NEWS,20.10.2012

1 000s rally against UK austerity drive

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London and other British cities on Saturday in protest against government spending cuts, with union leaders expected to call for a general strike.Marchers carried signs reading "No cuts" and "Cameron has butchered Britain", condemning the austerity measures introduced by Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government in a bid to reduce Britain's huge deficit."This is not a crisis that is going to sort itself out through cuts," 19-year-old protester Jonathan told."We've had a double-dip recession now, and we are here today to show we are not going to stand it any longer."Britain climbed out of a deep economic downturn in late 2009 but fell back into recession at the end of 2011.Protesters paused to boo at Cameron's Downing Street residence, and shouted "Pay your taxes!" at a Starbucks coffee shop.Starbucks was embroiled in a row this week after it was reported that the US giant paid just 8.6 million ($13.8m) in British corporation tax over 14 years.At a huge rally in Hyde Park at the end of the march, opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband attacked Cameron for "cutting too far and too fast"."He clings to an economic plan that isn't working," Miliband told protesters. "Self-defeating austerity is not the answer.""Austerity isn't working"But Miliband was booed by the crowd when he said that any government in power at the moment would have to make some spending cuts."There will still be hard choices," he said. "I do not promise easy times."Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress umbrella body, said the cuts were "hammering the poorest and the most vulnerable"."We have a stark and united message for the government," he was due to tell the Hyde Park rally."Austerity isn't working. It is hitting our jobs, our services, our living standards."His speech added: "Ministers told us that if we only accept the pain, recovery would come. Instead we have been mired in a double dip recession.” Dave Prentis, leader of Britain's biggest public sector trade union Unison, said government cuts were pushing hundreds of thousands of state employees out of work."We are here for the millions of people who don't have a voice," he said. "We just can't take any more."But Cameron, whose Conservative Party shares power with the centrist Liberal Democrats, insisted that that spending cuts were needed to balance Britain's budget."Today Ed Miliband is headlining a rally calling for an end to every single spending cut needed to clear the deficit," he said in a message posted on his Twitter account.London's Metropolitan Police did not provide an estimate for the number of demonstrators, but the TUC expected tens of thousands of people to join the 4.8km march.Scottish police said about 5 000 people took part in the Glasgow protest.

Obama, Romney gear up for final debate

US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, on Saturday began preparing for their final debate, with Obama hunkering down at Camp David and Romney staying in Florida.The third and last of their debates is scheduled for Monday at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.On Friday, Obama set an aggressive tone accusing Romney of suffering from policy "Romnesia", a barb dismissed by the Republican as pettiness 18 days before the election.One night earlier, both men had traded light-hearted banter at a charity dinner, but on Friday the verbal attacks turned nasty, with the Democratic incumbent taunting Romney's efforts to tack to the center as polling day looms."Mr.Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year," Obama said at a rally attended by some 9,000 people at a university campus outside Washington.The Obama camp's previous bid to skewer Romney with insulting tags - such as pushing the Robin-Hood-in-reverse term "Romney Hood" to tarnish his tax policies - have done nothing to protect the president's shrinking poll lead.But, with the pair's last of three head-to-head debates set for Monday, the campaign returned to its tried and tested formula of branding Romney an untrustworthy flip-flopper."I mean, he's changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping, we've got to name this condition that he's going through. I think it's called 'Romnesia.' That's what it's called," Obama told the crowd.The Republican nominee meanwhile campaigned in the biggest political battleground of all, Florida, where Monday's debate will be held, and he didn't hesitate to strike back at the president's comments."They've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games," Romney told a crowd of more than 8,500 people at Daytona Beach, adding that Obama's re-election bid "has become the incredible shrinking campaign.""This is a big country, with big opportunities and great challenges, and they keep on talking about smaller and smaller things."Romney, accompanied by his running mate Paul Ryan, laid into the incumbent for failing to map out his plan for another four years should he win re-election."They have no agenda for the future, no agenda for America, no agenda for a second term."While Romney's camp dismissed Obama's taunt as a gimmick, the image of Romney as a flip-flopper, one that his fellow conservatives have hit him with in the past, might yet gain traction with undecided voters.ShamelessOne source that definitely does not back the multimillionaire private equity baron is The Salt Lake Tribune, the local paper in the home city of Romney's Mormon faith, albeit a liberal one that endorsed Obama in 2008.In an editorial, the paper lavished praise on Romney for saving the city's 2002 Winter Olympics, but said his subsequent courting of the right-wing Tea Party movement and refusal to detail his tax plan should rule him out."Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: 'Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?'" it said."Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear."While Obama was addressing crowds in Virginia, a state he won narrowly in 2008 but where Romney is making up ground, his Vice President Joe Biden flew to Florida, where three of the race's four main figures were stumping for votes.Obama won both states in 2008, but as a measure of the tightness of this year's contest, the two are now up for grabs, with Florida leaning toward Romney, according to a widely-read poll average by website RealClearPolitics.There, Romney won an endorsement from the Orlando Sentinel, whose editorial reflected a widely-held disappointment in Obama's handling of the economy."We have little confidence that Obama would be more successful managing the economy and the budget in the next four years," wrote the editors, who endorsed Obama in 2008.On Monday night both men will be in the Sunshine State, in Boca Raton for a televised debate focused on foreign affairs.Going into the campaign, Obama was seen as strong on foreign policy, thanks to his withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and decision to order a mission that killed Aa-Qaeda kingpin Osama Bin Laden.But Romney's camp has hammered the president on his handling of the Middle East, accusing him of neglecting ally Israel and of underestimating the threat of extremist passions unleashed by the Arab Spring revolts.

Castro rumour mill continues to churn

The rumour mill surrounding the health of Fidel Castro churned anew on Friday despite a letter from the aging Cuban revolutionary published by state media and denials by relatives at home and in the United States that he is on death's door. Social media sites and some news organisations have reported allegations by a Venezuelan doctor that Castro, 86, suffered a massive stroke, was in a vegetative state and had only weeks to live, though the same doctor, Jose Rafael Marquina, has made some claims before that have not panned out.Marquina told the newspaper ABC in Spain that Castro had suffered a "massive embolism of the right cerebral artery" and while not on life support or breathing artificially, was "moribund" at a house in a gated former country club in western Havana.Marquina also said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had travelled suddenly to Havana to be with his friend and ally, an account that could not be immediately verified.Reached by The Associated Press, Marquina said his sources were in Venezuela, but he would not identify them or say how they were in a position to have information about Castro's health.He also indicated he had received corroborating evidence from sources on Twitter, but would not say who.In April, Marquina said that Chavez, who has been battling an undisclosed kind of cancer, was in his "last days" and would not last to November. With less than two weeks to go, the Venezuelan leader says he's beaten the illness and appears stronger in public.Castro's health is considered a matter of national security in Cuba and few details are released.Rumours that the former Cuban leader has died or is near death have circulated repeatedly for years, but they gained force after he failed to issue a public statement congratulating Chavez on his 7 October election victory.Castro has not been seen in public since March, when he received visiting Pope Benedict XVI. He has also stopped writing his once-constant opinion pieces, the last of which appeared in June.There was no immediate comment from the Cuban government on the latest claims, but a letter attributed to Castro was published Thursday by Cuban state media. In it, he congratulated graduates of a medical school on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.Two close family members of Castro have also recently denied he is in grave condition. Juanita Castro, the former leader's sister, told  in Miami that reports of her brother's condition are "pure rumors" and "absurd."Son Alex Castro told a reporter for a weekly Cuban newspaper that his father "is well, going about his daily life".