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Bin Laden reportedly lived undetected in the Abbottabad compound for years
President Barack Obama insisted that the team to hunt down Osama Bin Laden be large enough to fight its way out in case it met resistance from Pakistani forces, the New York Times reports.
The size of the assault team was expanded days before the operation, unnamed military and administration officials quoted by the paper say.
Pakistan has begun an investigation into how Bin Laden lived undetected.
But relations with the US have been severely strained by the raid.
US President Barack Obama had previously urged Pakistan to investigate how the al-Qaeda leader could live in the garrison city of Abbottabad undetected and to find out if any officials knew of his whereabouts.
But in a statement to parliament on Monday announcing the inquiry, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted that allegations of Pakistani complicity and incompetence were “absurd”.
He said that Pakistan was “determined” to examine the failures to detect Bin Laden and he mounted a robust defence of Pakistan’s record in fighting terrorism.
He also added that the US raid was “a violation of sovereignty”.
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that although there have always been questions over the level of Pakistan’s commitment to demobilise the Taliban and certain elements of al-Qaeda, the raid on 2 May is the first clear proof of the Americans giving up hope that the Pakistanis would really ever deliver.
But the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that a deal struck between former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and former US President George W Bush in 2001, paved the way for the US to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan if they knew of Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
The paper quotes serving and retired Pakistani and US officials as saying that under the terms of the arrangement Pakistan would “vociferously protest the incursion” after it took place.
But the latest details of the operation reveal the extent to which the US was prepared to go in order to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leader.
Bin Laden’s Abbottabad house
Built in 2005No telephone or internet connectionsThree-storey house surrounded by outbuildings and walls up to 5.5m (18 feet) highBin Laden’s bedroom on top floorKnown locally as “Waziristan Haveli” or “mansion”Plans of Bin Laden’s house
“Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorised to do it,” one senior Obama administration official is quoted by the New York Times as saying.
In the original plan, two helicopters were going to stay on the Afghan side of the border to be called upon for assistance should the need arise. They would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.
But, the paper reports, just 10 days before the raid President Obama reviewed the operational plans and the decision was taken to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops, which followed the aircraft carrying the assault team.
“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” the New York Times quoted one unnamed senior administration official as saying.
“He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”
US forces had been instructed to avoid engaging with Pakistani forces and if a confrontation appeared imminent, there were plans for senior US officials to call Pakistani counterparts to avert a clash, senior administration officials are quoted as saying
But the size of the US force was increased when the president expressed his concern that this was not enough to protect those on the ground, the paper reports.
Other details that emerged about the operation include:
Two specialist teams were on standby, probably on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea: one to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second team of lawyers, interrogators and translators if he was taken aliveOne of the back-up helicopter teams was actually used when one of the first team’s helicopters was damagedUS surveillance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan’s security forces responded to the raid to determine how long the team could safely remain on the ground
Correspondents say that Pakistan plays a crucial role in America’s war efforts in Afghanistan, and too much public pressure on Pakistan could jeopardise the relationship.
And despite strained relations, Pakistan’s prime minister also reiterated that Washington remained a key ally of Islamabad, in Monday’s speech to parliament.
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Former captain Michael Owen says the inclusion of Gavin Henson in the Wales squad is “slightly embarrassing”.
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The Centre for Social Justice said more needed to be done to tackle relationship breakdown
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The government’s record on supporting marriage and preventing family breakdown have been dubbed a failure.
A think-tank set up by Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, gave the coalition just two out of 10 for its efforts in this area.
The Centre for Social Justice said pre-election pledges for tax breaks for married couples had “moved off radar”.
However, it gives the coalition eight out of 10 for its efforts after a year in power to end welfare dependency.
The critical assessment of the coalition’s first year in power by the CSJ scored the government on the five key areas it believes are pathways to poverty: family breakdown, economic dependency, serious personal debt, drug and alcohol addiction and educational failure.
Family breakdown was given the lowest mark by the think-tank, which was set up in 2004 when the Conservatives were in opposition.
The report said promises by Prime Minister David Cameron to reinstate a tax break for married couples had slipped away as a result of the deals done with the Liberal Democrats.
CSJ MARKS OUT OF TENFamily breakdown 2/10Educational failure 6/10Economic dependency 8/10Addiction 7/10Serious personal debt 6/10
“Some of the vital measures committed to by the Conservative Party in opposition appear to have been watered down during Coalition negotiations,” the report said.
The report criticised the government’s “lack of ambition” on relationships, saying much of its work centred on picking up the pieces of breakdown, rather than preventing it.
The CSJ also noted the “unfortunate and unfair anomaly” in the plan to scrap child benefit for couples where one parent earns more than £42,475 a year, while households where both parent earn just under this amount continue to receive the benefit.
