Sunday
28th
February
2010
Top UK general says Afghanistan army in morale crisis
U.S. Marines from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines move towards Taliban positions during a battle in Marjah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan
David Leppard - Sunday Times
The head of the army has warned that British troops are facing a crisis of deteriorating morale on the home front that risks undermining the war in Afghanistan.
In a confidential draft memo
prepared for ministers, General Sir
David
Richards, chief of the general staff (CGS), said that recent
cuts to
the defence budget are having a “cumulative and corrosive effect on our
soldiers and their families”.Cuts to housing, shortages of training equipment and even the cancellation of sports events between soldiers’ tours of duty were making them and their families feel “undervalued”, the army chief wrote.
The leaked memo will be seized on by the Tories as opening a new front in the tussle between army chiefs and ministers over the politically sensitive issue of defence cuts.
It echoes the row last year when Richards’s predecessor, General Sir Richard Dannatt, stepped down after speaking out about equipment shortages as well as poor pay and conditions. It later emerged that government figures had tried to smear him over his expenses.
A senior military commander emphasised yesterday that it was not Richards’s intention to criticise ministers: “He’s not whingeing. He’s simply trying to flag up what he believes is a vital issue that needs their urgent attention.”
In the memo to the defence board, which comprises ministers and service chiefs, Richards shifts the focus of criticism from the war effort in Afghanistan to the treatment of troops on their return home.
While there had been “significant progress” on the front line, Richards said, the treatment of soldiers when they returned for 24 months between tours is so poor that it is threatening to undermine the war effort.
Marked “restricted”, the memo reports a summary of an internal “poll” of 5,000 soldiers and their families at units in Britain, Germany and Cyprus over the past four months.
The survey was discussed at the executive committee of the army board this month. Its results appear to be so alarming that Richards decided to alert ministers to its key findings.
“My greatest concern ... is the deteriorating experience of soldiers and their families ... between tours which, the [survey] team reports, is disaffecting attitudes, damaging morale and risks undermining our ability to sustain the campaign . . .” he wrote.
“We need our soldiers to be ready, mentally and physically, to endure repeated tours in Afghanistan, in a harsh environment, with the real prospect of significant casualties each time.
“To maintain the necessary morale and cohesion, they must see tangible signs between tours that they and their families are valued.”
Last July the army was forced to make savings of £43m to help the Ministry of Defenc keep within budget. In October a further £54m cut was announced so resources could be focused on the war in Afghanistan. About £14m of those cuts meant delays to upgrades to living quarters for more than 4,000 troops.
The memo says: “The team reports the cumulative and corrosive effect that [such cuts] are having on our soldiers and their families.
“As CGS, I register an early concern about the impact on morale, the potentially severe downstream impact on retention and our ability to sustain the campaign in the longer term.”
An army spokesman said: “The report notes that soldiers feel increasingly well supported and resourced on operations and praises medical care in-theatre and in the UK.
“It also relays concerns about the effect of financial pressure on activity in between operational tours and provides early warning of the resulting impact on morale. Resources are tight at the moment and Afghanistan is the main effort.”
How much longer can the Army fight?
Nato draws up payout tariffs for Afghan civilian deaths
• Nato commander committed to reducing number of casualties but toll continues to rise
• Average compensation paid by Britain to bereaved families falls from £7,300 to £2,900
Mark Townsend - The Observer
On board a plane over Afghanistan, a US army medic attends to an Afghan boy wounded by an improvised explosive device. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP
Twenty compensation claims relating to the killing of innocent Afghan civilians during operations by the UK armed forces are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.
In the past, Britain has paid an average of £7,300 for every civilian death in war, although the last figures available, for the year ending April 2009, show that figure had fallen to £2,900.
The issue of compensation for civilian casualties has moved to the top of the political agenda as Nato commanders place an increasing emphasis on securing the support of the Afghan population. Officials are already negotiating to establish a standard system of compensation payments among member states operating in Afghanistan.
Sarah Holewinski, executive director of Civic (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict), said: "We've been working to get a uniform system set up for four years now, and we are hopeful that nations are finally prepared to push this through."
Britain still offers one of the most generous schemes to Afghan civilians. The US, for instance, pays a maximum "condolence" payment of £1,660 for civilian casualties, while Germany opts for a system of community aid rather than payments to individuals.
It is understood that payouts have been made to the relatives of 12 Afghans killed in a US rocket attack in the south of the country two weeks ago, signalling a new impetus among Nato forces to atone swiftly for mistakes.
