Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Lawsuit Over Bursting Testicle Alleges Professional Wrestling Is Fake [Wrestling]
J-Millz's Coliseum Championship Wrestling match against Guido Andretti ended last June when Andretti kicked him in the nuts. Now J-Millz, whose real name is John Miller, is suing Andretti, whose real name is Clinton Woosley. Miller says his testicle burst as a result of the blow and that he doesn't have the $20,000 he owes because it had to be removed surgically. Here's Miller's attorney, Larry Wilder, according to a statement released yesterday: More »
Beyond Greece
OVER the weekend, a colleague wrote at Schumpeter on a conference he'd recently chaired:
At an Economist Conferences event for CFOs and finance directors in London this week, I asked the audience whether Greece would end up leaving the euro zone. Every single hand went up. Asked whether more countries than Greece would leave, roughly two-thirds of the audience agreed they would...
It is already happening, after all: a 70%-plus fall in the net present value of private-sector bonds counts as a pretty severe pasting for investors. The worry is the unpredictable impact of a euro-zone exit, not just for Greece but for the rest of the euro zone. The Economist has argued for a Greek default for a year, but always on the presumption that default need not mean exit. But it is ever harder to envisage a situation in which official creditors take a loss on their Greek bond holdings, which is needed to put Greek debt on a sustainable footing, but also agree to keep funding the country until it starts running a primary surplus. Default and exit are becoming inseparable.
Which brings us to the third reason why exit is likely. The prospect of euro-zone departures (even multiple ones) doesn’t scare people as much as it should. The overall mood of the delegates at the conference was relatively sanguine about the effects of an exit. Contingency plans were in place at their firms to deal with it; this wouldn’t be another 2008.
Yet 2008 is what the current situation ominously resembles...
Default and exit are increasingly intertwined, because the political limits to support for the Greek economy are looming, if not already breached. With great difficulty, euro-zone leaders agreed a new bail-out plan for the struggling Greek economy, but it is far from clear that the obstacles to implementation—financial and political—will be managed. Even if they are, another bail-out will probably be needed; the fiscal and growth goals for the Greek economy built into the new bail-out are extremely optimistic by several analyses—including one prepared for euro-zone finance ministers. It's hard to imagine another billion-euro package being put together for the struggling Greeks.
Not least since euro-zone leaders seem to think they're prepared for exit. And maybe they are; they have had almost two years to cut exposure to Greece and prepare for the worst. My colleague is right, though; officials don't allow terrible things to happen if they can help it, and usually when terrible things happen it's because leaders didn't think they'd be so bad—like the Lehman bankruptcy.
This week, the European Central Bank will shower the euro-zone banking system with another burst of cheap liquidity via its second round of long-term refinancing operations. Since the first round of LTRO lending back in December, there has been a substantial recovery in most (though not all) of the prominent crisis indicators. Measures of financial stress reversed, equities rose, and Spanish and Italian sovereign-debt yields came back to manageable, though still elevated, levels. This dynamic, I think, is a big reason why there is such complacency about a Greek exit.
What the LTRO has not necessarily improved, however, is the state of the peripheral economy. A reduction in the threat of broad financial crisis has allowed the German economy to regain its footing. Across the periphery, however, the bad news continues to accumulate. Output will probably contract across southern Europe in 2012. Portugal's situation, especially, looks dire. A contraction of 3.3% is forecast for the year. Its government is on track to hit its short-term fiscal goals—thanks largely to one-off measures that can't be repeated in future.
Whatever happens to Greece, it is becoming increasingly difficult to pretend that the most unpleasant dealings with that economy—repeated bail-outs, private-sector involvement in debt restructuring, and missed deficit targets—will not be allowed to occur elsewhere. Europe is breathing easier about a Greek exit. If it wants to ensure that a departure isn't a swift route back to acute crisis, its leaders need to do far more to establish a firewall between the damned and the purgatorial. But that's what people have been saying since the beginning of this mess.
