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• Incisive exhibition reveals range of Iranian modern art
• Iran Modern exhibition - in pictures
• Senators announce deal to prevent US debt default and end shutdown – live
• Best pictures of the day - live
• Guardian and Observer win awards for reports on modern-day slavery
• Suicide blast kills Pakistani provincial minister
• How the UN should revolutionise its data
• Senate leaders strike deal to raise debt ceiling and end government shutdown
• Osborne's open door to Chinese banks prompts MPs' check on City rules
• World Cup qualification lifts gloom in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Ángeles Santos obituary
• Iranian man who survived execution must be hanged again, judges say
• Shutdown forces North Carolina to suspend food assistance program
• A Lighter Look - in pictures
• Nirvana and Replacements lead first-time nominees to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• US markets rally on news of imminent compromise to avoid default
• Jean Kaye obituary
• Hopes of US debt ceiling deal reassure European markets - as it happened
• The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is wrong to claim that austerity is coming to an end | Michael Burke
• Pity the federal workers during the shutdown. They're GOP punching bags | Michael Paarlberg
• 10 reasons not to trust claims national security is being threatened by leaks
• Remittance company awaits court ruling on Barclays account closure
• Is the hub of corporate sustainability moving towards Asia?
• DIY illegal oil refinery in the Niger delta - video
• You can trust Gallup's numbers ... for now | Harry J Enten

Incisive exhibition reveals range of Iranian modern art Posted: 17 Oct 2013 10:41 AM PDT Iran Modern exhibit spans three decades leading to the 1979 Revolution I went to see Iran Modern with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. On the one hand, I was eager for the chance to see the works, many of which have been hidden away for decades; on the other, I had the sour memory of past exhibitions curated through a western orientalist lens. This unprecedented display of Iranian art from the 1950s up to the Revolution of 1979, on view at Asia Society in New York, brings together works from private and public collections around the world, including the Andy Warhol Foundation, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Mathaf in Doha, Qatar. From the first pieces I encountered, I sensed that this was to be no exotic narrative of Iranian modernism meant for a western market. The quality of curation and scholarship involved has produced an exciting and valuable exhibition. At first, I found myself playing the comparison game, looking at the dates on the labels to see how the works stacked up against their western counterparts. Who influenced Manoucher Yektai to use such heavy impasto in the 1950s? Do Marcos Grigorian's earthworks of the 1960s precede or follow those of Robert Smithson? The game can continue down to the year and even the month, but it is senseless and soon tiresome. And, thankfully, it is hardly the point of the exhibition. Indeed, many of the works, especially those in the distinctly Iranian Saqqakhaneh style, well represented, do not have European counterparts. The show soon takes you out of comparison mode and into richer considerations. Bringing together more than a hundred pieces by 26 artists, Iran Modern makes clear that despite common threads, Iranian modernism is pluralist in practice. Standing before some of the works, decades after they were conceived, I could easily imagine a performer skipping by, singing Tino Sehgal's catchy tune: "Oh, this is so contemporary, contemporary, contemporary." The questions of what appears "contemporary" and what the appellation signifies become particularly thorny when the works hail from a culture conceived of as "other"; as stand-ins here, "fresh" and "relevant" will serve for much of the art on view in Iran Modern. Monir Shahroudi Farmanfarmaian (b. 1924), whose mirror painting Untitled (1977) appears on the exhibition catalogue's cover, continues a prolific, internationally recognized career. Her work, inspired by the traditional, highly decorative architecture of Iranian shrines and palaces, blurs the lines between painting, sculpture, architecture, craft, and pop culture. Her use of mirrors is echoed in the sculptures of young American artists such as Rashid Johnson. A Number Between Zero and One (1970), by Siah Armajani (b. 1939), is an elegant steel tower holding a nearly nine-foot stack of papers printed by computer. The work – which was shown in Information, an important exhibition of conceptual art held at MoMA in 1970 – is relevant to contemporary practices in its employment of alternative materials and (like Armajani's drawings) elusive narratives. Parviz Tanavoli's (b. 1937) sculptures Innovation in Art and The Poet and the Beloved King (Lovers), both from 1964, are the exhibition's most memorable surprises. Lovers refers to the epic Iranian tale of the love triangle between Shirin, the sculptor Farhad, and Khosrow, the king. Its two oversized, brightly painted Lego-like robot figures speak of legend and poetry, power and play, humor and sexuality. A lit sign, reminiscent of those on the tops of old Iranian cabs, takes the place of the larger robot's mouth. It reads in Farsi, "Does anyone open the gates to anyone else?" The word "lemon" written on a yellow circle suggests breasts on the smaller figure, while a large arrow pointing upward from where a robot penis would be yields an ambiguous sexuality. I found it difficult to walk away from Tanavoli's lovers. Unlike me, Iran Modern has not picked favorites. More importantly, the exhibition does not attempt to define Iranian modernism as a singular style. Co-curator Fereshteh Daftari writes in her catalogue essay, "The landscape of diversity during this time period, with its disparity of individual experiences, should prevent homogenizing perceptions of a monolithic modernism that is exotically 'other,' hermetically sealed, and consistently in tune with local agendas or foreign preconceptions." She makes the case for a complex "notion of Iranian art and identity, which has not always been in conflict with the West, nor synonymous with Islam, miniature painting, calligraphy, or the veil." The works in the exhibition all express a need to forge an artistic identity that is perhaps Iranian, but more certainly personal. The country in which the respective artists were educated – whether Iran, France, Italy, or the US – and their subsequent itineraries have clearly played important roles in their development. In the years leading up to the 1979 revolution, there was substantial government support for artists' travels and studies abroad. Despite considerable censorship and the constant threat posed by the SAVAK, the Shah's brutal secret police, the Pahlavis were enthusiastic about the arts. Among Queen Farah's accomplishments were the founding of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art and the acquisition of what has been called the most significant collection of modern art outside of Europe and the US. The collection has been largely locked away since the revolution, much of it deemed too un-Islamic for public viewing. Last year at the Museum of Modern Art in Tehran, I had the rare opportunity to see some of the collection in a show, Pop Art & Op Art, featuring works by Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and David Hockney, among others. I had to gasp before a series of Andy Warhol's portraits of Mao Zedong. I was surprised not by their current display but by their original acquisition, at a time when the SAVAK was rounding up Iranian Maoists for imprisonment and execution. Iran Modern does not and cannot deny the political tensions and turmoil of the period to which it looks. Though only a handful of the works on display are directly political (in particular, paintings by Nicky Nodjoumi never before shown publicly, one depicting a group of SAVAK agents dragging a prisoner, another inspired by the execution of Khosrow Golsorkhi, a Marxist militant), an air of surveillance and repression still fills some of the rooms. Perhaps this is why Iran Modern does not feel tediously nostalgic, romanticizing the past to the point of condemning the present. Perhaps this is why the exhibition can inspire a viewer simultaneously to look back while seeing forward. Iranian artists have had and can continue to have their own distinct character, some demonstrating a formal and conceptual sophistication on a par with their colleagues around the world, no matter the political climate at home, then or now. Iranian contemporary art must be held to high standards and its practitioners not patronized, so that relevant and challenging works – as opposed to thinned-out copies – may be promoted internationally. Iran Modern is a great argument against lazy curatorial practices, promoting a more critical approach to art coming out of Iran and the diaspora. With so many noteworthy Iranian artists working throughout the world, this exhibition does an essential service in documenting a lineage that belongs as much to them as to the rest of art history. Iran Modern is on view at New York's Asia Society through January 5, 2014 Iran Art New York Museums theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Iran Modern exhibition - in pictures Posted: 17 Oct 2013 10:17 AM PDT Iran's dynamic art scene before the 1979 revolution on exhibit in New York

Senators announce deal to prevent US debt default and end shutdown – live Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:47 AM PDT Senate leaders reported to have reached a deal to raise debt ceiling and reopen the US federal government as the RepublcHouse of Representatives  Tom McCarthy

Best pictures of the day - live Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:38 AM PDT The Guardian's photo team brings you a daily round-up from the world of photography Joanna Ruck Bridget Coaker

Guardian and Observer win awards for reports on modern-day slavery Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:36 AM PDT Anti-Slavery Day Media Awards present Guardian with special award for its series focusing on modern-day slavery Guardian News & Media has won a prestigious special award at the Anti-Slavery Day Media Awards, for its online series modern-day slavery in focus. The series was chosen as "the most innovative media initiative" by a select panel of judges. The Observer's Gethin Chamberlain was also among the winners for his article on plantation workers in Assam, India. They work for 12p an hour and are easy prey for traffickers, who lure away their daughters to India's cities. Modern-day slavery in focus was launched earlier this year, and recently revealed the appalling conditions of Nepalese workers in Qatar as the gulf state prepares for the 2022 World Cup. The Anti-Slavery Day Media Awards, in association with the Human Trafficking Foundation, were set up to reveal the injustice of modern-day slavery in the UK. They recognise the media's contribution to raising public awareness. In other awards, Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs by Anna Hall, Channel 4 and True Visions productions, won best TV or radio drama/documentary dealing with human trafficking; A slave in modern-day Britain by Juliet Spare, Voice of Russia, won best broadcast/press news piece dealing with human trafficking; How the Rochdale Grooming Case Exposed British Prejudice by Daniel Trilling, the New Statesman, won best investigative newspaper article dealing with trafficking for sexual exploitation; and A Cinderella's Story by Sharon Hendry, the Sunday Times, won best investigative newspaper article dealing with child trafficking. The awards were presented in Speaker's House in London by John Bercow MP with Anthony Steen, formerly MP for Liverpool Wavertree and then South Devon, who established an all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, the Human Trafficking Foundation, and introduced an anti-slavery day bill. The day is now officially marked each year on 18 