Internet Changes Everything

The Japanese diet lets you live longer and look younger, says Melissa Whitworth

Telegraph | Expat | The secret of eternal youth

If you need inspiration to change your diet, spending a couple of hours with Naomi Moriyama should do the trick. She has a slight (but not too skinny) frame, perfect skin, lots of energy and gleaming hair. She looks 20 years younger than her real age of 45. When buying alcohol, she is often asked for ID, and is regularly quizzed on which university she attends. She is a living example of what most women her age dream of.

Yet Moriyama is no different from millions of other Japanese women who grew up eating their mothers' traditional, home-cooked food. As a result of this diet, which is heavy on fresh vegetables, brown rice, soy and delicately cooked fish, Japan has the lowest rate of obesity in the developed world - just three per cent for men and women, compared with 23 per cent for women in Britain and 34 per cent for American women.

Japanese people also have the highest life expectancy - 85 years for women, 78 for men - and the lowest rates of heart disease and other life-threatening illnesses. In short, Japanese people, especially women, are the healthiest in the world.

"We really focus on fresh, enjoyable, healthy food," Moriyama says when we meet in New York. "Women demand it. We are so used to having delicious food. It is not just for gourmets - it's for everybody."

Inspired by the dishes that her mother, Chizuko, prepares in her tiny kitchen in Tokyo, Moriyama wrote a memoir about the food she ate growing up. She and her American husband, William Doyle, came up with the title Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat - a nod to Mireille Guiliano's bestseller, French Women Don't Get Fat.

Doyle, 48, co-authored the book. "The original title was My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen," he explains. "But we were so startled by the numbers we came across during our research that we changed it."

Britain's numbers are more troubling. Levels of obesity in England have tripled since 1980, thanks to the West's reliance on fast and over-processed food, and our habit of eating little or no fresh fruit or vegetables.

Moriyama found this out for herself when she went to America to study at the University of Illinois. She immediately gained 25lb from a diet of pizza, burgers and pancakes.

'I just busted out of my clothes," she says. "It was not only the food, but the quantities, too. I could not believe it, but I was eating it. When I went back to Japan, to my mum's kitchen, I lost it all. I didn't even have to think about it.

"In Japan, there is an emphasis on presentation - modest portions, using beautiful, small plates. A typical Japanese meal has four or five different dishes, instead the food being combined on a big plate. As my mum says, preparing a meal is like painting a picture. By serving modest portions, you slow down. You might go back for seconds or thirds, but you are pacing yourself."

When most people think of Japanese food, they think of sushi. Sushi restaurants have indeed caught on in Britain, but Moriyama explains that raw fish is a very small part of the Japanese cuisine. "Sushi is just one of the many dishes we have," she insists. The other 95 per cent is the kind of food she writes about in her book.

A typical Japanese supper, which anyone in Britain could easily prepare tonight, might consist of a selection of fresh, seasonal vegetables and tofu, chopped and stir-fried in rapeseed oil at a high heat, accompanied by a bowl of brown rice and a small piece of fresh or tinned Alaskan salmon, and followed by a cup of green tea.
'Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat'

One of the book's main points is that we should all eat more vegetables. "In traditional Japanese dishes," says Moriyama, "vegetables are steamed or cooked in broth. They are delicious. Much of the cooking is very light, which brings out the flavours and the colours of the food."

"Major studies show that Japanese longevity is not in the genes," says Doyle. "Japanese people living in America get just as fat and unhealthy as the rest of us. Naomi and I play a game walking the streets of New York. When we see a Japanese family, we say, 'Who's the mother and who's the daughter?' "

'Secrets from my mother's Tokyo kitchen'

The Japanese diet is based on fish, soy, rice, vegetable and fruit Japanese people eat more than twice as much fish per capita than Westerners and are crazy about fresh vegetables such as leafy greens, daikon radish and eggplant. A study of 200 elderly Japanese women found that they ate more than 100 different foods each week, compared with just 30 in a typical Western diet.

Japanese cooking is super-light and ultra-gentle

Instead of roasting or baking, Japanese women usually steam, pan-grill, sauté, simmer or stir-fry quickly over a high heat. These methods save more of the food's nutrients. They never smother food in heavy cream or butter-based sauces.

The Japanese eat rice instead of bread with every meal

Bread consumption is far lower in Japan than it is in the West, and brown rice is the mainstay of the diet. This is very high in fibre and keeps you feeling full.

Japanese women are the princesses of the power breakfast

They don't eat eggs, bacon, sugary cereals, muffins or bread for breakfast. A typical home-cooked breakfast would be a cup of green tea, steamed rice, miso soup with tofu, some seaweed, a small omelette and a piece of grilled salmon. This will keep them going all day.

Japanese women are crazy about pudding

They love puddings and snacks, but they eat them less often and in much smaller portions. Japanese people eat a quarter of the amount of sugary products that Westerners do.
# 'Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat' by Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle (Vermillion) will be available on Jan 5 for £11 + £1.25 p&p. To order now call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 428 4112

December 5, 2005 at 11:38 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (86) | Top of page | Blog Home

Neil Young: The T.O. years

TheStar.com - Neil Young: The T.O. years

Canada's most influential rocker is 60 today. To celebrate, we've compiled this gentle reminder of where he spent his formative years,
Nov. 12, 2005. 02:01 AM
JOHN GODDARD
STAFF REPORTER

Neil Young was conceived, his father always maintained, on the dining room floor of a friend's house during a record snowfall.

"I remember the street in Toronto, the wild February blizzard through which only the hardiest moved, on skis, sliding downtown through otherwise empty streets to empty offices," Scott Young recalls in his 1984 memoir, Neil and Me.

Scott would later become one of Canada's best-known journalists — a featured columnist for The Globe and Mail, and intermission host on the country's most popular television show, Hockey Night in Canada.

On Feb.4, 1945, when the storm hit, he was a sub-lieutenant in the Navy on home leave.

He, his wife Rassy and their 3-year-old son Bob were visiting the home of Ian and Lola Munro, near Eglinton Ave. and Mount Pleasant Rd.

Five inches of snow fell that evening, The Toronto Daily Star reported the next day. After dinner, the Youngs had no choice but to stay over.

"A mattress was hauled down to the dining-room floor and shoved against the wall for Rassy and me," Scott recalled. "We were just past our middle 20s and had been apart for most of the previous year ... We tried to be fairly quiet."

Toronto General Hospital,

585 University Ave.

Neil entered the world on Nov. 12, 1945, at the Private Patients' Pavilion of Toronto General Hospital, since torn down. "He had a lot of black hair," Scott wrote of his first glimpse of the boy.

315 (formerly 335)

Brooke Ave.

A modest three-bedroom bungalow became the Youngs' first home. A monster home now stands on the site. There, he displayed an early musical affinity.

"In his playpen, when the record player or radio was on, he would jig to Dixieland music even before he could stand up by himself," recalled Scott. "His whole body moved to the rhythm."

Hospital for Sick Children,

555 University Ave.

In 1951, the family was living 100 kilometres northeast of Toronto in Omemee, then a village of 750 people.

Late one night, Scott heard Neil groan painfully in his bed and got up to investigate.

"What's the matter, pally?" he asked his son.

"My back hurts," the boy replied.

That afternoon, the family drove through a lightning storm to Toronto, where a doctor confirmed Neil had polio. For the next several days, he endured excruciating pain and, although he survived, the disease brought him lifelong problems.

"I was in and out of hospitals for the two years between After the Gold Rush (1970) and Harvest (1972)," Young once told Rolling Stone magazine.

"I have one weak side and all the muscles slipped on me. My discs slipped. I couldn't hold my guitar up ... I wore a brace ... I could only stand up four hours a day ... The doctors were starting to talk about wheelchairs, so I had some discs removed."

133 Rose Park Dr.

In the summer of 1954, when Neil was 8, the Youngs moved to a handsome red-brick duplex on a quiet street in Moore Park. The boys enrolled at nearby Whitney Public School.

The family was seeking a new start. While still in Omemee, Scott had been travelling and carrying on an affair. He had asked for a divorce, then changed his mind. That winter Scott wrote his first novel, The Flood.

"And then the flood came," the jacket copy reads. "Martin was to find solace not in his children, but in the person of a married woman."

49 Old Orchard Grove

From late 1955 to late 1958, the Youngs lived on a rural property east of Toronto in Pickering. Then they moved back to Toronto, to a tidy two-storey brick structure with a front bay window.

Neil had just turned 13 and enrolled in Grade 7 at nearby John Wanless Public School. He was also getting into music. Late at night, he would listen to the local Top 40 radio station CHUM 1050 and to other stations picked up from the southern United States.

"That's when I really became aware of what was going on," he once told rock journalist and filmmaker Cameron Crowe. "I knew that I wanted to play, that I was into it. `Maybe,' by the Chantels, `Short Fat Fannie,' Elvis Presley, Larry Williams, Chuck Berry, those were the first people I heard. I used to just fall asleep listening to the music. I was a real swinger."

And he began to play his first instrument — a plastic ukulele.