Holewinski said: "There are signs that they are increasingly recognising that it must dignify and recognise civilians."
She hoped that the reduction in British compensation payments was an anomaly. The figures reveal that, during the year to April 2008, the MoD paid £73,000 for the deaths of 10 Afghan civilians. The next year, however, it paid only £32,000 to compensate the families of 11 dead Afghans. The trend was also mirrored in the size of payments to Afghan civilians who had been injured.
The 22 injured Afghans received an average of £1,400 in the year until April 2008, but an average of £1,060 during the following year. By contrast, injured British troops are entitled to a maximum tax-free lump sum of £570,000.
A significant increase in the number of legal claims lodged by Afghan civilians against the government is also evident with the volume of complaints for damage to property rising from 35 to 700 – 20 times higher – over the past two years. Payouts to damaged property trebled to £360,000 during the same period.
The number of legal claims lodged by Afghan civilians against the government stood at 2,120 between April 2008 and 2009. Of these, 736 have been settled with figures ranging from £18 to £9,500. The average settlement is £572.
An MoD spokesman said: "We have strict procedures, frequently updated in light of experience, intended to both minimise the risk of casualties occurring and to investigate any incidents that do happen. Compensation claims brought against the Ministry of Defence as part of the International Security Assistance Force are considered on the basis of whether or not the department has a legal liability to pay compensation. Where there is a proven legal liability compensation is paid."
Efforts to agree an official Afghan compensation scheme run parallel with last week's confirmation by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, that he has ordered troops to limit night raids in an effort to win over the local population. His directive followed mounting complaints from Afghans who were enraged over foreign soldiers bursting into their homes as they slept.
Nader Nadery, a commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said: "After civilian deaths, night raids had become the second biggest issue for Afghans."
An inquest into one night raid in Narang district, eastern Afghanistan, in which eight boys from one family were killed, is continuing, with Nato officials keen to pinpoint the source of the faulty intelligence that led to the blunder. The Observer has been told that McChrystal's directive stemmed directly from the incident. The family involved have yet to receive compensation for the attack, which is believed to have involved covert US and Afghan forces.
A report by the New York-based Open Society Institute, which promotes democracy, has identified 98 civilians who were killed during night raids in 2009. The report also flagged allegations of ill-treatment, aggressive behaviour and cultural insensitivity.
"Afghans gave accounts of international forces tearing or chopping the Qur'an with an axe, taking women away in helicopters and returning them dead, and shooting babies or children at point- blank range," the report states.
Although McChrystal has focused his military strategy on reducing civilian casualties, the toll continues to mount. Last Sunday a Nato air strike killed 27 civilians, including several women and children, in Uruzgan province, southern Afghanistan, prompting a public apology from McChrystal.
The race card upsets the scales of justice
Positive discrimination is saddling us with woefully bad lawyers
Sameena Patel* - Sunday Times
Last week a report commissioned by the government concluded that a “lack of diversity” among judges was limiting judicial perspectives and was affecting the experience of people who used the courts. The report came up with more than 50 recommendations on how to tackle the problem, including schemes in which judges would encourage students from ethnic-minority backgrounds to pursue judicial careers.
The legal world should think very carefully about this. It is right that the judiciary should reflect the society it serves, of course, but positive discrimination and politically correct initiatives are already, to my mind, having a detrimental effect on the law. Any more could be disastrous.
I was called to the bar in 2006 and, as a British woman of Indian descent, I can hardly be accused of racism. So I perhaps feel freer to speak than some of my colleagues. But what we all see is the same thing: the race card being played in recruitment to legal firms and to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The frustration and resentment this generates is aired in private. In the pubs near chambers you often hear tales of friends finding themselves up against lawyers who can barely speak English and are unable to grasp complex points of law.
A judge told me that he and his colleagues were scared to criticise for fear of being told “you have commented on my sub-standard English because I’m not English”. So the issue is boxed away in a corner and it is a shame because the whole system is suffering.
The new report has the laudable aim of changing the make-up of the judiciary. But wouldn’t it be more sensible to let it happen organically, over time, rather than try to shoehorn in people who might not be suitable?
It is not so much at the bar but at the CPS, though, where there is a real problem. The bar is at least independent but the CPS is much more directly connected with the government and has to be seen to be a fair employer. Some of the CPS propaganda material is hilarious. It has gone so overboard in an attempt to be fair that you have to search hard to try to spot the white person in its illustrations.
In London, at least, the organisation seems to be stuffed with people from ethnic minorities.
