More News
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Controversial move endorsed in UN cultural agency vote despite US threat of withholding £50m in funds The United States has cut off funds to Unesco as a punitive action after the Palestinian Authority was accepted into the UN agency as a full member in defiance of American, Israeli and European pressure. The overwhelming backing for the Palestinians' bid to join the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation was a huge boost for their campaign for international recognition of an independent state, and a blow to Israel and the US, who had opposed the move. Members voted by 107 votes to 14 to accept Palestine as a full member state to loud cheers from delegates in Paris.
US pulls Unesco funding after Palestine is granted full membership | World news | The Guardian
Toronto's removal of bike lanes marks opening salvo in 'war on cycling' | Anna Soper | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Caroline Macfarlane and Vanessa Nicholas, from Toronto's OCAD University, gave a bright face-lift to an abandoned Raleigh as a work of art, and part of the Good Bike Project.
EU leaders tell Italy: stop the rot and get your house in order | Business | The Guardian
Pressure on Silvio Berlusconi to bring country's debts under control as Europe fears another deep-rooted recession The eurozone's two biggest powers, Germany and France, on Sunday launched an unprecedented attack on Italy to stop the rot by taking far more radical measures to reform its economy and get its debts under control. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, held a series of face-to-face talks with the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – who was then subjected to a roasting at the hands of other European leaders who are worried that the EU as a whole is on the verge of another deep-rooted recession. The onslaught on Berlusconi, now viewed as a liability across the whole of Europe, came as a fractious summit of the 27 members of the EU ended and an equally stormy eurozone summit began with no agreement on all three core elements of a package to solve the sovereign debt crisis and restore market confidence.
A downgrade by either Moody's or Fitch – triggered most likely by concerns over the US deficit – would follow S&P's move The United States will probably suffer the loss of its triple-A credit rating from another rating agency by the end of this year because of concerns over the deficit, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is forecasting. The trigger would be a likely failure by Congress to agree on a credible long-term plan to cut the deficit. A second downgrade – either from Moody's or Fitch – would follow Standard & Poor's downgrade in August and represent an additional blow to the sluggish US economy, Merrill said. "The credit rating agencies have strongly suggested that further rating cuts are likely if Congress does not come up with a credible long-run plan to cut the deficit," Merrill's North American economist, Ethan Harris, said. "We expect at least one credit downgrade in late November or early December when the super committee crashes."
United States tipped to lose another AAA credit rating | Business | The Guardian
Afghan president accused of hypocrisy and ingratitude over remarks made soon after Hillary Clinton's visit to the region The US reacted with dismay on Sunday after the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said that he would side with Pakistan in the event of any war with America. Karzai's remarks will be greeted with outrage by an American public already thinking him ungrateful for US military and financial support.
Hamid Karzai claims on TV his country 'will side with Pakistan if US attacks' | World news | The Guardian
Europe on the breadline: 'I don't know how a default could be worse than this' | World news | guardian.co.uk
Jon Henley is travelling through Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to hear the human stories behind the European debt crisis. Here, an Athenian gives her take on the Greeks' plight Europe on the breadline: live tour – interactive Kizbot, a frequent and eloquent commentator on Comment is Free, lives in Athens and writes in with her view of the crisis – and its consequences for her neighbours: I don't have to go far to see how deep the cuts have bitten into the lives of all Greeks.
Tunisians speak of their hopes for the future as the country holds first free elections since overthrow of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali View a pdf explaining the state of Tunisia's parties Along the main street of the desolate, rural town where Tunisia's revolution started, passersby watched from the pavement as a new kind of demonstration filed past. First came a slow-moving truck carrying a group of 10-year-old boys waving religious banners, shouting: "God is great!"