October. The home secretary, Theresa May, gave the keynote speech and went on to present the Marsh Awards for volunteers who have made an outstanding contribution to fighting human trafficking. Winners were Megan Stewart from Thames Reach; Lara Bundock and Tim Elverson, from the Snowdrop Project; and Jackie Paling and Pauline Monk, of Soroptimist International of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. May also outlined the provisions of the new modern-day slavery bill, and invited Steen to become her envoy and Frank Field MP to lead the evidence process in partnership with the Centre for Social Justice. The Human Trafficking Foundation brings together NGOs throughout the UK to produce reports and share best practice. The foundation is also establishing a network of parliamentarians against human trafficking in every EU parliament. Newspapers Slavery Human trafficking Charities Voluntary sector theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Suicide blast kills Pakistani provincial minister Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:54 AM PDT Bomber shot his way into minister's residence near Dera Ismail Khan and detonated device, killing eight and wounding 30 A suicide bomber shot his way into the residence of a provincial government minister in north-west Pakistan on Wednesday and killed the official and seven others in an explosion, police said. The blast near the town of Dera Ismail Khan wounded more than 30 people, said a senior police officer, Mohammad Jan. The minister of law for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Israullah Gandapur, was meeting people at his house to celebrate the Muslim Eid holiday when the bomber struck, Jan said. The attacker first shot dead the guard at the house before blowing himself inside the guest room of the minister's residence, the officer said. Gandapur died on the way to the hospital. Jan said the bomber got very close to the minister before the blast and was carrying about 8kg (17lbs) of explosives on his body. Hameedullah Khan, an aide to Gandapur, said there were about 50 people in the room at the time of the explosion. "Some were enjoying tea and sweets, others were meeting and greeting," Khan said. "I was meeting with the minister's brother Ikramullah when suddenly there was a big bang followed by smoke, [the] explosive's smell and the noise of crying people." Khan said the blast knocked him senseless until he saw the minister lying in a pool of blood with others. Khan suffered minor injuries. The minister's brother, who was also wounded in the blast, was in a stable condition, Khan said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban and their allies. The Taliban have repeatedly targeted government officials and security personnel as well as civilians. Gandapur was elected to the provincial assembly in May as an independent. He later joined the ruling provincial party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan and became law minister. He oversaw the office tasked with drafting provincial laws. Imran Khan has been a strong proponent of peace talks with the Taliban, but several officials from his party have been killed in attacks since the May election. Pakistan theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

How the UN should revolutionise its data Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:43 AM PDT What do digital mapping technologies mean for the United Nations' development work, and how can they be improved? The first three words of the United Nations charter set out who it is that the UN serves: "We, the peoples". Recent technological developments, such as geographic information systems (GIS), allow the UN to connect much more directly with 'We, the peoples.' That offers huge opportunities in the fields of development, crisis response and human rights protection – but also huge challenges. The UN is already using GIS to manage food security, map vulnerability to climate change and even fight wildlife trafficking. The potential range of applications is enormous. But making maps is a fundamentally political activity. Physically locating yourself in the world is central to understanding where you fit in the world in social terms. Maps help us define who is connected to whom, where we 'belong', and what political authorities we are associated with. Redrawing maps means redrawing political identity. And that brings with it huge challenges. Some political actors simply do not want maps to be redrawn. When the UN used new mapping technologies to track the presence of internally displaced people in no-fire zones during civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009, it created an independent evidence-base beyond the control of the government. Predictably, the government objected. Similar applications of mapping technologies in humanitarian and security crises in Libya and Syria have also proven controversial. Similar challenges could emerge in the development field, as ICT increasingly allows citizens to monitor the progress of state-backed development efforts, as is occurring in east Africa and the Philippines. Some commentators speak of the 'mobilisation' of development. States have long resisted the UN developing independent intelligence capabilities, precisely because they do not want their sovereignty undermined. After all, while the charter was adopted by the people, the organisation operates as an association of states. Senior actors within the UN have signaled their support for UN development, peace and security actors to incorporate these new mapping technologies into their work. But the question remains, what do states think about it? Some kind of policy discussion, perhaps building on the general assembly's ongoing work on investment in UN information and communication technology capabilities, may be needed to secure the UN's investment in these technologies. Access to ICT seems to have a positive impact on development outcomes – in part precisely because it strengthens accountability. But this is creating higher expectations not only for states – but also for the UN. A recent report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 'Humanitarianism in the network age' notes that two weeks after the Haiti earthquake, OCHA was receiving one informational email per minute. This raises difficult questions about whether the UN is ready to safely handle such large volumes of data. The key question is whether it respects the 'do no harm' principle. Geolocation data in the wrong hands, or used the wrong way, can just as easily be used to harm individuals as it can to help them. Hackers have previously published data stolen from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme and UN secretariat servers, and there are allegations that non-state armed groups have used GIS data developed by the UN as a basis for armed attacks on civilians reporting that data. If true, such allegations would pose major questions for the UN. As the OCHA paper argues, "Ensuring data security, developing robust guidelines for informed consent and tackling the ethical questions raised by open data" are essential tasks. It calls for a charter or code of conduct to be in place by the end of 2015. One option would be for the inter-agency standing committee on humanitarian affairs to consider the new International Committee of the Red Cross 2013 professional standards for protection work which expressly consider these issues. But similar issues also need to be considered in the broader context of the UN's development work. Governments and business enterprises are currently discussing in detail how human rights issues intersect with ICT. In fact, many of them are relying precisely on UN guidance, in the form of the guiding principles on business and human rights. UN agencies should be more directly engaged in these discussions, not only to understand how to integrate human rights protection considerations better into UN operations and procurement, but also to ensure a consistent policy orientation. This policy discussion could build, for example, on the 'guidelines for computerised personal data files' approved by the general assembly in 1990. The UN as a platform for partnerships Paradoxically, even as scrutiny by 'We, the Peoples' grows, the UN's direct role in economic development is fundamentally shifting. As a recent piece, "United nations development at a crossroads", by Bruce Jenks and Bruce Jones explains, development assistance is itself increasingly overshadowed by foreign direct investment as a source of capital transfer into developing countries. The advent of ICT is also changing how development is done. As knowledge and power are increasingly dispersed through the internet, Twitter and other digital platforms, development outcomes will increasingly be delivered through horizontal collaboration, not vertical delivery. Where does the UN fit in this networked landscape? In the past, the UN has served as a neutral, trusted platform for partnerships between states. In the future, it will have to figure out how to become a neutral, trusted platform for a larger range of stakeholders. In the digital context, that may mean, quite literally establishing an authoritative cloud-based platform for trusted, official data – just as it currently provides trusted official statistics and maps, and the platforms for global collaboration in areas ranging from civil aviation to global health. Key steps for the UN to take might include: • Developing a system-wide policy framework for UN data protection and security, drawing on relevant human rights and protection practice. • Incorporating ICT goals into the post-2015 development agenda, both as goals for ICT development, and in the framework for monitoring progress. • Exploring the development of a UN-wide cloud-based data verification system. James Cockayne is head of office at the United Nations for UN University. Follow @James_Cockayne on Twitter This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, sign up free to become a member of the Global Development Professionals Network Impact and effectiveness Maps Mapping technologies Data visualisations United Nations Technology theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Senate leaders strike deal to raise debt ceiling and end government shutdown Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:43 AM PDT Majority leader Harry Reid announces compromise agreement on debt ceiling after Republican leadership capitulates • Follow all the latest developments in our live blog Republican leaders conceded defeat in their two-week battle to derail Barack Obama's healthcare reforms on Wednesday, agreeing to a series of votes that were likely to re-open the government and avert a looming debt default. With just hours until a deadline set by the US Treasury for extending the debt limit, House speaker John Boehner signalled he was ready to accept a Senate-drafted peace deal that contained almost no concessions to conservatives who had driven the country the brink of a new financial crisis. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, announced the deal on the the floor of the Senate just after midday. He called for all sides to work together to implement the deal. "Now is not the time for pointing fingers," he said. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, acknowledged the fight was over and said the shutdown and debt crisis should be over later on Wednesday. "This has been a long, challenging few weeks," McConnell said. "This is far less than many of us had hoped for, but it is far better than some had sought." The deal crafted by Reid and McConnell will fund the government until 15 January and lift the debt ceiling until 7 February. It will force both sides into a formal budget conference to try to reach a longer-term deal by 13 December. The only apparent change to the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans had targeted in their budget standoff, involves asking the Obama administration to carry out better checks on the incomes of those applying to take part in new insurance exchanges. A senior Republican aide told the Guardian that Boehner had agreed to allow the House to vote on the deal, which in practice means it would pass with support from Democrats and moderate Republicans, although it was still unclear when this would happen. Recriminations among Republicans flew thick and fast, with moderates accusing House conservatives of trashing the party's reputation in pursuit of an impossible ambition to repeal Obamacare entirely. Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, said this had "been the best two weeks for the Democratic party in recent times". "When we evaluate the last couple of weeks, it should be entitled the time of great lost opportunity. If we had been focused on the rollout of Obamacare and its confusion, public support would have diminished. Instead, our numbers have gone down, Obamacare has mysteriously gone up, and other than that, this has been great." He was scathing about the influence of conservative advocacy groups such as Heritage Action, which torpedoed a deal on Tuesday when it threatened to withdraw support from Republicans who backed it, but blamed lawmakers for listening to them. "Every member of Congress gets hit by groups like this right and left. I am not mad at a group for wanting their way; I am focusing on trying to get the Republican party to chart a better way. The way we are behaving and the path we have taken the last couple of weeks leads to a marginalised party in the eyes of the American people. A form of conservatism that is probably beyond what the market would bear. " If, as expected, the House votes on the new deal first, it would prevent Cruz from delaying its passage through the Senate and could herald an end to the crisis by Wednesday night. Follow it live in our shutdown blog. US government shutdown 2013 United States US politics US Senate US House of Representatives US Congress Dan Roberts theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Osborne's open door to Chinese banks prompts MPs' check on City rules Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:39 AM PDT Andrew Tyrie, Treasury committee chair, questions regulator after chancellor bid to draw more renminbi trade to London This week's surprise decision by George Osborne to allow Chinese banks to set up more easily in the UK is being questioned by the Treasury select committee of MPs. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the committee, is seeking assurances that the chancellor did not put too much pressure on the City's regulatory bodies to relax rules to entice Chinese investment banking businesses to set up in London. The Conservative MP has written to Andrew Bailey, chief executive of Prudential Regulation Authority, to find out if he was consulted about allowing Chinese banks to operate as branches in the UK rather than as subsidiaries – the latter option bringing tougher oversight by the City regulator. Osborne announced the plans this week during two days of talks with his Chinese counterpart, the vice-premier Ma Kai, as part of his goal of attracting more trading of the renminbi in London, already the destination of 41% of global currency trading. The report by the parliamentary commission on banking standards, chaired by Tyrie but now disbanded, had noted that some Chinese banks were moving away from the UK to Luxembourg because of a refusal by the City regulators to allow them to set up as branches in the UK. Branches are treated as extensions of the overseas bank. The alternative is to form a subsidiary and meet tough standards on capital and liquidity. Bank of China already operates a branch in the UK. Tyrie said in the letter to Bailey, which he also copied to the chancellor: "I would be grateful for your assurance that the PRA was consulted about this announcement, is content with the arrangement that was proposed, and in particular does not have concerns on prudential grounds. "Clarity is needed about whether conditions have been attached and whether such conditions constitute a change in policy. I would be grateful for an assurance that any change is not specific to a particular country and that you were not put under any due pressure to agree to something about which you may have had concerns." The cross-party commission, set up in the wake of the Libor rigging scandal, also recommended that the Bank of England governor be given a statutory power to reveal if lobbying to seek rule changes has occurred – although the government did not adopt this proposal. Neither the PRA nor the Treasury would comment immediately on Tyrie's letter. George Osborne Economic policy China Financial sector Bank of England Economics Asia Pacific Andrew Tyrie Jill Treanor theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

World Cup qualification lifts gloom in Bosnia-Herzegovina Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:38 AM PDT Thousands of partying Bosnians throng streets of Sarajevo, and politicians jump on bandwagon to toast national success story From the air, it looked as though the war had returned to the battered city of Sarajevo. Blazing fires and the din of explosives suggested a rewind to the dark days of the remorseless Serbian siege of the city 20 years ago. But unlike then, the streets were thronged with tens of thousands of partying Bosnians. The noise was not from Serbian artillery pieces but from fireworks. Because Bosnia's footballers are going to Brazil. It will go down as probably the most joyful moment in the chronically divided country of Bosnia-Herzegovina in almost two decades, as qualification for next year's World Cup triggered ecstatic all-night celebrations on the streets of the capital and other cities. For a day or two at least, the ethnic frictions and political dysfunction dissolved in an outpouring of pride. Adnan Hadzic, on the streets until the small hours, said it was the happiest night of his life. "I have never felt like this. It's magical … there are no words. After all the mess we see every day, we need this happiness," he said. The team returned to Sarajevo at 3am after a 1-0 victory in Lithuania, and received a heroes' welcome from tens of thousands on the streets. When the final whistle had blown in Vilnius hours earlier, commentators on Bosnian TV screamed themselves hoarse: "We're in Brazil, We're in Brazil, B-H is in Brazil!" Pundits were quick to proclaim the victory the best news for a depressed society in a long time. Politicians – a highly discredited class in Bosnia – suspended their bickering and leapt on the football bandwagon. Many pointed to the contrast between the demonstration of ethnic togetherness on the field and the nationalist gridlock that hamstrings governance. "The national team has shown us all how to achieve results, not just in sports but in any field," said Denis Becirevic, speaker of the parliament in Sarajevo. "We can be successful if we work together. I hope this win will spark positive changes in our country." Zlatko Lagmudzija, the foreign minister, said the players were "the best role models for future generations in Bosnia and Herzegovina". The achievement was all the more remarkable for the failure of several Balkan rivals yet to book their place in the finals. The Greeks, who were in Bosnia's group, and the neighbouring Croats face playoffs next month. The cheering was distinctly quieter in Bosnian Serb areas, where there is more support for the Serbian team which failed to qualify. But Emil Vlajki, vice-president of the Bosnian Serb half of the country, said Bosnia's football team was a national success story. "It does not matter what result we achieve at the actual World Cup, they are already among the world elite. All I have to say is bravo, bravo, bravo," he said. Goran Obradovic, a Serb journalist in the main Bosnian Serb city of Banja Luka, said he and most of his friends cheered the Bosnian team, and the bars were filled with young people watching the game. "After the win there were no celebrations to speak of, but compared to the past we can see a trend of more and more Serb cheering on the Bosnian national team." Aleksandra Letic, a human rights activist in Banja Luka, pooh-poohed the healing power of football, however. "Unfortunately the divisions are so big, sports or culture alone cannot overcome them. Cheering Bosnia now is not a sports thing, it is a political issue, an issue of national and ethnic identity," she said. "I am not surprised by the wild celebrations in some parts of the country. We have so little good news, so people celebrate what they can. However, one part of the country ignored these celebrations – the Republika Srpska [Serbian] entity." The sour note was amplified in Brussels where the European commission delivered its annual verdict on the country's progress towards being able to open talks to join the EU, dumping Bosnia firmly at the back of the Balkan queue. "Bosnia has made very limited progress in addressing the political criteria. A shared vision by the political representatives on the overall direction and future of the country, or on how it should function, remains absent," the commission said. "No progress has been achieved either on establishing an effective co-ordination mechanism on EU-related matters between various levels of government. Such a co-ordination mechanism is essential." But the grim verdict from Brussels will not impinge on the boost to Bosnian self-esteem. Following a night of riotous celebrations in the central town of Travnik, Samir Perenda, a Bosnian Muslim, said: "It was just wild happiness and a surreal feeling … I still think I'm dreaming." Bosnia-Herzegovina Europe Bosnia-Herzegovina World Cup 2014 qualifiers World Cup 2014 World Cup Ian Traynor theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Ángeles Santos obituary Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:27 AM PDT Catalan artist whose adolescent masterpieces later gave way to a more conventional style The painter Ángeles Santos, who has died aged 101, was often referred to as a Spanish Rimbaud. By the age of 19 she had completed her best work. Then she stopped. Unlike the poet, she later took up her art again, though in a completely different style. In 1929 her painting Un Mundo (A World) became the sensation of the IXth autumn salon in Madrid. Well-known intellectuals visited her home in the city of Valladolid, among them the poet Lorca, who exclaimed of her works: "They look like Picassos." At the Xth autumn salon the following year, Santos had a room of her own, and in 1931 a solo exhibition in Paris. But she had already stopped painting. She had a nervous breakdown, ran away from home and spent six weeks in a sanatorium. She destroyed paintings. She continued to allow her surviving ones to be shown, but herself rejected them. When asked 70 years later how it was that a young woman in a provincial city who had never seen modern painting could produce work that invited comparison with Dalí or Picasso, she replied: "It seems I was born a painter. I was stimulated by the things I read." Thus Un Mundo, in which starlight illuminates the rectangular world and the mothers of the spirits play music on the edge of the canvas, was inspired by lines by the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. Critics place her early work between expressionism and surrealism. Her paintings were often dark and anguished, though others were intense, but calm, portraits of family members. She said later: "At that time I didn't exist. My life was painting. I thought of nothing else … I worked fast, often completing a painting in one session." Though relatively untutored, she learned as fast as she worked. Her painting is not ingenuous: it always seems the work of a mature artist. Another famous painting, La Tertulia (The Discussion Group, 1929), like El Mundo now held in the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid, shows four women smoking, slouching, reading and talking freely. In a world where women were not meant to paint, it is a cry for freedom, a feminist response to the cafe discussions of bohemian men she had known in Valladolid and perhaps a clue to the pressures that made her abandon painting. Born in Portbou, a small Catalan town near the French border, Santos was