news aggregator
Andrew Grice: Public rejects Brown's 'global solutions' approach
Gordon Brown has banged on relentlessly about the need for "global solutions to a global problem" since the economic crisis broke last autumn. But some Labour MPs have grown increasingly uneasy about the time and energy he has expended on securing a "global new deal" at Thursday's G20 summit in London.
Comment: Lucian Freud's early works show familiar taste for the ugly
UK GDP since 1948
Gross Domestic Product is the output of Britain. Find out how this recession compares to the others
• Get the data
The economy grew 0.3% in the final three months of last year, as the service sector recovered strength - figures out today show.
The Office for National Statistics had previously estimated that the economy clawed its way out of its deepest recession since the 1930s in the fourth quarter of last year, saying it had grown only by a sickly 0.1% compared to the previous quarter.
The figures are compiled by ONS. The keenly-awaited figure, which was much weaker than the average forecast of 0.4% expansion, brings to an end six consecutive quarters of contraction, which saw the economy shrink by around 6%, or 10% compared to where it would now have been had the slump not occurred.
The data below shows what GDP is in actual cash, ie what it was that year not adjusted for inflation. We've also added in total inflation-adjusted figures and per capita inflation adjusted figures (which are not out for Q3 yet). Download the spreadsheet to see more data by year or by quarter. A repeated decline in GDP usually means recession.
As several of our posters below have pointed out, there's more to life than GDP - but here are the latest figures.
Download the full data
DATA: UK GDP since 1948
INTERACTIVE: GDP changes since 1955, %
• Search the world's government with our gateway
Can you do something with this data?Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk
• Get the A-Z of data
• More at the Datastore directory
• Follow us on Twitter
- Economic growth (GDP)
- Economic policy
- Economics
- Quantitative easing
- Financial crisis
- Government data
- Office for National Statistics
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
UK complained to US about terror suspect torture, says ex-MI5 boss
• Waterboarding of 9/11 suspect was 'concealed'
• Manningham-Buller criticises Bush staff
The government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed last night.
She also said the Americans concealed from Britain the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks.
"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing," Lady Manningham-Buller told a meeting at the House of Lords.
She also admitted MI5 were slow to recognise that the US was torturing detainees. Asked if Britain protested, she replied: "We did lodge a protest." She declined to elaborate but it is believed that the protests were made at ministerial level.
Manningham-Buller was answering questions after delivering a lecture in parliament sponsored by the Mile End study group set up by Queen Mary, University of London.
She said that in 2002 or 2003 she questioned how the US was able to supply Britain with intelligence gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed.
"I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners and terrorists was that they never said anything," she said.
"They said the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.
She criticised senior figures in the Bush administration, including the president himself, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary for their attitude towards the treatment of terror suspects. She added: "Nothing, even saving lives, justifies torture."
Referring to criticism of MI5, and notably evidence in the mistreatment of the UK resident Binyam Mohamed, she said in her speech: "The allegations of collusion in torture and lack of respect for human rights will wound [MI5 officers] personally and collectively and, in some respects, whether proven or not, will make it harder for them to do their job."
Last month, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, said MI5's insistence in a court case that it was unaware of the harsh treatment of some detainees held overseas in CIA custody was unreliable.
Manningham-Buller confirmed that Britain was aware of mistreatment cases before she left office.
In an original draft of a ruling, Neuberger also criticised MI5's supposed lax attitude toward the mistreatment of detainees. Manningham-Buller's successor as MI5 director, Jonathan Evans, has rejected the claims, and warned that the courts risk being exploited by those seeking to undermine British counterterrorism work.
But Manningham-Buller said she believes the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt the future work of MI5 staff.
She spent 33 years in British intelligence, and was head of MI5 between 2002 and 2007. She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the "gung-ho UK" intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.
"One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched 24." Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counterterrorist agent. She said future terrorist attacks would involve chemical, biological and radioactive weapons. "After the next terrorist attack, there will be cause for fresh legislation, which should be resisted. The criminal law as it stands is enough. We have masses of legislation that deals with terrorism."
