Category: news

Jon Cruddas ran for the deputy leadership in 2007

David Miliband has won the backing of influential centre-left MP Jon Cruddas in the Labour leadership contest.

Mr Cruddas told New Statesman magazine he disagreed with the shadow foreign secretary on many policies, but said he was asking “profound questions”.

He echoed Mr Miliband’s argument that attacking the coalition was not enough, adding that Labour must “regroup”.

There are five candidates for the leadership, with the winner to be announced on 25 September.

Mr Miliband’s rivals are his brother Ed, the shadow energy secretary, backbench MP Diane Abbott, shadow education secretary Ed Balls and shadow health secretary Andy Burnham.

David Miliband, a former policy adviser to Tony Blair, is seen by many as the most Blairite candidate in the race. In the past, Mr Cruddas has been highly critical of the former prime minister.

But the Dagenham MP, who ran for the party’s deputy leadership in 2007, told New Statesman: “David is not just going down a checklist of policies; he seems to me to be echoing a more fundamental sentiment, in terms of what Labour needs to do.

“I disagree with him on a lot of policy but I think, in terms of the nature of the leadership that’s needed, he’s beginning to touch on some of those more profound questions that need to be addressed head-on.”

He echoed Mr Miliband’s view that it was a “mistake” to concentrate on attacking the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Cruddas said: “There’s a danger of us spraying too much lead across the forecourt and not really thinking about how we need to regroup.

“We need to have respect for, and show courtesy towards, different traditions as part of an overall, plural realignment across the centre and the left.”

On Wednesday, the Miliband brothers were forced to deny they were at war as the campaign entered its final stages.

David said it was “nonsense” he was personally criticising Ed by warning against Labour retreating into a left-wing “comfort zone”.

Ed responded by warning about the party entering a “New Labour comfort zone” and ignoring its working-class support.

Ballot papers go out to Labour members, trade unionists and members of socialist societies next week, with the result being announced on the first day of Labour’s annual conference in Manchester.

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Retail is just one part of the Co-operative Group’s businesses

The Co-operative Group has said sales and profits have continued to grow despite a “challenging” year so far.

All divisions had seen “tough economic conditions”, it added, saying it did not expect the situation to improve until next year at the earliest.

In the six months to July, profits rose 17% to £260m on sales of £6.9bn.

The integration of Britannia building society into its financial services arm and of Somerfield into its retail division was going well, it said.

In its food division, overall sales rose 11.5% though the “disruption” of converting Somerfield stores to the Co-op brand meant like-for-like sales slipped by 1%.

Chief executive Peter Marks told the BBC that despite tough economic conditions, the firm was not seeing significant changes in the way customers were shopping, with demand still strong for its top-of-the range lines.

He added that the UK’s competitive supermarket industry meant customers would be largely shielded from the impact of higher wheat prices.

Co-op’s financial services arm, which includes brands such as Smile bank, reported a 41% fall in bad debts. It said profits rose by 34%.

The Co-op runs a range of businesses, from financial and funeral services to travel agents and pharmacies.

It has more than five million members and employs more than 120,000 people.

The organisation can trace its roots back to the founding of the co-operative movement in Rochdale, north-west England, in 1844.

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Mother Teresa was known as the 'Saint of the Gutters' for her work among the poor of Calcutta

Hundreds of Catholic nuns and slum dwellers in the Indian city of Calcutta have marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa.

A special Mass was held at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity – the order of nuns which Mother Teresa founded 60 years ago.

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje, now part of Macedonia, on 26 August 1910.

Her work in the Calcutta slums earned her a Nobel peace prize in 1979.

'An inspiration'

The doors of Mother House in Calcutta were opened at dawn and hundreds of slum dwellers from the city walked in to light candles and pray at her tomb.

A message from Pope Benedict XVI was read out at the Mass.

"I am confident that this year will be for the Church and the world an occasion of joyful gratitude to God for the inestimable gift that Mother Teresa was in her lifetime and continues to be through the affectionate and tireless work of you, her spiritual children," the message said.

"Her life and work continue to be an inspiration for young and old, rich and poor from all walks of life, religions and nations," the current head of Missionaries of Charity, Sister Prema, said.

As Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, she arrived in India as a novice in 1929 and dedicated herself to working among the sick, dying and destitute.

