish electorate for their coalition with the Tories at Westminster and, according to BBC forecasts, are likely to lose 10 of their 16 seats.

But the cold, hard figures still suggest this is about domestic politics for the majority of Scottish voters. It is about the question of who administers their devolved government, about governing Scotland rather than ripping up the constitution.

Salmond may yet just fall short of the magical 65 seats he needs to win outright – his advisers are cooling expectations and taking of 60 seats being their "ceiling".

But even with 60, he should enjoy an unexpectedly clear run at staging the referendum on independence. This, however, is not a cataclysm for the United Kingdom or a constitutional crisis. Not yet.

Salmond knows the Scottish electorate is not pro-independence. Not yet. The series of polls during the Holyrood campaign which gave the SNP a 10-point lead over Labour also repeatedly showed that popular support for independence remained on or around 30%, reaching 35% in late April.

Some pollsters also asked voters to give their voting preferences for Westminster: those results showed Labour still substantially ahead.

A YouGov poll carried out for the Scotsman newspaper in late April put Labour at 43% against the SNP at 30%, figures that were reversed on the Holyrood vote. The same people questioned by YouGov put the SNP at 45% on the constituency vote and 39% on the list, coming very close to the figures the party actually commanded in the election.

Salmond is keenly aware of this. He has repeatedly made clear that he knew hundreds of thousands of Scots who had never voted SNP were being attracted to the party – not because of nationalism, but because of its competence in government since 2007, its optimistic message and its "big tent" appeal to both centre-left social democrats and Tory business leaders.

He accomplished an extraordinary feat in this campaign, managing to win the endorsement of millionaire executives such as David Murray, the unionist owner of Rangers football club, and Martin Gilbert, the head of the global investment bank Aberdeen Asset Management, a firm with £180bn in funds.

Standing alongside them in backing Salmond was the disgraced socialist leader Tommy Sheridan and Tommy Brennan, the trade unionist and works convenor at the former Ravenscraig steel works – one of the most totemic workplaces in Scottish labour movement history.

In doing so, the SNP won seats in areas in which it had barely campaigned, such as the Tory held Edinburgh Pentlands and Lib Dem-held Edinburgh Western, and in some places coming from fourth place to win.

It snatched seats in Lanarkshire, along the Clyde and in Glasgow, and now controls Dundee, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

There are other significant facts to consider. One analysis by the BBC found that Labour's vote in the constituencies had barely fallen, dropping by a mere 0.6%.

And the Holyrood elections appear at this stage – with fewer than 50 seats yet to declare – to have been decided by about 50% of the Scottish electorate, some two million people.

The 2007 election was decided by 52% of Scottish voters. In comparison, last year's substantial victory for Labour at the 2010 general election, when it held all 41 of its Westminster seats with 42% of the vote while the SNP was reduced to six with 20% of the vote, was based on a turnout of 64%.

Scottish voters traditionally behave differently in domestic Holyrood elections than in Westminster elections.

But for his shell-shocked opponents, particularly Labour, the truly frightening outcome of Salmond's success is the complete command he now has of the Scottish parliament, and with it, his party's destiny.

He can now rewrite public policy in Scotland and demand greater economic freedoms for Holyrood from David Cameron's government. Cameron and his humiliated deputy, Nick Clegg, might yet allow Scotland to set its own corporation tax and might double Holyrood's borrowing powers to £5bn.

Before Salmond stages his referendum in three or four years time, the SNP is likely to have introduced minimum pricing on alcohol, reduced Scotland's eight police forces down to three or even one, frozen the council tax for another five years and built new roads and bridges.

All with one goal in mind – the sole intention of converting those new, first time SNP voters on Thursday into permanent supporters, people who might feel far more confident about Scotland's capacity to survive outside the UK. People who might yet vote yes to independence.

Adam Burton is a photographer from United Kingdom. More Photography by Adam Burton Design You Trust RSS Feed | Design You Trust on FB | Design You Trust on Twitter | Design You Trust

MMD National Chairperson for Information and Publicity Dora Siliya has said Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata was auctioning the country to activists of homosexuality and praised Zambians in the Diaspora for shunning his meeting in the United Kingdom.

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — The Scottish National Party rolled up an impressive victory in Scotland's parliamentary election, and its leader promised Friday to hold a vote on independence from the United Kingdom.

English, not Scottish nationalism is the force worth watching

According to the conclusions of a new investigation carried out by experts at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, it would appear that some animal species were not as drastically affected by the most brutal extinction event in the history of the planet as experts first believed. The event in question is called ...