Nothing to see in Portugal, please keep moving
THE troika wishes to convey that Portugal will be just fine, thank you, provided they keep at it:
The programme is on track, but challenges remain. Policies are generally being implemented as planned, and economic adjustment is underway. In particular, the large fiscal correction in 2011 and the strong 2012 budget have bolstered the credibility of Portugal’s front-loaded fiscal consolidation strategy. Financial sector reforms and deleveraging efforts are advancing, while steps are taken to ensure that credit needs of companies with sound growth prospects are met. Reforms to increase competitiveness, growth, and jobs have also progressed, although many reforms still await full implementation. The broad political and social consensus that is underpinning the programme is a key asset.
Looking ahead, the Portuguese economy will continue to face headwinds. In 2012, trading partner import growth is expected to weaken further, while domestic demand adjusts, and unemployment and bankruptcies are rising. As a result, GDP in 2012 is expected to decline by 3¼ percent, following a fall of 1½ percent in 2011. In 2013, a slow recovery should take hold, mainly supported by private investment and exports. External adjustment is proceeding.
Here's a graphic representation of the establishment of fiscal credibility:
[inline|iid=12832]
That large drop in early February corresponds to the adoption of Portugal's strong 2012 budget. Wait, strike that, the large drop in early February corresponds to a flood of European Central Bank money. I'm sure the drop from renewed fiscal credibility is in there somewhere; kindly point it out in comments.
The IMF reckons Portugal's debt load will stabilise around the arbitrary yet all-important 120% of GDP threshold. At least some private forecasters anticipate the possibility of a peak at a much higher level. What seems clear, however, is that Portugal can't afford any nasty surprises from the resolution of the Greek debt mess. That sort of thing could have a serious negative impact on the government's hard-won credibility.
In praise of structural reform
THIS OECD chart is making the rounds and prompting derisive laughter across Twitter:
[inline|iid=12810]
The joke, of course, is that the more reforming an economy seems to have done of late, the worse off it appears to be. It's almost as if, Twitter seems to be concluding, the OECD and other big institutions have got their policy prescriptions all wrong!
Well, yes and no. Recommendations for reform, like advocacy for deficit reduction, often function as a mark of seriousness within some intellectual and policymaking circles. It's tempting to chalk economic failure up to profligacy, or insufficient adherence to a set of commonly accepted economic principles. Some leaders seem anxious to misdiagnose crises, intentionally or unintentionally, in order to seize the opportunity to foist preferred policies on vulnerable economies. It's going too far to argue that European Central Bank officials are engineering a demand shortfall in the euro zone, the better to keep the pressure on peripheral governments and force reform. Yet the ECB's own actions invite the criticism.
Economics isn't a morality play, and the solution to many economic crises is to print more money or borrow more money or both. At the same time, economies do suffer from structural problems. These problems are occasionally crippling in their severity. Consider a quote recently blogged by Tyler Cowen, from economist Megan Greene:
A friend and I met up at a new bookstore and café in the centre of town, which has only been open for a month. The establishment is in the center of an area filled with bars, and the owner decided the neighborhood could use a place for people to convene and talk without having to drink alcohol and listen to loud music. After we sat down, we asked the waitress for a coffee. She thanked us for our order and immediately turned and walked out the front door. My friend explained that the owner of the bookstore/café couldn’t get a license to provide coffee. She had tried to just buy a coffee machine and give the coffee away for free, thinking that lingering patrons would boost book sales. However, giving away coffee was illegal as well. Instead, the owner had to strike a deal with a bar across the street, whereby they make the coffee and the waitress spends all day shuttling between the bar and the bookstore/café. My friend also explained to me that books could not be purchased at the bookstore, as it was after 18h and it is illegal to sell books in Greece beyond that hour. I was in a bookstore/café that could neither sell books nor make coffee.
Now look, this is not the reason that Greece has been mired in recession for four years. It is not the reason that its current downturn rivals the worst of the 1930s. It is, however, a serious economic problem. Absurd Spanish labour-market rules are not the reason that country suffered a terrible recession. They are, however, a serious economic problem, and one which has exacerbated the present economic crisis. America's weak labour-market recovery is not primarily due to an explosion in onerous occupational licensing requirements, to kudzu-like growth in regulatory red tape, or to increasingly stringent zoning rules that make prosperous cities unaffordable to working households. These are real economic problems, however, which can constrain growth over the long run, distort the returns to growth toward more capable rent-seekers, and slow the process of recovery by impairing the economy's natural adjustment processes.