The CSJ gave ministers six out of 10 for their efforts in tackling educational failure.
It welcomed plans to reduce red tape and bureaucracy in order to equip heads and teachers to improve discipline in their schools.
But it said it was disappointed with the implementation of the free schools programme and said their organisers should be allowed to make a profit.
“The restriction on the formation of for-profit free schools is holding back the programme’s drive to improve educational standards.”
The CSJ report said the plans to “incentivise work” by introducing universal credit and to involve charities and private firms in retraining the unemployed was laudable.
But it warned that plans to cap benefit payments at an average annual household income of £26,000 will bring hardship to some 50,000 large families.
The report also said that the government was not taking prevention seriously enough in the fight against drug and alcohol misuse.
And it said ministers had not set out a new vision for helping those in serious debt.
CSJ executive director Gavin Poole said the government’s first year of action had been mixed.
“Pioneering progress in pursuing welfare reform and an encouraging new direction for drug and alcohol policy has been undermined by poor implementation of bold education plans, and compromise-driven inaction in tackling our devastating culture of family breakdown.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Easyjet says it expects fuel prices to remain high
Low-cost airline Easyjet has said its half-year losses have almost doubled because of higher fuel costs and the tough economic environment.
The carrier reported pre-tax losses for the six months to the end of March of £153m ($250m), up from a loss of £79m on a year ago.
Higher fuel costs accounted for £43m of the increase in losses from last year.
Passenger numbers grew 12% to just under 24 million, nearly two-thirds of whom now come from outside the UK.
The six-month period is historically a quieter trading period for airlines.
“The past six months has been tough, with sharply rising fuel costs combined with cautious behaviour by consumers and an adverse impact from taxes on passengers,” said Carolyn McCall, Easyjet’s chief executive.
“Despite this difficult environment, we have made strong progress over the past six months.”
The company said the price of jet fuel had increased by more than 40% during the period, because of the political unrest in North Africa and the Middle East.
It also said it expected high fuel prices to “persist” during the second half of the year.
“Easyjet already operates the most fuel-efficient aircraft, so there’s not much more they can do to improve costs here,” said Paul Sherridan, head of risk advisory at Ascend Worldwide.
However, he suspects Easyjet will continue to use larger aircraft, like the A320, to fly more people and drive down its “cost per seat”.
“It’s a trend we’ve seen among airlines over recent years, in order to make themselves more efficient,” he added.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Apprentice is returning to British screens, bringing with it a slew of business buzz-phrase nonsense and baffling bravado from the candidates.
No one likes a show-off, least of all the British, which is why watching the overblown confidence of each new crop of Apprentice contestants is such a guilty pleasure.
Each year they take the bravado, swagger and self-aggrandisement to stratospheric new levels. They mix it with the usual business jargon that drives people mad. Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway has often written about the subject, calling for an end to all the “blue sky thinking”, “going forwards” and “pushing the envelope”.
We’ve been thoroughly spoilt in previous series. Who can forget Stuart “The Brand” Baggs last year uttering the now infamous line: “I’m not a one-trick pony, I’m not a 10-trick pony – I’ve got a field of ponies waiting to literally run towards this job.” What?
Stuart Baggs had several good lines
Michelle Dewberry won the second series of the show. She beat Ruth “l’m the Apprentice – end of” Badger in the final. Dewberry says bragging is used more and more by candidates to try and stand out.
“I don’t think I came out with the corkers they do. People are more media savvy now and it’s becoming harder and harder for them to be remembered.”
As a result, it has reached ridiculous levels, she says.
Here are some of the more eyebrow-fluttering lines from previous series.
Self belief (delusion)
“I was born to do great things,” said Majid Nagra. No you weren’t. You were born to be the third person kicked off series five of the show. Although, he may yet prove his bold claim to be true in some other field.
Not quite the Elvis of business then Philip
“When you can break bricks with your hands you believe in your head you can do anything, and in business I take on the same ethic,” said Ifti Chaudhri in series four. Andrew Billen, TV critic at the Times, says such horrible jargon is right out of Ricky Gervais’s The Office, although done without any sense of irony. “They are Ricky’s phrases in the making, but there’s no self knowledge in any of it.”
As it turns out Chaudhri left the show in the second week after telling Lord Sugar he was missing his family.
“Business is the new rock ‘n’ roll and I’m Elvis Presley,” said Philip Taylor in series five. He turned out to be more like the business world’s Chesney Hawkes, around very briefly and then unheard of.
Skills
“The spoken word is my tool,” said silky-tongued Raef Bjayon in series four. That tool ceased to be needed in week nine of the series.
Was Maguire the best salesperson in Europe?
“Everything I touch turns to sold.” Really Stuart Baggs? Everything except all those sausages you failed to sell in the very first task in series six, resulting in you almost being fired by Lord Sugar in week one. “I don’t know why they say these things, because Sugar is quite plain speaking,” says Billen.