She predicted the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which was heavily criticised recently for its failure to hold MI5 to account, would be turned into a fully-fledged committee in the House of Commons.
Richard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
UK complained to US about terror suspect torture, says ex-MI5 boss
• Waterboarding of 9/11 suspect was 'concealed'
• Manningham-Buller criticises Bush staff
The government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed last night.
She also said the Americans concealed from Britain the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks.
"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing," Lady Manningham-Buller told a meeting at the House of Lords.
She also admitted MI5 were slow to recognise that the US was torturing detainees. Asked if Britain protested, she replied: "We did lodge a protest." She declined to elaborate but it is believed that the protests were made at ministerial level.
Manningham-Buller was answering questions after delivering a lecture in parliament sponsored by the Mile End study group set up by Queen Mary, University of London.
She said that in 2002 or 2003 she questioned how the US was able to supply Britain with intelligence gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed.
"I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners and terrorists was that they never said anything," she said.
"They said the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.
She criticised senior figures in the Bush administration, including the president himself, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary for their attitude towards the treatment of terror suspects. She added: "Nothing, even saving lives, justifies torture."
Referring to criticism of MI5, and notably evidence in the mistreatment of the UK resident Binyam Mohamed, she said in her speech: "The allegations of collusion in torture and lack of respect for human rights will wound [MI5 officers] personally and collectively and, in some respects, whether proven or not, will make it harder for them to do their job."
Last month, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, said MI5's insistence in a court case that it was unaware of the harsh treatment of some detainees held overseas in CIA custody was unreliable.
Manningham-Buller confirmed that Britain was aware of mistreatment cases before she left office.
In an original draft of a ruling, Neuberger also criticised MI5's supposed lax attitude toward the mistreatment of detainees. Manningham-Buller's successor as MI5 director, Jonathan Evans, has rejected the claims, and warned that the courts risk being exploited by those seeking to undermine British counterterrorism work.
But Manningham-Buller said she believes the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt the future work of MI5 staff.
She spent 33 years in British intelligence, and was head of MI5 between 2002 and 2007. She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the "gung-ho UK" intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.
"One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched 24." Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counterterrorist agent. She said future terrorist attacks would involve chemical, biological and radioactive weapons. "After the next terrorist attack, there will be cause for fresh legislation, which should be resisted. The criminal law as it stands is enough. We have masses of legislation that deals with terrorism."
She predicted the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which was heavily criticised recently for its failure to hold MI5 to account, would be turned into a fully-fledged committee in the House of Commons.
Richard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Spanish snow leaves 250,000 without power
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads
In pictures: Barcelona in the snow
Nearly a quarter of a million people in north-eastern Spain were without power yesterday after the heaviest snowfall in decades brought major disruption to the region.
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads on the border between Spain and France. Barcelona recorded its heaviest snowfall since 1962 causing road, rail and flight chaos.
Catalonia's interior minister, Joan Boada, said the power cuts, caused by a fault in a high-tension cable, were affecting the area around Girona, 60 miles north of Barcelona.
Spain's border with France at La Junquera was closed causing 30-mile traffic jams while 170,000 pupils had the day off as schools were shut, local newspapers reported. About 3,000 people were put up in a town hall overnight and many others stranded in their cars as railway lines and roads became impassable, Boada said.
Tens of thousands more were unable to get home after snow fell at lunchtime and many left their offices to photograph the rare scenes of central Barcelona and its beach lying under a blanket of snow.
"I've never seen anything like this here in all my life," said Barcelona resident Raquel Lasmarias, 35.
The Catalan regional president, José Montilla, toured the affected areas admitting things would not get back to normal as quickly as might be hoped. "Some things cannot be repaired in hours," he said.
Girona, where 50cm of snow fell, was effectively cut off from the rest of Catalonia with most roads and rail lines blocked and only five of the scheduled 31 departures leaving its airport. The Catalan meteorological office said conditions would slowly improve but warned that unusually cold conditions would continue with widespread frost and ice.
In the Aude region of southern France, firefighters brought hot supplies to 1,800 passengers stuck on trains, AFP reported.