"The first thing I learned is that three chords are the basis to a lot of songs," he later told British rock journalist Nick Kent, for the 1994 book The Dark Stuff. "It's a blues-based idea. You start in G, go to C, and resolve it all with a D chord ... I basically just taught myself, figuring out as I went along."

Ciccone's Dining Lounge,

601 King St. W.

The Youngs often ate together at Ciccone's, now the high-end restaurant Susur. It was also there, in September, 1959, that Scott told his sons that he was moving out for good this time. Bob was 17, Neil not yet 14. During an assignment out west, Scott had fallen in love with a press officer.

"Helpless, helpless, helpless," Neil sings in his 1970 childhood reminiscence, with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

"His music always had a sort of forlorn and desolate undertone," Rassy once recalled. "At times I would wonder why his face would light up with a sort of joy when he'd play something he'd composed that was so sad it brought tears to my eyes."

The Night Owl, 102 Avenue Rd.

Neil attended Grade 9 at Lawrence Park Collegiate. A year after Scott moved out, Rassy and Neil moved to Winnipeg, where the boy played in high-school bands and developed as a guitarist. After a stint in Fort William, now Thunder Bay, he returned to Toronto in mid-June, 1965, determined to make it big.

On almost no money, with notions of failure constantly on his mind, he lived a transient life, moving from apartment to apartment mostly in the Yorkville area.

"Well, I'm up in T.O. keeping jive alive," he sings in "Ambulance Blues," on his 1974 On the Beach album, "and out on the corner it's half past five."

"That's the beginning of that whole (introspective) side of my music," he told journalist Nick Kent. "I was by myself, just me and my guitar travelling alone, just showing up at these places."

Among the many addresses where Young lived, one stands out for its minor moment in rock history: the apartment of folk singer Vicki Taylor, above the Night Owl coffeehouse in Yorkville.

She had been living there with John Kay, later famous as lead singer for Steppenwolf and for the hit "Born to be Wild," but he moved out.

"A week later I returned to pick up a few odds and ends and met another fellow there ... a singer/songwriter from Winnipeg named Neil Young," Kay writes in his 1994 autobiography, Magic Carpet Ride.

"We said hello and talked briefly. He had a guitar, I played him something, and we talked about music."

The Mynah Bird Club,

114 Yorkville Ave.

As a promotional gimmick, the owner of the Mynah Bird coffeehouse helped sponsor a band of the same name and, in January 1966, Young replaced the lead guitarist.

The singer was Ricky James Matthews, later famous as Rick James for the 1981 hit "Super Freak."

"When Neil took his first solo," James once told Rolling Stone, "he was so excited he leaped off the stage, the plug came out, and nobody heard anything."

Another sponsor was John Craig Eaton, scion of the Eaton department store family. He lined up gigs at Rosedale house parties and opened an Eaton's account for band members to buy equipment.

Things were going well until Motown Records invited the band to record and James was arrested in Detroit for having deserted the U.S. Navy.

The Cellar Club,

169 Avenue Rd.

The Mynah Birds disbanded. In early March 1966, Young and bass player Bruce Palmer met at the Cellar jazz and chess club, now a TD bank, to plot their next move.

In his 8 1/2-month Toronto interlude, he had not once been able to play one of his own songs to a live audience.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Young said, as Palmer recalled in John Einarson's 1992 biography of Young, Don't Be Denied.

"What do you mean?" Palmer said.

"Sell everything we can and get a car and go to L.A."

They sold the equipment Eaton had advanced them and bought a 1953 Pontiac hearse. Three days after arriving in Los Angeles, they helped form Buffalo Springfield. Ten days after that they opened on a tour with the Byrds, the No.1 U.S. band at the time. And three months after that, they opened at Hollywood Bowl for the Rolling Stones.

The Riverboat,

134 Yorkville Ave.

While living nearby, Young never came close to performing at the Riverboat, a showcase for major U.S. and Canadian folk acts. In February 1969, however, he returned from California to play a week-long engagement. By then, he had recorded three albums with Buffalo Springfield and had released his first solo album, Neil Young.

"He sings with a light, high, near falsetto voice," Toronto Star reviewer Jack Batten wrote approvingly of the show, "with a quaver near the end of dying lines."

Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St.

Tickets sold so fast to Young's homecoming at Massey Hall on Jan. 19, 1971, that a second concert had to be added the same night.

The year before, he had released two hit albums: Déjà Vu as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; and After the Gold Rush with Crazy Horse.

The "Journey Through the Past" tour that brought him to Massey Hall was to be a series of solo concerts on piano and guitar to help him catch his breath. He was 25 years old.

"Rich in emotion," the Star said of the concert.

John Craig Eaton got a court order to seize Young's ticket receipts up to the cost of the equipment cashed in five years earlier.

"It was the end of my dalliance in trying to help people in showbiz," Eaton said in an interview a few years ago.

"I paid the whole shot without question," Young told biographer Einarson.

Maple Leaf Gardens,

60 Carlton St.:

On Jan. 15, 1973, building on the success of his 1972 album Harvest, Young played what was then the city's largest concert venue, part of his Time Fades Away tour with the Stray Gators.

With that concert, Young became the first Torontonian, other than a religious leader, ever to fill Maple Leaf Gardens to its 18,000-person capacity.

Neil Young's recent self-descriptions as a prairie boy are not to be taken literally.

"Bury me out on the prairie where the buffalo used to roam," he sings on his latest album Prairie Wind, released in September, "then I won't be far from home."

His affinity for the prairies owes to his family heritage — his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all lived in Manitoba. Young's desire to return there may have been stirred — as he suggests in one song — by his father's death from Alzheimer's in June this year.

No matter where he is or where he's going, Neil Young remains a Toronto boy. His life and his artistic expression were shaped here. Happy birthday, Neil.

November 12, 2005 at 09:40 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home

Intelligence in the Internet age

Published: September 19, 2005, 4:00 AM PDT
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2100-11395_3-5869719.html

It's a question older than the Parthenon: Do innovations and new technologies make us more intelligent?

A few thousand years ago, a Greek philosopher, as he snacked on dates on a bench in downtown Athens, may have wondered if the written language folks were starting to use was allowing them to avoid thinking for themselves.

Today, terabytes of easily accessed data, always-on Internet connectivity, and lightning-fast search engines are profoundly changing the way people gather information. But the age-old question remains: Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?

"Our environment, because of technology, is changing, and therefore the abilities we need in order to navigate these highly information-laden environments and succeed are changing," said Susana Urbina, a professor of psychology at the University of North Florida who has studied the roots of intelligence.

If there is a good answer to the question, it probably starts with a contradiction: What makes us intelligent--the ability to reason and learn--is staying the same and will never fundamentally change because of technology. On the other hand, technology, from pocket calculators to the Internet, is radically changing the notion of the intelligence necessary to function in the modern world.

Take Diego Valderrama, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. If he were an economist 40 years ago, he may have used a paper, pencil and slide rule to figure out and chart by hand how the local economy might change with a 1 percent boost in taxes. But because he's a thoroughly modern guy, he uses knowledge of the C++ programming language to create mathematical algorithms to compute answers and produce elaborate projections on the impact of macroeconomic changes to work forces or consumer consumption.

Does that mean he's not as bright as an economist from the 1950s? Is he smarter? The answer is probably "no" on both counts. He traded one skill for another. Computer skills make him far more efficient and allow him to present more accurate--more intelligent--information. And without them, he'd have a tough time doing his job. But drop him into the Federal Reserve 40 years ago, and a lack of skill with the slide rule could put an equal crimp on his career.

Intelligence, as it impacts the economist Valderrama, is our capacity to adapt and thrive in our own environment. In a Darwinian sense, it's as true now as it was millions of years ago, when man's aptitude for hearing the way branches broke or smelling a spore affected his power to avoid predators, eat and survive.

But what makes someone smart can vary in different cultures and situations. A successful Wall Street banker who has dropped into the Australian Outback likely couldn't pull off a great Crocodile Dundee impression. A mathematical genius like Isaac Newton could be--in fact, he was--socially inept and a borderline hermit. A master painter? Probably not so good at balancing a checkbook.

What's undeniable is the Internet's democratization of information. It's providing instant access to information and, in a sense, improving the practical application of intelligence for everyone.

Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford didn't have the Internet, but he did have a bunch of smart guys. The auto industry pioneer, as a parlor trick, liked to claim he could answer any question in 30 minutes. In fact, he had organized a research staff he could call at any time to get him the answer.

Today, you don't have to be an auto baron to feign that kind of knowledge. You just have to be able to type G-O-O-G-L-E. People can in a matter of minutes find sources of information like court documents, scientific papers or corporate securities filings.

"The notion that the world's knowledge is literally at your fingertips is very compelling and is very beguiling," said Vint Cerf, who co-created the underlying architecture of the Internet and who is widely considered one of its "fathers." What's exciting "is the Internet's ability to absorb such a large amount of information and for it to be accessible to other people, even if they don't know it exists or don't know who you are."

Indeed, Doug Engelbart, one of the pioneers of personal computing technology in the 1960s, envisioned in the early '60s that the PC would augment human intelligence. He believes that society's ability to gain insight from information has evolved with the help of computers.