It is worrying when you ring someone up about a case, often a serious one, and you have trouble understanding what they are saying. Or you get skeleton arguments or documents drafted that simply make no sense and are written in pidgin English.
In a system responsible for the administration of justice that is alarming ... and when it comes to analysing law and statute, well, you wonder how that can possibly be being done properly.
In a drugs case I was defending last year I lodged a complaint of abuse of process and the skeleton argument presented in response was laughable. It was really quite shocking but nobody commented on it. We all knew, but it just seemed to be accepted.
One of the problems is that CPS lawyers, who appear as higher court advocates, get appointed to cases beyond their capability. At the bar we have a grading system for prosecution. You apply and are graded 1-4, with grades allocated according to experience and grade 4s taking the most serious cases.
The CPS has no such system. CPS lawyers are allotted more serious cases according to time spent in various departments. CPS advocates cover early case hearings where the management of the case is decided. These hearings often result in the case being turned over to the independent bar. But this frequently happens at the last minute, so the barrister who takes it on is left to prosecute underprepared and therefore prosecutions suffer.
I was defending an extremely serious robbery case last year and the prosecution advocate was clearly less senior than I was and didn’t know how to deal with complicated pieces of law, but he was an in-house advocate so had been able to have “first dibs” on the brief rather than it going out to the independent bar.
He obviously didn’t have the experience to deal with the case. His presentation was absolutely appalling and that wasn’t so unusual: you see people failing to grasp basic principles and you see their clients suffering and you wonder how on earth they made it to where they are.
This is racism in reverse: and the biggest irony is that the people who suffer from racism now — middle-class white men — are ticked off or called racist if they complain. Sometimes I even have to ask myself, am I racist? But I’m not, I’m really not. Although I do worry that people will think I have got where I am without quite deserving to — so the culture of “diversity” damages people who have worked hard as well as those who have lost out.
* Sameena Patel (not the writer’s real name) is a criminal barrister practising in the UK
Equal Justice provides justice to whom?
Male, white, middle-class, privately-educated, Edinburgh resident
Islamic radicals 'infiltrate' the Labour Party
A Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain.
Andrew Gilligan - Sunday Telegraph
The
Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and
sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state
— has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to
be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters.Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.
“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.
“They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”
Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said the IFE had infiltrated and “corrupted” his party in east London in the same way that the far-Left Militant Tendency did in the 1980s. Leaked Labour lists show a 110 per cent rise in party membership in one constituency in two years.
In a six-month investigation by this newspaper and Channel 4’s Dispatches, involving weeks of covert filming by the programme’s reporters:
• IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget.
• We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than £10 million of taxpayers’ money, much of it from government funds designed to “prevent violent extremism”.
• IFE leaders were recorded expressing opposition to democracy, support for sharia law or mocking black people. The IFE organised meetings with extremists, including Taliban allies, a man named by the US government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a man under investigation by the FBI for his links to the September 11 attacks.
• Moderate Muslims in London told how the IFE and its allies were enforcing their hardline views on the rest of the local community, curbing behaviour they deemed “un-Islamic”. The owner of a dating agency received a threatening email from an IFE activist, warning her to close it.
• George Galloway, a London MP, admitted in recordings obtained by this newspaper that his surprise victory in the 2005 election owed more to the IFE “than it would be wise – for them – for me to say, adding that they played a “decisive role” in his triumph at the polls.
Mr Galloway now says they were one of many groups which supported his anti-war stance and had never sought to influence him.
The IFE has particularly close links to Tower Hamlets council. Seven serving and former councillors said Lutfur Rahman, the current council leader, gained his post with the group’s help.
Some said they were canvassed by a senior IFE official on his behalf. After Mr Rahman was elected, a man with close links to the group, Lutfur Ali, was appointed assistant chief executive of the council with responsibility for grant funding.
This was despite a chequered employment record, a misleading CV and a negative report from the headhunters appointed to consider the candidates. The council’s white chief executive was subsequently forced from his post.
Since Mr Rahman became leader, more council grants have been paid to a number of organisations which our investigation established are closely linked to the IFE.
Funding for other, secular groups was ended or cut. In the borough’s well-known Brick Lane area, council funds were switched from a largely secular heritage trail to a highly controversial “hijab sculpture”, angering many residents who accused the council of “religious triumphalism”.
Schools in Tower Hamlets are told by the council should close for the Muslim festival of Eid, even where most of their pupils are not Muslim.
Mr Rahman refused to deny that an IFE activist had canvassed councillors on his behalf. He said: “There are various people across Tower Hamlets who get excited, who get involved.”