the eldest of eight children. Her father was a customs official and the family led a peripatetic life. In 1924 she was sent to a convent boarding school in Seville, where the mother superior urged her parents to foster her drawing and painting skills. This they did and in 1927, when the family settled in Valladolid, she had daily painting classes before school. She exhibited locally before sending her 2.9 m x 3.1 m canvas, Un Mundo, to the 1929 autumn salon. In 1933, Santos settled in Barcelona and in January 1936 married the painter Emili Grau. That July, the civil war erupted and the couple left Spain for France. In 1937, Santos returned alone, to live with her parents in Canfranc (in the Pyrenees), where she gave birth to her only child. By the 1940s, back in Barcelona, she was painting again, but curiously, despite her husband's absence, it was under the influence of his rather bland impressionist style. Some of these landscapes and still lifes are impressive, but are as nothing compared with the ambition and passion of her teenage work. It is hard to grasp the split in her art: between the tortured originality of her adolescent masterpieces and the conventional painting of the rest of her life. In 1962 Santos was reunited with her husband in Paris and returned with him to Spain, where they lived between Madrid and the Catalan town of Sitges, renowned for its painters enjoying the fine light of the sea, until Grau's death in 1975. From the 1990s her work attracted increasing interest, with studies and exhibitions, notably a 2001 retrospective in Valladolid and an exhibition in Bilbao in 2003. In her last years she lived in Madrid with her son, the painter Julián Grau Santos, who survives her. • Ángeles Santos Torroella, painter, born 7 November 1911; died 3 October 2013 Art Painting Catalonia Spain Europe Michael Eaude theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Iranian man who survived execution must be hanged again, judges say Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:23 AM PDT Morgue workers spotted that 37-year-old Alireza was alive a day after he was hanged for possessing crystal meth On an autumnal Wednesday earlier this month, Alireza, a 37-year-old man jailed for smuggling drugs and sentenced to death in Iran, woke up to what was supposed to be his last day alive. Outside his cell in Bojnurd prison, in Iran's northern Khorasan province, the gallows were waiting and the countdown had already begun. Just before sunrise, the guards hooked ropes around his neck and hanged him for possessing a kilo of crystal meth. Exactly 12 minutes later medics pronounced him dead and sent his body for burial. But in the morgue the next day, something unusual caught the eyes of a worker who was preparing the corpse for family collection: steam in the plastic cover he was wrapped in. He was still alive. Alireza was instantly taken to Bojnurd's Imam Ali hospital. Now, to the dismay of his family, Iranian judicial authorities are waiting for him to make a full recovery before they hang him again, according to the state-run Jam-e-Jam newspaper, which was first to break the news of Alireza's ordeal. Iran's judiciary has argued that he was sentenced to death, rather than to hanging, and should be re-executed. But human rights activists, already concerned about Iran's high rate of executions, say he should be spared. A nurse told Jam-e-Jam that Alireza's general health was satisfactory and he was making progress day by day. "We couldn't believe he was still alive when we went to collect his body," a relative told the Iranian newspaper. "More than anyone, his two daughters are very happy." Mohmmad Erfan, a judge with Iran's administrative justice court, told Jam-e-Jam: "The sentence issued by the revolutionary court is the death penalty … in such circumstances it should be repeated once again." Alireza, whose surname has not been published by the Iranian media to protect his identity, was arrested three years ago for carrying and possessing Shisheh, an Iranian nickname for methamphetamine in the form of crystal, which among many other drugs such as opium is relatively cheap to buy in the Islamic republic. A revolutionary court found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Under Iranian law, convicts should be conscious and relatively healthy before execution – hanging is delayed for people who are pregnant or in a coma. When someone is sentenced to death by stoning in Iran, for instance in adultery cases, if they manage to climb out of the ground after being buried up to the neck or somehow survive the ordeal, their life is spared. As a neighbour of Afghanistan, a leading producer and supplier of the world's drugs, Iran has high rates of drug use, especially among its huge number of young people. In order to tackle this, Iranian authorities have launched a campaign, with financial aid from Europe, to crack down on drug smuggling, which has led to an alarming rate of executions in the country. In recent years, Iran has remained among the five countries with the highest rates of executions. China tops the list. In 2012, Iran is known to have executed at least 314 people, according to figures released by Amnesty International, but this number could be far below the true number of executions in the country. Iran says most of the executions are related to drug offences. Since Hassan Rouhani took office in early August as the new president of Iran, at least 125 people have been executed. "While Rouhani was elected on promises of change and human rights reforms, there have been at least 125 executions since his inauguration on 4 August, with dozens of other prisoners sentenced to death or facing imminent execution," said a joint statement issued by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre. Iran's judiciary is independent from Rouhani's government and its chief is appointed by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Amnesty, which has long campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty globally, said the plan to send Alireza to the gallows again was wrong. "I am appalled by the ghastly plan to 're-execute' a man who had been hanged, certified as dead and whose body had been turned over to his family before he revived," Amnesty's Drewery Dyke told the Guardian. "Drug trafficking is a serious criminal offence and while the authorities need to do their utmost to combat the scourge of drug use in Iran, use of the death penalty is wrong and out of step with international standards. Carrying it out twice on man who somehow managed to survive 12 minutes of hanging, who was certified as dead and whose body was turned over to his family is simply ghastly. It betrays a basic lack of humanity that sadly underpins much of Iran's justice system. "History and experience indicates not only that that the death penalty is not working in the fight against drug trafficking and use, but that it has heaped even more misery upon Iranians. None more so than in this appalling instance." Iran Capital punishment Middle East and North Africa Saeed Kamali Dehghan theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Shutdown forces North Carolina to suspend food assistance program Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:21 AM PDT More than 20,000 residents rely on the Work First program but state says it does not have funds to pay checks in November North Carolina has become the first US state to suspend its welfare program because of the government shutdown, and others states have warned that their assistance programs could run out of funds by the end of the month. More than 20,700 North Carolina residents are enrolled in the state's Work First welfare program, which helps poor families buy food and supplies. People enrolled in the short-term assistance program will receive October checks, but the agency said it does not have funds to make payments in November. "We are heavily dependent on federal dollars," Julie Henry, spokeswoman for the state health and human services department, told Reuters. "When these kinds of things happen at the federal level, it has an immediate impact." County social service agencies stopped processing new applications for assistance because federal funds are expected to run out by November if the shutdown continues. In a letter on 10 October, the HHS department also told country directors to stop processing re-certifications. It cost $4.7m in federal funds to maintain the program in September and state lawmakers are asking the governor to reassess his decision to halt the program. Last week, North Carolina also suspended its WIC program – which provides food for low-income pregnant women, new mothers and children up to the age of five. The state redirected funds and reinstated the program two days later. The USDA has said WIC and the Snap food stamps program do not have guaranteed funding through the end of the month, moving states to tap reserve funds. Arizona attempted to withhold welfare funds in the first days of the shutdown, but citizen complaints moved Republican governor Jan Brewer to redirect $650,000 to keep the program running through October. Florida's department of children and families said its welfare and food stamps programs will run out of money at the end of the month. A spokesperson in Michigan's budget office warned that its cash and food aid programs could close next month. "We're good to go for October," state department of human services spokesperson Dave Akerly told the Detroit News. "If (a shutdown) goes further than that, there could be problems." In South Dakota, Native American tribes stopped receiving funds for heating and general welfare programs at the beginning of the shutdown. Utah said on Tuesday that it will have to suspend its WIC and food stamps programs in November if the shutdown continues. The state temporarily halted its WIC program at the beginning of the month but was able to reopen with a federal grant. Welfare North Carolina United States Amanda Holpuch theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

A Lighter Look - in pictures Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:21 AM PDT A sideways glance, or two, at some of the week's more entertaining pictures Guy Lane

Nirvana and Replacements lead first-time nominees to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:20 AM PDT The voting process officially considers musical impact and contributions, but let's call it what it really is: a popularity contest Erin McCann