"The key thing about all the world's big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively," Engelbart said. "If we don't get collectively smarter, we're doomed."

The virtual memory
According to at least one definition, intelligence is the "ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn." Yet intelligence is not just about book learning or test scores; it also reflects a deeper understanding of the world. On average, people with high IQs are thought to live longer, earn more money, process information faster and have larger working memories.

Yet could all this information provided by the Internet and gadgets dampen our motivation to remember anything?

Working with the Treo handheld computing device he helped create, Jeff Hawkins can easily recount exactly what he did three years

ago on Sept. 8, factor 9,982 and Pi, or describe a weather system over the Pacific Ocean. But without his "smart" phone, he can't recall his daughter's telephone number offhand.

It's a familiar circumstance for people living in the hyper-connected Internet age, when it has become easier to program a cell phone or computer--instead of your brain--to recall facts or other essential information. In some sense, our digital devices do the thinking for us now, helping us with everything from calendar scheduling and local directions to in-depth research and "Jeopardy"-like trivia.

"It's true we don't remember anything anymore, but we don't need to," said Hawkins, the co-founder of Palm Computing and author of a book called "On Intelligence."

"We might one day sit around and reminisce about having to remember phone numbers, but it's not a bad thing. It frees us up to think about other things. The brain has a limited capacity, if you give it high-level tools, it will work on high-level problems," he said.

Only 600 years ago, people relied on memory as a primary means of communication and tradition. Before the printed word, memory was essential to lawyers, doctors, priests and poets, and those with particular talents for memory were revered. Seneca, a famous teacher of rhetoric around A.D. 37, was said to be able to repeat long passages of speeches he had heard years before. "Memory," said Greek playwright Aeschylus, "is the mother of all wisdom."

People feared the invention of the printing press because it would cause people to rely on books for their memory. Today, memory is more irrelevant than ever, argue some academics.

"What's important is your ability to use what you know well. There are people who are walking encyclopedias, but they make a mess of their lives. Getting a 100 percent on a written driving test doesn't mean you can drive," said Robert Sternberg, dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University and a professor of psychology.

Tomorrow: A look at what makes us smart in the Internet age. And what happens when the lights go out?

September 19, 2005 at 08:27 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

The Berlin Wall goes online

The Berlin Wall goes online - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

BERLIN (AFP) - Most of the real-world Berlin Wall has been consigned to the dustbin of history, but the structure lives on on the Internet.
Tourists disappointed at finding little of the despised barrier left in the German capital can now trace its path on www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de, complete with maps and photographs.
The site, launched by the Berlin government, details the history of the Wall from its construction in August 1961, when the communist East German authorities closed the border to stop a mass exodus, to its fall in a peaceful resolution in November 1989.

Amid the ensuing euphoria most of the Wall was destroyed, sold off or picked apart by souvenir hunters.

The website pinpoints the few parts of the city that still have slabs or watchtowers left intact, as well as memorials built to those killed trying to escape to the West.

The site also features several pages in English.

"We want to make this information about the Wall available to as many people as possible, not only in Berlin but around the world," Berlin's top official for city development, Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, said in a statement.

"We also want to encourage citizens' interest in their city and its sometimes uncomfortable past."

July 16, 2005 at 03:49 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Live 8 concerts bridge the world

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Live 8 concerts bridge the world

The world's biggest music stars have united in concerts around the globe to put pressure on political leaders to tackle poverty in Africa.

Concerts in 10 cities, including London, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Rome and Moscow played to hundreds of thousands of people.

Bob Geldof said the day had been "full of hope and possibility and life".

In London Madonna, U2, Coldplay, Sir Elton John and Sting all performed.

Crowds follow the action on a big screen at Hyde Park in London.

Enlarge Image

But because the event over-ran there are fears that thousands of people may be stranded without transport home.

A spokesman for the local authority said: "The situation is basically that it looks like we are going to have people sleeping in the park."

Almost all of the singers involved took the opportunity to explain their reasons for performing.

Read your accounts of the global gigs

Taking to the stage Madonna asked the crowd: "Are you ready to start a revolution? Are you ready to change history? I said, are you ready?"

She was joined on stage by 24-year-old Birhan Woldu, one of the starving children featured in the original Live Aid concert who was helped thanks to money raised 20 years ago.

In Philadelphia, Destiny's Child, Jay Z and Bon Jovi were among the big name performers.

Actor and singer Will Smith who hosted the concert said: "More than 200 hundred years ago, just down the block, America declared its independence.

WHAT IS THE G8?
Name
Group of eight major industrialised states, inc Russia
Members
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, US
Aims
Originally set up to discuss trade and economic issues
Now leaders discuss global issues of the day
2005 Summit agenda
Africa
Climate change

Read the full profile
Thousands march in Scotland
G8 leaders 'are real stars'

"Today we all gather here to declare our interdependence. Today we hold this truth to be self-evident; We are all in this together."

In Canada, Bryan Adams and Neil Young entertained the crowd, while the Pet Shop Boys played in front of Red Square in Moscow.

In Tokyo, which had been the first of the concerts to start, Bjork performed, while in Berlin Green Day were among the big name stars.

In Johannesburg the biggest cheer of the night was for former leader Nelson Mandela.

He told the crowd that the G8 leaders had a "historic opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility of a better future for all".

More than 200,000 people were at the concert in Hyde Park, London, while thousands more watched via big screens at locations around the UK.

Will Smith
Will Smith hosted the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia

The Who and Pink Floyd, who had reformed with original singer Roger Waters, were the final two bands to take to the stage.

The concert climaxed with a finale of Paul McCartney and all the other performers singing the chorus to the Beatles' hit Hey Jude.

Sir Paul said: "Everybody who's come along today has come for the right reason. We hope that the people, the heads of G8, are listening hard.

"They can't avoid this, they cannot have missed it and all you people who've come along for this message - we love you."

Other London performers included The Scissor Sisters, Keane, Travis, UB40, the Stereophonics and REM.

Earlier U2's Bono , who opened the London concert with Sir Paul McCartney, told the crowd: "This is our moment, this is our time, this is our chance to stand up for what is right.

"We are not looking for charity, we are looking for justice."

The concerts have not been without their critics, however, with some arguing that the campaign is over-simplifying the issue of global poverty.

Some anti-poverty charities and African leaders believe the event is too focused on money, rather than the problems of unequal trade, and good governance in Africa itself.

But Geldof told BBC News: "There's one plan. It's debt; trade and aid and governance. Prime, pump an economy, create good government and we'll get people out of poverty.

"That's what this is about. We'll jump if you jump and we're all jumping on behalf of those who can't even crawl."

More than 26.4 million people from around the world sent text messages on Saturday in support of the Live 8 campaign to cancel the debts of the poorest countries, setting a world record, organisers said.

The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the crowd in London: "This is really a United Nations. The whole world has come together in solidarity with the poor.

"On behalf of the poor, the voiceless and the weak I say thank you."

In Scotland, where the G8 leaders will meet, more than 200,000 protesters took place in a peaceful march urging the politicians to take action on poverty in Africa.

July 2, 2005 at 10:02 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (36) | Top of page | Blog Home

DAVOS Bill Gates says China has created brand-new form of capitalism

Latest Futures News

Saturday, January 29, 2005 10:07:24 AM
http://www.afxpress.com

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFX) - Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates said China has created a brand-new form of capitalism that benefits consumers more than anything has in the past

"It is a brand-new form of capitalism, and as a consumer its the best thing that ever happened," Gates told an informal meeting late Friday at the World Economic Forum here

He characterised the Chinese model in terms of "willingness to work hard and not having quite the same medical overhead or legal overhead"

Manufacturers have created "scale economies that are just phenomenal", in part owing to companies there and elsewhere on the planet designing good products, Gates said

Looking ahead, he added: "You know they haven't run out of labor yet, the portion that can come out of the agriculture sector" was still considerable

"It's not like Korea, Korea got to a point where, boom, the wages went up a lot," he said, adding "that's good, you know, they got rich and now they have to add value at a different level

"They're closer to the United States in that sense than they are to where China is right now." Gates continued by heaping praise on the current generation of Chinese leaders

"They're smart," he said with emphasis

"They have this mericratic way of picking people for these government posts where you rotate into the university and really think about state allocation of resources and the welfare of the country and then you rotate back into some bureaucratic position." That rotation continued, Gates explained, and leaders were constantly subjected to various kinds of ratings

"This generation of leaders is so smart, so capable, from the top down, particularly from the top down," he concluded

wai/ns/scs For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com

January 30, 2005 at 12:53 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Elephants save tourists from tsunami

Elephants save tourists from tsunami - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

KHAO LAK, Thailand (Reuters) - Agitated elephants felt the tsunami coming, and their sensitivity saved about a dozen foreign tourists from the fate of thousands killed by the giant waves.

"I was surprised because the elephants had never cried before," mahout Dang Salangam said on Sunday on Khao Lak beach at the eight-elephant business offering rides to tourists.

The elephants started trumpeting -- in a way Dang, 36, and his wife Kulada, 24, said could only be described as crying -- at first light, about the time an earthquake measured at a magnitude of 9.0 cracked open the sea bed off Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The elephants soon calmed down. But they started wailing again about an hour later and this time they could not be comforted despite their mahouts' attempts at reassurance.