He would not comment on concerns about infiltration, saying they were “party matters”. He said: “If you look at our flagship policies, like investing £20 million to tackle overcrowding, you can see that we are working for everyone.”
The IFE said it did not seek to influence the council and had not lobbied for Mr Rahman. “If anything, existing members of the Labour Party have joined the IFE, rather than the other way round,” it said.
The group insisted it was not a fundamentalist or extremist organisation and did not support violence
Debra Medina, new star of America's right,
is firing up the race for Texas governor
Debra Medina of the Tea Party movement is making a Sarah Palin-like impact with policies stressing property rights and gun ownership
Paul Harris - The Observer
Lytle is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town, one of hundreds that dot the vast flat ranchlands of southern Texas. A smear of houses by the main highway between San Antonio and Laredo. Population: 2,383. The first streets only got paved here in the years after the second world war. A sewage system took a little longer, not being built until the 1960s. In short, Lytle, Texas, has never been big enough to have much impact on the politics of the Lone Star state. And few Texas politicians have ever paid much attention to it.
Until Debra Medina, that is. When Medina breezed into Lytle's community hall the locals found themselves confronted with a Texan version of Sarah Palin. She wore a sharp scarlet skirt suit, librarian-style glasses and a puffed-up hairdo. More than 60 Lytle residents had gathered to meet her, a hefty turnout on a weekday at 11am for a Republican primary election in the race to be Texas governor.
Medina
has become a political phenomenon in Texas. Emerging as a genuine star
of the rightwing populist Tea Party movement, she delivers a fiery
message of slashing taxes and the abolition of almost all forms of
federal government, and issues dire warnings that President Obama is
taking America down a slippery slope to Soviet-style communism.It's working. Previously unheard of by the vast majority of Texans, Medina has set the race for governor on fire, upsetting the primary contest between the incumbent, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Those gathered to see Medina in Lytle loved her. Young and old, men and women, Latino and white, listened with rapt attention as she outlined her agenda and asked them to back her in this week's first round of voting. If she can beat Hutchison into second place, she can secure a runoff against Perry. That would raise the possibility – distant but real – of a Tea Party activist capturing the government of the second biggest state in America. The Tea Party movement would have gone from being a bunch of ragtag protesters to heading one of the largest single economies in the world. "If we can change politics as usual in Texas, then we can change politics as usual across America. This is not just about Texas, but about changing the whole country," Medina told the Observer before addressing her supporters in Lytle.
She is not alone in that ambition. Across America other extreme candidates have emerged on the Republican right to challenge familiar party figures with a fiery mix of Tea Party-inspired populism. In Arizona, Senator John McCain is facing a tough re-election fight against a former congressman, JD Hayworth, who has expressed public doubts as to whether Obama was born a legitimate American citizen. In Florida the moderate Republican governor, Charlie Crist, is lagging badly in his own primary election to rightwing challenger Marco Rubio, who has the backing of local Tea Party groups.
On the right of US politics, this is big stuff. Instead of forcing mainstream Republicans to woo them for their votes, the rightwingers are now bidding for power. It is an attempt at revolution that could have huge meaning for America and the world, especially given the disastrous showing of Democrats in recent polls and elections. Medina knows this. After her speech she ended with a plea to her audience. "We can win this race," she said, then held up her hand and squeezed two fingers together. "It is this close."
Later that night, at a firemen's association hall in the much larger city of San Antonio, Medina's face stared down from a huge screen as she delivered a long policy monologue. To her audience she was the very antithesis of establishment power: a heroic revolutionary, out to destroy government and bring power to the people. "She is not a career politician. Everything she is saying will make Texas better than what it is," said Sergeant Shawn Mendoza, 30, a veteran of three tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. A few minutes later the flesh-and-blood version of Medina entered the hall. She got a standing ovation before she had said a word.
She began her stump speech again, still wearing the outfit she had in Lytle. But when it comes to speeches Medina is no Sarah Palin. She has no need to write on her hand to remember her talking points. Instead her speech was a complex walk through her extreme anti-government philosophy, citing sources as varied as the Austrian school of economics, St Augustine and modern French philosophers. She said she wanted to get rid of property taxes and allow Texans to do whatever they wanted with anything they owned, whether that was dig for oil or build an extension. There was, she said, no constitutional basis for a federal Department of Education or an Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Reserve. Texas should assert its rights almost as a nation-state, controlling over its own National Guard units. The disdain for government was visceral. The American way, she said, was simple. "There are two rights essential to freedom: private property and gun ownership."