US markets rally on news of imminent compromise to avoid default Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:09 AM PDT Dow Jones erases prior losses with 200-point gain as Senate and House appear to closer to debt ceiling deal to end shutdown Stock markets rallied Wednesday as Washington appeared closer to reaching a compromise over raising the US debt ceiling. The Dow Jones rose over 200 points (1.35%) by late morning, erasing yesterday's 133-point loss. The S&P 500 rose over 23 points (1.38%) and the Nasdaq 25 points (0.18%). US markets have wobbled with every piece of news from Washington as Republicans and Democrats have fought over an agreement to raise the debt ceiling to make sure America can meet its debt obligations. Treasury secretary Jack Lew has said the US will struggle to meet its obligations unless Congress raises the US's $16.7tn borrowing limit. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC Wednesday that it would be a "pure act of idiocy", and "asinine", for the US to default on its debts because of political infighting. But he said that he expected a deal would be done. US markets closed down on Tuesday as talks appeared to have faltered once again. Investors' fears were compounded by news that Fitch, one of the major credit ratings agencies, was considering a downgrade of US debt. A downgrade by Fitch's rival Standard & Poor's in 2011 during the last debt ceiling fight triggered major sell-offs on world markets. Senate leaders in both parties now appear closer to an agreement to temporarily raise the nation's debt ceiling and fully reopen the government, ending a 15-day shutdown. But any deal would still have to make it through the Republican-controlled House, where progress has been blocked by rightwing members of the GOP. Dan Greenhaus, the chief global strategist at broker BTIG, said investors found the situation "annoying", but were largely sanguine about the expected result. "Investors in almost all asset classes are assuming that deal will get done before the deadline. Virtually all markets are roughly where they were a month ago. It's not like 2011," he said. He said if a stop-gap solution was reached then investors would expect to go through the same experience when the new deadline is reached. "There is a lack of respect for policymakers and the games they are playing with markets," he said. But he added that while investors were increasingly disenchanted with the political class, they still believed Washington would do a deal to avoid financial calamity. "It's a sausage-making factory," he said. US economy United States US government shutdown 2013 Stock markets Dow Jones Nasdaq US politics Dominic Rushe theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Jean Kaye obituary Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:03 AM PDT "Pankhurst calling" was my friend Jean Kaye's alert from her car CB radio, letting Cruisewatch trackers know that a missile convoy was leaving the Greenham Common airbase in Berkshire. While working as a primary school teacher in the early 1980s, Jean, who has died aged 87, would take an evening meal for the Greenham women. For her surveillance operation she would park at a road junction and then track the convoy, usually to Salisbury Plain. She would then drive several Greenham women to the plain to protest, waiting long into the night until they were released from arrest to take them back to the camp. Then she would return to her own home in the small hours, ready for school later that morning. Jean was born in Witney, Oxfordshire, second of four daughters of George and Ellen Sherbourn. She taught for many years at Our Lady of Lourdes primary school in Witney. In 1952 she married Francis Kaye (born Franciszek Krazakala in Katowice in Poland) and they had four sons, Michael, Stefan, Jan and Andrzej. In the 1970s, Jean became involved in the World Development Movement. She was also a district commissioner in the Girl Guides and a founder student of the Open University. Going to Greenham was a turning point in Jean's life, when she gained the confidence to speak out and gave herself permission to be a bit wild. In a self-effacing way, she did extraordinary things, often involving boltcutters. In 1985, five years after Frank's death, Jean retired from teaching. She was then free to take more direct action, eventually going to Holloway prison rather than pay a fine for trespass on Salisbury Plain. In 1991 she was thrown out of the House of Commons chamber for raising a banner and protesting against the Gulf war. In the same year she was dragged away by police from a blockade of the Portsmouth Arms Fair. She worked with Witney Peace Group, Pax Christi, Christian CND and Upper Heyford peace camp, was an early member of Aldermaston women's peace camp and a "spotter" for PolarisWatch. Jean protested at USAF Fairford and the Campsfield asylum seekers' detention centre near Oxford, and helped set up Nukewatch. She was a founding member, and education team leader, until 2010, at Asylum Welcome in Oxford. In 2003, she received the Pax Christi award for her "commitment over a number of years to working for peace". She is survived by her sons, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Greenham Common Protest Nuclear weapons Teaching theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Hopes of US debt ceiling deal reassure European markets - as it happened Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:01 AM PDT Billionaire investor says it would be idiocy not to raise America's debt ceiling, as clock keeps ticking.... Graeme Wearden

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is wrong to claim that austerity is coming to an end | Michael Burke Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:58 AM PDT The Irish economy remains in depression. It is the ECB's bailout of the banks we are being invited to celebrate Ireland is being held up once more as the star pupil of the austerity school of economics in Europe, with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny arguing that his government is exiting the bailout programme set by the troika of European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF. He says the era of austerity is coming to an end. Both of these claims are clearly questionable, but they do illuminate some important features of the situation in Europe – including Britain. The policy of the Dublin government will continue to be set by the troika for many years to come. In fact the EU has already put in place a system of budget monitoring, regulation and even sanctions that will enshrine permanent austerity for all members of the euro. In addition, it has become customary for the IMF to put in place a new credit facility once initial bailout money runs dry which has its own strings attached. Therefore it is untrue that austerity is at an end. Instead, the assets and loans held by Irish banks have become so devalued as a result of economic weakness that the risk of a new bailout for their creditors is rising. There is also an important reason why Ireland cannot be emulated by countries such as Greece and Portugal. At the outset of the crisis, the Irish economy was vastly more prosperous. And after a prolonged slump across the European periphery, that remains the case. One measure of the failure of successive Dublin governments is that living standards have fallen so far that they have fallen back towards British levels, having pulled ahead before the turn of the last century. There is always a chorus in Britain that wants to ascribe all economic ills to the EU. But George Osborne's threat to maintain austerity until at least 2018 and to aim for budget surpluses matches the perma-austerity of Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington. The lazy assertion of British Eurosceptics of both left and right, that we are better off outside the euro, is disproved by the fact that in international currency terms the British economy has contracted by more than any other country. Britain has not prospered from devaluation. Similarly, the outbreak of self-congratulation both sides of the Irish Sea is entirely misplaced. The recent self-criticism from the Office for Budget Responsibility regarding its own hopeless forecasting record includes a clear verdict that the source of the very weak recovery in Britain is an unexpected increase on government consumption. Dublin governments tend to lack the age-old arrogance of the British political elite and so seek plaudits abroad. The governing coalition of the rightwing Fine Gael and Irish Labour parties looks to be patted on the back or perhaps the head, for a forecast that government finances will shift into what is called a primary surplus, that is a surplus on government finances before interest payments are taken into account. But this is a claim increasingly made by supporters of the governments implementing austerity in Portugal and Greece too, and is largely meaningless. Unless the growth rate of the economy exceeds this growing interest bill, the level of government debt becomes unsustainable. But for the time being the immediate risk of government default has been sharply lowered. This is partly due to the commitment of the ECB to "do whatever it takes" to maintain the euro. Whatever extends to unlimited for bailouts for creditors, mainly European and British banks, but not a euro for the governments. It is this life-support operation for the banks we are now invited to celebrate. The party is likely to be shortlived as austerity is hollowing out the economy. Without investment productive capacity declines. In Ireland, net new investment (after deducting depreciation, wear and tear and so on) is close to zero. The economy remains in a depression, one of whose effects is to pile up bad loans at the retail banks, including distressed mortgage payers. Austerity is the enemy of growth and cannot resolve the crisis. Ireland Austerity Economic policy Europe European Union International Monetary Fund (IMF) Economics European Central Bank European monetary union Economic growth (GDP) Michael Burke theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Pity the federal workers during the shutdown. They're GOP punching bags | Michael Paarlberg Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:50 AM PDT Politicians like Representative Yoho don't treat civil servants as real workers. They're just pawns in a broader ideological agenda In a just universe, America's civil servants would be back at work and Congress would be on indefinite furlough. Federal workers don't create budget crises, yet whenever we have one, they're the ones getting screwed. This time is no different. They can take some comfort in the rock-bottom approval ratings for Congress – currently hovering somewhere between hemorrhoids and Charles Manson – and specifically for the House Tea Party caucus that precipitated the shutdown. But this is an old story: we all hate Congress, but love our own representatives. Members of Congress don't answer to national polls, they answer to their constituents. And thanks to redistricting, a large chunk of the House Republicans are insulated in ultra-conservative districts that have been gerrymandered to a point beyond all recognition to the rest of the country (while the remainder live in fear of getting challenge in the primaries if they don't go along with the former's reckless endeavors). This is why Representative Ted Yoho, described by the New York Times as "a freshman Florida Republican who had no experience in elective office before this year [who] said the largest economy on earth should learn from his large-animal veterinary practice", suggested "if they're not working, they shouldn't get paid", regarding those federal workers he helped put out of work. Yoho wasn't just spouting off; he was at a town hall meeting responding to a caller from his home district who complained about the federal workers "at home watching Netflix or whatever", as if being furloughed had been their choice. In the end, even Congressman Yoho went along with the rest of the House, which unanimously voted to provide back pay to furloughed workers whenever the shutdown ends. But the promise of a check at some uncertain, future date doesn't cover rent, groceries or electricity bills now for the 800,000 workers affected, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck. Federal workers have reported taking out loans, selling possessions on eBay, and getting second jobs (the Department of Energy helpfully posted guidelines for moonlighting: bartending is OK, lobbying for energy companies is not). In a member survey by the National Treasury Employees Union, 84% reported cutting back (pdf) on necessities, and nearly half have delayed medical treatment to save money. Elizabeth Lytle, a furloughed administrative program assistant with the Environmental Protection Agency in Illinois and retired navy reservist, says: The shutdown has put tremendous financial stress on my family. There's no money coming in. In September my husband was laid off, and I was furloughed the first of October. And if the VA doesn't get any money, I won't get my disability check at the end of the month. As for back pay, "I'll believe it when I see it." Lytle notes that as a result of the EPA shutdown, cleanup at a nearby superfund site in Waukegan (the former location of a large outboard-boat-motor manufacturing plant and a former railroad tie, coal gasification, and coke plant facility) has stopped. Yet it's not just a matter of a handful of stubborn legislators. Politicians like Yoho reflect a nasty political current within a part of the American electorate: that civil servants like Lytle are not real workers, that they don't matter, that their livelihoods are expendable for the sake of some broader ideological agenda. It's reflected