"The elephants didn't believe the mahouts. They just kept running for the hill," said Wit Aniwat, 24, who takes the money from tourists and helps them on to the back of elephants from a sturdy wooden platform.

Those with tourists aboard headed for the jungle-clad hill behind the resort beach where at least 3,800 people, more than half of them foreigners, would soon be killed. The elephants that were not working broke their hefty chains.

"Then we saw the big wave coming and we started running," Wit said.

Around a dozen tourists were also running towards the hill from the Khao Lak Merlin Resort, one of a line of hotels strung along the 10 km (6-mile) beach especially popular with Scandinavians and Germans.

"The mahouts managed to turn the elephants to lift the tourists onto their backs," Kulada said.

She used her hands to describe how the huge beasts used their trunks to pluck the foreigners from the ground and deposit them on their backs.

The elephants charged up the hill through the jungle, then stopped.

The tsunami drove up to 1 km (1,000 yards) inshore from the gently sloping beach which had been so safe for children it made Khao Lak an ideal place for a family holiday. But it stopped short of where the elephants stood.

On Sunday, the elephants were back at work giving rides to the tourists on whom the area depends.

German Ewald Heeg, from a small town near Frankfurt, said his charter company had offered his family -- wife, two daughters and one of their boyfriends -- the chance to go straight home, but he had turned it down.

"Our family is OK so we stay here to make our holiday," he said.

"Today, we make a safari. We go by elephants at first, then we make a boat trip."

January 3, 2005 at 12:24 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Tsunami Adds to Belief in Animals' 'Sixth Sense'

Yahoo! News - Tsunami Adds to Belief in Animals' 'Sixth Sense'

Thu Dec 30, 8:31 AM ET
By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said Thursday.

Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department, said Wednesday.

The waves washed floodwaters up to 2 miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards. "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo.

"There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting," he told Reuters.

Other authorities concurred with this assessment.

"Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.

Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators.

The notion of an animal "sixth sense" -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to.

The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes.

The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean Sunday. It killed tens of thousands of people in Asia and East Africa.

January 2, 2005 at 11:38 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Quake May Have Made Earth Wobble--US Scientists

Science News Article | Reuters.com

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said.

Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble.

The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 33 feet, so an added wobble of an inch is unlikely to cause long-term effects, he said.

"That continual motion is just used to changing," Gross said. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation."

When those tiny variations accumulate, planetary scientists must add a "leap second" to the end of a year, something that has not been done in many years, Gross said.

Scientists have long theorized that changes on the Earth's surface such as tide and groundwater shifts and weather could affect its spin but they have not had precise measurements to prove it, Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori said.

"Even for a very large event, the effect is very small," Kanamori said. "It's very difficult to change the rotation rate substantially."

� Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

January 2, 2005 at 11:35 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (124) | Top of page | Blog Home

Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band

The New York Times > Arts > Music > Rock Review | The Pixies: Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band

By KELEFA SANNEH

Published: December 13, 2004
It's not hard to envy the Pixies. After more than 10 years apart, the members reunite, only to find that fans (and, if anyone cares, pop critics) love them more than ever. There are sold-out shows, glowing profiles, ecstatic fans. By now you've probably read at least one article about how the Pixies helped inspire a generation of bands, about how much Kurt Cobain loved them, about how water tasted different before they came along, about how the sky used to be a slightly different shade of blue.

But despite all that build-up - or maybe because of it - Saturday's Pixies concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom was a rude, often exhilarating shock. It had been all too easy to forget about the Pixies' ugliness: how fast they played, how loud they were, how nasty they sounded. Compared with the old-timers, the appealing postpunk act that opened the show, TV on the Radio, seemed positively quaint, even polite.

The concert was the opening night of a weeklong, eight-concert engagement, a tribute not only to the continuing popularity of the Pixies but also to the ticket-buying power of the many 30-something fans who remember the band from their college years. (It would be interesting to know how many devotees end up seeing more than one of the eight concerts.) The opening acts are different every night, ranging from pre-Pixies veterans (the reunited Mission of Burma tonight, the pioneering punk bassist Mike Watt next Saturday) to post-Pixies alt-rock bands (the shaggy Canadian collective Broken Social Scene on Tuesday, the feminist new-wave trio Le Tigre on Wednesday). Don't be surprised if the Pixies out-clamor them all.

In 1986, when the Pixies were formed, it made sense that an underground rock band would want to make lots of noise. Shrieked lyrics and guitar tantrums were two signs that you weren't angling to become radio fodder, two signs that you were part of the American postpunk movement - waving the flag, even if you weren't quite marching in step.

But sometime in the 1990's, things changed. The success of Nirvana helped introduce Pixiesish chaos to mainstream listeners who decided that screaming singers and screaminger guitars weren't so hard on the ears after all. From Nine Inch Nails to Korn, shriekers earned a place in overground rock 'n' roll, and the tradition continues today. Turn on your local modern-rock station and wait a few minutes; you'll probably hear the kind of racket that once kept bands off commercial radio.

Not surprisingly, some underground bands responded by getting quieter and sweeter. Those looking for an alternative to the high-decibel ennui of, say, Linkin Park can throw on a CD by the Postal Service or Interpol (to name just two big-name alternative acts), losing themselves in something quieter and more restrained. Emo bands and Ozzfest perennials still scream their lungs out, but lots of bands following in the Pixies' wake have decided to pipe down.

So where does that leave the Pixies? Exactly where they started: alone. On Saturday night, it was a relief to hear that they still sounded utterly and gloriously like themselves, barreling through songs full of elements that might once have seemed disparate but now seem inseparable: the ruthless, sometimes deadpan drumming of David Lovering (in "Bone Machine," he makes it almost impossible to find the downbeat); the precise disruptions of Joey Santiago's electric guitar; Kim Deal's warm slow-motion bass lines; the frantic strumming and gorgeous yelping of Black Francis, a k a Frank Black.

Most startling of all is how little the band's live show has changed over the years. The Pixies' old record label, 4AD, recently released a great retrospective DVD (it's called simply "Pixies") that includes a performance from 1988: Mr. Santiago and Mr. Lovering have hair, Black Francis looks a bit more streamlined, and Ms. Deal looks less like someone you might trust with your car keys, but the furious, off-kilter energy is exactly the same.

Age hasn't affected all of these songs the same way. When Black Francis sang "Where Is My Mind?" it was hard to remember that the phrase had once sounded vague and bitterly evocative; these days, it sounds more like someone making fun of the slacker-chic 1990's. But most of the songs sounded as mysterious and elusive as they always have, from the gently swaying "Caribou" to Ms. Deal's unsettling (and beautiful) sex song "Gigantic," which might be the best thing the Pixies ever did.

If you had to pick a concert for the inevitable live reunion DVD, it probably wouldn't be this one: the members sometimes seemed to be battling one another to establish the right tempo, and a few songs sounded even more ragged than they were supposed to. The band members didn't look as if they were having the time of their lives. They looked like four people working hard to create a marvelous racket; even after watching them do it for 90 minutes, you weren't quite sure how they did it. And as the fans filed out, ears ringing, no doubt some of them were already getting ready to return for another noisy night.

December 13, 2004 at 07:16 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home

Flu experts fear looming pandemic

Toronto

Helen Branswell
Canadian Press
TORONTO -- The global community of influenza experts is a small circle. These days, it's an exhausted, alarmed one as well.
Saturday, November 20, 2004

Many influenza authorities are suffering sleepless nights, eyes trained on Asia where they fear a viral monster is readying itself to unleash a perfect storm of flu on the world.

Should that happen, what will follow will be a public health disaster that will make SARS seem like child's play, they believe.

Between a quarter and a third of the world's population will fall ill, according to new World Health Organization estimates, and one per cent of the sick will die.

Do the math and the numbers defy credulity; between 16 million and 21 million people would die in a matter of mere months. In Canada, 80,000 to 106,000 people would be expected to succumb.

Armed with that math, think of the consequences. Panic. Crippled health-care systems. Economic disruption on a global scale. Grounded airlines. Distribution networks that will grind to a halt. Social instability.

Or, "three years of a given hell," as a leading U.S. epidemiologist, Michael Osterholm, puts it: "I can't think of any other risk, terrorism or Mother Nature included, that could potentially pose any greater risk to society than this."

Until recently, official guesstimates of the expected death toll of a new pandemic have been modest. Using mathematical models devised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Canada's public health agency estimates between 11,000 to 58,000 here people might die.

The CDC models point to between two million and seven million deaths worldwide.

Many question those figures and say they're far too rosy. And many believe the WHO's new numbers are overly optimistic as well.

Osterholm is one of them. He's done age-adjusted calculations based on the experience of the 1918 Spanish flu, the worst pandemic in known history.

Laying 1918 fatality rates over the world's current population, Osterholm suggests between 36 million and 177 million people would die if a pandemic of similar severity hit again. (The top figure is based on half the world's population becoming infected.)

But public discussion of numbers like those makes many in the flu world nervous, fearing the figures are so impossibly large they take on the mantle of science fiction.

