The White House environmental adviser Van Jones, a towering figure in the environmental movement, has resigned after weeks of controversy stemming from his past activism.

”On the eve of historic fights for health-care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Mr Jones, the special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight on Saturday. ”They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”

He continued: ”I have been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum – urging me to ‘stay and fight’. But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

Mr Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials ”may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war” and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the Administration.

A Republican Congressman, Mike Pence, called on Mr Jones to resign on Friday, saying in a statement: ”His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Senator Christopher Bond wrote in an open letter: ”Can the American people trust a senior White House official that is so cavalier in his association with such radical and repugnant sentiments?”

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Friday that Mr Jones ”continues to work for the Administration” – but he did not state that the adviser enjoyed the full support of President Barack Obama.

Mr Jones had worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality since March. He was a civil-rights activist before turning his focus to environmental and energy issues.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Mike Pence, Van Jones

After eight years, US-led forces must show progress in Afghanistan by next year to avoid perceptions that the conflict has become unwinnable, the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has said in a sharp critique of the war effort.

Mr Gates said victory was a “long-term prospect” under any scenario and the US would not win the war in a year’s time. But US forces must begin to turn the situation around in a year, he said, or face the likely loss of public support.

Mr Gates said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published yesterday:

“After the Iraq experience, nobody is prepared to have a long slog where it is not apparent we are making headway,”

“The troops are tired, the American people are pretty tired.”

Deep public unhappiness with the war in Iraq helped sink George Bush’s public approval ratings, making him the most unpopular president in recent history in some surveys.

While not predicting a parallel fate for the Obama Administration, Mr Gates stressed the need for progress in Afghanistan.

Mr Gates has spoken in the past about the public’s fatigue with war. In the interview, he went further by offering a more specific time-frame for needed progress as well as the consequences of failing to meet it. Mr Gates has overseen an overhaul in the Administration’s Afghanistan strategy in recent months, sending 21,000 additional troops and choosing a new commander to lead the international effort.

“This is where we are really getting back into the fight,”

The strategy switch came after rebel attacks rose dramatically last year and casualties suffered by US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops surpassed record levels.

President Barack Obama said last week that he hoped to “transition to a different phase” after the Afghan presidential election on August 20.

Mr Gates said Americans would have the patience to continue the war in Afghanistan only if the new military approach began to lift the conflict out of deadlock.

“If we can show progress, and we are headed in the right direction, and we are not in a stalemate where we are taking significant casualties, then you can put more time on the Washington clock,”

With a new strategy in place, General Stanley McChrystal, now the top commander in Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus, head of US forces in the Middle East, are due to provide their assessment of the effort in Afghanistan early next month.

Mr Gates said the commanders were free to provide an honest assessment, but also cautioned that additional troops might not be approved.

“I did not want either of them to feel constrained in making their recommendations,”

“That is not to say we will accept all of their recommendations.”

The war in Afghanistan is officially a NATO mission. Mr Gates said the alliance was facing the challenge of rising casualties just as the overall coalition war effort was beginning to function better. British forces have had 15 soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan this month, and Canada has lost five service members.

“There has been an extraordinary amount of political courage as some of our partners have taken some really devastating casualties,”

“The British have had a rough couple of weeks.”

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, george bush, pentagon, Robert Gates

A 17-year-old mimicking Brad Pitt’s Fight Club character, who planned attacks on corporate America, was arrested for masterminding a pre-dawn blast outside a Starbucks Coffee shop in New York.

Kyle Shaw was arrested on Tuesday night on charges of arson, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal mischief, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Wednesday.

He was awaiting arraignment on Wednesday.

The May 25 explosion near the Guggenheim Museum on New York City’s Upper East Side shattered the store’s windows but caused no injuries, and police do not believe it is related to other explosions around the city in the past four years: at the British Consulate in May 2005, the Mexican Consulate in October 2007 and the Times Square military recruiting station in March 2008.

Kelly said Shaw was trying to emulate the character named Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt, from the 1999 film about a nameless and spineless pencil pusher, played by Ed Norton, who takes up with the dangerous yet manly Durden.

The two take part in a secret “fight club”, where men beat one another to a pulp.

Shaw formed his own fight club in which boys beat one another in various locales around the city including Central Park, Kelly said. At least one member got a broken nose, he said.

The second, more dastardly plot hatched by Pitt’s character in the film was called “project mayhem” and included escalating attacks on symbols of corporate America.

Shaw apparently told at least one friend to “watch the news over Memorial Day” – a federal holiday at the end of May – because he was about to launch his own version of “project mayhem”, Kelly said. Investigators are looking into whether more people might have been involved.