by conservative radio host Laura Ingraham gloating "Starve the beast!" in response to furloughs at the IRS, by Tea Party protesters heckling White House police with calls of "brownshirts" and "Stasi". Starve the beast! "@politico: Furloughs to shut down IRS for a day: http://t.co/eKANDoRnpN" — Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 15, 2013 It could be seen during the last round of furloughs resulting from sequestration (for which workers did not receive back pay), when Fox News' Neil Cavuto wondered out loud if this isn't a good thing: Maybe we have too many federal workers in the first place period, if there's any place to cut it's got to be there. Civil servants make a handy punching bag. They're to blame for deficits, although total expenditures on federal employees (both civilian and military) make up about 13% of the federal budget far less than Social Security or Medicare, and, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, firing every single federal worker in the country would only shrink the deficit by a third. It's an easy sell to balance budgets on the backs of civil servants: the last budget crisis resulted in federal workers being denied cost-of-living raises for the third straight year, along with agency budget cuts and layoffs. In their competing budget proposals, both President Obama and Paul Ryan agreed to cutting federal employee retirement benefits; the only question is by how much. Anti-government hysteria has fueled everything from congressional kamikaze attacks on Obamacare to actual kamikaze attacks on federal buildings, and those who get hurt are inevitably people doing their jobs. Bureaucracies are easy to despise when they make us wait at the Department if Motor Vehicles and take for granted when they fix the roads, but no society of laws can function without one. Now that veterans' and Social Security claims are going unprocessed, food is not being inspected, parks are closed, and Head Start programs are not staffed, maybe the anti-government caucus will change its tune. But don't count on a salmonella outbreak or two changing much. Things might be different if voters elected more federal workers to Congress. United States US government shutdown 2013 US politics US work & careers Michael Paarlberg theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

10 reasons not to trust claims national security is being threatened by leaks Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:49 AM PDT Time and again GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have spuriously used 'national security arguments' to suppress information and stifle debate Ever since they were set up more than a hundred years ago Britain's security and intelligence agencies have been accused of using the excuse of "national security" to suppress information. Whenever information has been disclosed against their will, through leaks or whistleblowers, they have claimed security has been jeopardised. Agencies are said to have consistently used this argument to protect themselves from embarrassment and to suppress evidence of information relating to a wide range of subjects, from government waste to involvement in torture. Ministerial claims that the publication of reports based on NSA and GCHQ documentation undermined national security prompted a scathing response from United Nations experts on freedom of expression and human rights. "The protection of national security secrets must never be used as an excuse to intimidate the press into silence and backing off from its crucial work in the clarification of human rights violations," the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, said. "The press plays a central role in the clarification of human rights abuses. It is clear that the revelations on the extensive mass surveillance initiatives implemented by some governments needs to be widely debated." Or, as the actor Stephen Fry put it last month: "Privacy and freedom from state intrusion are important for everyone. You can't just scream 'terrorism' and use it as an excuse for Orwellian snooping." Whitehall departments and the intelligence agencies have long used the D (now called DA) notice committee, which runs a system of voluntary self-censorship in co-operation with elements of the media, to try to prevent the publication of material that would expose waste and costly mistakes without damaging national security at all. Time and again, the security and intelligence agencies, and GCHQ in particular, have used national security as a means of stifling information and debate. It later transpired that their claims were spurious. Here are some examples. 1. GCHQ The activities and role of GCHQ, the British agency at the heart of the row over huge surveillance operations by the UK and the US, first became widely known through a leak – an article under the headline, the Eavesdroppers, published by Time Out magazine in 1976. It led to the ABC trial, named after the initials of two journalists and a soldier who had worked at GCHQ, who were charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. Nearly two years later, all main charges were dropped and they received non-custodial sentences. The Old Bailey heard that much of the information Time Out published was already publicly available if people knew where to look. Ironically, GCHQ and its intelligence-gathering role was only "avowed" - officially confirmed to exist - after Geoffrey Prime, one of its former officers, was convicted in 1982 of spying for the Soviet Union. He was discovered, not by GCHQ security but by West Mercia police investigating evidence of child sexual abuse. Two years later, in 1984, the Thatcher government banned trade unions at GCHQ describing the move as "essential in order to safeguard national security". Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary, claimed that industrial action a few years earlier had threatened national security, threatened intelligence-gathering during the 1982 Falklands conflict, and could have endangered lives. None of these claims was true. Asked by the BBC after the ban was imposed how the action had affected national security, Howe replied: "We cannot prove a single example." John Nott, the then defence secretary, said after the end of industrial action in 1981 that the dispute with trade unions had not "in any way affected operational capability in any area". It emerged that GCHQ staff had been praised for their work during the Falklands crisis. Dennis Mitchell, a long-serving senior GCHQ officer who resigned in protest at the union ban, told the then cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong: "I have arrived at the point at which I either make my concerns public, which means breaking the Official Secrets Act, or I fail to discharge my responsibilities to account for actions which I believe would be considered unacceptable by the general public were it aware of them." Mitchell privately made it clear he was referring to the way information collected by GCHQ was used. He was immediately served with a high court injunction preventing him from disclosing anything about his work at GCHQ. 2. Zircon and the BBC The BBC was involved in a two-year battle in 1986/7 over the disclosure that GCHQ, with US help, intended to build a spy satellite codenamed Zircon. BBC studios and the home of the investigative journalist, Duncan Campbell (the C of the ABC trial) , were raided. GCHQ claimed that disclosing the Zircon project, whose cost was soaring, would endanger national security. Alasdair Milne, the BBC director general, was soon sacked by the board of governors. It later emerged that Whitehall departments privately admitted, as did the secretary of the D notice committee, that national security would not be damaged if the programme about Zircon, part of the BBC's Secret Society series, was broadcast. Shortly after the Zircon affair, a series of programmes on BBC Radio Four called My Country Right or Wrong was banned by the government on the grounds that it might have revealed sensitive secrets. The series was censored a few hours before it was due to start. It was eventually broadcast uncut after the government conceded it did not breach any law or damage national security. 3. Interception of communications The practice of routine and secret interception of communications was first exposed in 1967 by Chapman Pincher, defence correspondent of the Daily Express. The disclosure enraged the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, who claimed that it breached the terms of the D notice system designed to protect national security. An independent inquiry by a senior judge, Lord Radcliffe, explicitly rejected Wilson's claim. 4. Spycatcher In 1988, two years after the Guardian was prevented by a high court injunction from revealing the contents of Spycatcher, the memoirs of the former MI5 officer, Peter Wright, the law lords delivered a scathing judgment. Lord Goff described the injunctions as a misuse of the law. Judges in Australia, where the Thatcher government tried to ban the book, referred to many previous books on MI5, some of which Whitehall turned a blind eye to, where, they said, the material contained on virtually every page of Spycatcher had previously been made public. 5. The Railway Gazette affair National security was said to be under threat in 1972, journalists were bugged and blackmailed by police, and threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, when the director of public prosecutions ordered Scotland Yard to identify the source of a leaked document. The reason? The document, from the Ministry of Transport, disclosed that ministers were quietly considering the closure of 4,600 miles of railway lines - almost half the nation's network. And if the culprit would leak that secret, the ministry and the DPP reasoned, what else would he or she expose? Police raided and searched the offices of the Railway Gazette, which had received the document, claiming they had authority to do so under the Theft Act. They then questioned Harold Evans, the editor of the Sunday Times, which had also published a story based on the document. Evans was warned that two of his reporters were facing prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Finally, police threatened to expose one of the Gazette's journalists as being gay, unless he named the source. Officers had discovered this by bugging the magazine's telephones, apparently without authorisation. The following year the attorney general decided there was insufficient evidence to bring charges, and the government announced that the cuts, which had been rumoured following the "escape of a regrettably mobile document", were no longer being considered. The government never did discover the mole. Now he can be named, however. He was Reg Dawson, a senior civil servant and life-long railways buff, who died last year alongside his wife Betty at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. 6. Matrix Churchill Ministers signed public interest immunity (PII) certificates - in effect, gagging orders - in a failed attempt to suppress information at the Spycatcher trials. They also used PII certificates in an attempt to suppress information about how directors of Matrix Churchill, the Coventry-based machine tool firm charged with selling arms-related equipment to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, had been spying for MI5 and MI6. Ministers told the subsequent Scott inquiry that disclosing information about what the government was up to, and the disclosure of "intelligence information" would cause "unquantifiable damage". Should that be taken as covering "both unquantifiably great and also miniscule", Lord Scott asked a Foreign Office minister. "Yes," replied the minister. 