Structural reform is also not synonymous with austerity. An economy with unsustainable public finances may choose to delay austerity if the impact of spending cuts on growth seems likely to blunt any fiscal improvement. This is an acute concern within the euro zone, where countries lack an independent monetary policy or currency. Indeed, it would be far better for everyone in Europe if officials focused much less on short-term budget cuts and much more on actual reforms: to make it easier to hire and fire workers, start new businesses, and so on. European officials more interested in establishing their own seriousness by calling for painful cuts than in actually helping peripheral economies are undermining the cause of reform. But that doesn't make structural reform any less valuable.
It is possible to argue simultaneously that an economy could use both demand stimulus and structural reform. In many cases, the two are complementary—the euro zone is a very good example. We can all criticise people and organisations which learned nothing when previous reforms failed to generate expected benefits, and we can condemn officials who advocate needless pain for struggling economies. It does no good to pretend that structural reforms never matter, however, or to argue that illiberal rules which keep millions of people poorer than they ought to be shouldn't be scrapped. The economics of many of these issues are fairly clear, and if the bitter nature of the policy debate prevents us from acknowledging that many economies suffer from two, or multiple, ills at once, then that's a serious concern.
We shouldn't conclude that helpful prescriptions aren't helpful just because jerks* occasionally agree.
* I am not arguing that the hardworking folks at the OECD are all jerks. Just to be clear.
Crunch time at the Fed
ON FRIDAY, Brad DeLong blogged a slide from a Christina and David Romer lecture on practical monetary policy at the zero lower bound. The slide contains the Fed's language on low rates from the latest statement and then adds:
Fed isn't promising to keep rates low even if output is back to normal; they are saying they expect to want to keep rates low because output will be low.
So let's back up. At the zero lower bound, the only way to reduce the policy rate is to raise expected inflation. The Fed's communication strategy seems designed to raise expected inflation, by promising to keep rates low in the future when the economy will probably be stronger. To the extent that markets interpret the statement in that way, inflation expectations should rise, the real interest rate should fall, and economic activity should accelerate.
But, as the text in the slide indicates, a strict reading of the Fed statement suggests that the central bank is planning to keep rates low because the economy is likely to remain weak. In that case, the rate forecast wouldn't be expected to raise inflation and wouldn't be stimulative. I shy away from the strict interpretation of the statement, because it would make no sense to add the language in the first place if that's what the Fed were actually saying. Perhaps too charitably, I lean toward a view that the Fed is trying to raise inflation expectations without spooking its critics, internal and external. If I had to marshall evidence for this view, I'd note that general conditions improved from the December to January meeting (and the projected unemployment rate dropped from November to January), yet the Fed pushed out the period through which low rates were probably into 2014.
Unless the Fed continues with its enhanced communications strategy up to the point at which communications are actually enhanced, we'll all be left wondering about the meaning of the statement until the point at which the Fed is forced to show its hand. Unfortunately, oil-price dynamics may interfere.
Tim Duy has a nice discussion of some of the issues here. A few points bear mentioning. First, the Fed targets headline, not core, inflation. Second, it nonetheless uses core as a guide to future headline inflation—strictly targeting headline inflation may lead to nasty procyclicality in policy (see: Jean-Claude Trichet). The trouble, as Mr Duy points out, is that an increase in short-term inflation due to rising commodity prices does not necessarily translate into lower real interest rates. It is expected inflation that matters, and inflation expectations may actually fall in response to higher commodity prices. A fun intellectual discussion might be to try and pick apart whether the drop in future expectations is due to the contractionary nature of dear oil or the central-bank response or something else. Whatever the cause, the upshot is that a rise in commodity prices which pushes up headline inflation but reduces medium-term inflation expectations is strictly contractionary at the zero lower bound.
The right monetary policy reaction is not only to accommodate the oil shock but to ease into it. That will unquestionably be a hard sell to a central bank that understands all too well the lack of appreciation for the subtleties of monetary policy in Congress (and, honestly, at the top of many regional reserve banks). Try telling Ron Paul that you need to buy more assets to raise inflation, because higher oil-induced inflation is reducing expectated inflation. That's where America may find itself, however. In short, a big enough rise in oil prices that translates into a big enough decline in expected growth and inflation may nudge the Fed from the rates-will-be-low-because-we-want-catch-up-growth interpretation toward the rates-will-be-low-because-the-economy-will-be-weak interpretation. Which would dial down the stimulative impact of the language from something to nothing.