Boroughbridge, United Kingdom, May 06, 2011 -- -- Concorde IT Group one of the UK's leading IT support and managed service providers is implementing Intuitive Dashboards, the advanced business intelligence tool from Intuitive Business Intelligence Limited , to enable them to improve the speed and accuracy of business decision-making across their ...

Advertising Agency: RKCR/Y&R, London, United Kingdom Executive Creative Director: Mark Roalfe Art Director: Tim Brookes Copywriter: Phil Forster Photographer: Carl Warner Typographer: Lee Aldridge Production: Ali Power Account Director: Glynn Euston National Communications Manager: Les Knight

Back in March, I speculated about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's programming and leadership options for 2011-12, given James Levine's resignation from the position of music director there. The press releases related to the season just landed in my in-box, and here's the story: it's a season of guest conductors.

They'll be led by (in order) Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sean Newhouse (BSO Assistant Conductor), Juanjo Mena, Kurt Masur, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos (two weeks), Myung-Wun Chung, Ludovic Morlot (two weeks), Jiri Belohlavek, Andris Nelsons, David Zinman, Riccardo Chailly (two weeks), Charles Dutoit, Jaap van Zweden, Stephane Deneve, Kurt Masur (again), Christoph Eschenbach, Juraj Valcuha, Leonidis Kavakos (yes, he is playing and conducting), Christoph von Dohnanyi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Bernard Haitink (3 weeks).

Whew!

That is quite a line-up, running the gamut from the up and coming (Newhouse, Morlot, Nelsons, van Zweden) to towering figures like Haitink, Chailly, and Dohnanyi. Plenty of tasty programming as well. I'm seriously curious whether the BSO had two schedules planned, one with and one without Levine, or if they had to scramble mightily to figure out who was available when and get them under contract.

Of local interest: Ludovic Morlot, the incoming music director of the Seattle Symphony, is taking the West Coast tour dates, which include two programs in S.F. He'll be leading the already-announced program - another big whew, because I really really want to hear the Carter Flute Concerto.

In any event, the season is a good one, and if I lived in Boston, I'd just get a ticket to everything. Well, almost everything, anyway.

Much of the press release is after the cut.

In a ceremony presided over by England's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel was officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.

The channel tunnel, or "Chunnel," connects Folkstone, England, with Sangatte, France, 31 miles away.  The Chunnel cut travel time between England and France to a swift 35 minutes and eventually between London and Paris to two-and-a-half hours.

As the world's longest undersea tunnel, the Chunnel runs under water for 23 miles, with an average depth of 150 feet below the seabed. Each day, about 30,000 people, 6,000 cars and 3,500 trucks journey through the Chunnel on passenger, shuttle and freight trains.

Millions of tons of earth were moved to build the two rail tunnels--one for northbound and one for southbound traffic--and one service tunnel.   Fifteen thousand people were employed at the peak of construction.  Ten people were killed during construction.

Napoleon's engineer, Albert Mathieu, planned the first tunnel under the English Channel in 1802, envisioning an underground passage with ventilation chimneys that would stretch above the waves.  In 1880, the first real attempt was made by Colonel Beaumont, who bore a tunnel more than a mile long before abandoning the project. Other efforts followed in the 20th century, but none on the scale of the tunnels begun in June 1988.

The Chunnel's $16 billion cost was roughly twice the original estimate, and completion was a year behind schedule.  One year into service, Eurotunnel announced a huge loss, one of the biggest in United Kingdom corporate history at the time.  A scheme in which banks agreed to swap billions of pounds worth of loans for shares saved the tunnel from going under and it showed its first net profit in 1999. 

Freight traffic was suspended for six months after a fire broke out on a lorry in the tunnel in November 1996.  Nobody was seriously hurt in the incident.

In 1996, the American Society of Civil Engineers identified the tunnel as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

While I was out drawing in the glorious sun we had today, I suddenly remembered an interesting statement I read last year in a March 31st entry on ArtDaily.org. It was made by artist and film-maker Lutz Becker, then Curatorial Fellow at Kettle's Yard in the United Kingdom. He curated a major exhibition at the De la Warr Pavilion in 2010, including 20th century experimental films, drawings and prints, that underscored two major trends in drawing, the gestural and the geometric.

Writing about his curatorial choices, he said, "It is the awareness of time as the measure of the distance between thought and realisation, of the value of the transient and sense of the fragility of the inspirational moment, that made me decide to show predominantly works on paper, drawing... no longer about the recording of appearances,, but as a language reflecting its own becoming, often daring and experimental."