“I rate myself as the best salesperson in Europe,” said Jenny Maguire in series four. It’s best to avoid such specific bragging, says Dewberry. “When you see people saying that they’re the best sales person you just think ‘no’. They may go on and sell nothing in tasks.”
Ambition
“My first word wasn’t mummy, it was money,” said surgeon Shibby Robati in series six. It’s a line Times columnist Caitlin Moran will never forget, obviously for all the wrong reasons. “It’s the start of a breakdown, not the start of a glittering career,” she says. “That’s therapy – not a CV.”
Ledgerwood thought she’d win – naturally
“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there’s footsteps on the moon.” Yes, we’ve sneaked in a line from one of this year’s candidates. Melody Hossani, we look forward to hearing a lot more from you.
“I always win, so it’s a natural conclusion I will win,” said Lucinda Ledgerwood in Series Four. Funnily enough, all the candidates seem to think it’s a natural conclusion that they will win.
Fighting talk
“There are two types of people in the world: Winners and… I don’t know how to say the word, I can’t say it,” said Ian Stringer in series four. He soon learned to say the word “loser” when he was fired in week three.
Clarke likes business more than sex
“For me it is going to be the equivalent of a gladiatorial match and I will come out on top,” said Bjayon in series four. The most hideous buzzwords and phrase are a mix of military metaphors, machismo and ruthlessness, says Billen. “The cleverness of the programme is that you have to be a team player but you’re completely out for yourself. In the end you knife them in the boardroom, which is what it’s really about.”
“To me making money is better than sex,” said Ben Clarke in Series Five. Too much information, thank you, Ben. Please, no references to sex. It doesn’t work for anyone.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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Websites are being asked to review how they track users ahead of imminent changes to privacy laws.
On 26 May European privacy laws come in to force in the UK which give people more control over what data websites gather about them.
This means changes to what websites can do with cookies – small text files used to log data about repeat visitors.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said sites need to be sure their cookies comply with the law.
The ICO issued guidance to firms ahead of the 26 May deadline but said that the document was a “work in progress”.
“It is not offering all the answers,” said an ICO spokesperson.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is drawing up the exact guidelines firms must take to comply with the law but that information is not yet ready. It will not be ready until after the 26 May deadline.
In the absence of those guidelines, firms should prepare themselves by examining their cookies to see what purpose they fulfil and reach a decision about whether they require “informed consent” from visitors to keep using them.
This review process was important to undertake, said the spokesperson, because from 26 May the ICO is obliged to investigate any complaints it gets about the use of non-compliant cookies.
“We will look into those complaints and see what that company is doing to work towards compliance,” said the ICO. Only by showing the results of this work will web firms be able to convince the ICO they are intent on complying.
The DCMS said while complaints may be investigated, enforcement action will not be taken until its guidelines have been drawn up.
Websites are being asked to review cookie policies because one technical solution involving users tweaking settings on browsing software is not going to be available by 26 May.
As a result, web firms will have to decide for themselves if consent can be obtained
when people sign up to use a sitecan be put in the terms and conditionsor should be gained via a pop-up window
Third-party cookies, used by advertisers to track users across sites, are likely to be particularly problematic to review and police.
One solution, brokered by the Internet Advertising Bureau, might be the use of an icon on adverts that, when clicked, reveals information about data being gathered.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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Proposals have been made for three ChildLine bases to close across the UK, the BBC has learned.
ChildLine, which is part of the NSPCC, provides a confidential telephone and online counselling service to children and young people.
The NSPCC said it had proposed closing the Edinburgh, Exeter and Leeds bases, with the Leeds office set to move to the NSPCC base in the city.
The NSPCC said “no final decisions have been taken”.
The relocated Leeds outfit would only provide an online service, it said.
It said the proposals had come about following a review into how ChildLine operates across its 14 bases in the UK.
Staff at the three bases have been briefed.
The NSPCC said: “ChildLine is transforming its counselling services to meet a growing demand for help from children, particularly those making contact online.
“Following this review, we are proposing to close our centres in Edinburgh and Exeter.
“We are also proposing to increase the number of ChildLine volunteers in the remaining centres over the next five years.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Tupperware is planning on relaunching in the UK five decades after its first British sales party. But did the brand propel suburban women into the world of entrepreneurship or reinforce stereotypes?
It conjures up an era when throwing a party to sell airtight storage containers was the pinnacle of a lady’s social calendar.
Think Tupperware, and the associations are of a retro, pre-feminist world in which housewives briefly put aside their aprons to discuss the best way to store their husband’s dinner ingredients.
To its critics, the brand symbolises an era in which female lives revolved around domestic drudgery.