Police say the suspect picked the site because a Starbucks was a target in the movie. It wasn’t clear why the specific coffee shop was chosen. There are dozens around the city.

The blast occurred around 3.30am. A witness reported seeing two people, one blonde, running from the scene.

The device, made of fireworks powder, a plastic bottle, a metal cap and electrical tape, was set off with a hand-lit fuse.

Investigators recovered homemade bomb materials, a copy of Fight Club, a box of sparklers and a newspaper clipping about the attack from Shaw’s home, Kelly said.

Investigators are still working to identify suspects in the other blasts and believe they were caused by the same person or group of people, Kelly said.

In those bombings, a lone bicyclist was seen in the area before the blasts, caused by either phony grenades or canisters packed with explosive powder. No was hurt in those blasts, either.

The Starbucks Corp has said it didn’t believe its store was hit intentionally.

A spokesperson said on Wednesday the company was aware of the arrest but could not comment further because the investigation was ongoing.

Technorati Tags: blast, brad pitt, fight club, Starbucks

Democrats have lashed out at former vice-president Dick Cheney, accusing him of abusing his power, amid reports he ordered the CIA to withhold information from Congress about a secret counter-terrorism program.

Lawmakers vowed to hold hearings on the nature of the alleged top secret program and efforts to keep members of the US legislature in the dark.

A senior member of the US Senate, Democrat Kent Conrad, who called the alleged failure to notify Congress about the program “a serious breach” said:

“This is a question of whether the former vice-president of the United States denied certain sensitive information to the intelligence leaders in Congress. That is not acceptable,”

Speaking on Sunday on CNN television, Conrad said Central Intelligence Agency notification to key members of Congress about its secret programs

“is required by law”

“That’s a serious matter,”

Representative Anna Eshoo, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she would call for the panel to hire an outside counsel to investigate the issue.

The Democrat told The Washington Post in reports published on Sunday:

“We have to know who gave the order for this, who gave the order to conceal this, where did they draw the money for this,”

Eshoo said the committee might have to use its subpoena power to interview some officials who oversaw intelligence issues during the Bush administration.

Officials were vague about the precise nature of the highly secret program.

Two former agency officials told the daily it involved a series of proposals designed to provide US intelligence agencies with a “needed capability” – without providing details as to what was meant.

The latest proposal was aired in the spring of 2008 but was not carried out, the officials said, although they told the newspaper it did not involve interrogations of detainees or surveillance of US-based communications.

Both were highly controversial practices that have been roundly condemned in many quarters, as the United States prosecuted its war on terrorism during the Bush administration.

The New York Times, which broke the story about the role alleged to have been played by Cheney in keeping the CIA program under wraps, reported that CIA chief Leon Panetta ended the program when he learned of its existence on June 23.

Panetta is reported to have revealed Cheney’s role in a closed briefing one day later to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

“Because this program never went fully operational and hadn’t been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial,”

An intelligence official told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity.

News of the alleged program came as lawmakers from both President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party and opposition Republicans are in bitter dispute over whether the CIA informed Congress adequately and comprehensively about sensitive programs.

In May, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that the US spy agency misled lawmakers in 2002 about interrogation techniques widely seen as torture, including “waterboarding”, a simulated drowning method used on terrorism suspects.

On Sunday, senior Republican senator Judd Gregg conceded that in his view,

“if somebody told the CIA not to inform the appropriate members of Congress on information, that’s wrong”.

Nevertheless Gregg said:

“That isn’t a reason to disassemble the CIA and make them a whipping child in the middle.”

The Republic lawmaker said the controversy pointed to a

“continued attack on the CIA and our intelligence gathering organisations which is undermining the morale and capacity of those organisations to gather intelligence”.

Technorati Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Dick Cheney, Kent Conrad

Post-election violence in Iran is “deeply shocking”, but G8 leaders nevertheless want to pursue talks to end the nuclear standoff with Tehran, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says, warning Iran that the international community was determined to make progress.

“We want to give negotiation every chance. If that works, then great. If that leads nowhere, then that won’t be without consequences,”

Speaking after a dinner with fellow Group of Eight leaders at which Iran was discussed, Sarkozy condemned what he called Tehran’s “blackmail” over its holding of Western prisoners arrested following a post-election crackdown.

Referring to international attempts to bring the Islamic republic to the negotiating table over its alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons, Sarkozy said :

“The statement of the G8 is unequivocal,”

“Between August and September it’s for them to decide how they want things to evolve. Pittsburgh is the date,”

Indicating Iran had been set an informal deadline to respond to Western overtures before the next G20 summit.