She took the name of Teresa on taking her vows as a nun in 1931 and in 1950 established the order which runs homes for abandoned children, the elderly and those suffering from leprosy and Aids.

She was known as the "Saint of the Gutters" for her work among the poor of Calcutta.

After her death in September 1997, she was buried at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, which is now a pilgrimage site.

She was beatified – the first stage in becoming a saint – in 2003 by Pope John Paul II. It was done in record time in the modern era.

Mother Teresa's beatification has now paved the way for her canonisation, which many expect will happen soon.

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Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Rangers will find out their Champions League group stage opponents when the draw is made at about 1700 BST on Thursday.

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Former PM Hatoyama (left) is backing party insider Ichiro Ozawa’s bid for power

One of the grandees of the governing Democratic Party of Japan, Ichiro Ozawa, has announced he will stand again for the party leadership.

He lost the party post last year amid a party funding scandal.

Mr Ozawa will face the Prime Minister Naoto Kan in the election for party president next month, and will replace him as prime minister if he wins.

Mr Ozawa blames the party’s recent defeat in elections to the upper house on Mr Kan’s plan to raise sales tax.

It was only in June that parliament elected Mr Kan prime minister after the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama.

“I have decided to run in the leadership election of the Democratic Party of Japan,” Mr Ozawa said after a meeting with Mr Hatoyama.

The two men are allies; Mr Ozawa helped Mr Hatoyama to the premiership last year, and said Mr Hatoyama now supports his bid.

Mr Ozawa, 68, is sometimes called the “Shadow Shogun” or “godfather”, and has a string of money scandals behind him.

His bid for power is likely to destabilise the government, analysts said.

Once a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, he moved to the then opposition where he served as party leader from 2006 to 2009.

Mr Ozawa’s announcement came a day after he made news by calling Americans “simple-minded”.

“I like Americans, but they are somewhat monocellular,” he said. “When I talk with Americans, I often wonder why they are so simple-minded.”

It was unclear what had prompted the remarks.

“I don’t think Americans are very smart, but I give extremely high credit for democracy and choices by its people,” he added.

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Liverpool will be without captain Steven Gerrard and striker Fernando Torres for their Europa League second leg tie with Trabzonspor on Thursday.

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Taliban militants have killed eight Afghan police officers in the northern province of Kunduz, police have said.

More than 10 insurgents raided a checkpoint outside Kunduz city just before dawn, a police officer said.

The militants wanted to steal the officer’s weapons but were beaten back before they could do so, he said. One policeman was wounded and one escaped.

Kunduz is a stronghold for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants where the central government has little control.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups began systematically taking over Kunduz in early 2009.

They are now increasingly using it as a base to launch attacks elsewhere in the region.

Earlier this month, a Taliban suicide bomber killed six policemen in Kunduz.

The Taliban also publicly stoned to death a couple accused of an illicit affair.

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The 33 Chilean miners trapped deep underground have been told they may not be rescued for several months, and authorities are concerned for their mental well-being.

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Salisbury Civic Society chairman Alastair Clark on the problems with his town’s signs

The government is urging councils in England to cut unnecessary road signs, railings and advertising hoardings in a bid to make streets tidier and safer.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said the number of signs was damaging the character of towns and villages.

Campaigners have said lots of signs are unsightly, unnecessary and can leave motorists confused.

The Local Government Association said many signs were needed or required by law but some had already been removed.

Mr Pickles has accused what he calls over-zealous councils of wasting taxpayers’ money on signs that blight the local environment.

He and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond have written to council leaders calling on them to remove the clutter.

The government is urging the public to get involved by carrying out street audits and lobbying their councils.

The Department for Transport is reviewing the policy on traffic signs and will issue new advice on how to cut down on the clutter later this year.

In one example of the issue, the department said there were 63 bollards in a car park for 53 cars in Salisbury.

On the other hand, it said that changes that had been made in Kensington High Street in west London had reduced accidents by up to 47%.

Mr Pickles said: “Our streets are losing their English character. We are being overrun by scruffy signs, bossy bollards, patchwork paving and railed off roads, wasting taxpayers’ money that could be better spent on fixing potholes or keeping council tax down. We need to ‘cut the clutter’.

“Too many overly-cautious town hall officials are citing safety regulations as the reason for cluttering up our streets with an obstacle course when the truth is very little is dictated by law.