"None of these models can 100 per cent predict what's going to be happening. And it would be wrong in my view to always play the worst case scenario," cautions Dr. Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO's global influenza program.

"Irrespective of what type of model we are talking about, the figures are certainly not comforting," he continues. "None of these estimates would suggest that we should let down our efforts in pandemic preparedness."

But Osterholm and others around the globe are extremely concerned those efforts are moving at a snail's pace. They fear governments and vaccine companies are dismissing the potential disaster as too hypothetical, too apocryphal.

"This to me is akin to living in Iowa . . . and seeing the tornado 35 miles away coming. And it's coming. And it's coming. And it's coming. And it keeps coming," says Osterholm, who is a special adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson and associate director of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defence.

"You just see it. And we're largely ignoring it."

The "it" Osterholm refers to is a nasty strain of influenza A known as H5N1, so named because of the hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) proteins on the virus's outer shell. Though flu is notoriously unpredictable, H5N1 is currently considered the leading candidate to spark the next pandemic.

With 500 years of history to guide them, experts say flu pandemics are inevitable.

The highly unstable RNA viruses are constantly recombining (mutating) and reassorting (swapping genes with each other). The result: new forms of flu are always finding ways to slip past the immune system's sentries to pick the lock of the human respiratory tract.

When an entirely new version appears, one to which no one has any immunity, a pandemic occurs. And with 36 years having elapsed since the last pandemic, experts warn another could come at any time.

The thought of an H5N1 pandemic chills the hearts of those who've been following the virus's evolution since it was first known to have infected humans, in Hong Kong in 1997.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the CDC's flu branch investigated the Hong Kong outbreak and others since. He sighs softly when asked whether the prospect of an H5N1 pandemic robs him of sleep.

"More nights than I like," admits Fukuda, head of epidemiology for the branch.

Fukuda chooses his words with care. He often describes H5N1 developments as "spooky," the closest he gets to hyperbole.

"When a pandemic will occur and what the agent might be is completely unknowable," he says.

"Nonetheless I think that all of us are definitely working under an increased sense of urgency because of all of the events that have gone on in Asia. . . .

"We know that we're not adequately prepared. And to that extent we are pushing things pretty urgently."

Since the beginning of the year H5N1 has killed millions of chickens and forced the culling of tens of millions more in at least nine Southeast Asian countries.

It has defied longstanding flu dogma by directly infecting and killing mammals previously thought to be immune to an avian virus, house cats, leopards and tigers among them.

It's also killed 32 of the 42 people - mainly children and young adults - known to have caught it in Vietnam and Thailand. There is much suspicion in the flu world that other deaths elsewhere have gone unreported.

Efforts to eradicate the virus from chicken stocks have so far failed. Some believe the virus has become endemic in a region where dense human populations live cheek by jowl with animals that can be a mixing bowl for virus reassortment.

Factor in the inadequacy of the international vaccine system, which under current regulatory rules could only produce enough pandemic vaccine for a fraction of the world's people, add the lack of surge capacity in hospitals the world over and the picture looks bleak, says Osterholm, who is also director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"You keep adding all these things up and you see - we are talking about a perfect storm."

More worrisome still is the fact that H5N1 is currently behaving much like the dreaded Spanish flu, which had the astonishing capacity to swiftly kill people in the prime of life.

Flu generally kills the old and the very young; it weakens their systems, making them prey to secondary infections like pneumonias which they can't fight.

But the Spanish flu was different. It's believed that virus sparked what's called a cytokine storm - a cascading hyper-reaction of the immune system so severe that attacking the invader actually killed the host.

"Everything that we're seeing in the virus-host interaction in Southeast Asia says cytokine storm," Osterholm says.

If H5N1 becomes a pandemic strain and retains that fearsome feature, in addition to the very young and the very old - flu's normal targets - young, healthy people with robust immune systems would be at great risk.

November 20, 2004 at 06:17 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

Thousands Attend Funeral of DJ John Peel

Yahoo! News - Thousands Attend Funeral of DJ John Peel

Fri Nov 12,11:59 AM ET

BURY ST EDMUNDS, England - Musicians, broadcasters and hundreds of music fans gathered at an English church Friday for the funeral of John Peel, an influential DJ beloved by generations of British Broadcasting Corp. listeners.

Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey were among mourners at the service for Peel, 65, who died of a heart attack last month while on holiday in Peru.

Tributes outside St. Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St. Edmunds, eastern England, included a wreath of yellow roses from Elton John (news) with a card that read: "Thank you for all the great music. You were a hero for so many. Much love Elton."

Peel was a BBC fixture for almost 40 years, playing an eclectic assortment of tunes, often by unknown bands, that reflected his wide-ranging tastes. Peel promoted reggae, hip-hop and punk on the sometimes conservative BBC, and championed acts ranging from Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie (news) to The Smiths, The Fall, and Pulp.

"John Peel was simply the most influential music broadcaster in the U.K. His support for young musicians was unique," said the BBC's director of radio and music, Jenny Abramsky.

Some 1,000 mourners filled the cathedral and hundreds more listened on loudspeakers outside. Alongside the Lord's Prayer, a choral work by Mozart and the traditional hymn "Abide With Me," the service included the soccer favorite "You'll Never Walk Alone" � unofficial anthem of Peel's favorite team, Liverpool � and Howlin' Wolf's "Going Down Slow."

After the service, Peel's coffin was borne from the church to applause and the sound of his favorite song � "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones.

November 15, 2004 at 10:07 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site

Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.

"When we looked at the first day after the election, November 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.

On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.

Bush's victory sparked speculation that disconsolate Democrats and others might decide to start a new life in Canada, a land that tilts more to the left than the United States.

Would-be immigrants to Canada can apply to become permanent resident, a process that often takes a year. The other main way to move north on a long-term basis is to find a job, which requires a work permit.

But please spare the sob stories.

Asked whether an applicant would be looked upon more sympathetically if they claimed to be a sad Democrat seeking to escape four more years of Bush, Iadinardi replied: "There would be no weight given to statements of feelings."

Canada is one of the few major nations with an large-scale immigration policy. Ottawa is seeking to attract between 220,000 and 240,000 newcomers next year.

"Let's face it, we have a population of a little over 32 million and we definitely need permanent residents to come to Canada," said Iadinardi. "If we could meet (the 2005) target and go above it, the more the merrier."

But right now it is too early to say whether the increased interest will result in more applications.

"There is no unusual activity occurring at our visa missions (in the United States). Having someone who intends to come to Canada is not the same as someone actually putting in an application," said Iadinardi.

"We'll only find out whether there has been an increase in applications in six months."

The waiting time to become a citizen is shorter for people married to Canadians, which prompted the birth of a satirical Web site called www.marryanamerican.ca.

The idea of increased immigration by unhappy Americans is triggering some amusement in Canada. Commentator Thane Burnett of the Ottawa Sun newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to would-be new citizens on Friday.

"As Canadians, you'll have to learn to embrace and use all the products and culture of Americans, while bad-mouthing their way of life," he said.

November 6, 2004 at 02:04 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home

Tributes pour in for DJ John Peel

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Tributes pour in for DJ John Peel

Tributes have poured in from the music world after the death of veteran broadcaster John Peel, who died on holiday in Peru on Tuesday aged 65.

Members of The Smiths, The Undertones, The Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead, Blur and Joy Division have spoken about Peel's influence and legacy.

Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr said the band's early success was "largely due to the John Peel show".

Prime Minister Tony Blair also paid tribute to the BBC Radio 1 DJ.

Peel, whose radio career spanned 40 years, was on a working holiday in the city of Cuzco with his wife Sheila when he suffered a heart attack.

He was BBC Radio 1's longest-serving DJ and in recent years had also presented Home Truths on Radio 4.

Radiohead singer Thom Yorke said Peel was his "inspiration" since the age of 14. "Who am I going to listen to now? I'm thinking about you. Thanks John Peel."

Blur singer Damon Albarn said the world would be a poorer place without Peel.

"I will miss him deeply," he said. "I want to send my heartfelt sympathy to his lovely family. John's memory will never be forgotten because he had the spirit of music in him."

Feargal Sharkey, former frontman of The Undertones, described Peel as the "single most important broadcaster we have ever known".

'He changed my life forever'

The band's single Teenage Kicks was Peel's favourite song and he championed the track and the band on his show in the late 1970s.

Sharkey said: "In the autumn of 1978, something happened that was to change my life forever - John Peel played Teenage Kicks on the radio for the very first time. Today, it just changed again, forever."

Johnny Marr, who played with The Smiths on live sessions on Peel's show, said he was always the best DJ on the radio.

"We would try out new songs on the sessions and these often were the definitive version," he said.

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker said: "In a world that is becoming ever more homogenised and pre-programmed, John Peel stuck up for the 'sore thumbs' of the music scene and I really can't think of anyone who could have done it better or who's going to do it now he's gone."

Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher called Peel "a rare breed amongst radio DJs". The Manic Street Preachers' James Dean Bradfield told the BBC News website: "It was because of him I got to hear some of the most obscure but influential music I ever heard.