7. Ben Griffin, the SAS whistleblower When Griffin, a former trooper with the Special Air Service, gave a newspaper interview in 2006 in which he described witnessing US servicemen torturing prisoners in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence went to court seeking an injunction to silence him. The MoD argued that Griffin had breached the contract that he had signed on joining the SAS, which was intended to protect national security, and that his disclosures had not been "required in the public interest". The court granted the injunction on the grounds that Griffin had broken his contract, but dismissed as unconvincing MoD claims that he had damaged forces' morale and put other servicemen and woman at risk. Since then, Griffin has not been able to repeat his allegations, nor say anything further about his knowledge of the role played by the SAS in delivering detainees to prisons where US forces were known to be using torture. His allegations have been corroborated by a number of other former special forces personnel, however, and John Hutton, when defence secretary, was obliged to make public the fact that two of the SAS's prisoners had been "rendered" to a US-run prison in Afghanistan. 8. Official secrets trial and the SAS David Keogh, a Whitehall communications officer, and Leo O'Connor, a former researcher to a Labour MP, were jailed under the Official Secrets Act in 2007 for disclosing the contents of minutes of a White House meeting between George Bush and Tony Blair on 16 April 2004. The trial judge, Mr Justice Aikens, imposed a sweeping injunction preventing the media from repeating speculation, already published, about the contents of the documents. His ruling was later quashed by the appeal court, enabling the media to repeat British concerns about US military tactics in Iraq, including the killing of civilians in Falluja and President Bush's alleged suggestion that the offices of the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera should be bombed. It had been widely reported that British officials and military commanders were expressing concern about US tactics, in particular about the US assault on Falluja, including the use of white phosphorus. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the prime minister's chief foreign policy adviser, told the court in the Keogh /O'Connor secrets trial, which ended in the jailing of the two men, that private talks between world leaders - in this case, Tony Blair and George Bush - must remain confidential however illegal or morally abhorrent aspects of their discussions might be. Talks betwen Blair and Bush in the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq remain a sticking point in the heated dispute between the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion, and Whitehall departments. Whitehall imposes an official blanket ban on the activities of Britain's special forces, which are playing an increasingly important role in co-operation with the security and intelligence agencies. The ban is breached, not least by special forces after successful operations. Whitehall tries to impose it when things go wrong. 9. WikiLeaks and the national security threat that never was Thousands of official US documents relating to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and US diplomatic cables provided the basis for a series of reports published in a redacted form in the Guardian, New York Times, the German magazine Der Spiegel and elsewhere. Senior US government officials could not have been clearer about the damage they said had been done by the leaks. The US national security adviser, General James Jones, said in July 2010 that the disclosures "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security". Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, "can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family". Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, strongly condemned the leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, claiming: "It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems." The UK government also warned that British citizens in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and other parts of the Muslim world could be at risk if there were a violent backlash over "anti-Islamic" views expressed in some cables. However, later in 2010, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, described official concerns about the leaks as "fairly significantly overwrought". He added: "The fact is governments deal with the United States because its in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they believe we can keep secrets," he said. "Some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially … the indispensable nation." Gates continued: "So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for US foreign policy? I think fairly modest." A year later, US state department officials admitted the disclosures had not only done little damage to national security, but had done little real damage to US diplomacy. In a private briefing at Congress, senior state department officials said the fallout had not been especially difficult. A congressional official told Reuters news agency that it had emerged during the briefing that the US government felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to support efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks site and bring charges against the leakers. "I think they want to present the toughest front they can muster," the official said. "We were told [it] was embarrassing, not damaging," the official added. At the trial of Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, convicted of leaking the documents, the Pentagon's chief investigator into the impact of the leaks admitted he could find no evidence of a single person losing their life as a result. Brigadier General Robert Carr, who headed a 300-strong team that spent more than a year looking for fatalities, said he could not any evidence of any loss of life. "I don't have a specific example," he said. Carr conceded that the name of a victim of a Taliban killing, initially blamed on the leaks, was not included in the war logs made public by WikiLeaks. Asked by Lind whether the individual who was killed was tied to the disclosures, Carr replied: "The Taliban killed him and tied him to the disclosures. We went back and looked for the name in the disclosures. The name of the individual killed was not in the leaked documents." Carr said that when his taskforce reviewed the Afghan war logs they found about 900 names of local nationals contained in the records. Many of those names were already of people who had died, and under cross-examination the witness said some could have been misspelled or mis-translated. 10. Binyam Mohamed and the seven secret paragraphs In the Binyam Mohamed case, lawyers representing David Miliband, then foreign secretary, battled for more than a year to prevent the high court from publishing seven paragraphs of one of its own judgments, on the grounds that they contained a summary of intelligence passed to MI5 by the CIA, and their disclosure would cause immense damage to the US-UK intelligence sharing relationship. The foreign secretary's counsel told the court of appeal that the paragraphs "are unquestionably a summary of intelligence material provided to the [UK] under confidential intelligence-sharing arrangements". Two judges, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, said that the seven paragraphs "could never properly be described in a democracy as 'a secret' or an 'intelligence secret' or a 'summary of classified intelligence'". Miliband, they added, "was not prepared either to produce evidence or address argument to us". Despite this, the foreign secretary signed several public interest immunity certificates stating that the publication of the seven paragraphs "would lead to a real risk of serious harm to the national security of the UK". When the paragraphs finally saw the light of day in February 2010, following a judgment by the lord chief justice of England and Wales and the master of the rolls, they were found to contain not intelligence material, but a summary of the CIA's description of the way in which Mohamed was being tortured in Pakistan. The description was provided to MI5 before the agency sent an officer to interrogate Mohamed, and this act was widely seen as evidence of the agency's complicity in torture. The court's decision - and the master of the rolls' conclusion that MI5 had misled the intelligence and security committee, and could not be trusted when it claimed to respect human rights - was hugely embarrassing for the agency, and the British government. Since publication of the description of Mohamed's torture, government officials have claimed to have detected a change to "the flow of sensitive material" from the US, but have produced no evidence to support this. There is no sign of the serious harm to national security that Miliband predicted. The disclosure did lead directly to the controversial Justice and Security Act, however, with a green paper (pdf) highlighting the "UK court-ordered release of sensitive US intelligence material" which it said underlined the need for the act's secret courts provisions. GCHQ UK security and counter-terrorism Surveillance NSA Richard Norton-Taylor Ian Cobain theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Remittance company awaits court ruling on Barclays account closure Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:46 AM PDT Bank agrees to keep money-transfer firm's account open until after verdict, as UK unveils moves to aid Somali remittances A high court judge is expected to hand down a decision next week on an injunction sought by Dahabshiil, the biggest remittance company in the Horn of Africa, against Barclays's decision to close its account. Barclays has agreed to continue to keep Dahabshiil's account open until after the verdict. The hearing, which took place at the high court before Mr Justice Henderson, ended on Wednesday. "We are pleased to reassure customers (both individuals and NGOs) who rely on our services in the UK and across Africa that Dahabshiil remains open for business," the company said in a statement. "The court hearing has now concluded, and the judge's decision will follow later. Barclays has agreed to continue to keep our accounts open until judgment is received." Barclays, the last major bank providing remittance services, announced in May that it planned to shut down the accounts to about 250 money-service businesses, initially giving a 10 July deadline, citing concern over falling foul of money-laundering regulations. But after an outcry from Somali remitters, academics and some MPs, who said the bank's concerns were exaggerated, the deadline was pushed back. Dahabshiil, the only money-transfer organisation whose account is still open, sought an injunction to stop Barclays from shutting it down. It claimed that Barclays is abusing a dominant position by proposing to end an existing relationship without objective justification and by treating Dahabshiil differently from other customers. Barclays had said it was closing the accounts of around 250 money-service businesses because it is obliged to follow rules and regulations set by governments. "We understand and appreciate the important role these businesses play in helping people to transfer money around the world, in some cases to places where there is great need of financial support," a spokesman said. "However, Barclays has an obligation to operate within the rules and regulations set by governments and regulators in the countries in which we do business. Failure to do so would result in Barclays being prosecuted by regulators around the world and potentially fined many hundreds or potentially billions of pounds." Somalis living in the UK send more than £100m a year for food, healthcare and education to relatives back home. Somalia is particularly depended on money-service businesses such as Dahabshiil as it lacks a formal banking system after decades of war. "Barclays's closure of the accounts will mean my 80-year-old mother-in-law won't receive the money she relies on for food, rent and healthcare," said Farhan Hassan, whose change.org petition calling on the bank not to cut the lifeline was endorsed by double Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah, and has more than 100,000 signatures. "My relatives in Somalia know about Barclays's decision in the UK and they don't understand why the banks and government can't