“Common sense tells us uncluttered streets have a fresher, freer authentic feel, which are safer and easier to maintain.”

Mr Hammond said unnecessary street furniture left areas “looking more like scrap yards than public spaces”.

The ministers’ remarks were welcomed by Ralph Smyth, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

“Clutter needs to be tackled in both rural and urban areas,” he said. “With every local council in England drawing up new local transport plans, this welcome move could not be better timed.

“Clutter is not just ugly – it’s expensive and distracts drivers.”

But Richard Kemp, vice-chairman of the Local Government Association, told the BBC that decisions about street furniture were for councils, not ministers, to make.

“One man’s clutter is very much another man’s simple signing,” he said.

“In our shopping streets in particular, we have to get a balance between pedestrians, residents, business needs and motorists, and that’s a local decision, not something that a secretary of state should be involving himself in.”

Do you know of any examples of street sign or roadside furniture clutter?

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At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

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Technology reporter, BBC News

The study analysed 163 clips from video-sharing site YouTube

The tobacco industry may be using websites such as YouTube to get around a ban on advertising cigarettes, a study says.

Researchers in New Zealand studied the video-sharing site and found a number of pro-tobacco videos “consistent with indirect marketing activity by tobacco companies or their proxies”.

They say governments should consider regulating such content on the net.

Tobacco companies have always denied using the net to promote cigarettes.

“Tobacco companies stand to benefit greatly from the marketing potential of Web 2.0, without themselves being at significant risk of being implicated in violating any laws or advertising codes,” the researchers wrote.

Amanda Sandford, research manager at anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said the study’s findings were “disturbing but fairly typical of tobacco industry activity”.

“As soon as one avenue of promotion is closed, companies will seek out alternative means of promoting their product and will do anything to get round advertising restrictions,” she told BBC News.

“It indicates that their key audience is young people. There is a need for much stronger control over what appears on the internet.”

ButCatherine Armstrong, a spokesperson for British American Tobacco, one of the firms studied in the report, said it was “not our policy to use social networking sites such as Facebook or YouTube to promote our tobacco product brands”.

“Not even the authors of this report claim we have done so,” she said. “Using social media could breach local advertising laws and our own International Marketing Standards, which apply to our companies worldwide.

“Our employees, agencies and service providers should never use social media to promote our tobacco brands.”

Several tobacco firms signed up to a voluntary agreement to restrict direct advertising on websites in 2002.

YouTube said that it does not “accept any paid-for tobacco advertising anywhere in the world”.

The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, focused on YouTube, the largest video-sharing site on the web. YouTube gets more than 1bn views a day.

The researchers searched for five tobacco brands and analysed the first 20 pages of video clips containing any reference to the firms. The content studied had been uploaded by users.

The authors analysed 163 clips, of which 20 appeared to be “very professionally made,” they say.

“It is disturbing to note that some of the pro-tobacco videos appeared to be of a professional standard, many followed similar themes within a brand and large numbers contained images or music that maybe copyrighted to tobacco companies but have not been removed,” the researchers said.

Firms who own copyright material posted on YouTube can request a video to be taken down. Users can aslo flag content to Google – the owners of YouTube – that they believe is “inappropriate”.

“YouTube is a community site with clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content,” said a spokesperson for the site.

“These policies don’t allow any content that is illegal, as well as any material that depicts minors smoking. Our community understands the rules and polices the site for inappropriate material.”

Almost three-quarters of the content studied was classified as “pro-tobacco” with less than 4% classified as “anti-tobacco”.

The dominant brand on YouTube was Marlboro, they said.

“The high presence of the Marlboro brand on YouTube could be because the Marlboro brand is being marketed more effectively than other brands and is therefore more popular, and/or because there is commercially driven placement of the videos on YouTube,” the researchers wrote.

Ken Garcia, spokesman for Marlboro-makers Philip Morris USA, said the firm did not “post cigarette brand marketing on YouTube”.

“We have communicated with YouTube in the past to ask them to remove YouTube material that we believe infringes on our intellectual property rights,” he told BBC News.

Google were unable to confirm if they had been contacted by Philip Morris USA.

Most of the clips in the study contained images of people smoking branded tobacco products or images associated with the brand. Many also included the brand name in the title of the video.