'Tunisia elections are a good thing, but we mustn't throw the revolution away' | World news | The Guardian
Protests in Athens turn into crossfire of petrol bombs and teargas as people vent rage over crucial austerity vote Greece's great economic crisis turned into a massive showdown between the little man on the street and lawmakers in Athens's 300-seat parliament when tens of thousands of protesters marched on parliament in a day marked by fury, defiance and ultimately violence. A demonstration that will be remembered as one of the biggest in modern times – with around 100,000 Greeks taking to the streets ahead of a crucial vote on stinging austerity – ended in ferocious street fighting on Wednesday after riot police fired teargas into the crowd and youths responded with a volley of rocks and petrol bombs. A heavy security operation by a government that appears increasingly under siege did little to stop protesters pushing their way up to the great marble steps of the parliament building itself.
Greece erupts as police clash with thousands marching on parliament | World news | The Guardian
Let's end the myths of Britain's imperial past | Books | The Guardian
David Cameron would have us look back to the days of the British empire with pride. But there is little in the brutal oppression and naked greed with which it was built that deserves our respect In his speech to the Conservative party conference this month, David Cameron looked back with Tory nostalgia to the days of empire: "Britannia didn't rule the waves with armbands on," he pointed out, suggesting that the shadow of health and safety did not hover over Britain's imperial operations when the British were building "a great nation". He urged the nation to revive the spirit that had once allowed Britain to find a new role after the empire's collapse.
Israeli relief tinged with anxiety over Gilad Shalit's physical and mental state as Palestinians welcome back hundreds He came home to flowers, flags and a euphoria tinged with shock at his fragility; free at last but inevitably scarred by his 1,940 days of captivity. The boy soldier, whose abduction by Hamas militants in June 2006 had turned him into a symbol of national unity, was at the end of his ordeal, but only the beginning of a long period of difficult readjustment and rehabilitation. The Black Hawk helicopter that brought Sergeant First Class Gilad Shalit to the tiny hilltop community of Mizpe Hila close to the Lebanese border touched down just after 4.30pm, silhouetted against a pink and gold streaked sky.
Middle East witnesses day of euphoria and tears both sides of the divide | World news | The Guardian
The Iran 'terror plot' drama involves four players who have much to lose from Arab self-determination. Let's hope they fail
This Middle East power struggle could kill off the Arab spring | David Hearst | Comment is free | The Guardian
French debt rating at risk as Germany warns there is no quick fix for crisis | Business | The Guardian
Stock markets and oil prices fell in response to German finance minister's comments, while Moody's issues warning to France Moody's, the ratings agency, issued a warning to France last night that it could face the loss of its coveted status as one of the world's most creditworthy nations after saying the euro debt crisis and slowing world economy left the country's AAA rating under pressure. It said that while the French economy remained able to absorb normal shocks, "the government's financial strength has weakened, as it has for other euro area sovereigns, because the global financial and economic crisis." The warning will come as a shock to many in France and is likely to unnerve markets already anxious at the prospect of the euro debt crisis spreading to the US and Asia. Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, added to the uncertainty earlier in the day when he said detailed talks to solve the crisis were likely to go beyond a self-imposed deadline set for this weekend.Occupy protests around the world: full list visualised | News | guardian.co.uk
The Occupy protests have spread from Wall Street to London to Bogota. See the full list - and help us add more • Get the data • Interactive map "951 cities in 82 countries" has become the standard definition of the scale of the Occupy protests around the world this weekend, following on from the Occupy Wall Street and Madrid demonstrations that have shaped public debate in the past month.A month after its launch, more than 900 cities around the world have hosted protests affiliated to the Occupy cause In Madrid, tens of thousands thronged the Puerta del Sol square shouting "Hands up! This is a robbery!" In Santiago, 25,000 Chileans processed through the city, pausing outside the presidential palace to hurl insults at the country's billionaire president. In Frankfurt, more than 5,000 people massed outside the European Central Bank, in scenes echoed in 50 towns and cities across Germany, from Berlin to Stuttgart. Sixty thousand people gathered in Barcelona, 100 in Manila, 3,000 in Auckland, 200 in Kuala Lumpur, 1,000 in Tel Aviv, 4,000 in London.