Such thoughts find fertile ground in Texas. This state has always had a swaggering, independent streak and a dislike for too many laws. Medina was born on a farm near the small town of Beeville in south Texas. She speaks with a homely Texas accent and worked as a nurse before entering politics at county level in the 1990s. Her bid for governor was largely ignored by the media as she crisscrossed the state for 13 months, visiting small town after small town. Gradually she crept up in the polls and forced her way into the televised debates, where she performed strongly. Campaign money began to pour in. One poll puts her as high as 24%, just behind Hutchison and within reach of catching her and forcing Perry into a runoff.
Medina believes she is not really in third place, citing the fact that the polls only telephone previous Republican primary voters, whereas she is bringing in thousands of new supporters. "I feel fantastic. I think we can win this," she said in Lytle.
Only once has Medina slipped up – in an interview she gave to the conservative radio host Glenn Beck. On his show Medina was asked if she thought the US government might have had a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She replied: "I don't." She then went on to expand disastrously upon that answer. "I don't have all the evidence there… I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments and I think the American people have not seen all the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that," she said.
Those comments provided ample ammunition for her political rivals. Her march forward in the polls was halted and some of her advances chipped away. The only time Medina appeared unnerved in Lytle or San Antonio was when a woman in the audience mentioned the Beck interview and asked her if she was a "Truther", in reference to the conspiracy theory that the government planted bombs to blow up the World Trade Centre. Medina looked flustered and started to answer before saying suddenly: "No! No!" and moving on to a new question.
But such areas are the home ground of the Tea Party movement. At almost any Tea Party event it is easy to meet Truthers or Birthers or those who believe Obama is a closet Stalinist or a Nazi or a Muslim fundamentalist or indeed all three together, no matter how blindingly contradictory such beliefs are. In San Antonio one member of the audience wore an Oath Keepers T-shirt. Oath Keepers are a group of veterans, soldiers or police officers who fear their own government is about to attack the American people or round up conservatives into concentration camps. The oath they have sworn to keep is to refuse to obey such orders. That sort of thing remains a fundamental problem for the politicians from the Tea Party seeking high office.
Calvin Jillson, a political scientist at Dallas's Southern Methodist University, believes the Tea Party can be understood as the latest in a long line of explosions of political rage in America. They include the Populist party that won elections in several states during the 1890s recession and the millions who voted for Ross Perot's presidential candidacy in the 1980s. "These things happen but they burn out like a prairie fire. We are in the middle of it right now but when the economy picks up it will fade away," Jillson said.
Yet the crowd in Lytle could not see any sign of economic recovery. Their rage did not feel like it would fade away. "I'm so mad, it's like chewing nails," said Lytle businesswoman Priscilla Squires, 60. She saw this week's primary as the start of fundamental change in America, while the experts say Medina's Tea Party will crash against the barricades of the ballot box. They are probably right. Yet Texas has always been a little different. "I don't think a Medina win is likely," said Jillson "But nothing is impossible. This is Texas after all."
Novelist says girls are ready to have babies at 14
David Harrison - Sunday Telegraph
Hilary Mantel , the
prize-winning author, has opened up a public debate
over teenage sex by claiming that girls are ready to have babies when
they are 14 years-old.The 57-year-old novelist said that society ran on a "male timetable" which dictated that women should have babies at an older age.
"Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society's timetable," she said.
"I think it is that men's lives have set the timetable. Men reach a sort of sexual peak when you are 20, a social peak when you are 40.
"There is this breed of women for whom society's timetable is completely wrong."
Mantel, who won the Man Booker Prize last year for her novel Wolf Hall, said that society was "incredibly hypocritical" about teenage sex and teenagers having babies.
"I was perfectly capable of setting up and running a home when I was 14, and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought 'Now is the time to have a couple of children and when I am 30 I will go back and I'll get my PhD,'" she said.
"But society isn't yet ordered with that kind of flexibility," she said in an interview in today's Stella magazine.
"We were being educated well into our twenties, an age when part of us wanted to become mothers, probably little bits of all of us. Some were more driven than others."
Last night the writer's views met with a mixed response amid growing concern that Britain still has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, despite a 10-year Government campaign to lower the figures.
Sue MacDonald, of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "Having a baby is a life-changing experience and 14-year-olds have enough to cope with just being 14.
"Girls of that age can be physically mature but not necessarily psychologically mature to cope with being a mother. It is much harder to be a parent if your own childhood is not complete."
Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: "The real issue is not the age at which women become mothers, but whether they are married to a man who is committed to supporting his wife through thick and thin.