"He was a lifeline to hearing music I would never have heard otherwise."

'Dreadful shock'

Bernard Sumner of Joy Division and New Order said the news of Peel's death was a "dreadful shock".

"If it wasn't for John Peel, there would be no Joy Division and no New Order," he said.

"He was one of the few people to give bands that played alternative music a chance to get heard, and he continued to be a champion of cutting-edge music throughout his life."

Kurt Wagner, of US band Lambchop, said Peel was "amazing" and his influence was felt far outside his home country.

Tony Blair's spokesman said the Prime Minister was "genuinely saddened by the news".

He added: "His view is that he was a unique voice in British broadcasting and used that voice to unearth new talent and different subjects and make them accessible to a much wider audience."

Peel was born in Heswall, near Liverpool, and joined Radio 1 at the launch in 1967.

He became one of the first DJs to give exposure to punk, reggae and hip-hop, before they crossed over into the mainstream.

'Devastated'

Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt said Peel's death "absolutely devastated everyone".

"We're stunned and bereft. He's irreplaceable because what he had was 37 years of commitment to young music."

Mr Parfitt told Radio 1's Newsbeat Peel had been on a holiday of a lifetime when he died. "He had gone on holiday with his wife Sheila to a place where he had always wanted to go."

Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq said: "He was groundbreaking for me. He just broke the rules the whole time. He did things that just weren't done. He was a maverick and he got away with it.

"You have to have trust with a DJ, and everyone built that trust with John."

BBC 6 Music's Liz Kershaw said he was " the least musically snooty person we know".

She said: "He was utterly sincere in what he was doing, not because he wanted to be famous but he though he was on a mission to bring stuff to people's ears.

'Great joy'

"He really did trawl through mailbags of demo cassettes. That's why we had Pulp and T-Rex, because he'd been discovering bands like that since 1967."

Singer Laura Cantrell, who was championed by Peel in recent months, said he had an "unabashed love for music".

"I really treasure that I got to know the man and his family, to hear his stories, and to be welcomed by he and Sheila to Peel Acres.

"To experience his sense of humour, the great joy that he took in his life was inspiring."

October 26, 2004 at 11:25 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

The master communicator

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | The master communicator

By Nicky Campbell
BBC Five Live presenter

John Peel was a broadcasting god. The Peelie you heard on the air was in every way the Peelie you met in the pub, chatted to in the record library and swapped gossip with in the corridor at Broadcasting House.

For any broadcaster that is the ultimate achievement. The man had a great brain.

He was erudite, knowledgable and one of the most genuine people I've met in this or any other business.

He could also be achingly funny. When he was on the 8-10pm slot on Radio 1 I followed him from 10-12, and we got to know each other well.

Sometimes he'd make me laugh so much and always the ascerbic observation was delivered with the pointed and yet disappointed John Peel wryness.

'Deeply thoughtful'

When once I mentioned that one of our weird and wonderful colleagues had told me he patronised several charities, Peelie painfully sighed, "And can't you just hear him."

The then-controller, Johnny Beerling, had a command posted up on the studio wall in bright colours to remind us all not to get too carried away. It read: "One thought - one link."

John found that hilarious and for Peelie to receive such a bumptious and presumptious instruction was plainly ludicrous. He was a deeply thoughtful man with a fascinating intelligence.

His command of the mother tongue - forged by a post-war upbringing and then the radicalism of the 1960s, and throughout a manifest love of language - was inspiring to listen to.

He was a master craftsman. He was a master communicator. That, married to his perpetual adolescent love for the musically marginal and utterly outre was a wonderful combination.

He was a great guy to have a good gossip with whether about politics or the current state of Radio 1.

I remember him once telling me playfully but with utter sincerity that another of our colleagues was "the most dangerous man he had ever met". Incidentally, he wasn't wrong.

And his strong sense of right and wrong, his hatred for bullies and charlatans and his humanity shone through all his work and came through the radio with every word and every record he played.

The Monday evening show the weekend after the Hillsborough tragedy was a piece of broadcasting I'll never forget.

He said nothing at the start of his show. He just played a record. A long slow record. It was Aretha Franklin's heart breaking gospel version of You'll Never Walk Alone.

I looked through the glass from my adjacent studio and John was just weeping. Silently. So were all of us - his listeners. Nothing more needed to be said.

I am pleased and proud to have known him, albeit a little. For my money, we have lost one of our greatest broadcasters.

October 26, 2004 at 11:20 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

"Here we are now, entertain us"

Cobain's spirit endures 10 years on

TheStar.com - Cobain's spirit endures 10 years on

ABERDEEN, Wash.
Beneath this bridge above the muddy banks of Wishkah River, a troubled young Kurt Cobain would come to escape his unhappy home and the persistent gray drizzle of the Washington coast.

Among the cracking concrete supports, he would smoke pot and drink, and plot his stardom, bragging to friends of his "suicide genes" and that he would die a young rock star.

It's here that many of his fans have come to pay their respects since he fulfilled that prophecy with a needle and a shotgun 10 years ago tomorrow.

"Peace, love, empathy," reads one message scrawled in graffiti under the bridge.

"Kurt," says another, "Your spirit will bounce on happily.''

Cobain and his band, Nirvana, spent only three years in the public eye, and they released only three studio albums. But what he accomplished before committing suicide at age 27 � deciding it was "better to burn out than fade away," as he quoted Neil Young in his suicide note � was remarkable.

Critics describe 1991's Nevermind, which has sold more than 10 million copies, as one of the decade's most important albums. Its biggest hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," remains a seminal expression of teen angst. Cobain brought the dark, driven sound of grunge rock to the nation, helped save the world from hair metal, and with a single line � "Here we are now, entertain us" � captured and captivated a generation that had grown bored and cynical about popular music.

Andrew Harms, a 24-year-old disc jockey on a Seattle radio station, still remembers his first exposure to Nirvana, which remains his favourite band: seeing the video for "Teen Spirit" on MTV.

"It filled me with an energy that music had not done for me before," Harms says. "The guy had an amazing creative mind, and he took all the emotions within him and expressed it through music. It was music of substance, music that seemed real to me.''

Cobain biographer Charles Cross says that when Nirvana went to record "Nevermind," they followed Warrant into the studio � a band known for big hair, open shirts and their "Cherry Pie'' video.

"Music at that point was so prefabricated, so fake, so hairspray that Nirvana was really a breath of fresh air," Cross says. "It was more organic than anything we'd seen in music in years.''

Much of the screaming desperation in Cobain's songs can be traced to his life in this timber town on the Washington coast, and in Montesano, just inland, where his grandparents and father lived. Cobain's parents divorced when he was 9, an event that scarred him deeply, and much of his adolescence was spent bouncing among the homes � and garages and vans � of his parents, grandparents, relatives and friends.

As Cross writes in Heavier Than Heaven, a family history of alcohol abuse and suicide weighed on him, but several relatives on both sides were artistically talented. Many friends recall Cobain saying he would one day join the "27 Club" � a reference to the age Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were when they died.

Cobain found an outlet for these emotions in guitar, punk rock and painting, through which he would express himself for the rest of his life. He spoke frequently during the last two years of his life of giving up music for painting.

Shortly before he dropped out of Aberdeen's Weatherwax High School, Cobain began playing with classmate Krist Novoselic. They formed Nirvana after moving to Olympia in the late 1980s, and drummer Dave Grohl � now of the Foo Fighters � joined the band in 1990, the year Cobain began taking heroin, and the year Nirvana's first album, Bleach, helped it win a major label deal with DGC, part of Geffen Records.

Over the next year, Nirvana � and grunge � exploded on to the national stage, with Seattle becoming the locus, thanks to Nirvana and other local bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. In September, 1991, when Nevermind went on sale, Cobain had just been evicted from his Olympia apartment and was sleeping in his car. Geffen initially expected to sell only 50,000 copies of Nevermind. By year's end, it sold two million.

Shortly before Cobain brought his dyed locks and emaciated frame on to Saturday Night Live, he learned Nevermind had knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous out of the Number 1 spot on the charts.

As his fame soared, though, so did his heroin use, in part as a self-treatment for his chronic stomach pain. Encouraged by his wife, Courtney Love, who had her own drug problems, Cobain checked into detox several times over the next 2 1/2 years. But he always returned to heroin, even around the time his daughter was born in 1992.

Nevertheless, his songwriting remained impressive and became more polished with Love's collaboration, especially on "Heart-Shaped Box" and other songs for Nirvana's third album, In Utero.

In January, 1994, as Cobain's despondency spiralled, he recorded his last great song, "You Know You're Right." It would not be released until 2002, following a long legal battle between Love and the surviving Nirvana members, but the song's ironic couplet "Things have never been so swell/ and I have never been so well'' lent a serious insight into Cobain's mind at the time.

While in Rome a month after recording it, he tried to kill himself by taking 60 tranquilizers. The overdose left him in a coma.

He survived, but in early April he jumped a wall at a detox centre in Los Angeles and flew back to Seattle.

