Mahmoud Abbas ‘not ready to negotiate’ after Israel announces 1,600 new homes for East Jerusalem The Palestinians pulled out of a new round of indirect peace talks last night, even before they had begun, as a protest at Israel’s decision to announce approval for hundreds of new homes in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.
The debate over resourcing the armed forces that has ensued from Gordon Brown’s presence at the Chilcot inquiry ( Editorial , 6 March) is put into perspective by the recent failure of the MoD to respond to MPs inquiries about “black holes” in defence procurement.
The IPL, six weeks of razzmatazz and TV with a little sport, is predicted to double last year’s takings It is already big and brash. It is about to get substantially bigger and brasher
I’ve been looking for this for a few days, and finally I found it. It’s a study, by the Urban Institute, of number of uninsured by congressional district. Open it up and have a look, especially Exhibit 1 on page 4 of the pdf (the map in green)
Moves aims to restore public confidence in science of global warming after mistake over melting rates of glaciers The UN called in the world’s top scientists today to review a report by its climate body, four months after public confidence in the science of global warming was shaken by the discovery of a mistake about the melting rates of Himalayan glaciers. In an announcement at the UN in New York Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and Rajendra Pachauri, the much-criticised head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the InterAcademy Council, which represents 15 national academies of science, would conduct the independent review
The Lost Boys actor has been found dead at the age of 38 from a rumoured overdose in Los Angeles The life and career of the former child star and 1980s teen idol Corey Haim might be seen as a succession of cliches. From the early, hugely promising screen appearances to the swift rise as a teen pin-up in movies such as The Lost Boys, he suffered the predictable dip into paparazzi fodder and later into anonymity when his pretty teenage looks faded
My friend André de Wet, who has died aged 75, was a photographer with a sharp eye for news pictures and a rare sense of artistry. Born in Cape Town, he was educated at Wellington boys high school, in Cape Province. He tried various occupations before discovering his ability with cameras
Timeline of what the former MI5 chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller and her colleagues knew Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5 throughout most of the years of the so-called war on terror, insisted yesterday that she had not known that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed was being waterboarded. In a response to the appeal court’s judgment that MI5 officers had a “dubious record” on torture, she sought to blame the US and maintained that only after she retired in 2007 did she discover that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks had been waterboarded 160 times. “The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,” she said.
Designer Marc Jacobs’s collection for the powerhouse label aims to celebrate diversity of women, in all shapes and sizes “Designers are always talking about how they design for women, and then you look at our runways and there no girls over 20,” said Marc Jacobs, the American designer of Louis Vuitton, backstage after his blockbuster catwalk show in Paris today. “This time, I set out to cast a variety of sexy women – younger, older, thin, voluptuous, from every ethnic background.” Think Anita Ekberg with Grace Kelly’s wardrobe: ample cleavage spilling over simple sundresses, tight, glossy belts and long kid gloves. The show’s title, And God Created Woman, was apt not just because the look – A-line skirts, pumps, sweetheart necklines, even cat’s eye spectacles – drew heavily on the era of Roger Vadim’s 1956 film.
President-elect faces changed priorities after country devastated by worst natural disaster in half a century The Chilean president-elect, Sebastián Piñera, will take power tomorrow in the aftermath of the country’s worst natural catastrophe in 50 years. Piñera, a moderate conservative who had planned to cut social spending and introduce a market-based economic model, now faces much-changed priorities after last month’s devastating earthquake demolished Chile’s physical infrastructure. “Chile expects quite a bit of its governing officials.