The content featured a large proportion of archive material as well as videos featuring celebrities, films, sport and music.

“Videos featuring celebrities movies were mainly historic, and comprised videos from the 1950s and 1960s featuring The Flintstones, The Beverly Hillbillies or The Beatles,” the researchers wrote.

They said their findings suggest governments should extend “current tobacco advertising restrictions to include Web 2.0”.

“We can see no functional difference between exposure to tobacco in movies outside the internet, and exposure to video and film material on the internet,” Dr George Thomson, one of the authors of the study told BBC News.

“Generally, the more tobacco is normalised, the more kids will take it up.”

The study was conducted by Dr Thomson, with Lucy Elkin and Professor Nick Wilson of the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand.

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Police raid a Roma camp near the city of Lille

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will continue his controversial crackdown on Roma (gypsies).

He was speaking at his first cabinet meeting after the summer break, amid growing questions over his leadership.

Hundreds of Roma have been sent back to Romania and Bulgaria and more than 100 illegal camps dismantled.

The operation has been criticised by human rights watchdogs and Mr Sarkozy’s opponents, who accuse him of using the issue to boost his flagging support.

Mr Sarkozy is under pressure to tackle soaring public debt, but unions are threatening major strikes over plans for pension reforms.

Romania has questioned whether the repatriations comply with European law and the EU Commission has said it is concerned about them. The Commission is to report on the expulsions next week, says the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris.

France, which says it expelled 10,000 Roma last year, says it is acting in accordance with EU law by repatriating Roma who have been in France for more than three months without work. It also says most of the repatriations are voluntary.

About 635 Roma have been sent back to Romania and Bulgaria, after their camps were shut down in a crackdown announced last month, Immigration Minister Eric Besson said on Wednesday.

By the end of the month “around 950” will have been repatriated, he told Europe 1 radio.

Mr Sarkozy has said the Roma camps are sources of crime, prostitution, trafficking and child exploitation.

At the cabinet meeting, he urged his team “not to get sidetracked by useless controversies,” Immigration Minister Eric Besson said.

Former prime minister and likely presidential challenger Dominique de Villepin said the policy was “shameful”.

“It’s an electoral strategy. This will contribute nothing to the security of French people.”

Elected on a plan to fix the economy, the next two months will be the most critical point of Mr Sarkozy’s presidency, says our Paris correspondent.

Polls show Nicolas Sarkozy’s approval ratings hovering above 30%

Mr Sarkozy even asked ministers to interrupt their summer holidays for a meeting at his official retreat, Fort de Bregancon, to discuss how France is going to cut its deficit.

The president has to find 100bn euros (£82bn) of cuts by 2013.

Following that meeting with senior finance ministers, France cut its forecast for economic growth next year.

The French economy is now forecast to grow by 2% next year, down from the previous forecast of 2.5%.

Another challenge for Mr Sarkozy will be pension reform.

Moves to increase the age of retirement from 60 to 62 years old are deeply unpopular, and street protests are planned for 7 September – the day on which parliament debates the pension plans.

The unpopular proposals led some 800,000 people to take to the streets in June in protest.

A poll published in Liberation newspaper on Monday suggested that more than half of French people want to see the opposition Socialists win the 2012 presidential race.

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BBC News

Wolf Mankowitz was said to discuss Marxist theories with friends

The man who wrote the screenplay for a James Bond film was himself suspected of being a communist agent, newly released Security Service files show.

The MI5 file on Wolf Mankowitz, a “convinced Marxist,” shows he was monitored for more than a decade.

Mr Mankowitz wrote the screenplay for the unofficial Bond film Casino Royale in 1967 and was also involved in the film Dr No.

The files are available at the National Archives in Kew or online.

Mr Mankowitz, who died in 1998, introduced film producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to each other.

He was subsequently involved in writing the script for their first Bond film together, Dr No.

Born in London’s East End, Mr Mankowitz attended Cambridge University where he joined the University’s Socialist Society and met his wife Ann, a Communist Party member.

MI5 first became interested in Mr Mankowitz in 1944, when the couple were living in Newcastle.

A letter mentioning the pair from suspected communist David Holbrook was intercepted by MI5, prompting the agency to ask Newcastle police to investigate them.