It's enough to get one thinking that a non-inflation-rate target (like nominal GDP, for instance) might be more attractive from both an economic and a political economy standpoint. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mrs Romer is on board.
Excellent News For Scott Walker!
New numbers from Public Policy Polling suggest Gov. Scott Walker will have a serious fight on his hands in the upcoming recall against him.
The terrifying race to the loony right
Metal scare over hip replacement joints
Tens of thousands of people with all-metal hip replacements to be called in for annual blood checks
Nearly 50,000 people with all-metal hip replacements are to be called in for annual blood checks because of fears that metal particles shearing off the joint could cause them harm.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) issued new guidance hours before the British Medical Journal (BMJ) was due to publish an investigation into the implants, linked to a Newsnight programme in the evening.
The BMJ and Newsnight allege that hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been exposed to dangerously high levels of toxic metals in their bodies as a result of the introduction of metal-on-metal implants. One type, the DePuy ASR, was banned by the MHRA after it became clear that it caused problems and needed replacing much sooner than others.
But critics argue that the regulators have been slow to act against other metal-on-metal implants which shed metal particles into surrounding tissue. There have been a small number of cases where, it is claimed, toxic chromium and cobalt ions have leaked into the lymph nodes, liver and kidneys before leaving the body as urine.
Concerns about some of the metal-on-metal hip implants were first voiced in 2008 by surgeons who saw patients with swellings in the hip area, said the MHRA. From 2010 it advised that all patients with metal-on-metal implants should have annual tests to establish the level of metal ions in their blood.
On Tuesday the MHRA said that some types of metal-on-metal hip replacements – those with a metal ball and socket under 36mm diameter – did not appear to cause problems. Patients with those implants, about a third of the 65,000 total since 2003, did not need blood checks unless they had symptoms.
However those with implants with larger metal balls – over 36mm diameter – should have blood tests every year for the life of the implant, not just every five years as previously recommended, and an MRI scan if their ion levels are seen to be rising, which could indicate a need to replace the joint.
Patients who did not know whether they had a metal-on-metal joint should see their GP, said the MHRA.
Met failed to tell MP of extent of phone hacking commissioning, inquiry hears
Simon Hughes says police had evidence seeming to indicate 'at least three' NoW staff asked Mulcaire to access his voicemail
Scotland Yard failed to tell a senior Liberal Democrat MP for five years that police had evidence in their possession that appeared to indicate that "at least three" News of the World journalists were involved in commissioning the hacking of his phones by a private investigator.
Notes seized by the Metropolitan police from the home of Glenn Mulcaire in 2006 contained detailed information about Simon Hughes's telephone numbers and the names of three journalists in the margins of the notes, referring to reporters who are thought to have commissioned the investigator's hacking work.
However, giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Hughes said he was never shown any of Mulcaire's notes about him when he was told by police his phone messages had been intercepted in October 2006. He was only shown the notes by police at a meeting on May 25 2011, and was "shocked" at the level of personal detail they contained.
Back in 2006, the police were preparing a case against the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman and Mulcaire, both of whom were sentenced to jail for phone hacking-related offences in January 2007.
"I find it impossible to find a good explanation for why that happened," said Hughes who said there had been "significant failure" on the part of the police. When Hughes asked detectives in 2006 whether other journalists were involved in phone hacking, he was told that the investigation was not proceeding against anybody else.
The MP added in his written statement: "I suspect that the police had shut down this investigation, much to the delight of News Group (publishers of the News of the World), and ignored evidence of long-standing and widespread criminality. I do not know of any good or persuasive reason why this should be, and it makes me extremely suspicious."
Hughes was one of a group of five non-royal phone-hacking victims to be selected to support the police case in the Mulcaire and Goodman trial but said it wasn't until he was approached by police last year that he discovered the extent of evidence against the News of the World. Others included PR man Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor, chief of the Professional Footballers' Association.
"There was no prosecution against anybody other than Clive Goodman, and Clive Goodman only because of his work with the royal family, whereas there was a whole range of people clearly acting in concert, either directly or indirectly, illegally, and they were not touched," he said.
