The United States is concerned about searches in the homes of Russian opposition leaders on the eve of their March of Millions, due Tuesday and a new law on rallies, the U.S. State Department said.
“The United States is deeply concerned by the apparent harassment of Russian political opposition figures on the eve of the planned demonstrations on June 12th,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Monday.
“This follows searches of opposition leaders’ homes and several arrests in connection with the May 6th demonstration in Moscow, and also follows the passage of the new law in Russia that imposes disproportionate penalties for violations of rules concerning public demonstrations,” Nuland told reporters.
The homes of Russian opposition figures anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, Solidarity movement head Ilya Yashin and TV star and socialite-turned-opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak were searched by police on Monday.
Investigators said the searches were legal and took place as part of a probe into the May 6 riots. Critics accused authorities of cracking down on Russian protest movement leaders.
“Opposition leaders organizing the June 12th demonstration are being called in for police questioning, which is scheduled to begin one hour prior to the demonstration, clearly designed to take them off the streets during the demonstration,” Nuland also said.
“Taken together, these measures raise serious questions about the arbitrary use of law enforcement to stifle free speech and free assembly,” she said.
The March of Millions in downtown Moscow may bring together some 50,000 people to protest against the rule of President Vladimir Putin.
Over 400 people were arrested and scores injured as the May 6 rally against Putin’s rule turned violent when protesters briefly broke through police lines in a bid to take their protest to the Kremlin walls. Putin’s opponents accuse him of corruption and curtailing political freedoms.
Navalny, a key figure in Russia's protest movement against Putin, made his name as an anti-corruption blogger before becoming the figurehead of this winter's unprecedented mass anti-government rallies.
Putin signed off on Friday on a controversial new law that increases the maximum fines for protest-related offenses, allows judges to sentence protesters to community service and bars them from wearing masks. He said society should “protect itself from radicalism,” adding he did not think the law to be too harsh.
The law was proposed by deputies from the ruling United Russia party in the wake of clashes between police and demonstrators at the downtown Moscow rally on the eve of Putin’s May 7 inauguration as president for a third term. It was then fast-tracked through parliament ahead of another planned anti-Putin rally in Moscow, due June 12.
The Kremlin’s human rights council said earlier it would ask Putin to veto the law, which has also been criticized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the law is “in line” with European norms. The opposition said the law is repressive.
Source: www.en.rian.ru
The marriage of church and state is anything but gay - The Guardian
The relationship was never on. The two of them hated each other and bickered from the start. There have been rows, bust-ups, trial separations and expensive lawyers, but they are irreconcilable. It is time to call a halt. The marriage of England's church and state is anything but gay.
Henry VIII's leadership of the church made sense at the time. It freed England from the religious bonds of Rome. But 1535 is not 2012. This week's Home Office document on gay marriage proposes that same-sex civil partnerships be called marriages, like the others. We can ask why, at these of all times, David Cameron should want to stir this episcopal hornets' nest. He apparently has debts to pay the gay community. But he is adamant for change, insisting at the same time that "no religious organisation will be forced to conduct same-sex marriages". They will be legally exempt.
If any proof were needed for church disestablishment, it is the capacity of canon lawyers to find quarrels in straws. What consenting adults do in private should be of no concern to governments, and that applies to worship as much as sex. If grownups want to dress in Tudor costume, douse babies in water, intone over the dead and do strange things with wine and wafers, it is a free country. But for a Christian sect to claim ownership of the legal definition of a human relationship is way out of order.
The church has a dreadful record on marriage. Rome placed chastity and celibacy as the highest state of man (and woman), while marriage was for the fallen. As Milton said, the church regarded matrimony as a state of disgrace, "a work of the flesh, almost a defilement". Only when medieval bishops saw where the money was did they declare marriage "so sacramental that no adultery or desertion could dissolve it".
Throughout the middle ages the church struggled to gain control of what had been an essentially secular contract between men and women. It was not until the 13th century that weddings had to be hallowed by a priest, even if this meant little more than an exchange of vows in a porch. Churches tried to bribe couples to the altar, as by giving them sides of bacon (hence "bringing home the bacon"). Common law marriage in England was not outlawed until 1753.