"In Perpignan, passengers were able to bed down on a sleeper train, but we spent the night sitting up and didn't even get blankets until 3:00 am," complained Jean-Marc Rossignol, escorting his 75- and a 82-year-old parents to Toulouse.
James Sturckeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Spanish snow leaves 250,000 without power
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads
In pictures: Barcelona in the snow
Nearly a quarter of a million people in north-eastern Spain were without power yesterday after the heaviest snowfall in decades brought major disruption to the region.
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads on the border between Spain and France. Barcelona recorded its heaviest snowfall since 1962 causing road, rail and flight chaos.
Catalonia's interior minister, Joan Boada, said the power cuts, caused by a fault in a high-tension cable, were affecting the area around Girona, 60 miles north of Barcelona.
Spain's border with France at La Junquera was closed causing 30-mile traffic jams while 170,000 pupils had the day off as schools were shut, local newspapers reported. About 3,000 people were put up in a town hall overnight and many others stranded in their cars as railway lines and roads became impassable, Boada said.
Tens of thousands more were unable to get home after snow fell at lunchtime and many left their offices to photograph the rare scenes of central Barcelona and its beach lying under a blanket of snow.
"I've never seen anything like this here in all my life," said Barcelona resident Raquel Lasmarias, 35.
The Catalan regional president, José Montilla, toured the affected areas admitting things would not get back to normal as quickly as might be hoped. "Some things cannot be repaired in hours," he said.
Girona, where 50cm of snow fell, was effectively cut off from the rest of Catalonia with most roads and rail lines blocked and only five of the scheduled 31 departures leaving its airport. The Catalan meteorological office said conditions would slowly improve but warned that unusually cold conditions would continue with widespread frost and ice.
In the Aude region of southern France, firefighters brought hot supplies to 1,800 passengers stuck on trains, AFP reported.
"In Perpignan, passengers were able to bed down on a sleeper train, but we spent the night sitting up and didn't even get blankets until 3:00 am," complained Jean-Marc Rossignol, escorting his 75- and a 82-year-old parents to Toulouse.
James Sturckeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Daly: marriage worth fighting for
Senior Tory raises fears about alliance with UUP
After the UUP spurned Cameron's advice not to vote against the devolution of policing, unease about the pact was expressed on both sides of the Atlantic
David Cameron was facing pressure last night over his alliance with the Ulster Unionists after a senior Tory warned that voters will face an "inconsistent" choice and a leading US congressman challenged the Conservative leader to act as an honest broker.
As the Tories pledged to press ahead with their alliance, after the UUP spurned Cameron's advice not to vote against the devolution of policing and criminal justice powers, unease about the pact was expressed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sir Patrick Cormack, chairman of the all-party Commons Northern Ireland select committee, warned it would be "odd" for the UUP and Tories to stand on the same ticket in the general election after taking different sides. "It does look odd and it does look inconsistent," Cormack said of the way in which the UUP voted no yesterday against the advice of Cameron. "But [the UUP] have got to explain themselves to their electorate. They've got to explain why they did not feel able to follow the advice of David Cameron."
The intervention by Cormack, who was first elected to parliament in 1970 when the Tories still had a formal pact with the UUP, came as a leading US congressman voiced concerns about the alliance. Richie Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is chairman of the Friends of Ireland, raised fears that Cameron may not be able to act as an honest broker in Northern Ireland as prime minister.
"A prime minister, or an opposition leader, needs optimal flexibility in dealing with all the parties," Neal told the Guardian. "Sinn Féin had a long-standing interest in working with Tony Blair. I don't think they would have argued 15 years ago that making an agreement with the British prime minister was a good idea. Over the last decade they came to believe that Blair was an honest broker."
Asked whether Cameron would be an honest broker, Neal said: "My experience tells me that to be an honest broker you have to be precisely that." Neal, who organised a letter by 21 congressmen to Cameron pleading with him to persuade the UUP to vote yes, was critical of the way in which the Tory leader allowed such a small party to dictate terms. "You can see the movement between the parties in terms of majority status," he said, referring to the prospect of a hung parliament in Britain after the general election. "My suggestion to any prospective leader would be that you should never allow a weaker ally to negotiate for you."