“The Iranian regime refuses all hands offered to them.”

Sarkozy also demanded Iran immediately release 23-year-old researcher Clotilde Reiss, a French citizen arrested in Tehran on July 1 and accused of “spying” over an email she sent to friends describing street protests.

Technorati Tags: French President, G8, iran, Nicolas Sarkozy

A lawyer for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff has sought a sentence of 12 years or less for his aging client, who he says “has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years”.

In a letter to the judge overseeing the case in New York, lawyer Ira Sorkin said any sentence longer than 12 years would constitute “an effective life sentence” for his client.

Madoff, 71, is due to be sentenced next week in a New York federal court. The former investor, who is accused of perpetrating a $US50 billion fraud, could face up to 150 years in prison.

Sorkin said the court should take into consideration Madoff’s surrender to police, acceptance of responsibility, cooperation with authorities, and the non-violent nature of his offence.

The letter said:

“A prison term of 12 years, just short of an effective sentence, will sufficiently address the goals of deterrence, protecting the public and promoting respect for the law, without being ‘greater than necessary’ to achieve them,”

Sorkin’s letter added that Madoff would describe his “pain” at the suffering his actions caused during an upcoming sentencing hearing.

“Both he and his counsel acknowledge the scope and magnitude of those losses and understand the victims’ calls for reprisal,”

But Sorkin urged the court to:

“set aside the emotion and hysteria attendant to this case and render a sentence that is just and proportionate to the conduct at issue.”

Technorati Tags: $50billion fraud, Bernard M, Bernard Madoff, fraud

The Italian Government is bracing for a fresh of wave of scandal after prosecutors investigating a cash-for-contracts rort allegedly unearthed wiretaps suggesting payments to young women to attend Silvio Berlusconi’s house parties.

The investigators had been probing claims of favouritism and corruption in the awarding of lucrative public health-care tenders in the south-eastern port city of Bari and had focused attention on a company owned by two brothers who are well-known local entrepreneurs. The company, Tecnohospital, has won a series of important contracts in a relatively short time. One of the owner-brothers, Giampaolo Tarantini, is believed to have been heard on the phonetaps discussing the parties he had attended at the Prime Minister’s Roman and Sardinian residences.

Local investigators have now brought in several young women for questioning in a bid to work out if the taped discussions were purely boastful or serious inducements to prostitution.

News of the investigation has emerged at the same time as an explosive front-page interview with a young blonde, Patrizia D’Addario, who told Corriere Della Sera that she attended two parties at the Prime Minister’s Roman residence — one on the night that Barack Obama was elected US President.

Ms D’Addario claimed that she was offered the opportunity to stand in a local poll as a candidate for a party associated with Mr Berlusconi’s proposed new People of Freedom Party and that she has both proof of the trips — and tapes of the evenings. The newspaper itself urged readers to exercise caution when reading the interview.

But yesterday La Repubblica appeared to confirm that she was indeed a candidate for the Apulia First party, which fought a local election recently and published a series of photos of her campaigning alongside both the Prime Minister and one of Mr Berlusconi’s ministers, Raffaele Fitto, late last year.

Ms D’Addario, who does not state her age or occupation, said she had been asked to attend the dinner party at Palazzo Grazioli by a friend in Bari and had been introduced by a man called “Giampaolo”. She said she agreed to attend the event for payment and described the evenings in detail, saying she had worn a recording device on both occasions.

She said she was picked up from her hotel on both evenings by “Giampaolo” and she and two other young women travelled to the Prime Minister’s residence in a limousine with darkened windows.

There she was told she had to adopt the name Alessia and found another 20 or so young women drinking champagne. She said the Prime Minister sang, told jokes and showed videos including footage of his Sardinian villa and his meeting with George Bush. She described a second evening in which she spent the night and insisted she had recordings and proof of both encounters.

In a written statement issued yesterday, Mr Berlusconi has categorically denied the allegations saying he would not allow such “garbage” to distract him from the business of government. He bitterly attacked the newspaper – and Italian journalists – claiming the printed press was

“full of falsehoods and rubbish”.

“I will not be affected or moved by these assaults on me and will continue to work, as always, for the good of my country,”

Technorati Tags: house parties, Italian Government, Silvio, Silvio Berlusconi, young women

Air France has replaced the air speed sensors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 long-haul aircraft, a pilots’ union official says. The company had been under pressure from pilots who feared the devices could be linked to the crash of Flight 447.

In the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic, a Dutch ship began trolling with a high-tech US Navy listening device on Monday in search of the flight data and voice recorders. Investigators say information from those black boxes may be key to determining what caused Flight 447 to crash into the ocean with 228 people on board.