On April 5, 1994 � give or take 24 hours � Cobain wrote a suicide note, in which he said he couldn't stand to think of his daughter becoming "the miserable self-destructive, death rocker that I've become." He went into the greenhouse of his mansion, injected himself with a massive dose of heroin, put a 20-gauge shotgun against the roof of his mouth, and fired.

An electrician found his body the morning of April 8.

Thousands of people attended a vigil for him at Seattle Center back then. There is no such widespread event planned for the 10th anniversary of his death, though some fans communicating on the Internet have suggested meeting at Seattle Center.

Others will come here, beneath the Young Street Bridge, or to the benches at Viretta Park, next to Cobain's house in Seattle, where some of his ashes are scattered.

Radio stations around the country plan to devote airplay to Nirvana's music, and the Aberdeen Museum of History plans to offer a tour of Cobain-related sites this summer.

"You can't get around the drug use, but we're not going to dwell on it a lot," curator Dann Sears says. "What's important is his legacy ... he revolutionized music.''

GENE JOHNSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 4, 2004 at 11:19 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Mean Maschine

Bit of a flashback here!

Mean Maschine - [Sunday Herald]

Live Electronica: Kraftwerk - Carling Academy, Glasgow
Reviewed by Leon McDermott

A disconnected voice says: “Ladies and gentlemen, die mensch maschine, Kraftwerk.” And so it begins: a history of dance music, condensed into two hours. The music that has sprung forth from Kraftwerk’s D�sseldorf studio, KlingKlang, has prefigured so much of dance music that without them, the world would sound a whole lot different. Techno, house, electro, hip hop and ambient all owe Kraftwerk a debt that’s still being worked off. It’s all here: the cold, dispassionate synths that are the thread between Fritz Lang’s streamlined vision of the future and the outer reaches of techno; the clanking, juddering beats that provided the building blocks for electro; and bass that is at times as subterranean and as sinister as anything the likes of Dizzee Rascal has produced.

They open with the rising cadences of The Man-Machine, in front of a crowd � everyone from ponytailed pensioners to wide-eyed kids � which receives the quartet as enthusiastically as any kiddie pop show; afterwards, people wax lyrical about having seen them in Edinburgh in 1991, the last time they played Scotland. Not that their music � or the band themselves for that matter, wearing matching black suits and ties, their mostly hidden red shirts adding a touch of colour � seems to have aged: 1983�s Tour De France still resonates with the bicycle-loving optimism that brought it into being, while the repetitive, cyclical chords of Autobahn (a song now in its fourth decade, and which introduces itself with a cavalcade of revving engines and cheeky car horns) still sound like they were made for some future where roads remain things to be cherished and worshipped, rather than the mundane, gridlocked things they actually are. Kraftwerk, one might assume, still think this should be the case; no worries for them about global warming and the exploitation of the world�s oil supplies needed to keep the wheels turning.

However, as much as Kraftwerk�s music is that of the shiny new electronic future, there�s a dark, brooding side to their take on the world. As vintage footage of models on the catwalk plays behind the band, the emotionally dislocated narrative of The Model, in which everything � work, socialising, sex � is reduced to a financial transaction, plays out over sighing, resigned synths. There�s emotion here, but presented in as detached a way as possible.

Instead, Kraftwerk reserve what love they have to give for machines. Trans-Europe Express, their 1978 ode to intercontinental railways � subsequently sampled by Afrika Bambaataa for b-boy classic Planet Rock � practically seethes with love for the possibilities of travel; Pocket Calculator (in this incarnation, substantially beefed up with thumping, floor-shaking beats) is reworked as a slab of pulsating techno, occasionally interrupted by choppy bursts of percussion and synths. For The Robots, the band are replaced on stage by their famous robotic dolls. You wonder, as their arms wave almost in time to the juddering bassline, if Kraftwerk themselves are actually backstage sipping on cups of tea as the crowd applaud four lifeless dummies. It�s Thunderbirds as techno gods, and a wry joke at the expense of those people who assumed that they�re a band with no sense of humour, a band who could never be truly loved.

Another break, and the band return, this time in splendidly over-the-top neon-checked lycra; the flesh that covers the robotic frames that have just left the stage.

That a thunderous cheer greets the arrival of their mannequins speaks volumes; the audience loves them as much as it loves the band. It�s Kraftwerk�s best joke: because for all that they worship technology, they don�t worship it half as much as their fans.

21 March 2004

March 21, 2004 at 12:15 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

HUBBLE'S BIG BANG SNAPS

Totally off topic, but with all the troubles in the news today, and particularly the horrible bombing in Spain, which I am sure involves Al-qaida, this story is something more deep than we can ever imagine. Its about Hubble's last shot; watching the universe almost at the moment of inception, slightly over 13Bn years ago.

Question ..... what was happening 14Bn years ago?

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event

The Hubble telescope has produced the deepest view of the universe ever seen, showing stars and galaxies formed just after the Big Bang.
The snapshot of the universe, called the Ultra Deep Field, captured light that had streaked through space for more than 13bn years.
It shows a chaotic scramble of around 10,000 galaxies smashing into each other and re-forming in bizarre shapes.

Ultra Deep Field shows around 10,000 galaxies

Hubble's images were collected by focusing its instruments at a single point in the southern sky for one million seconds, an exposure that took more than 400 orbits of the space telescope.

The portion of the sky photographed by the Hubble is very small. Astronomers compared the field of view it to looking at the sky through an eight-foot long straw.

Steven Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute said: "For the first time we're looking back at stars that are forming out of the depths of the Big Bang.

"We're seeing the youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the universe."

The Ultra Deep Field may be the Hubble's last major contribution to astronomy.

Nasa has cancelled future plans to service the Hubble - a procedure which requires a manned shuttle mission - in the aftermath of the Columbia accident in 2003.

Last Updated: 11:19 UK, Wednesday March 10, 2004

March 11, 2004 at 10:50 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Being competitive more than cutting costs

Cranes is right. Becoming competitive is not just about cost cutting ....

TheStar.com - Being competitive more than cutting costs

DAVID CRANE

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal describes how Mexican manufacturers are responding to the challenge of China. They are upgrading the skills and capabilities of their operations so they can do the higher value work currently being done by manufacturers in the United States and Canada.
Mexico is reported to have lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs to China, which forced Mexican companies to learn how to make more complex products. The article describes how the manager of the Jabil Circuit Inc. 1-million-square-foot electronics complex in Guadalajara, after losing significant business to Chinese rivals, reorganized the facility to compete as a "North American factory" and not simply as a cheap-labour factory.

It is now busier than ever in higher-value activities, taking business away from a Jabil facility in the United States, forcing the closing of the U.S. plant with the loss of 500 jobs, and taking business away from France and Ireland as well.

Growing competitiveness from Mexico, China, India and other emerging market economies has led to cries of protectionism in the United States. Such actions, however, can only slow down the process of a global reallocation of manufacturing and production activities that is now under way, not halt it.

As Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates recently told a student audience at the University of Illinois, "the tools of technology are changing global competition" which is leading to widespread concern.

"The tools of technology are making it possible for not only manufacturing-type jobs to be done anywhere on the globe but actual service jobs, not just programming, not just call centres, but design, architecture, any kind of work if you have these rich collaborative interfaces that the Internet and the rich software on top of it make possible, that will let people compete for that work anywhere in the world."

In Canada, far too little thought is being given to where and how our manufacturing sector will fit into this radical restructuring of production that is leading to a global production system.

Prime Minister Paul Martin says he wants to build a 21st century economy for Canada, which would have to be an economy based on a culture of innovation and activities at the frontiers of science and technology.

However, the investment attraction strategy being pursued in Canada seems to be based on KPMG surveys that show Canada is a cheaper location for manufacturing than the United States, Germany or Japan. But it ignores cost comparisons with Mexico, China or India, which in many instances would be much more relevant.

At the same time, business groups like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and business-funded think-tanks such as the C.D. Howe Institute are also focused on such cost comparisons, arguing that the way to build Canadian competitiveness is to have lower corporate tax rates than the United States.

If we see the competitiveness challenge as being one of simply driving down costs, then we will be in a losing race with Mexico, Brazil, China, India and other emerging market economies.

The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association shows signs that it sees the issue as more profound. It plans to spend much of this year engaging Canadians in a dialogue on what's needed to sustain successful future manufacturing, with the goal of producing a strategy paper by October.

Manufacturing employs about 2.4 million workers in Canada and accounts for 18 per cent of Canada's economic output. But its influence is greater than that since many business services depend on a healthy manufacturing sector, while the wages earned by manufacturing workers strengthen housing, retail and other industries. This makes the future of manufacturing a challenge for all Canadians.

As a background paper explains, "Canadian manufacturers are at a critical crossroads. They face a number of challenges � the appreciation of the Canadian dollar, fierce competition from emerging economies like China and India, escalating business costs and more demanding customers sourcing globally to serve global markets, to name a few."

Moreover, Canadian manufacturers "will face even greater challenges over the next five to 10 years as the business of manufacturing itself evolves rapidly in response to the development of new technologies and new competitive pressures."

If Canada is to have a sustainable economy in the years ahead, we have to wake up to the challenge of globalization in a much more profound way than we have so far. The world is changing at an extraordinarily rapid pace and our own standard of living is at stake.