Hughes told Leveson he was "surprised and disappointed" that only two people were taken to court not just because there were three people allegedly involved in ordering phone hacking apart from Clive Goodman, but that there was also evidence from Mulcaire's notes that there were hundreds of victims outside the handful the police were using in the trial in 2006.
"Clearly employees were engaged, and therefore the whole panoply of other people, who it now appears had their voicemails hacked on the instructions of people in News of the World, were not in any way used as evidence against the employees," he added.
Hughes also told Leveson that Goodman and Mulcaire were tried on the basis that the private investigator had received £12,300 for his services. But it now appears the police had evidence that Mulcaire could have received up to £1m. This figure emerged at the Leveson inquiry on Monday and is far higher than previous information on Mulcaire's earnings from his alleged phone hacking and blagging activities.
It emerged last week from evidence disclosed after an application from the Guardian that Mulcaire earned about £100,000 a year between 2001 and 2006.
Today Hughes disclosed a new table of alleged payments to Mulcaire which show he may have earned anything from £775,786 to £849,470 from News International between 1999 and 2007 – far more than was disclosed to the court at the time of Mulcaire's trial.
"The court sentenced Goodman and Mulcaire on the basis that £12,300 was the known transaction payment. It is clear from here and clear, as counsel knows, from other evidence, that there was at least £500,000 of certain payment by News of the World to Mulcaire," Hughes told Leveson.
The Lib Dem MP said Mulcaire's notebooks showed that the News of the World had tried to stand up stories about a man and a woman linked to him "based on a salacious assumption".
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
Russian elections 2012: the view from Segezha - video
In the far reaches of north-west Russia, the town of Segezha prepares for the presidential elections
China riots leave 12 people dead
Violence breaks out in north-western region of Xinjiang, where Uighurs took part in anti-government riots last year
At least 12 people have been killed in riots near the Chinese city of Kashgar in the restive north-western region of Xinjiang, state media reported.
No details were given about what might have set off the violence, although Xinjiang sees periodic outbreaks of anti-government violence by members of the region's native Turkish Muslim Uighur ethnic group.
The Xinhua news agency said rioters armed with knives had attacked victims in Yecheng county outside the city starting at about 6pm. They killed 10 people and police shot dead two assailants, the report said.
The Xinhua report could not be independently confirmed. Chinese authorities maintain tight control over information and the circumstances surrounding such incidents are often murky.
Xinhua said police were chasing others involved in the attacks but did not say how many suspects there were.
The periodic attacks in the region occur despite a smothering security presence imposed following 2009 riots in the regional capital of Urumqi that pitted Uighurs against migrants from China's majority Han in which almost 200 people died.
Xinjiang saw more deadly violence last summer, when a group of Uighurs stormed a police station in the city of Hotan on 18 July and took hostages, killing four. Then, just days later on 30 and 31 July, Uighurs in Kashgar hijacked a truck, set a restaurant on fire and stabbed people in the street.
Authorities said 14 of the attackers were shot by police in Hotan, and five assailants were killed in the violence in Kashgar.
China says those events were organised terror attacks, but an overseas Uighur rights group says they were anti-government riots carried out by angry citizens. Uighur activists and security analysts blame the violence on economic marginalisation and restrictions on Uighur culture and the Muslim religion that are breeding frustration and anger among young Uighurs.
Chinese authorities have offered little evidence to back up their claims of outside involvement and rarely provide details on arrests or punishment of the suspects.
Doubts surround Sarkozy claim of Edith Bouvier rescue
French ministry unable to back president's suggestion that injured reporter has been evacuated from Syria
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, appeared to confirm on Tuesday that the injured French journalist Edith Bouvier had been evacuated from Syria to Lebanon, following news that Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer, had been rescued.
But a spokesman for the French foreign ministry said it had no confirmation of the evacuation.
Sarkozy had told BFM TV in Montpellier, where he was campaigning ahead of the French elections: "I am glad this nightmare is ending. The negotiations [for her release] were not terribly easy, they really weren't." It was unclear whether he had independent confirmation of her rescue.
"I've been informed that it's been carried out," he said, when asked about the rescue.
Conroy, who was wounded in the besieged city of Homs, was earlier smuggled out of Syria to Lebanon in a dramatic rescue.