The current argument over gay marriage is near incomprehensible, except in terms of Anglican conservatism. All sexes can now be legally wed in registered premises and call themselves married. The word has changed its usage to embrace them. Gay people are now demanding the social status of "marrieds" and, more controversially, that the church be allowed to marry under licence.
The first demand is for lexicographers and seems harmless. The second is a matter between gay people and the church authorities. The government is not insisting on anything. It is specifically providing for churches to be exempt from any requirement of access for gay people. Yet the church seems desperate for a fight. It behaves like an elephant bitten by a gnat.
Given that only a quarter of weddings take place in Anglican churches, the number of gay couples wanting such a service must be small. Some churches already "bless" gay civil partnerships, as they do divorcees. Yet the church's lawyers claim that any exemption "could be challenged" by some litigious and theologically apostate homosexual under the European convention on human rights.
Anything these days can be challenged, but such a case is unlikely to prevail, given the convention's defence of religious freedom. The church has long refused to marry divorcees, and a local church can deny marriage to those with no parochial connection. I am not aware of any being dragged to a European court by irate suitors.
Canon lawyers protest that, even so, exemption would create a conflict between "separate categories" of civil and religious marriage. That is a difference, not a conflict, and hardly more terrible, as "senior church figures" tell the Daily Telegraph, than "any rift since the reign of Henry VIII".
This difference arises only because the Anglican church has long enjoyed a peculiar legal privilege of being able to register weddings in its own buildings. But such ritualising of a legal contract can now can take place in most stately homes. The church may moan about an offence to family tradition, but given its casual readiness to marry the absurdly young, it is hardly an ideal matrimonial counsellor. As for its complaint that gay marriage "raises the sort of problems that no one has had to address before", it should try joining the 21st century.
The church has been on the reactionary side in almost every political and social reform of the past two centuries. It opposed popular enfranchisement, secular schooling, easier divorce and legalised homosexuality. It continues to defy the law on gender equality in respect of bishops. This may be lovably fuddy-duddy to some, but the claim to parliamentary and legal privilege is an anachronism.
The government is proposing no more than to remove what in secular and civil terms is a terminological distinction between men and women. If the church wants to make this a Thomas Becket issue, that is its affair. The issue should not condition the action of government.
The Anglican church emerges from this row as absurdly pedantic. It wants to sustain an antique religious bond to a modern democratic state, with the outrageous claim that this should be a partnership of equals. The days when bishops could deny the franchise to Irish Catholics or demand a veto over the 1944 Education Act are over.
The government has honestly tried to meet theological objections to "marrying" gay couples through exemption. The church may fear a quarrel with the human rights lobby, but that is not the state's business. The only alternative is to strip the church of its special licence to register weddings altogether, and have done with "by law established".
The church has kept its 16th-century status for years by ducking and weaving whenever the going gets rough. It will presumably do so again. The government should take at face value the bishops' claim that gay marriage "snips the thread" between church and state, and toss establishment into the bin.
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Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Plymouth's Tom Daley so excited after getting call for London 2012 Olympic Games - this is plymouth
TOM DALEY admitted he is already getting 'really excited' after the city diving superstar was named in the Great Britain squad for this summer's Olympics.
Plymouth Diving's Daley will lead the Great Britain charge in both the men's individual 10m platform and the synchro events at the London Games.
Daley made certain of his place in the teenager's own 'dream Games' by winning a gold medal at the British Championships which doubled as Olympic trials at Sheffield's Ponds Forge at the weekend.
The former world champion scored a total of 547 points in the individual, outscoring Waterfield who ended the dive-off with 452.
Britain's new national champion will be joined in both events by individual runner-up Peter Waterfield, while Daley's club-mates Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow have both been picked for the women's 10m synchro.
Although the most casual observer of diving would have assumed Daley was a shoo-in for London 2012, for the 18-year-old European champion to see his name on the list was clearly a relief.
And, he said, a reward for the self sacrifice and long hours spent training for the globe's biggest sporting event.
Daley said: "It is very exciting. It feels really great to be finally named in the Great Britain Olympic team.
"After all the training hours I've had to put in and all the thousands of dives, it feels so good to know I'm going to be there."