"When a child enters the world without a stable family home and without both a mother and father, it's generally not such a happy event – and that is the situation that most teenage mothers find themselves in."
Juliet Hillier, of Brook, the sexual health charity for young people, said teenagers needed to be given "the support, education and skills" to make informed choices about relationships and pregnancy.
A spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Taxpayers are concerned about teenage mums, and particularly about a benefit system that offers financial incentives which encourage single motherhood."
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said the suggestion that girls should have children at 14 was "completely out of line" with Government policy.
A spokesman said: "Our strategy is to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies and offer age-appropriate sex education to young people. There are no plans to lower the age of consent from 16.
"Young people should delay sex until they are ready. Teenage parents and their children are more likely to suffer health, emotional and economic problems than their peers."
However, there was support for Mantel from Dr Claire Alexander, editor of a study, Teenage Parenthood: What's the Problem?, published this month.
Dr Alexander, of the London School of Economics, said teenage pregnancy could be a force for good since many young mothers were motivated to turn their lives around to provide for their children.
"Young parenthood can make sense and be valued and can even provide an impetus for teenage mothers and fathers to strive to provide a better life for their children," she said.
Last week it emerged that the Government had failed to reach its target of halving the number of teenage pregnancies within 10 years.
The latest figures, for 2008, show that 40.4 of every 1,000 girls aged 15-17 became pregnant, a 13.3 per cent fall from the 1998 rate of 46.6.
There were more pregnancies among girls under 18 in England in 2008 than there were in 2001, and pregnancy rates among girls under 16 have been virtually unchanged for six years.
The Government promised last week to expand sex education and promote contraception, including condom vending machines in colleges and schools.
Mantel, who was born in Derbyshire, was left unable to have children after suffering from a debilitating and painful illness during her twenties.
It was eventually diagnosed as a severe form of endometriosis and the author is now patron of the Endometriosis SHE Trust.
The novelist, who was awarded a CBE in 2006, said that women should be able to choose whether to have children when they are teenagers or pursue a career and have children later in life.
"If there were some paradise for women both those models would be valid," she said.
UK health booklet's message: Teen sex can be fun
Free condoms for 12yr olds urged
Pregnancy and poverty
Now the Government wants competence tests
before you can be a dog owner
Jonathan Petre - Mail on Sunday
Every dog owner will have to take a costly ‘competence test’ to prove they can handle their pets, under new Government proposals designed to curb dangerous dogs.
Owners of all breeds would also have to buy third-party insurance in case their pet attacked someone, and pay for the insertion of a microchip in their animal recording their name and address.
The proposals are among a range of measures to overhaul dog laws in England and Wales being considered by senior Ministers, who are expected to announce a public consultation within weeks.
But critics said responsible dog owners would be penalised by yet more red tape and higher bills – one expert estimated the extra costs at £60 or more – while irresponsible owners of dangerous dogs would just ignore the measures.
They added that genuine dog lovers could end up paying for efforts to control a small number of ‘devil dogs’ that terrorised socially deprived areas.
The RSPCA said last night it would welcome a review of legislation which has failed to curb the numbers of dangerous dogs that can attack, and sometimes kill, children and adults.
But a spokesman for the charity added: ‘We would not support anything that would hit sensible owners while failing to police those who are a danger.’
A government source said the proposals, contained in a confidential document headed Consultation On Dangerous Dogs, have been drawn up by the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra).
They follow mounting public concern about the spate of serious injuries and deaths inflicted by dogs.
Police figures show an increase in the number of ‘status’ dogs used to intimidate or threaten others. According to the last available figures, there were 703 convictions for dangerously out of control dogs in 2007 – up from 547 in 2004.
Under the proposals, would-be owners would have to show they had a basic understanding of their dogs before being allowed to keep one.
The document says: ‘There have been suggestions for a competency test for all or some dog owners, akin to the driving theory test.’
But the document admits the cost of setting up such a scheme to cover Britain’s six million dog owners ‘is likely to be prohibitive’, and would have to be met by either charging for the test or by imposing a dog licence fee. Moreover, the officials concede that there were disagreements over what would constitute competence in looking after and controlling a dog.
Third-party insurance would be less contentious, as owners of certain breeds of dogs are already required to take out such cover.
It is also included in the pet insurance taken out by owners to cover unforeseen vets’ bills and it can be bought for a little as £5, though it will be more expensive for larger and more powerful breeds.
In addition, many owners have had microchips implanted in the necks of their dogs – a process that costs about £30.