According to those familiar with his escape, a number of Syrian opposition activists died during the rescue effort after they came under artillery fire while leaving the city.
The evacuation party came under fire twice. Three activists were killed on the first occasion while more were reportedly killed when they came under fire again.
A spokesman for the paper said: "The Sunday Times can confirm that the photographer Paul Conroy is safe and in Lebanon. He is in good shape and good spirits."
According to the Times, the sister paper of the Sunday Times, Conroy's rescue took 26 hours from the moment he was carried out of his hiding place in Homs on a stretcher."I have heard that he is out," Conroy's wife, Kate, said. "All I can say is that we are delighted and overjoyed at the news, but I am not going to say any more than that at this point."
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We can now confirm that the injured British journalist Paul Conroy is safely in Lebanon, where he is receiving full consular assistance from our embassy."
Conroy's father, Les, said his wife had spoken to their son and described him as being in "very good spirits", though he had not personally spoken to him.
"We're all very relieved and happy that Paul's out," he said.
Despite the apparent rescue of Bouvier and the successful rescue of Conroy – whose colleague Marie Colvin was killed last week in Homs along with French photographer Remi Ochlik during an attack on the makeshift media centre in the suburb of Baba Amr – two other journalists remain trapped in the city. They are French photographer William Daniels and the Middle East correspondent of el Mundo, Javier Espinosa.
The dramatic nature of Conroy's evacuation underlines the high level of risk being faced by those who have been trying to run medical, food and other supplies into the besieged suburbs of Homs and evacuate the injured, including foreign journalists.
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has recently moved the elite 4th Division commanded by his brother Maher into the battle for Homs, has been using a foreign-supplied drone to target its artillery and mortar fire into the city.
Conroy had twice refused to leave Baba Amr without the body of Colvin, who was killed during a rocket attack last Wednesday. The group of reporters remained holed up in Baba Amr after the attack and protracted negotiations to evacuate them failed.
The global advocacy network Avaaz said it had been working with 35 Syrian activists in Homs who volunteered to help free the reporters.
"Paul Conroy's rescue today is a huge relief but this must be tempered with the news that three remain unaccounted for, and with our respects for the incredibly courageous activists who died during the evacuation attempts," said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz.
"The rescue is ongoing and we are deeply disappointed that sections of the media broke this story before all the journalists are safe."
According to activists, Bouvier and Daniels had refused to leave Baba Amr without an embassy escort to guarantee their safe passage.
In recent days the attacks on Homs have intensified, targeting up to six neighbourhoods of the city.
News of Conroy's rescue came as the UN's human rights chief called for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, saying the situation had deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks as authorities reinforced their onslaught against the opposition.
Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the international community must take action to prevent Syrian security forces from continuing their attacks against civilians, which had resulted in "countless atrocities".
"There must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to end the fighting and bombardments," Pillay told an urgent meeting of the UN human rights council.
She urged Syria to end all fighting, allow international monitors to enter the country and give unhindered access for aid agencies to Homs and other embattled cities.
The appeal prompted a bitter riposte from Syria's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, who accused the 47-nation council of promoting terrorism in his country.
Before walking out of the room, Fayssal al-Hamwi said Tuesday's meeting would only prolong the crisis in his country, where the UN estimates at least 5,400 people have been killed since March. Anti-government activists say the real figure is much higher.
Pillay cited the report of a UN expert panel last week, which concluded that Syrian government officials were responsible for crimes against humanity committed by security forces against opposition members. The crimes included shelling civilians, executing deserters and torturing detainees. Some opposition groups had also committed gross abuses, it said.
The panel has compiled a confidential list of top-level Syrian officials who could face prosecution over the atrocities.
Pillay reiterated her call for Syria to be referred to the international criminal court "in the face of the unspeakable violations that take place every moment".
"More than at any other time, those committing atrocities in Syria have to understand that the international community will not stand by and watch this carnage and that their decisions and the actions they take today ultimately will not go unpunished," she said.
Members of the council are expected to pass a resolution on Tuesday condemning "widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities".
A draft resolution supported by many Arab and western nations says the regime's use of heavy artillery and tanks to attack civilian areas has contributed to the deaths of thousands of people since March.