Daley acknowledged that because of his own excellent form this year the level of national expectation for him to medal will have been cranked up a couple of notches more.
But the teenager insisted his rivals, notably China's number one Qiu Bo, will also be feeling the strain the closer the Briton gets to him at world-class tournaments.
Daley said: "The pressure is going to be massive for everyone. It comes down to whoever deals with it the best.
"Qiu Bo has never been to an Olympic Games, so he's not going to know what it's like.
"There will be a lot of pressure on him, because he's the favourite and from China.
"And, gradually, everyone's scores around the world are getting higher and higher and therefore, closer to him."
The Plymothian believes having taken part in one Olympic Games already will work to his advantage.
Daley said the experience could be key to how he handles the pressure in London.
He said: "I think it helps massively to have been able to compete in the Olympics in Beijing.
"I've gained the experience of being at one. If I hadn't gone there (Beijing), it could have been a little bit overwhelming, being at home and all."
Daley admitted his own form in the lead up to next month's Olympics had been very pleasing, to say the least.
The 2008 Olympic finalist in Beijing, at the age of just 14 years and reigning Commonwealth Games champion ended this year's prestigious World Series as number one and then reclaimed the European individual crown in Eindhoven last month.
Daley, though, while delighted with those awards, said he is looking forward, with all his thoughts concentrated on the Aquatics Centre.
"The Olympics is the major event of the year and that is what you want to peak for. Everything is focused and concentrated on the Games in London," said Daley.
"Yes, I want to do well in every single competition I take part in, because I'm competitive.
"Everything I do, I want to do to the best of my ability: I'm a perfectionist.
"I go into every competition trying to win, because that's my nature.
"The only thing I can focus on is myself as diving is such an individual sport, not like tennis, for example, where you can hit a ball in one direction and your opponent will hit it back in another.
"With diving, you do what you do and hope it's good and the other divers will do exactly the same for themselves."
Daley said he is becoming confident at mastering what he considers his most difficult dive – the forward 4½ somersault, but insisted he will not be resting on his laurels.
"To be honest, I find all the dives very hard but the forward 4½ I consider my hardest. But I've been doing them a lot more consistently and doing them better," said Daley.
"It's difficult making sure I get that dive right and the others in (his tariff), too, and going into every competition trying to do the best I can."
Ever the realist, Daley said that while it is his goal to top the podium at the Olympics, he does not dream about medalling, just competing.
He said: "Obviously, it's my dream to win a gold medal, and that's any athlete's dream, isn't it?
"But whenever I dream about appearing at the Olympics, I'm just doing my dives, but I never see the scoreboard so I don't know where I'm going to end up.
"For me, it's all about doing everything I can beforehand to make sure I'm well prepared to compete at the Olympic Games."
Daley said his next event is the Olympics but that his schedule is showing no sign of relaxing.
"No, it's kind of scary knowing that the next competition I take part in will be at the Olympics," said Daley.
"It's all very busy for us. We're going to be training twice a day, five times a week.
"We (Team GB) all go to Majorca today for a training camp and then we go to the Olympic pre-camp on July 24, which is a complete lock-down and focused on preparing for the Games.
"That'll be at the Aquatics Centre and it will really be make or break time for me."
Source: www.thisisplymouth.co.uk
Q&A: Who are internet trolls - and how is the law changing? - BBC News
Website operators in the UK may soon have to identify people who have posted defamatory messages online, allowing the victim to undertake legal action against the "troll" rather than against the website.
But who are these people and how will this proposed new law be different from the current regulations?
Who are the internet trolls?The term has come to mean those behind intentionally provocative online actions intended to cause grief or incite an angry response.
This can happen in online forums, message boards, chat rooms, and on social networks and microblogging sites, as well as personal emails.
Trolls may exist in any online community that allows comments from users - for example, video-streaming sites, such as YouTube and online video-games sites.
They can act individually or in groups - known as "colluding" trolls. One member of such a group often behaves as the obvious troll, while the others disguise themselves as normal members of the online community.
These trolls in disguise then defend the comments of the overt one.
Trolls may also target the recently bereaved, posting offensive material about the dead person.