Cameron is determined to press ahead with his alliance. He wants to offer voters a non-sectarian unionist platform and to make clear that Northern Ireland should feel fully part of the union by having a chance to vote for a party that could form the government.
Cormack, who welcomed the yes vote, offered some support for Cameron by saying it would be wrong to treat Northern Ireland as a different part of the UK. But he said the fate of Tory-UUP alliance lay in the hands of voters who seem inclined to support other parties. "Of course Northern Ireland is different and of course Northern Ireland has a history which is very different from the history of Scotland or the history of Wales," he said. "But there is nothing inconsistent or incompatible with a party that is active across the UK being active in Northern Ireland."
The Tory leader launched the alliance in a speech to the UUP conference in December 2008 in which he declared that he could never be "neutral" on the union. He voiced support for the Good Friday agreement but appeared to raise doubts about a declaration by the former Tory Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, that persuaded Sinn Féin to take part in secret talks with the British government. Brooke declared that Britain had "no selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland.
Cameron mocked Brooke as he said it was wrong that voters in Northern Ireland are effectively excluded from taxation and foreign policy. "That's not just in the interests of Northern Ireland – it's in the interests of the United Kingdom," he said. "It's in my own selfish interests, too."
Nicholas Wattguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Hugh Muir's Diary
Next stop intrigue, disgrace and scandal. The vengeful Tory and the perils of plotting on trains
• Let's give power to the people, Cameron says, and so a plan was hatched to trial a planning initiative in the very Conservative borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Locals would make decisions. Councillors would rubber-stamp them. Yes we'll do it, said party types keen to suck up to Cameron's office. Oh no we won't, said deputy council leader Angela Knight. Red faces all round. But that wasn't to be the end of it. Because while Damian McBride has gone from politics, his spirit lives on in the Conservative party in the shape of one Andre Walker, a party hack who plotted to smear Cllr Knight out of her deputy leader post. Like McBride, Walker was caught, mainly because he chose to boast about his cunning plan on a commuter train. A fellow passenger, apparently with Conservative sympathies but appalled nonetheless, recorded much of the boasting. Next stop: YouTube. "She is on the way out," the recording says. "She's dead. No one likes her, total liability. Total liability should come up in all the discussions. We could put that out." The upshot: meltdown. Walker has resigned, mouthing apologies and pronouncing himself unfortunate to have sat so close to a "leftwing" commuter. Meanwhile, relations in the Tory ranks have been laid so low as to be positively subterranean. Politics is definitely broken in Windsor, Dave. And guess what? Your lot are to blame.
• Yes there's friction in the ranks to be sure, with party chairman Eric Pickles moving to distance the mothership from Donal Blaney's Conservative madrasa for election candidates, the Young Britons' Foundation. "We don't agree with these views," said Eric, four days after this paper first mentioned that the foundation's leaders consider the NHS a waste of money and think waterboarding has its virtues. Following our item yesterday, Conor Burns, the candidate in Bournemouth, gets in touch to point out that he appeared at a YBF event as a speaker, rather than a student as we had said, and we are happily make that clear. But these are strange times. Despite the dampening effect of the Pickles statement, others seem more enthusiastic about the initiative. "Why we need more Conservative madrassas," wrote Telegraph columnist James Delingpole yesterday. You can look at Cameron sometimes and feel quite sorry for him.
• Some things are just depressing and here is one. Consider this: just how rich is Lord Archer? Last week the rogue peer attended a party to mark the 90th birthday of his friend, the illustrator Ronald Searle. Searle himself was absent. He rarely leaves his home in France, and in the normal run is only contactable by fax. Archer supplied a gallery in central London with 30 of his Searle masterpieces for the occasion but, reports the scribe from the Camden New Journal, the author's enthusiasm for his friend's achievements got the better of him. "On two occasions, he insisted: 'I must have it'," records the onlooker. "Only to be told: 'You already own that one, Jeffrey!'"