March 11, 2004 at 12:28 AM in World Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

A Year of Contention at Home and Abroad

A Year of Contention at Home and Abroad

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In 2003, Americans found themselves increasingly at odds with each other - and the rest of the world. The title of our major survey of the nation's political landscape captured the public mood: "Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized."

That survey, based on more than 4,000 interviews and drawing on trends dating back to 1987, found an electorate that once again is viewing issues and events mostly through a political prism. The spirit of national unity that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is now a distant memory, swept away amid rising polarization. Republicans and Democrats are now further apart on basic attitudes toward government, national security, business and other issues than at any point since 1994, when voter anger propelled GOP into the control of Capitol Hill.

America's international image, already in decline, went into free fall as a consequence of the war in Iraq. The second major installment of the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed that the war widened the rift between the U.S. and its Western European allies and inflamed the Muslim world. Yet that survey also showed that throughout much of the world, American-promoted values - free markets, the rule of law, and democracy - are broadly accepted.

At home, the war in Iraq and a slow economy cast a shadow over President Bush's 2004 prospects. However, Bush's approval ratings remained in the mid-50% range and the Democratic field had a long way to go to sort itself out -- and to pose a serious threat to unseat the president.

Americans also were increasingly divided along religious lines, a trend underscored by the religious backlash against gay marriage. A survey cosponsored with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed that churchgoers who hear critical messages about homosexuality from the pulpit are far more unlikely than others to express negative views of gays.

This report summarizes what we learned from nearly 50,000 interviews in the U.S. and worldwide, as published in 31 research reports and 14 commentaries during the course of the year.

January 29, 2004 at 11:23 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Barclay twins clinch Telegraph

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Barclay twins clinch Telegraph

Heather Tomlinson and Dan Milmo
Monday January 19, 2004
The Guardian

The secretive multimillionaire Barclay brothers began a �260m takeover yesterday to buy the group that controls the Daily and Sunday Telegraph from Lord Black.

The move came shortly after Lord Black was ousted as chairman of the Telegraph's parent company, Hollinger International, amid a barrage of lawsuits about his conduct at the firm, and marks the end of his 18-year reign as proprietor of the rightwing establishment's favourite paper.

Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, owners of a �4bn media and leisure empire, are two of the richest men in the UK. Known for their reclusive nature, they run an empire that includes the Ritz hotel in London, the Littlewoods retail chain and the Scotsman.

Since the start of December, Lord Black has been talking to the brothers about selling them his controlling stake in Hollinger Inc, conducting negotiations by phone before he agreed the deal after a face-to-face meeting in New York on Saturday night. Yesterday, the twins said they would look for ways of "putting together" the Telegraph titles and their existing newspapers, including the Business, which could involve joint distribution or printing deals.

Hollinger's assets, which include the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Sun-Times and The Spectator magazine, as well as the Telegraph titles, were, in effect, put up for sale following a shareholder revolt against Lord Black last year.

More than 100 expressions of interest are thought to have been received for the papers, with potential buyers of the Daily Telegraph including the Daily Mail and General Trust, and Richard Desmond, the owner of Express Newspapers.

But yesterday's surprise deal seems to have outflanked the Barclays' rivals, who are now expected to abandon their plans. However, Mr Desmond and Hollinger each own half of Westferry printers, which prints the Telegraph titles. Mr Desmond could now wrest control of the print works, which would be a blow to the Telegraph group.

The Barclay brothers are reported to be donors to the Conservative party, but are not as involved in the editorial side of their publications, in contrast to the "hands on" approach of Lord Black. Their political beliefs will be taken into consideration if the government asks the media industry regulator, Ofcom, to investigate the takeover.

All newspaper acquisitions can be subjected to a "public interest test" following new media ownership rules last year.

Lord Black controlled the newspaper titles through a complex structure with his holding company, Ravelston, at the top of the pyramid. Ravelston owns the majority of the New York-listed Hollinger Inc, which in turn controls the Telegraph's parent, Hollinger International. The deal yesterday involves the Barclays buying Hollinger Inc. On Friday, Hollinger International launched a lawsuit against Lord Black, Ravelston and others, asking for the return of more than $200m (�110m) taken through "improper means".

The US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, has also asked a court to allow investigations to go on into Lord Black's conduct, irrespective of change of control.

It as yet unclear how this might affect the sale.

Sir David wrote to the Hollinger International board from a Monaco address yesterday. He offered to send his son, Aidan Barclay, to meet them to discuss the plans and said he would pay back any money owed to Hollinger International by Hollinger Inc, one of the demands of the lawsuits the company faces.

He also said the new ownership would end the "negative media attention" that had focused on Lord Black's relationship with the company.

Lord Black repeatedly denied wrongdoing in connection with the lawsuits over his role in Hollinger International.

January 18, 2004 at 11:10 PM in World Affairs | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Secretive tycoon twins to buy Daily Telegraph

TOT (totally off topic) but the influential Telegraph is changing hands. They already own the Scotsman, which is a paper of outstanding quality, and ownership of the Telegraph would be a positive move for its contunuance as a quality paper.

Times Online - Newspaper Edition

William Lewis and Andrew Porter

THE reclusive multi-millionaire Barclay brothers were poised last night to take control of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers. Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, twins who own the Ritz hotel and the Littlewoods retail group, were in advanced talks with Conrad Black, the beleaguered owner.

The Barclay brothers and Lord Black were hoping to announce a deal today, but people involved in the discussions warned last night the talks were delicately poised and could still fall apart. �We had wanted to keep these talks secret right until the end, and now the cat is out of the bag there is no knowing what the brothers will do,� a person involved in the talks said last night.

If successfully completed, the deal would see the Barclays taking control of the Telegraph group, The Spectator magazine, the Chicago Times group of newspapers and Israel�s Jerusalem Post.

Black, a Tory peer, is in dire financial difficulties and is facing an investigation from America�s regulatory body the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He is likely to receive a cash payment from the Barclays of about �110m with the brothers agreeing to pick up outstanding debts of about the same amount.

The twins will buy the approximate 78% stake Black�s master company Ravelston owns in Hollinger Inc, a Canadian company. This will trigger a takeover offer for Hollinger Inc, which controls Hollinger International, owner of the Telegraph group. An earlier option for the Barclays to simply buy Ravelston has been scrapped.

Black will be able to use the cash to repay the sums he owes to Hollinger International, but the Barclays will become responsible for the loans Hollinger Inc has to repay.

Through buying Ravelston�s controlling stake in Hollinger Inc, the Barclays hope to gain management control over all of the media assets owned by that company and Hollinger International.

Despite the talks, the Barclays will still have to satisfy disgruntled investors, some of whom have filed lawsuits demanding compensation.Black and his wife Barbara Amiel have enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. They have four homes, a mansion in Toronto, a home in Kensington, London, an apartment worth �1.9m on New York�s Park Avenue and a home in Florida. When Vanity Fair visited their Kensington home two years ago its reporter was stunned by Amiel�s luxurious wardrobe and her boast of an �extravagance that knows no bounds�.

The Barclays already own four newspaper titles: The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Edinburgh Evening News and The Business.

The negotiations with the Barclays have been conducted behind the back of Lazard, the investment bank that was asked by directors of Hollinger International to find potential buyers for its papers. Lazard has received more than 50 expressions of interest. Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily and Sunday Express, and Lord Rothermere, the largest shareholder in DMGT, which owns the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, have both said they were keen to acquire the Telegraph titles. The Barclays' acquisition of the newspapers will provide an early test for Ofcom, the newly created media regulator. The regulator will most likely probe whether the twins have sought to influence editorial policy at their newspapers.

There is also the potential of a clash between the brothers and Desmond, who owns a string of soft porn titles. His Express newspapers share a print works with the Telegraph and Desmond has hinted that any new owner would not be able to print at the plant.

Andrew Neil, editor-in-chief in the Barclays' empire, has not been included in talks to buy the group. Nor has Aidan Barclay, David's son, who normally has a hands-on role in the business affairs of the twins.

Last night there was speculation that Jeff Randall, the BBC's business editor, may be under consideration to edit the Daily Telegraph. The brothers were known to be impressed with Randall when he launched and edited their Sunday Business title, later The Business.

Black was this weekend in his Toronto home finalising the deal. When contacted by The Sunday Times he said: "Your habit of phoning me at home is becoming inconvenient. This is a breaking story. You will just have to wait for it."

Tweedy Browne, a New-York fund manager, first targetted Black and his associates for alleged impropriety. It demanded an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission into payments of almost $300m (�160m).

As news of Black's audacious plan to sell slipped out in New York there was another twist. The special committee of Hollinger International filed a $200m lawsuit targeting Black and releasing a series of embarrassing e-mails that highlight his extravagant behaviour.

One from Black to a colleague, sent in August 2002, stated: "There has not been an occasion for many months when I got on our plane without wondering whether it was really affordable. But I'm not prepared to reenact the French Revolutionary renunciation of the rights of nobility. We have to find a balance between an unfair taxation on the company and a reasonable treatment of the founder-builders-managers. We are proprietors, after all, beleaguered though we may be."

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