work together on the issue. It is unwise and unethical that a gap is going to be left before a solution is put in place." Somalia, which is struggling to get back on its feet after decades of war, stands to be the country most affected by Barclays's decision. Annual remittances from the UK amount to more than £15bn worldwide, with up to 65% flowing to developing countries. The UK has one of the largest money-transfer markets in Europe as well as the largest number of money-transfer operators. After a meeting last month, chaired by senior officials from the Treasury and the Department for International Development (DfID), the government announced several steps to deal with the fallout from Barclays's move. The measures included a planned "safe corridor" for transferring money between the UK and Somalia. The pilot scheme will be developed to establish and test audit mechanisms to track payments at the sending, clearing and receiving stages of the remittance process. DfID will work with the World Bank to support the development of an audit mechanism and train money-transfer operators in Somalia over the next 12 months. The government will also form an action group to draft guidance on anti-money laundering, while the National Crime Agency will provide more detailed and specific risk assessments and alerts about the sector to banks and money-transfer companies, to help differentiate the risks involved in dealing with different money transmitters. Development experts welcomed the government action, but expressed concern about what would happen in the short term. "The Treasury plans are interesting," said Laura Hammond, head of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, "but it will take months for them to be put in place and there is no plan for what to do to safeguard the corridor in the short run, until the proposed steps are put in place and banks agree to work with the money-service businesses." Remittances Somalia Africa Barclays Banking Mark Tran theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Is the hub of corporate sustainability moving towards Asia? Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:32 AM PDT A new sustainability report shows Chinese and South Korean companies outperforming some traditional sustainability leaders The pace of life is fast in China. Along with strong growth in the economy have come allegations of poor labour standards, un-checked pollution of the environment, human rights violations, and aggressive breaches of copyright. Yet according to the results of the Tomorrow's Value Rating 2013 report there's reason to be positive, with signs the world's most common "country-of-origin" is adopting sustainability. The TVR, published today, is Two Tomorrow's annual assessment of sustainability practices worldwide. It assessed the sustainability programmes of 50 companies all on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, 10 from each of the ICT, oil and gas, energy utilities, food and beverage, and automotive sectors. The report asked: are the companies considered by the DJSI to be sustainability leaders likely to drive sustainable value in the future? To answer this tricky question an assessment was made, using publicly available information, as to how well companies have embedded sustainability in their core business model and strategy, how they involve and manage stakeholder expectations and how they use sustainability risks as a lever to drive innovation across the value chain. The TVR is still dominated by European companies, but companies from the east Asia are quickly catching up with their western neighbours. China is often associated with fast economic growth, at the expense of ethical considerations. But state-owned telecommunications company China Mobile topped the scoreboard for governance thanks to its process of elevating stakeholder concerns to its highest governance body. Executives monitor and respond to stakeholders who email the CEO mailbox and concerns are incorporated into executive level decision-making. Another Chinese company, Sinopec, an oil and gas major, has established a social responsibility management committee directly under its board of directors to integrate social responsibility into its business strategy and key decision making. The committee is responsible for developing the company's social responsibility policy, governance, strategy, and planning and overseeing the implementation of its social responsibility plan. While South Korea has already emerged as a leading global economic centre, firms in the country have seldom stood out as sustainability leaders. This year, South-Korea headquartered telecommunications company KT Corp came out as the second highest scoring firm worldwide. It was the highest scoring Asian company in the ten year history of the study, topping the traditional sustainability leaders such as Nestlé, Vodafone, E.ON and BMW. Its strong performance can be attributed to a "beyond compliance" approach to engaging top suppliers on sustainability including technology transfer, financial support, and training, and strengthened management systems on sticky issues such as protection of customer data. As an example, KT supports suppliers in driving innovation by transferring technology, patents, and giving them the right to use them for free or under preferential terms. This has helped suppliers develop and supply £8m worth of new technologies. The rise of Asian companies up the sustainability agenda is also supported by the study Business Assurance on Sustainable Products - what is your approach? More than 1,400 companies were asked about the demand to deliver sustainable products or services and their capability to do so. The survey found that 95% of respondents from Asia believed the delivery of sustainable products is a key factor for the successful performance of their business, 10% more than their European counterparts. 70% of Chinese respondents said they felt pressure from investors to deliver sustainable products, against only 39% of the Europeans. The reason for this gap is obvious, but also a concern. The financial turmoil in North-American and European markets in the last five years has led to a diminished focus on sustainability in mature markets. But we live in a global marketplace where a growing number of consumers demand sustainable products. If sustainability is not in focus for the long run, European companies risk being outperformed by competitors. In addition, nearly 50% of Chinese respondents said they were planning to invest more in sustainability programmes going forward. The results of this survey suggest a potential shift in sustainability leadership from west to east, however, it will be interesting to see if future product design reflects these results in reality. The signs are there that companies from east Asia, and in particular China and South Korea, are moving ahead. They have flagged their intention. Though they are still far from dominating the TVR, we expect to see far-reaching change over the next few years with a two-way flow of best practice between east and west. Jon Woodhead is divisional sustainability manager and Samantha Parsons is a consultant at Two Tomorrows This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox Sustainability China South Korea Strategy theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

DIY illegal oil refinery in the Niger delta - video Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:30 AM PDT Rare footage showing some of the devastation and danger caused by illegal refineries in the Niger Delta John Vidal Noah Payne-Frank Mustafa Khalili

You can trust Gallup's numbers ... for now | Harry J Enten Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:30 AM PDT Method changes last year have substantially improved Gallup's polling accuracy. That's good news for early trend spotting Gallup screwed up in 2010 and 2012. They called for a much wider Republican House victory in the former than what actually occurred, and they polled a Mitt Romney victory in the latter. That put them on a blacklist of sorts with some polling analysts. And while I am just one person, I want to say that I trust Gallup's presidential approval numbers as much as any mainstream pollster at this point. Why? The main question when looking at a poll is whether or not the numbers accurately reflect the current state of the country. Methodology is important, but without accuracy, methodology is rather useless. In Gallup's case, solid technique has led to Gallup's approval track being reliable since last October. While Gallup was losing a lot of creditability in the presidential horse race, they were making adjustments to their presidential approval methodology. They added a higher percentage of cell phones, changed weights for the geographic distribution of Americans, and many other minor changes starting on 1 October 2012. These alterations made all the difference in the world (or, at least, the country). From the beginning of August through the end of September 2012, Gallup pegged President Obama's approval at only 47.1%. All other pollsters who also used live interviews and called all adults found an average presidential approval of 49.7%. Given undecideds, the difference between the two percentages is that of a president who is in major re-election trouble and one who is probably going to win a tight race. From 1 October 2012 through the election in early November, Gallup all of a sudden was projecting Obama's approval at 50.8%. We're talking over 17,000 interviews in October and nearly 30,000 in the eight weeks prior, so that movement in Gallup's Obama's approval rating was outside any margin of error. The change was not seen by other polling outfits. Although most pollsters switched to a "likely voter electorate", the ones that continued to poll all adults discovered an average Obama approval of 49.7% – exactly the same as they had produced in the two months prior. Thus, the movement seen in Gallup's weekly numbers can only be ascribed to its change in methodology. A change that produced an approval rating indicating President Obama's re-relection, unlike horserace numbers. The anti-Obama house effect in approval rating essentially disappeared overnight. Since the election, Gallup has continued to keep the reliable work up. HuffPollster aggregates approval ratings from all pollsters and allows the ability to sort by population (adults, registered, and likely voters) and mode (live telephone, automated telephone, and internet). I have selected adults and live telephone, like Gallup, from all non-Gallup pollsters and compared this plot of local regression to Gallup's trend* since October 2012. What we see is what we'd want to see from a trusted pollster. Gallup's numbers have tracked very well with the aggregate of the other pollsters. Both groups gave Obama post-re-election boosts. Both have shown Obama's approval rating dropping since January. Both have Obama's approval fall accelerating since the NSA story broke in early June. The only difference you'll notice is that Obama's approval and disapproval ratings are slightly higher in the overall group. The disparity is only about a point for both. All it means is that other pollsters have designed questionnaires that end up pushing undecideds a little harder. The net approval of both pollster groups is the same. So what's this all mean? It means we have the ability to catch trends more quickly thanks to Gallup's daily and weekly tracking data. Gallup also has very good crosstabs, which thanks to high sample sizes, have relatively small margins of error. Of course, the major question going forward is whether or not Gallup can translate this success with all adults to registered and likely voters for elections. If they can't, Gallup will continue to earn a bad rap. If they can, then Gallup's reputation may be restored. *Note: An average may produce slightly different results from the averaging technique spoken about earlier. US politics United States Barack Obama Mitt Romney US Congress Harry J Enten theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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