• And what a high old time the kingmakers in the Lib Dems will have this weekend at the party's spring conference in Birmingham. Speeches, fringes, the usual exhibitions. There was to be a stall erected by the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights, but luckily for the Lib Dems, no longer. The party is a broad church indeed, but that doesn't include groups co-founded by the Church of Scientology.
• Finally, as Dubya (pictured) re-emerges from his ranch in Texas to ring David Cameron and talk sense about Northern Ireland, Americans are grappling with a question they thought they would never ask: "Do you miss him yet?" The New York Times reports that "signs of his rehabilitation are beginning to pop up". A billboard here, a web posting there. More learned than Sarah Palin. Less sinister than Dick Cheney. One billboard, according to the Times, has Dubya "smiling genially and waving his hand in a friendly gesture". Were Dubya to see it, he would wave right back.
Hugh Muirguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
MPs query coalfields revival plan
Men's sexual tastes broaden when they are stressed
The usual rules of sexual attraction go out of the window when men are stressed, say psychologists
Men are drawn to a wider range women when they are feeling stressed out, according to research into the psychology of sexual attraction.
People are usually attracted to partners with similar facial features to their own, but after a brief but stressful experience, men's preferences changed to include a wider variety of women, the study found.
Relaxed men who took part in the study rated women on average 14% less appealing if they looked very different from themselves compared with women who looked similar. But a group of stressed men found dissimilar women 9% more attractive.
Johanna Lass-Hennemann, who led the study at the University of Trier in Germany, said the findings echo research suggesting that animals lose their normal mating preferences when they are under stress.
"Men have a tendency to approach dissimilar mates and to rate these to be more pleasant when they are acutely stressed," Lass-Hennemann said. "[But] we are not sure how this might reflect in true mating decisions."
Scientists suspect the appeal of similar-looking partners may be linked to our tendency to have more trust in a familiar face, a factor that is important for long-term relationships. Under stress, however, the importance of pairing up with someone similar-looking seems to vanish.
Lass-Hennemann speculates that stress might increase men's tendency to "outbreed", or reproduce with more genetically dissimilar women, with the potential benefit that any children born from the relationship might be better equipped to cope with a stressful environment.
"We think that chronically stressful environments should increase outbreeding, because inbreeding may lead to offspring that are not genetically diverse enough to deal with the varying circumstances that a risky and stressful environment imposes on them," she said.
In the study, 50 healthy heterosexual male students were divided into two groups. Those in the first group were asked to plunge one arm into a bucket of icy water for three minutes before taking part in the test. Those in the second group were asked to do the same, but with water heated to body temperature.
Measurements of the volunteers' heart rates and levels of the stress hormone cortisol indicated that the men in the first group were significantly more stressed before the test began than those in the second.
In the test itself, the men were shown a series of images on a computer screen. Some were of household objects, but others were of naked women. Some of the women's faces had been digitally altered to resemble either the person being tested or another man in the group.
Throughout the test, the scientists played occasional bursts of noise to startle the men and recorded their reactions. Previous research suggests people startle less when they are looking at something they find attractive. The men were also asked to rate the images by how appealing and arousing they were.
While men in the control group performed as expected and were more attracted to women who looked like them, the stressed men consistently rated the unfamiliar women as more appealing. Their startle reactions confirmed their preferences.
The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Lass-Hennemann said it is highly unlikely that the acute stresses of everyday life can switch someone's tastes when it comes to choosing a partner, but long-term stress might shift male preferences towards women who are more dissimilar.
Ian Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Men's sexual tastes broaden when they are stressed
The usual rules of sexual attraction go out of the window when men are stressed, say psychologists
Men are drawn to a wider range women when they are feeling stressed out, according to research into the psychology of sexual attraction.
People are usually attracted to partners with similar facial features to their own, but after a brief but stressful experience, men's preferences changed to include a wider variety of women, the study found.
Relaxed men who took part in the study rated women on average 14% less appealing if they looked very different from themselves compared with women who looked similar. But a group of stressed men found dissimilar women 9% more attractive.
Johanna Lass-Hennemann, who led the study at the University of Trier in Germany, said the findings echo research suggesting that animals lose their normal mating preferences when they are under stress.