Experts looking into the May 31 crash of the four-year-old Airbus A330 jet have so far focused on the possibility that external speed monitors – called pitot tubes – iced over and gave false readings to the plane’s computers.

Air France had begun replacing the tubes on its A330 and A340 jets before the accident, but had not yet changed them on the plane that crashed.

After pilot complaints, the airline pledged to speed up the switch and it has now equipped all planes with the new sensors, said Erick Derivry, a spokesman for the SNPL pilots’ union.

Derivry stressed it is still “not proven or established” that the old sensors caused the accident.

Airbus chief executive Tom Enders defended the A300 on Monday as his company sought to sell more of the planes at the Paris Air Show.

“Their record is very, very impressive,”

“(They have) more than 16 million flight hours, more than 3 million flights, and this is so far one of the safest commercial aircraft built.”

“We are supporting the investigation as much as we can and we very much hope that the recorders will be found soon, so that we find out what really happened,”

At sea, searchers began towing a US Navy Towed Pinger Locator in a grid pattern in hopes of detecting emergency beacons from Flight 447′s black boxes, which could be lying thousands of metres below the ocean surface. The sounds begin to quickly fade 30 days after a crash.

The initial search spans 5,200 sq km of the Atlantic, said US Air Force colonel Willie Berges, commander of the American military forces supporting the search.

French military officials also are using nuclear submarine to hunt for the black boxes and a second Dutch ship carrying another pinger locater was to arrive on Monday afternoon.

“We have a limited amount of time to cover the search area,”

Berges said, but added the hunt will go on even if no pings are detected beyond the 30-day timeframe.

In Geneva, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said French president Nicholas Sarkozy assured him the French government would compensate the families of crash victims. The two leaders were attending the International Labour Conference.

Silva told reporters, speaking through a translator:

“He (Sarkozy) said that they will take the responsibility to pay the indemnity for all the families that suffered with the crash, the Brazilian and French families and of other countries,”

An Air France spokesman, however, said the airline and its insurance company – not the government – are handling compensation. The official, who declined to name the insurance company, spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorised to discuss the matter.

A spokeswoman for the French transport ministry also denied the government would pay compensation, saying this would be handled by Air France’s insurance. She was speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with ministry policy.

The French presidential palace in Paris and the French mission in Geneva would not immediately comment.

Experts say the evidence uncovered up until now points to at least a partial midair break-up of the plane, with no evidence so far of an explosion or terrorist act.

French ambassador Pierre-Jean Vandoorne, a liaison between the victims’ families and authorities, said on Monday he met in Recife with leaders of Brazil’s search effort and was told they were keeping up their effort.

He said Brazilian and French aviators have spent 1,000 flight hours looking for victims and debris.

Brazilian authorities say they have recovered 43 bodies and another six have been found by French ships.

Vandoorne would not comment on the nationality or any other details of the bodies pulled from the ocean. Coroners say victims’ dental records and DNA samples from relatives will be needed to confirm the identities of the 16 bodies examined so far.

Technorati Tags: A330, a340, Air France, airbus, speed sensors

A royal chauffeur was suspended on Sunday after reportedly giving two undercover journalists a tour of the Queen’s official cars in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, a spokeswoman said.

The News Of The World tabloid newspaper said its reporters, posing as wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen, paid the chauffeur £1000 to let them in, after making contact through his prostitute girlfriend.

The Queen was in residence at the time of the alleged security breach on Friday, said the paper, which published photos of one of its reporters sitting in a royal Bentley, as well as video of the illicit tour.

“We can confirm an individual has been suspended pending an investigation,” a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said after the alleged incident, which follows a number of similar security gaffes in recent years.

London’s Metropolitan Police also said they were worried by the report.

Scotland Yard said in a statement:

“We are naturally concerned about the issues raised by this story and are liaising with palace officials about their staff security arrangements,”

The two journalists got into the palace grounds without being searched or checked, despite walking right past a uniformed police officer in a security booth, the newspaper reported.

As well as the Bentley, which is used for state occasions, the chauffeur also showed the reporters the Queen’s personal car, a 2005 V8 Daimler with a floor specially raised to suit the monarch, it reported.

The paper quoted the chauffeur as saying:

“She’s got slightly short legs, so the floor has been raised to suit her. It’s kind of built around her. It’s tailor-made for her,”

“She only uses it because it’s British and she got it at a discounted rate,”

He added, before also showing the undercover reporters Princess Anne’s green Bentley.