Milan fashion week learns the art of darkness
Blink and you'll miss the spring pastels. Designers are moving on to a darker narrative for autumn/winter 2012. It's getting hard to keep up
In fashion, as in comedy and poaching eggs, timing is everything. And right now, fashion's timing is off. Over the past week, two things happened in fashion. All over the world, in fast-fashion megastores and ritzy boutiques, the new collections for spring went on sale. The last marked-down racks were cleared, and the assistants got ready to sell the new pastel shades, princessy silhouettes, pretty 1950s skirts and duster coats. At the very same time, the Milan catwalks were showcasing the clothes that designers are selling for autumn, and that are pretty much the polar opposite of what is going on sale now. Instead of pastel colours, Milan's autumn is shaded in black and purple. The princess-muse is banished in favour of a soldier. The comforting nostalgia of the 1950s is ditched for futurism and science-fiction influences.
Fashion is in danger of cannibalising itself, throwing out trends before we have had a chance to buy them. The system is a victim of its own success, or, at least, of its new visibility: the fashion shows for autumn have always coincided with the arrival in store of clothes for spring, but until recently if you weren't actually at the shows you didn't see the clothes until they started turning up on magazine covers months later. This week, Gucci, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana all live-streamed their catwalk shows. Retailers always say that what sells fashion is newness, but when consumers are being offered two contradictory versions of newness, the effect is more likely to be a zero-sum game.
Fashion is most beguiling when it offers up some kind of narrative. Plot twists are essential for holding interest, but when the story stops making sense, viewers are likely to switch off. And what's more, aren't consumers supposed to have a say in whether we like a certain trend or not, rather than the rug being pulled from under our feet before we have even stepped on it? Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"?
The Prada boutique was this week besieged with customers trying to bag summer's cute car-printed silks; but the Prada catwalk, laid with the kind of sickly purple carpet you find in pool halls, was peopled by models in dark, sombre tailoring. Dolce & Gabbana, which last season paid homage to cheery, lighthearted motifs of Sicilian life – sundresses were printed with tomatoes, earrings strung with farfalle pasta – focused on the religious undercurrents to that culture. Donatella Versace, having made a summer collection about mermaids, covered her autumn catwalk in religious crosses.
Makeup is always significant at catwalk shows. Notice the ultra-dark lips at Bottega Veneta and Gucci? There is something definitively unkissable about a dark, densely painted mouth. Red and pink lipstick is a pro-kissing signal, nude lipstick is an innocent, up-to-you-to-make-a-move neutral, and very dark lipstick is anti-kissing, a bit like that anti-climb paint they put on railings to deter hooligans. The blacked-out eyes at Prada and Versace had the same effect, closer to stripes of warpaint than a seductive smokey eye.
Where summer's Milan collections were all about likability – car prints, pasta earrings, ice-cream-parlour shades – the new look verges on hostility, or at least a sense of a woman keeping the world at bay. Bottega Veneta, the heritage-steeped stealth-luxe house that is Milan's answer to Hermes, not only did the look better than anyone – think dense, cross-hatched patterns on thick Japanese velvets, and black mixed with shades of burnt orange, mauve and teal – but did the best job of illuminating the thought-process. "The look is covered up and the materials are virtually impenetrable, yet the effect is physically powerful," designer Tomas Maier said. Presaging Angelina Jolie's scene-stealing turn at the Oscars, designers put dark velvet front and centre of the new collections. Gucci's draped velvet gowns in tourmaline blue and emerald referenced the theatrical swagger of the stage before curtain-up; Giorgio Armani's famous trouser suits came in black velvet, teamed with a hat at a dramatic tilt.
Miuccia Prada said, after a show featuring no dresses and abundant jackets, that retail intelligence suggests women are buying dresses, not jackets. Her catwalk may have been at odds with commercial sense, but it was in keeping with the sombre, armoured view of dressing that prevailed. "Day is more interesting than evening," she said after the show. "I'm not interested in power. I don't want to talk about power dressing. Women need to make themselves relevant, that is all."
There was power dressing this week, but not the shoulder-padded kind. There was religious iconography at Dolce & Gabbana and at Versace, where Donatella "faced her demons", as she put it, revisiting the Byzantine crosses that her brother Gianni used in his last collection. Moschino did shiny toy-soldier chic, while MaxMara did a classy take on the military theme, with felted cashmere greatcoats that had all the more quiet authority for being spared the gold-buttoned-bling for which Milan has such a soft spot.