"Men have a tendency to approach dissimilar mates and to rate these to be more pleasant when they are acutely stressed," Lass-Hennemann said. "[But] we are not sure how this might reflect in true mating decisions."
Scientists suspect the appeal of similar-looking partners may be linked to our tendency to have more trust in a familiar face, a factor that is important for long-term relationships. Under stress, however, the importance of pairing up with someone similar-looking seems to vanish.
Lass-Hennemann speculates that stress might increase men's tendency to "outbreed", or reproduce with more genetically dissimilar women, with the potential benefit that any children born from the relationship might be better equipped to cope with a stressful environment.
"We think that chronically stressful environments should increase outbreeding, because inbreeding may lead to offspring that are not genetically diverse enough to deal with the varying circumstances that a risky and stressful environment imposes on them," she said.
In the study, 50 healthy heterosexual male students were divided into two groups. Those in the first group were asked to plunge one arm into a bucket of icy water for three minutes before taking part in the test. Those in the second group were asked to do the same, but with water heated to body temperature.
Measurements of the volunteers' heart rates and levels of the stress hormone cortisol indicated that the men in the first group were significantly more stressed before the test began than those in the second.
In the test itself, the men were shown a series of images on a computer screen. Some were of household objects, but others were of naked women. Some of the women's faces had been digitally altered to resemble either the person being tested or another man in the group.
Throughout the test, the scientists played occasional bursts of noise to startle the men and recorded their reactions. Previous research suggests people startle less when they are looking at something they find attractive. The men were also asked to rate the images by how appealing and arousing they were.
While men in the control group performed as expected and were more attracted to women who looked like them, the stressed men consistently rated the unfamiliar women as more appealing. Their startle reactions confirmed their preferences.
The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Lass-Hennemann said it is highly unlikely that the acute stresses of everyday life can switch someone's tastes when it comes to choosing a partner, but long-term stress might shift male preferences towards women who are more dissimilar.
Ian Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
"I'm an Atheist...thank God".
Profile | Graeme Lamb: soldier who has the ear of American commanders
As special adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, he is persuading that country's insurgents to abandon their arms
Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, former British SAS commander and key figure behind moves to "reintegrate" and "reconcile" former Taliban fighters, has probably been more influential in Iraq and Afghanistan than at any time during his career as an army officer.
The straight-talking, unfussy soldier has become so largely because he is trusted and respected by senior American commanders, including General David Petraeus, whom Lamb helped to set up the Iraqi "surge" in 2007 and the Sunni Awakening, when insurgents there gave up their fight.
Now as special adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, he is persuading that country's insurgents to abandon their arms. It is an appropriate task for a former SAS commander as Britain's special forces have operated closely with MI6, which has also been in the forefront of attempts to persuade the Taliban to give up the fight.
Lamb was quoted recently as saying that coalition forces were continuing to strike the Taliban, "and have to, 'til their eyeballs bleed". It was tough talk but open to misinterpretation. He also said rank-and-file Taliban fighters carried a sense of "anger and grievances that have not been addressed".
Richard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Profile | Graeme Lamb: soldier who has the ear of American commanders
As special adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, he is persuading that country's insurgents to abandon their arms
Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, former British SAS commander and key figure behind moves to "reintegrate" and "reconcile" former Taliban fighters, has probably been more influential in Iraq and Afghanistan than at any time during his career as an army officer.
The straight-talking, unfussy soldier has become so largely because he is trusted and respected by senior American commanders, including General David Petraeus, whom Lamb helped to set up the Iraqi "surge" in 2007 and the Sunni Awakening, when insurgents there gave up their fight.
Now as special adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, he is persuading that country's insurgents to abandon their arms. It is an appropriate task for a former SAS commander as Britain's special forces have operated closely with MI6, which has also been in the forefront of attempts to persuade the Taliban to give up the fight.
Lamb was quoted recently as saying that coalition forces were continuing to strike the Taliban, "and have to, 'til their eyeballs bleed". It was tough talk but open to misinterpretation. He also said rank-and-file Taliban fighters carried a sense of "anger and grievances that have not been addressed".
Richard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