The royal driver, Brian Sirjusingh, originally from Trinidad, also gave sensitive information including code names for two of the vehicles, pointed out security weaknesses in the cars, and revealed the Queen’s private travel plans for the weekend.

The tour was arranged after the newspaper contacted the chauffeur’s 21-year-old girlfriend, described as a £200-an-hour Lithuanian prostitute, and then pretended they were interested in seeing the royal cars.

The chauffeur did not know that his girlfriend worked as a prostitute, it added, quoting her as saying:

“I’m sure he wouldn’t be happy to know it but he can’t really help me financially, so … “

The incident would not be the first time security at Buckingham Palace and other royal palaces has been violated in recent years.

In 2003, a journalist from the Daily Mirror newspaper got a job as a footman at Buckingham Palace – the monarch’s London residence – with a false reference.

This allowed him access to the Queen’s breakfast table and the bedroom where then US president George Bush and his wife were due to stay on an imminent state visit.

At Windsor Palace – the Queen’s favourite home, just west of London – two journalists from The Sun newspaper claimed to have smuggled a fake bomb past security days before the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles in the town in 2004.

And in 2003, Aaron Barschak, a comedian dressed as Osama bin Laden, gatecrashed Prince William’s 21st birthday party at Windsor.

Technorati Tags: Buckingham Palace, chaffeur, prostitute, The queen

US President Barack Obama says North Korea’s reported nuclear and missile tests today are “a threat to international peace” and warrant “action by the international community”.

“These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations,” Obama said in a written statement.

“North Korea’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile program, constitute a threat to international peace and security.”

He said further that “the danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community.’

North Korea said it carried out its second and more powerful nuclear test today, defying international pressure to rein in its nuclear programmes after years of six-nation disarmament talks.

The hardline communist state, which stunned the world by testing an atomic bomb for the first time in October 2006, had threatened another test after the UN Security Council censured it following a long-range rocket launch in April.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said:

“The North successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way,”

“The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology,”

The United States, Britain, the European Union and others expressed concern about the test, which was confirmed by Russia’s defence ministry, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.

A US State Department official said:

“We are gravely concerned by North Korea’s claims,”

“We are consulting with our six-party and UN Security Council partners on next steps.”

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak convened an emergency National Security Council meeting and both South Korea and Japan announced the formation of government crisis teams.

Japan said it would seek an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, which imposed sanctions on the North for its first test.

Takeo Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary said:

“It is absolutely unacceptable. Japan will take stern action against North Korea,”

The KCNA report did not say where the test was conducted. South Korean officials said a tremor was detected around the northeastern town of Kilju, near where the first was staged.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said the tremor measured 4.5 on the Richter Scale compared to 3.6 in October 2006.

Yonhap news agency said the North also appears to have test-fired a short-range missile Monday from its launch site at Musudan-ri near Kilju. There was no immediate confirmation of that report.

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States have been negotiating since 2003 to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear programmes in exchange for energy and security guarantees.

The negotiations led to an agreement signed in 2007, under which the North said it would dismantle its nuclear facilities. The deal bogged down last December over ways to verify the North’s declared nuclear activities.

In April the North irked the international community with a long-range rocket launch, a move that many nations said was actually a ballistic missile test.

After the Security Council condemned the launch and tightened sanctions, the North vowed to conduct a second nuclear test as well as ballistic missile tests unless the world body apologised.

It also announced that it was quitting the six-way talks, which are hosted by its closest ally China, and would restart its plutonium-making program.

Analysts believe the North has stockpiled enough plutonium for six to 12 small nuclear bombs. Its first test was seen as only partially successful, with a yield of less than one kiloton.

KCNA said today’s test had resolved

“scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.”

North Korea has frequently said it needs a nuclear deterrent to prevent any attack.

It said today’s test would “contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and the region around it with the might of Songun (the army-first policy).”

The North has expressed disappointment at the new US administration of President Barack Obama, calling it no better than its predecessor.

Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul’s Dongguk University said:

“The second test was earlier than expected and reflects the North’s growing anger at Washington,”

“Or some internal problems may be forcing Pyongyang to take a strong attitude.”

Leader Kim Jong-Il, 67, was widely reported to have suffered a stroke last August, prompting speculation overseas about the succession. The North’s position has noticeably hardened since then.

Today’s test was staged while South Korea was in mourning for former president Roh Moo-Hyun, who leapt to his death Saturday after being questioned in a corruption probe.

Roh had always championed engagement with the North, and Kim Jong-Il sent condolences to his family.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, KCNA, Kim Jongil, Korean Central News Agency, North Korea, nuclear tests