But to its latter-day enthusiasts, it represents a breakthrough by millions of ordinary women into the world of business which left a small but highly significant dent in the glass ceiling.
It was an effort that laid the foundations of a global empire. Today, Tupperware Brands Corporation boasts worldwide sales revenues of $2.1bn (£1.3bn) from across almost 100 countries.
History in plastic
Launched in 1946First parties took place in 1948 – proved so successful that the product was sold exclusively this way from 19511960 saw the first British party in Weybridge, SurreyParty Bowl, Pie Taker and Dip ‘N Serve Serving Tray all proved early successesBox Lunch and the Lunch ‘N Bag launched in the 1980sBy 1992, nearly half of all Tupperware’s “consultants” held full-time jobs as well as selling Tupperware products
Now the company is preparing for a marketing push in the the UK market after an eight-year absence. And what experts agree was crucial to achieving worldwide ubiquity for this practical product was the hitherto commercially untapped power of female friendship.
The famous Tupperware parties, at which the containers were sold, were prototype girls’ nights in, as much about getting to know one’s neighbours as they were about commerce.
Briefly liberated from their domestic routine, guests would play games such as “Waist Measurement” or “Write An Honest Advert To Sell Your Husband” before being sold Wonder Bowls and Ketchup Funnels.
From a 21st Century perspective, it may sound demeaning.
But according to Alison Clarke, professor of design history and theory at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and author of Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America, the parties were revolutionary in that they offered an alternative model for commercial success based around female co-operation rather than aggressive competition.
“The actual networks of Tupperware parties were about women helping other women and enabling them,” Prof Clarke says. “It wasn’t discussed as work – it was an extension of socialising.
“It was the opposite of Mad Men”
Prof Alison Clarke University of Applied Arts, Vienna
“It was the antithesis of male corporate culture. It was the opposite of Mad Men.”
Indeed, Tupperware – launched onto the market by inventor Earl Tupper in 1946 – had languished in the market until the intervention of the extraordinary proto-businesswoman who pioneered the company’s “party plan”.
Brownie Wise, abandoned by her husband, struggling to meet her sick son’s medical bills, had begun selling the containers to make ends meet. By 1948 she was selling $1,500 (£915) of products every week and Tupper appointed her as his head of home sales.
The model quickly grew into a world-wide, multimillion-dollar success. Just as Tupperware was marketed as a space-age labour-saving component of the new consumer era, so too was Wise herself an early embodiment of post-war feminist demands that women should be given the opportunity to succeed in business.
In 1954 she was the first woman to appear on the front cover of Business Week magazine, pictured sitting in a peacock chair surrounded by young male executives. With her pink Cadillac and a canary died to match, her lace dresses and pet palomino pony, her public image married aspirational ambition with femininity.
Indeed, Prof Clarke argues that Wise symbolised the real beneficiaries of Tupperware, women who would not have found it easy to enter the world of business – very often those from ethnic minorities or divorcees, like Wise herself, who needed the work.
Tupperware is preparing to re-enter the UK market
And it was a business model that proved successful around the world, the first British Tupperware party in Weybridge, Surrey in 1960 introducing UK suburbia to the Square Seal Freezer Box, the TV Tumbler and the Spindly-Legged Salt and Pepper Set.
But Wise also personified the precarious position of female executives in the era. In 1958 she was dismissed from her post, despite being the single biggest driving force in the company’s success, apparently because the puritanical Tupper disapproved of her flamboyant lifestyle.
Indeed, critics of the Tupperware sales format argue that this brutal ejection reflects the way in which the business model ultimately exploited women.
Susan Vincent, professor of anthropology at Canada’s St Francis Xavier University, says that rather than breaking down barriers, Tupperware perpetuated gender stereotypes.
“It always assumed a close association between women and the domestic sphere,” she says.
“It relies on family and friends – not for social support, but it commercialises them”
Prof Susan Vincent St Francis Xavier University
“Plus, the exploitation of social networks is ultimately quite destructive. It relies on family and friends – not for social support, but it commercialises them.”
It was, however, a formula that proved commercially successful. By the 1990s, 90% of US homes owned at least one item of Tupperware.
Yet in the UK, as the notion of women earning their own money became more familiar, sales began to drop off.
Other companies which adopted the party format, such as Ann Summers and the Body Shop, were able to entice guests with a focus on indulgence rather than housewifely duty.
In 2003, Tupperware parties were axed in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.
Now, however, the company is preparing to re-enter the UK market. Richard Brett of London public relations agency Shine, which has been hired by Tupperware to spearhead its re-launch, believes a crucial component of the Tupperware brand is the role it played in bringing about social change.
“Part of Tupperware’s whole story is the way they have empowered women historically, and still do so today all over the world,” he says.
Not everyone would agree that its legacy was so positive. For others, however, Tupperware will always come with a seal of approval.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