He was describing, in probing terms, the way I have been feeling as I explore the new vocabulary of drawing in silverpoint on a black surface. Since it is a version of silverpoint that seems to lend itself to more abstract drawings, more experimental ventures, I have been seeking subjects that talk to me in this language. Today, I was drawing a favourite dead cedar stump, a sprawling amazing sculpture that changes constantly as the light moves around it.

The awareness of time has always been a source of fascination and amazement to me as soon as one starts to draw or paint. Time becomes meaningless. But the fact that time could be "the measure of the distance between thought and realisation" is very perceptive, particularly when one is working plein air. Today's silverpoint needed to be done instinctively, basically without the time for any conscious thought. There would be time, later, for evaluation. It was more important simply to draw, to make marks that mattered. To listen to "inspiration" rather than any reason...

Silverpoint, in a way, is always such a leap of faith. You have to start somewhere, and then just go with whatever happens, fleeting and fragile as the moment may be. Since you cannot erase anything, the notion of time has to disappear, except in one respect. Since you cannot achieve real darks immediately, as you can with graphite, for instance, you have to wait for the silver mark to oxidise, and then you can go back in to emphasise more that dark. But that perception of time is more a pause in the rhythm of drawing, of mark-making, than any real awareness of a clock ticking away.

Silverpoint, to my mind, fits perfectly Lutz Becker's description of drawing "no longer about the recording of appearances, but as a language reflecting its own becoming....", when time has little meaning.

Los Angeles Times

Asthma Pills Appear as Effective as Inhaled Steroids in Study Nurse.com A rarely prescribed asthma drug is easier to use and just as effective as conventional treatment with inhalers, according to a new study led by the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. Publishing in the May 5 issue of the New England ... Asthma pills may work just as well as inhalers in the real worldLos Angeles Times Asthma pills as good as inhaler: studyReuters Asthma pills as good as inhalers, study findsCTV.ca WebMD -Ivanhoe -RedOrbit all 132 news articles »

Section: Business News, Web, Google

Google is rolling out yet another service that is accompanied by a nicely put together video. The new service is called Google Business Photos and it’s now taking applications. Google Business Photos is meant to give businesses a greater presence online by giving potential customers a sneak peak into what the interior of a business looks like.

Businesses can place photos on a website at any time, but Google Business Photos operates more like an indoor version of Google Street View. Google will send photographers it hires to interested businesses to take panoramic photographs. The pictures will be located on the Place Page of the business. Business owners can also upload their own photos by signing in to Google Places.

Photographers are currently visiting businesses in the U.S. Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. U.S. locations include St. Petersburg, San Antonio, Phoenix, Orange County and Bay Area, CA.

Currently, Google is focusing on taking pictures of restaurants, hotels and non-chain retail establishments.

Here’s that neat Google Business Photos video I mentioned earlier.

 

Site [Google Business Photos] Read [VentureBeat]

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• An article began by saying that results of a regular statistical survey showed that in April manufacturing output in the United Kingdom had fallen to a seven-month low. It should have said that the rate of manufacturing growth had fallen (British manufacturing faces tough outlook, 4 May, page 25).

• An article meant to name Osama bin Laden, but instead said: "Asked on Wednesday whether the team that killed Obama had come under fire, [Jay] Carney said the White House had gone to the limit in providing details and that any more would risk future operations" (Photos reveal gruesome aftermath of Bin Laden raid, 5 May, page 9 turn from page 1, early editions).

• Looking at some of the world's most wanted fugitives, a feature mentioned the Russian agent accused by British authorities of murdering journalist and former agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. But the piece should have said that the latter died of poisoning from polonium-210, not plutonium (On the run, 4 May, page 6, G2).

• Hugh Laurie was backed by a quintet dominated by guitarist Kevin Breit, not Bright as we had it in a review of the closing concert at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival (Bringing down the House, 3 May, page 19).

Contacts for Guardian/guardian.co.uk departments and staff can be found through the Contact us link on our website homepage. To contact the readers' editor's office, which looks at queries about accuracy and standards, email reader@guardian.co.uk including article details and web link; write to The readers' editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU; or phone +44 (0)20 3353 4736 between 11am and 5pm UK time Monday to Friday excluding public holidays. The Guardian's policy is to correct significant errors as soon as possible. The editorial code of the Guardian incorporates the editors' code overseen by the Press Complaints Commission: see pcc.org.uk

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Here is a new jam by Ms. Kelly Rowland, titled “I’m Dat Chick“. Its from her upcoming third solo album, which is currently untitled, but is currently set to release on April 11th in the United Kingdom. Download: Kelly Rowland – I’m Dat Chick