After 17-year-old Charlotte Porter died in 2010, her parents said that her memory had been "destroyed" by abusive online messages on her Facebook memorial site.
One of the latest examples of an internet troll is Frank Zimmerman, who was given a 26-week suspended prison sentence after sending an offensive email to Corby MP Louise Mensch.
He was also banned from contacting a host of celebrities, including Lord Sugar.
“Start Quote
End Quote Emma Draper Head of communications at Privacy InternationalThere is a concern that gun-shy website operators will start automatically divulging user details the moment someone alleges defamation”
Currently, a website operator is liable for everything that appears on its site.
So if somebody believes that something defamatory has been written about them online, he or she may have to take the website to court for redress, incurring huge costs.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke explained: "As the law stands, individuals can be the subject of scurrilous rumour and allegation on the web with little meaningful remedy against the person responsible.
"Website operators are in principle liable as publishers for everything that appears on their sites, even though the content is often determined by users.
"But most operators are not in a position to know whether the material posted is defamatory or not and very often - faced with a complaint - they will immediately remove material."
How might the new law be different?The UK Ministry of Justice is proposing a defamation bill, which is being debated in the Commons, to make it easier for people to challenge what has been written about them.
If people think that there is defamatory content being posted about them online, instead of taking action against the website where the information appears, they can ask the website operator to give them the name of the person who posted the remarks.
This way, they can take legal action against trolls directly, requiring them to remove the defamatory posts.
"Our proposed approach will give greater protection to operators of websites who comply with a procedure to identify the authors of allegedly defamatory material," said Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.
"The government wants a libel regime for the internet that makes it possible for people to protect their reputations effectively but also ensures that information online can't be easily censored by casual threats of litigation against website operators.
"It will be very important to ensure that these measures do not inadvertently expose genuine whistleblowers, and we are committed to getting the detail right to minimise this risk."
The BBC understands that the term "troll" will not figure in the bill, and the new law will only refer to "defamatory" content.
Which sites would be covered by the rule change?The proposals would apply to all websites, regardless of which country their servers or headquarters were based.
However, the claimant would need to be able to show that the UK was the appropriate place to bring the action.
What about privacy?Privacy International, an organisation that campaigns at an international level on privacy issues, says that "there is a concern that gun-shy website operators will start automatically divulging user details the moment someone alleges defamation in order to shield themselves from libel actions".
"A great deal of the content posted by internet trolls is not actually defamatory, instead constituting harassment, invasion of privacy or simply unpleasant but lawfully expressed opinion," Emma Draper, head of communications at Privacy International, told BBC News.
"However, if the choice is between protecting users' anonymity and avoiding a potentially costly lawsuit, many small operators are not going to be overly concerned about whether or not a user has genuinely defamed the complainant."
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
London based firm leading a corporate rebellion - Fresh Business Thinking
12/06/2012
By Daniel Hunter
London start-up Escape the City has raised £600,000 pounds via Crowdcube.com — the UK’s first equity crowdfunding platform.
Escape the City is a website that helps professionals make exciting career transitions. It has a community of more than 65,000 people who want to escape from unfulfilling corporate jobs. The site helps people find new jobs, start businesses, and go on big adventures.
The company was founded by Dom Jackman and Rob Symington, who quit their management consultancy jobs in 2010 in order to set up the business. Given that "leaving the city" was part of the company's philosophy, they were reluctant to have to rely on the city for financing.
“We have rejected an offer from one of London’s top Venture Capital firms. We want to remain independent and allow our own members to get involved in a very real way as shareholders," said Escape the City Co-Founder — Dom Jackman, 29.
Platforms such as Kickstarter have helped crowdfunding become a popular phenomenon in recent years. However, Crowdcube is the world’s first crowdfunding platform for equity. Escape the City’s £600,000 is the largest equity crowdfunding fundraise for an online start-up anywhere in the world.
“We are really thrilled to be one of the startups spearheading equity crowdfunding in the UK. We think it is a fantastic way to democratise start-up investment and fund exciting ideas," said Escape the City Co-Founder — Rob Symington, 28.
The funding will be used to build a forward-looking discovery network where people can set their aspirations in order to be matched with relevant opportunities, people and information.