Other proposals due to be floated by the Government include giving the police and local authorities the power to impose Asbos on the owners of unruly dogs, and extending the law to cover attacks everywhere.
At the moment, dogs which attack people on private property where they are allowed to be are exempt from the law, despite the complaints from injured postmen.
There are also plans to boost the enforcement powers of police, the courts and local authorities.
As part of the proposed overhaul, all dog laws, including the Dangerous Dog Act 1991, often cited as an example of poorly drawn-up ‘knee jerk’ legislation, could be incorporated into a single law.
An RSPCA spokesman said: ‘We welcome a review but the problem is that while responsible owners will abide by the rules, inevitably you are going to get a fraternity that does not. There are always people who will buy a dog from their mate in a pub and won’t tell the authorities.
‘So the danger is that sensible owners will be out of pocket while irresponsible dog owners will ignore any new rules unless the policing of them is rigorous.’
He said, for example, that while the RSPCA encouraged the use of microchips, the system relied on owners keeping the information up to date.
‘It is no good finding an aggressive dog roaming the streets, perhaps having attacked someone, and going to the address on the microchip to find that the owner hasn’t lived there for years,’ he said.
The Kennel Club said that it was in favour of measures to promote responsible dog ownership, but that the competence tests sounded impractical.
A spokesman for Defra said: ‘We do not comment on leaked documents.’
Army to tackle unruly pupils
Michael Gove wants to give teachers back their power
Hilary Douglas - Sunday Express
Disruptive pupils will be put back on track by a task force of ex-Army officers under ground-breaking Conservative education plans.
Troops will be retrained as teachers to bring the discipline of the parade ground to failing schools.
“There is nothing more important than getting discipline right,” Shadow Children’s Secretary Michael Gove told the Sunday Express. “Unless you have an orderly environment, teachers can’t teach and children can’t learn.”
With 400,000 suspensions a year, off-the-rails youngsters spend their days roaming the streets causing trouble. Analysis carried out by the Conservatives also shows that more than 1,000 pupils a day are excluded from school for physical and verbal assault. Mr Gove said: “One of the things we have talked about is working with specially trained teachers taking people from the Armed Forces to help get these young students learning.
“We have a troops-to-teachers scheme explicitly designed to help people who have come from Army backgrounds and are used to taking 16 and 17-year-olds and giving them a sense of self-discipline and order.
“The number one area of choice for people who leave the Army is to go into education and training. We are talking about people who have already proven themselves, people who are NCOs or officers.
“We will make it easier for them to get into teaching, to get the training they need or the university qualifications to follow that path.
“The overall purpose is just to emphasise that we need to bring back that sense of respect.”
Bringing discipline back to schools and giving teachers back proper authority over their pupils is vital, Mr Gove believes, for teachers to keep order once again in the classroom.
“There are now 47 pupils every day who are excluded for drug and alcohol offences. At the moment teachers don’t feel they have an authority that is properly respected and there’s a feeling that the system does not provide them with the support they need.
“If a teacher wants to physically restrain a pupil and that pupil complains, the teacher has to prove that the force used was reasonable.
“All the onus is on the teacher to prove that. If the pupil wants to make a complaint against the teacher then the teacher can find themselves suspended just like that, denied the chance to talk to their colleagues, their name dragged through the mud and as a result their career can be blighted for ever.” Mr Gove believes a simple package of reforms will redress the balance and put adults back in charge.
Teachers should be allowed once more to search pupils for contraband, including knives and drugs. At present they can only search their overcoat, not even the pockets, and only if two teachers, one male and one female, are present.
They should once more have the power to expel consistently disruptive pupils, safe in the knowledge that appeals panels will not overturn their decision.
Political correctness, too, is to go, especially the seemingly senseless regulations which increasingly prevent youngsters learning sport and going on school trips.
“In Australia, which has a great outdoors culture, they changed the law so that instead of having to prove negligence, the courts have to prove reckless disregard. So basically they set a higher threshold. That’s sensible.”
There will be no room for the PC brigade when it comes to the curriculum either.
“In our history curriculum there is no mention of great names like Winston Churchill, Henry VIII or William Pitt. In a country like France, it is a given that you are proud of your country and the contribution it has made.”
The Tories have pledged to allow teachers and parents to set up “free schools” – free from the stranglehold of local authorities.
“We have a group of young teachers coming into the profession now, some of the brightest ever, who want to set up their own schools and we will give them the chance to do so,” said Mr Gove.
“I was talking to a young teacher the other day who said, ‘If I was a doctor I would be able to set up my own practice, if I was a lawyer I could set up my own chambers but as a teacher I cannot set up my own school.’