Mr Holbrook wrote that the couple were “avoiding National Service and doing themselves well” earning £6 a week lecturing for the left-wing Workers’ Educational Association.

Reporting back to MI5, Newcastle police said Mr Mankowitz “is known to frequently discuss the theories of Marxism with his friends whilst in lodgings”.

Despite surveillance by the authorities, Mr Mankowitz was able to enlist with the Territorial Army.

His commanding officer described him as a “highly strung individual of nervous temperament” who was awaiting an interview with a psychiatrist.

The MI5 file contained surveillance photos of Mr Mankowitz

But he doubted he was a subversive influence.

“Even if he possesses communist views I do not think he has the personality or strength of character to pass them on to his fellow soldiers,” the officer wrote.

“There is no evidence that he has attempted to air these views whilst with this unit,” he added.

In 1948 Mr Mankowitz applied for a job with the Government Central Office of Information but was blocked from joining the organisation.

In a letter, MI5 told the COI he was “known to be the husband of a Communist Party member and himself a convinced Marxist”.

In 1951, Mr Mankowitz was commissioned by the BBC to translate the Chekhov play The Bear. MI5 warned the corporation of Mr Mankowitz’s communist past but suggested his working on the translation did not pose a threat.

Mr Mankowitz was still of interest to the security agency into the mid-1950s,particularly after he visited Moscow in 1956 as a guest of the Soviet Union.

He visited the World Youth Fair in Moscow during a 10-day visit and announced to the press on his return his ambition to set up a “British Soviet co-film production”.

But interest in Mr Mankowitz tailed off after he cancelled a follow-up visit to Moscow, choosing to go to the West Indies instead on film location.

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Health reporter, BBC News

Epidurals are the most effective way of reducing the pain of childbirth

Having an epidural during labour may protect key muscles and therefore cut the risk of incontinence in later life, a study of nearly 400 women suggests.

Research in the BJOG, the leading obstetrics journal, found more than one in ten women who had vaginal births suffered damage to the “levator” muscles which hold up internal organs.

A third of those who had a forceps delivery suffered some muscle trauma.

But overall women who had the spinal analgesia ran a lower risk of damage.

Injury to the pelvic muscles during childbirth is known to be a key risk factor for organ prolapse.

Women who have given birth once are four times more likely to require hospital attention because of prolapse than those who have no children, and those with two vaginal births eight times more likely.

Prolapse occurs when the pelvic muscles become so weak the organs they support – such as the bladder and the uterus – begin to drop down.

Symptoms vary, but can include sexual problems as well as both urinary and faecal incontinence – or conversely chronic constipation, depending on how the muscles are affected. There are a number of means to manage this, with surgery usually the most effective long-term option.

The team from the Nepean Clinical School of Medicine in Sydney followed up 367 women who gave birth between 2005 and 2008.

Over a third had undergone either a planned or emergency Caesarean section, and there were no cases of muscle damage or tearing among these women.

Of those who had delivered their baby vaginally, about 13% were found to have some damage.

The risk of muscle tearing was slightly lower among those whose birth had been assisted with a ventouse – a suction cup which fits on the baby’s head – than those who did not have an assisted delivery.

But the use of forceps did push up the risk of damage, with a third of these births resulting in muscle injury.

The length of labour was key: a long period of pushing was strongly associated with injury.

But overall, those who had opted for an epidural, the spinal analgesia which blocks out some or all of the pain of contractions, had a lower risk of damage than those who had none.

Two-thirds of the women who suffered damage had no epidural.

The researchers, led by Dr Clara Shek, speculated there may be two reasons for this. Firstly, women who have epidurals tend to be told when to push as they can no longer feel contractions This means the potential damage from premature or over-pushing is reduced.

And physical changes in the paralysed muscle may also mean it is less likely to suffer injury.

Epidurals are now used by about a third of women during childbirth in the UK and two-thirds in the US. They have had a mixed press in recent years, but studies show they are low risk and do not increase the need for a Caesarean section.

They have been associated with more intervention such as the use of a ventouse or forceps, although it has been noted that mothers experiencing longer and more difficult labours in the first place are more likely to request spinal pain relief.

The use of forceps, credited with dramatically reducing maternal and foetal mortality in centuries gone by, has seen a decline worldwide in recent years amid the introduction of the ventouse and safer Caesarean. In the UK, they are used in about 5% of births.