“We want to help people plan exciting career moves that fit not only their experience, but the future that they want for themselves. We are essentially building a forward-looking Linkedin," said Escape the City’s New York Partner — Mike Howe, 27.
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Source: www.freshbusinessthinking.com
Undoing health law could have messy ripple effects - The Guardian
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers.
But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up.
That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act this month. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people.
Because the legislation is so complicated, an orderly unwinding would prove difficult if it were overturned entirely or in part.
Better Medicare prescription benefits, currently saving hundreds of dollars for older people with high drug costs, would be suspended. Ditto for preventive care with no co-payments, now available to retirees and working families alike.
Partially overturning the law could leave hospitals, insurers and other service providers on the hook for tax increases and spending cuts without the law's promise of more paying customers to offset losses.
If the law is upheld, other kinds of complications could result.
The nation is so divided that states led by Republicans are largely unprepared to carry out critical requirements such as creating insurance markets. Things may not settle down.
"At the end of the day, I don't think any of the major players in the health insurance industry or the provider community really wants to see the whole thing overturned," said Christine Ferguson, a health policy expert who was commissioner of public health in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor.
"Even though this is not the most ideal solution, at least it is moving us forward, and it does infuse some money into the system for coverage," said Ferguson, now at George Washington University. As the GOP presidential candidate, Romney has pledged to wipe Obama's law off the books. But he defends his Massachusetts law that served as a prototype for Obama's.
While it's unclear how the justices will rule, oral arguments did not go well for the Obama administration. The central issue is whether the government can require individuals to have health insurance and fine them if they don't.
That mandate takes effect in 2014, at the same time that the law would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing health problems. Most experts say the coverage guarantee would balloon costs unless virtually all people joined the insurance pool.
Opponents say Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by issuing the insurance mandate. The administration says the requirement is permissible because it serves to regulate interstate commerce. Most people already are insured. The law provides subsidies to help uninsured middle-class households pay premiums and expands Medicaid to pick up more low-income people.
The coverage for young adults up to age 26 on a parent's health insurance is a popular provision that no one's arguing about. A report last week from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that 6.6 million young adults have taken advantage of the benefit, while a new Gallup survey showed the uninsured rate for people age 18-25 continues to decline, down to 23 percent from 28 percent when the law took effect.
Families will be watching to see if their 20-somethings transitioning to the work world will get to keep that newfound security.
Because the benefit is a winner with consumers, experts say many employers and insurers would look for ways to keep offering it even if there's no legal requirement to do so. On Monday, UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer, is announcing that it will continue to offer coverage to young adults even if the health care law is struck down.
But economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute says many parents would pay higher taxes as a result because they would have to pay for the young adult's coverage with after-tax dollars. Under the health care law, that coverage now comes out of pre-tax dollars.
Fronstin says there's no way to tell exactly how much that tax increase might be, but a couple of hundred dollars a year or more is a reasonable ballpark estimate. Upper-income taxpayers would have a greater liability.
"Adult children aren't necessarily dependents for tax purposes, but an employer can allow anyone to be on a plan, just like they now allow domestic partners," said Fronstin. "If your employer said, 'I'm going to let you keep this,' it would become a taxable benefit for certain people."
Advocates for the elderly are also worried about untoward ripple effects.
If the entire law is overturned, seniors with high prescription costs in Medicare's "donut hole" coverage gap could lose annual discounts averaging about $600. AARP policy director David Certner says he would hope the discounts could remain in place at least through the end of this year.
Yet that might not be possible. Lacking legal authority, Medicare would have to take away the discounts. Drugmakers, now bearing the cost, could decide they want to keep offering discounts voluntarily. But then they'd risk running afoul of other federal rules that bar medical providers from offering financial inducements to Medicare recipients.
"I don't think anyone has any idea," said Certner.
A mixed verdict from the high court would be the most confusing outcome. Some parts of the law would be struck down while others lurch ahead.
That kind of result would seem to call for Congress to step in and smooth any necessary adjustments. Yet partisan divisions on Capitol Hill are so intense that hardly anyone sees a chance that would happen this year.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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