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| Big Brother 'hell house' unveiled Macabre sculptures, animal skulls and a kitchen inspired by a morgue await the housemates in the last series of C4's Celebrity Big Brother. news.bbc.co.uk |
Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan: two very different departures | Michael Tomasky The retirement of Senators Dodd and Dorgan don't have a lot in common – but they highlight the toxic atmosphere in US politicsThey happened within about five hours of each other. First, Tuesday evening, Democratic North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan announced that he would be retiring, not seeking re-election in 2010. Then, just before midnight, news broke that another Senate Democrat, Connecticut's Chris Dodd, would retire as well. Is there something in the water?Yes and no. Back-to-back announcements like these two are rare indeed, even without precedent in my memory. So it undoubtedly makes for a rough 24 hours for the Democrats.Beyond that superficial level, however, the two cases are quite different. Dorgan's departure is indeed a massive blow to the party – unspinnable, as numbers whiz Nate Silver put it on his blog (linked to above). Dorgan holds a seat in a red state that will almost surely go Republican. There's a very popular GOP governor, John Hoeven, and it's widely assumed he'll run and win.Observers have known for a few months now that the Democrats would likely lose Senate seats in the 2010 election – most prognosticators today think two to four, possibly five, depending on lots of possible scenarios – leaving them with still a clear majority but fewer than 60, the magic number in this era in which a supermajority is needed to do anything.But the Dorgan announcement drives that reality home. A Democratic majority of 55 or even 58 can pass nothing if Republicans remain the party of no. There's no reason they won't, and indeed all the more reason they will.The Dodd retirement is different. It's actually welcome news from a Democratic point of view. He's been enmeshed in allegations that he received a sweetheart mortgage deal. He would have faced a brutal re-election campaign. But now, the state's popular Democratic attorney general is poised to run for Dodd's seat. Dodd's absence means the Democrats are more likely to hold the seat, assuming the attorney general, Ralph Blumenthal, gets in the race (which the White House and most observers appear to assume).So in all likelihood, the net change in party headcount from Tuesday's bombshell announcements is a big fat zero. So why does it matter? Because there are deeper consequences too.Dorgan is a serious, thoughtful and reasonably progressive legislator. The people in Washington who are happiest about his announcement today are not Republican operatives but the lobbyists and executives of the pharmaceutical industry. Dorgan has fought for years a battle (one he waged, and again lost, this year) to permit the importation of lower-priced prescriptions drugs from Canada.He has also been a sharp free-trade critic and was one of just eight Senators to vote against the late-90s bill that repealed broad banking regulation. He's a prairie progressive, in other words, of a type that reaches back a century or more in his part of the country. And sadly, it seems a safe bet to say that that tradition will retire with him.Dodd, whatever his personal errors, is a great and talented legislator. I know people who've worked for him, or had opportunities to watch him up close. He was Ted Kennedy's closest friend, for good and ill (they did a fair amount of catting around town together before both settled down), and he mastered the arts of compromise and cajolery almost as well as Kennedy had. His father was a senator before him.I think both announcements reflect how toxic the atmosphere in Washington in general and the Senate in particular has become. I heard a quote from Dorgan on NPR this morning. I didn't get it down because I was still in bed, but he said words to the effect that the past year in the Senate had been a terrible one, a year of missed opportunity and endless, enervating argument. I suspect he just couldn't take it anymore.A final consequence is for the policy agenda of the Obama administration. You will now hear the Democratic interest groups more and more say things like: listen, we won't have our Senate 60 for much longer, so we'd better pass it all while we can. Notably, the climate change, trade union, and gay and lesbian lobbies will be vocal.They will all be making worthy cases. But the White House, in an election year, and a year in which it absolutely has to focus first and foremost on the economy, will be wary of their entreaties. This might produce more liberal dissension.The plot seemed plenty thick already. But it just got thicker. And the level of talent and seriousness in the Senate keeps getting thinner and thinner.US politicsUnited StatesObama administrationMichael Tomaskyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Indonesia Wants China Pact Revised Indonesia is hoping to renegotiate a free-trade pact between Southeast Asia and China that took effect this month, amid concerns from local businesses about competition. online.wsj.com |
Netanyahu aides dismiss allegations Embarrassing lawsuit accuses Israeli prime minister's wife of 'tyrannising' worker over six years of serviceBinyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, was facing his first scandal in office and a call for his resignation tonight after his former maid filed an embarrassing lawsuit accusing his wife of "tyrannising" her during six years of service.Israeli newspapers and radio stations gave extensive coverage of the affair today, with allegations from other former staff and accounts of Sara Netanyahu's reported behaviour.Last week lawyers for the couple's former maid, Lillian Peretz, filed a lawsuit at a Tel Aviv labour court asking for about £50,000 in damages.Netanyahu's aides dismissed the allegations as "lies and slander" and suggested the case was driven by an Israeli paper caught in a circulation war. The Yedioth Ahronoth paper featured the case prominently in its Friday edition, but it was a columnist at another paper who yesterday produced the most damning conclusion.Ben Caspit, of Ma'ariv, wrote: "The person serving as the prime minister of Israel is unfit for the job. Everyone surrounding him knows that."So far there is no sign that Netanyahu's position is under real threat.Peretz worked in the Netanyahu family home, in Caesarea, for six years. In the lawsuit she reportedly claimed that the prime minister's wife, a psychologist, denied her basic social benefits and shouted at her for not following rules. Among the rules was allegedly the instruction that the employer be addressed only as "Mrs Sara Netanyahu," following her husband becoming prime minister last spring.Sara Netanyahu reportedly insisted the maid had several showers a day and took four sets of clothes to work "to maintain maximum sterility and not pollute the house", according to an excerpt of the lawsuit published in the Yedioth. "Sara ÂNetanyahu, like in the Cinderella story, piled on her impossible tasks, tyranÂnised her and screamed at her, caused her unreasonable expenses from her own pocket, insulted her femininity by … commands meant to suppress her femininity, and made her sign a document that she would not reveal things that occurred in the house, until her mental and physical collapse," it reportedly said.The lawsuit maintains Netanyahu forced the maid to work on the sabbath and that on one occasion she phoned Peretz at 2am "and asked for an explanation as to why a pillowcase did not adequately cover the pillow in the bedroom".The allegations echoed criticism Sara Netanyahu faced when her husband was first prime minister in the late 1990s; then she was accused of arguing with staff.The Netanyahus fought back against the claims saying they rarely used the house. They said there were photoÂgraphs of Peretz embracing Sara Netanyahu and quoted the maid's resignation letter which talked of her "love and appreciation" of the family. "In total contrast to what is written in the lawsuit, the plaintiff Lillian received warm and affectionate treatment from Mrs Netanyahu," the prime minister's office said in a statement.David Shimron, a lawyer for the couple, told Israel's Army Radio that Peretz was "being taken advantage of by a certain media outlet". That appeared to refer to the Yedioth, which is in a circulation battle with Israel Hayom, a paper sympathetic to Netanyahu. But it was Caspit who delivered the strongest criticism, claiming that the prime minister's wife had too much influence over Netanyahu's work.Binyamin NetanyahuIsraelMiddle EastRory McCarthyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Sri Lanka set to elect president Security is tight in Sri Lanka as voters prepare to choose their next president after a bitter election campaign. news.bbc.co.uk |