BJOG editor-in-chief, Professor Philip Steer said: “There will be occasions when the use of forceps to help deliver the baby is appropriate.

“This research shows the effects of forceps delivery are not without risk so it is important to ensure that all our trainees receive good training in carrying these out and existing doctors keep up-to-date with their skills so that levator trauma is minimised.

“Likewise, the finding that epidurals may provide a protective effect by reducing levator damage is reassuring.

“The short-term priority is to reduce pain during childbirth but the longer term effect of reducing muscle damage and prolapse is welcome.”

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This man will have to pay full price for his cigarettes come September

Cuba’s elderly will no longer be entitled to state-subsidised cigarettes, the government has said.

All Cubans 55 or older are allocated four packs of cigarettes a month for about 25% the normal price, but this privilege is being ended in September.

The measure is President Raul Castro’s latest attempt to cut the communist state’s spending.

The island has been hit hard by the global economic downturn and the long-term US trade embargo.

A statement in the government-run Granma newspaper said the move was “part of the steps gradually being applied to eliminate subsidies”. The health benefits were not mentioned.

Cigarettes “are not a primary necessity,” it said.

Some elderly non-smokers were taking their cut-price cigarettes and re-selling them to boost their meagre pensions, says the BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana.

“I’m insulted because it’s another thing they are taking away from us,” said Angela Jimenez, a 64-year-old who receives a monthly pension of about $10 (£6.50).

She said she will now have to quit smoking because she won’t be able to afford the normal price of about $0.33 a pack.

Cigarettes are the latest item to be removed from ration books. Subsidised peas and potatoes were eliminated in November.

Earlier in August Mr Castro said the role of the state would be reduced in some areas, to cut the “overloaded” state budget.

He said more workers would be allowed to be self-employed or to set up small businesses.

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Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Google’s Craig Walker said the product promotes “cheap easy communication”

Google is taking on internet telephone companies like Skype by allowing users to call from its free web-based email service.

The service allows users to make calls to landlines and mobiles from inside their Gmail account.

Phoning anywhere in the US and Canada will be free until the end of the year, while calls to the UK, France, China and Germany will cost 2 cents a minute.

Until now Google offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services.

“This is a real big deal because now hundreds of millions of Gmail users can make phone calls right from their Gmail page,” Craig Walker, product manager for real-time communications told BBC News.

“They don’t need to download an additional application or anything to start making really high-quality low-cost calls.For the user it means much more efficient and low-cost communications.”

The product will initially be rolled out in the US, the firm said However, for a brief time, international users were also able to use the feature becuase of an error.

“Unintentionally we briefly made the service available to non-US English users,” a spokesperson said. “We do hope to bring it to our international users soon”

When it rolls out the product link will appear on the left hand of the Gmail page within the “chat” window.A “call phone” option will pop up along with a number pad to let you dial the number of the person you want to talk to.

Google said money raised from international calls will pay for the free US and Canadian calls.

“What surprised me was that they actually said they hope to make money off the calls,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.

“Normally Google is like ‘We don’t know how we are going to make the money’ or ‘We will make money down the way, don’t worry about it’ and this stands out as a big benefit that they get actual revenue early on.”

Competition

Skype, which is the most successful internet phone offering, claims to have over 560 million registered users.The firm said 124 million used the service at least one a month while 8.1 million were paying customers.

The company is planning to offer shares to the public later this year. Observers said that it is too early to say whether companies like Skype should be worried.

Google hopes to roll the product out to users around the world soon

“Skype is a well known company in this place and they are almost like a verb in the internet calling world in the way Google is with search.You Skype someone.So I think there is some inertia there to get over and I am interested to see how Gmail users respond,” said Tom Krazit, senior writer with technology news site CNET.com.

“But you always have to worry when Google comes after what you do.They don’t do things half way and bring a lot of resources to any problem they try to tackle.It doesn’t mean you are doomed.

“Google’s product won’t work on your mobile browser so Skype has an advantage there but I don’t think it is a stretch to assume Google will come out with a mobile version pretty soon,” said Mr Krazit.

The company plans an eye catching way to get non-Gmail users to give the product a go.It is in negotiations with a number of university campuses and airports to install red telephone boxes around the country to give users the chance to dial and try.

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