“In America, two young teachers set up a chain of schools, Kip Schools, designed to target poor children in urban areas. All the children are asked which college or university they are going to. It is an automatic assumption that you would do that or at least have that choice.
“Long school days, rigorous discipline and proper traditional curriculum. This is what we will let happen within days of a new Conservative Government. Schools neighbouring the Kip Schools send just seven per cent to universities, whereas Kip Schools average 90 to 95 per cent.”
A Swedish company, the International English School, has agreed to help set up schools here. “They have raised standards for everyone as surrounding schools have had to up their game,” said Mr Gove.
"Extreme concern” at 45 exclusions every hour
Hamas leadership in crisis over Shalit deal negotiations
Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel - Haaretz
A crisis has erupted in the Hamas leadership over the way the negotiations for abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit are being handled. A senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud al-Zahar, quit the negotiating team two weeks ago. The resignation is the result of a growing rift between al-Zahar and exiled politburo chief Khaled Meshal, who is based in Damascus.
Al-Zahar is leading a moderate line on the issue in the Hamas leadership, aiming for a compromise with Israel, while Meshal and the commander of the group's military wing in the Strip, Ahmed al-Ja'abari and his aides, Nizar Awadallah and Marwan Issa, have adopted a more hawkish line.
Salah al-Bardawil, one of Hamas' leaders in the Gaza Strip, argued Saturday that the report on al-Zahar stepping down from the negotiating team is a lie and an attempt by Israel to undermine the group's image. However, the report, which appeared in Haaretz's Web site on Thursday, was bolstered when the German weekly, Der Spiegel, published an interview with al-Zahar in which he was quoted as saying that he is no longer willing to remain a "negotiator on the issue [of Shalit]."
The German magazine headed its article by saying that German mediation for a Shalit deal had failed.
In the interview al-Zahar says that on Christmas eve the German mediator had managed to reach agreement between the two sides and both Israel and Hamas were willing to sign. "I traveled to Damascus to convince [hinting at Meshal] and at the end of a long journey I succeeded. When Netanyahu brought the deal to his cabinet for agreement I was criticized within Hamas. I am no longer willing to play the children's games of the Israelis," al-Zahar said, adding that there will be no official response to the latest Israeli offer because it is totally unacceptable to Hamas.
Shalit has been held by Hamas for three years and eight months, after being kidnapped inside Israel, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, in June 2006. Last December, at the conclusion of a round of mediated negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought the deal to the inner cabinet on security matters, which gave a conditional approval to the German offer.
Since then, Hamas has avoided providing its own response to the offer. It may be that this was part of an effort to avoid having the blame for failure directed at the organization. However, the absence of a response also reflected genuine disagreement between al-Zahar and others in the organization.
Intelligence sources in the West and Israel have said that al-Zahar and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip, are aware of the severity of the crisis that the organization is experiencing as a result of more than three years of siege on the Gaza Strip, and are eager to reach a compromise that would permit them to also show some gain in the form of a large prisoner release.
At the crux of the difference between Hamas' demands and Israel's red lines is the fate of several dozen murderers, senior figures, most of whom are members of Hamas. Israel has announced that it will not release Abdullah Barghouti, Ibrahim Hamed, Abbas al-Sayad and others, who are members of the military wing of Hamas, and also Marwan Barghouti, the head of the Fatah's Tanzim, and Ahmed Saadat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Israel is also demanding that more than 100 prisoners who will be released will not be allowed to go home to the West Bank, but will be exiled to the Gaza Strip or abroad.
Sites targeted for nuclear waste storage
Swissinfo
Six sites in Switzerland have been
shortlisted as new repositories for
nuclear waste, all of them geologically and technically sound, Swiss
nuclear authorities say.The Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate confirmed on Friday a list of sites proposed in 2008 and analysed by the National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (Nagra).
They include areas in cantons Schaffhausen, Zurich, Aargau, Thurgau, Solothurn and Nidwalden.
The federal government will make a final decision on where nuclear waste should be stored in 2011.
However, it is likely to take about ten years to secure the necessary permits to build such a site. The federal authorities will first solicit input from the cantons, neighbouring countries and political parties.
The goal is to have at least two sites available for each type of nuclear waste based on radioactivity levels - high, medium and low.
Nuclear power is Switzerland’s second-largest source of electricity with five plants producing almost 40 per cent of the country’s needs. Radioactive waste is currently stored at an interim facility in canton Aargau.
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