The strongest show of the week was Jil Sander, by the departing designer Raf Simons. This was a Technicolor-minimalism display of virtuosity, and of silhouettes so perfectly conceived and cut that the impression was of clothes without a seam. It was set off-kilter, though, by the clumsy timing of announcements that led up to it: first, that Simons was about to leave, and then with indecorous speed, that Sander herself would be returning. It was a shame, but typical of the week. Nice clothes; shame about the timing.
Romney attacks 'desperate' Santorum as Michigan voters head to the polls
Mitt Romney describes Santorum's robo-calls as 'dirty tricks' and says he anticipates being the GOP nominee after long race
Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney described his main rival Rick Santorum as "desperate" for resorting to what he called dirty tricks in the Michigan primary, on the day voters flooded to the polls.
Romney, in his first press conference for three weeks, was unusually coy about predicting the result and instead opted to say he would win the race in the long run. "In the final analysis, I anticipate being the nominee," Romney said.
He predicted a protracted struggle. "This is not going to be over in a day or two," he said.
Polls suggest the outcome is to too close to call in a state that is crucial to the prospects of both men.
The Republican race would be thrown into chaos if Santorum, the dark horse at the start of the caucus and primary season, was to win.
It is a must-win state for Romney in the same way that he needed to win the Florida primary in January to block off a challenge from Newt Gingrich, who has since faded from the race.
Romney needs the victory in Michigan to stall Santorum but also to avoid the indignity of losing in the state where he was born and raised.
Romney had the initial advantage of having a good campaign organisation that has managed to get a lot of his support out in early voting. But Santorum is enjoying a late surge and attracting large crowds to his rallies.
Santorum, in an effort to bridge the gap with Romney, has resorted to robo-calls, pleading with Democrats to come out to vote against Romney because he had opposed Barack Obama's 2008 bailout of the car industry upon which Michigan depends.
Romney, at the press conference at his campaign headquarters in Livonia on Tuesday morning, denounced Santorum for his appeal to Democrats and said he had failed to mention that he too had opposed the bailout. Romney described it as the act of "a desperate candidate".
He added: "Republicans have to recognise there's a real effort to kidnap our primary process."
If Romney was to lose Michigan, the robo-calls offer him an opportunity to claim he won among Republicans but lost because of mischief by Democrats, encouraged by Santorum.
Romney rarely gives press conferences and this was the first for three weeks, finally giving in to appeals from a frustrated media pack.
It makes sense to give it on polling day, when it is just about too late for any gaffes to have an impact on the outcome of the primary.
Asked about the damage the in-fighting is doing to Republican chances in the November general election, a major concern in Republican ranks, Romney played it down, predicting it would be forgotten by then and people would be focused on other issues, such as the economy and maybe foreign policy.
On his inability to excite the Republican base, Romney made it clear he did not intend pandering to the party right any more than he has already. "It is very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments," he said, a remark that might not play well with right-wingers, suggesting they are easily led.
He went on to deliver the most memorable line from the press conference, aimed at Santorum and Gingrich. "We've seen throughout the campaign if you're willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative, attacking of president Obama, that you're going to jump up in the polls," he said.
"I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am."
He said there had been mistakes in his campaign, but blamed himself rather than his organisation. Asked what these mistakes had been, he declined to say, though he admitted that his comment on Friday about his wife owning two Cadillacs had been one.
The candidates are looking beyond Michigan to the 10 Super Tuesday states next week. Santorum is to visit Tennessee on Wednesday where he is ahead in a state that Gingrich covets. He is also ahead in Ohio, the big prize of Super Tuesday.
Gingrich is ahead in his home state Georgia.
Loss of these three states would be another setback for Romney, not compensated by his expected victories in Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia, with neither Santorum or Gingrich on the ballot. He needs to be seen to be beating Santorum in head-to-head contests and that means Ohio.
The following week is not promising for Romney either, with contests in Mississippi and Alabama.
Ron Paul, the fourth candidate in the race, is competing in Virginia but polls show him trailing two-to-one to Romney.
WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 27, 2012
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.