Blogs For Day

Depardieu vs Binoche: feud that's got France flummoxed

September 3rd, 2010   by Chloe

The French actress Juliette Binoche, known for her sweetness on and off screen, has gently savaged the actor Gérard Depardieu for publicly questioning her talent. In an interview with an Austrian magazine, Mr Depardieu last week attacked the Oscar-winning Ms Binoche as "an absolute nothing".

In a series of interviews in Britain before her award-winning new movie is released today, the graceful Ms Binoche remained within character while implying that Mr Depardieu was suffering from psychological problems.

"I don't know him and I don't know what I did to him," she told the BBC Radio 4 culture programme Front Row. "I understand that you don't have to like everyone and you [can] dislike someone's work. But I don't understand the violence [of his words]. I think it has to do with himself. There's something going on," she said.
In another interview, with Empire magazine, she said that she did not feel "wounded" by Mr Depardieu's comments because "they have nothing to do with me". Might the most successful French actor of his generation be suffering from professional "jealousy" she wondered? (He has never won an Oscar. She won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in The English Patient in 1997.)

Alternatively, she suggested that the notoriously macho and choleric Mr Depardieu might have been "wounded in his maleness" by her new film, Certified Copy, which tells the story of a doomed affair largely from a female point of view. "I know some men have had problems with the film," she said.

In an interview with the Austrian magazine Profil last week Mr Depardieu, 61, launched into an attack on Ms Binoche, 46, without even being asked a direct question about her. "Please can you explain to me what the mystery of Juliette Binoche is meant to be?" he said. "I would really like to know why she has been so esteemed for so many years. She has nothing – absolutely nothing. Compared with her, Isabelle Adjani is great even if she's lost it recently. Or Fanny Ardant – she is magnificent, extremely impressive. But Binoche? What has she ever had going for her?"

In her interview with Mark Lawson on Front Row, Ms Binoche – a committed Christian and unostentatious supporter of charitable and political causes – said that she had only once met Mr Depardieu for any length of time. They had dinner together a few years ago and he accused her of "always making beautiful films". "I didn't have any answers to that because I didn't completely understand what he meant by that," she said. "And then, after that, I thought... 'are you supposed to do not-beautiful films?'

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Britain is best place in the world to die

September 2nd, 2010   by Chloe

Compared with other countries of the developed world, Britain scores below par on many aspects of modern living, from the football World Cup to cancer treatment.

When it comes to dying, however, we are without equal. The UK has been ranked top of the "Quality of Death" index for its provision of end-of-life care.

The index, drawn up by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ranks 40 countries on attitudes to death and the treatment of the dying. The UK takes the top place based on its network of hospices, NHS provision of palliative care and measures such as access to pain killing drugs.

While much attention has been given to quality of life, less has been paid to quality of death. Too many people suffer poor quality deaths, even in countries that boast excellent health systems. Of more than 100 million people around the world who need palliative care annually, fewer than 8 per cent receive it.

The UK's top ranking comes despite its having a "far-from-perfect health system", the report says. Many comparable rich nations lag a long way behind, including Denmark (ranked 22nd), Italy (28th) and South Korea (32nd). Some countries have cultural taboos around death, such as China, which inhibits the development of compassionate care. Western societies, where death has become medicalised, often prioritise curative ahead of palliative care, causing needless suffering.

In the US, hospice care is associated with "giving up" and discussion of end-of-life care "often inflames religious sentiment that holds the sanctity of life paramount", it says.

Switzerland ranks 19th in the table, despite what many see as its enlightened attitude to assisted suicide for the terminally ill. But debates around euthansia and assisted suicide affect "only a tiny proportion of the terminally ill" and policies on them are therefore excluded from the index.

Pressure on policy makers can nonetheless be the catalyst for improvements to palliative care services. In Australia the federal government overturned a euthansia law in the Northern Territory in 1996, but this was followed by a boost to national funding for end-of-life care.

One of the biggest obstacles to a "quality death" is the lack of powerful pain killing drugs such as morphine. Misplaced fears about addiction, illicit drug use and trafficking seriously restrict their availability.

Help the Hospices, the UK's leading charity supporting hospice care, welcomed the report but said too many people in Britain faced the end of life without specialist care and support.

David Praill, the chief executive, said: "This is the first time a ranking of end-of-life care globally has been attempted. Hospice care was pioneered in the UK and it is heartening to see the UK coming top of the index."

"Our ageing population means more people will be dying and they will be dying with more complex needs... It is vital we have a fair and sustainable system of funding that meets the needs of people at the most vulnerable time of their lives."

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Varney better than Rooney in latest Index embarrassment

September 1st, 2010   by Chloe

The controversial Capello Index player rating website pioneered by Fabio Capello caused further embarrassment for the England manager last night, with the publication of bizarre ratings that place little-known English players at Blackpool above established stars Capello has selected in his current squad.

Having created the complex rating system behind the Capello Index and launched it in May, Capello was ordered by the Football Association to immediately sever all connections with it. The Italian had apparently not anticipated the potential for embarrassment attached to England players being rated online by their own manager.

However, more than three months on, Capello's lawyers are yet to force the website's creator Chicco Merighi, a former business partner of Capello, to close the site. To add to the embarrassment, the Capello Index is now rating players in the current Premier League season and has produced its own hierarchy of best performers which clashes radically with Capello's selections for the England team.
Having factored in the performances for the weekend's games, the Capello Index yesterday ranked every Premier League player in order on the basis of their performance. Of the top 26 English players, only seven were in Capello's current squad to face Bulgaria on Friday and Switzerland four days later in the opening Euro 2012 qualifiers.

Luke Varney, the 27-year-old Blackpool striker, who has never played for England at any level, is rated 48 places above Wayne Rooney. Matthew Gilks, the Blackpool goalkeeper, is two places above Joe Hart, Capello's current No 1. Curiously, Gilks, born in Rochdale and called up before for a Scotland squad, is still technically eligible to play for England, having never won a senior Scottish cap.

Capello was warned by the FA against launching the website, which took place on 10 May, on the eve of his World Cup finals squad announcement, but proceeded anyway. He is still paying the price for that decision, with the issue bound to surface again when he faces the media tomorrow, ahead of the Bulgaria game.

With so many of his key centre-backs injured and unavailable – John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher and Ledley King – Capello might be interested to know that his index rates Roger Johnson of Birmingham City as the most in-form English centre-back in the league. Johnson, 27, worked his way up to the Premier League via Wycombe Wanderers and Cardiff City and has never had an England call-up.

Sunderland striker Darren Bent is currently the top-rated player in the Premier League section of the Capello Index and West Brom goalkeeper Scott Carson is second. Both of them feature in Capello's current World Cup squad but neither are likely to start Friday's game.

The formula that determines players' marks, devised in part by Capello, has never been completely explained. However, the ratings for players such as Steven Gerrard now include his World Cup performances. The England captain is not even rated in the top 100 in the Premier League by the Capello Index. By contrast, the 28-year-old Blackpool defender Ian Evatt is rated 34th, ahead of all Capello's current defenders, apart from Matthew Upson.

Capello yesterday oversaw his second training session with both reserve goalkeepers Ben Foster and Carson absent. In their place, he co-opted 19-year-old Arsenal academy goalkeeper James Shea. Theo Walcott said: "It's nice for James – he can go back to his family and tell them who he played against and how Wazza [Rooney] chipped him from the 18-yard box."

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Coalition plans to link oveseas aid to security

August 31st, 2010   by Chloe

Part of Britain's £6bn overseas aid budget could be switched to defence and anti-terrorism projects, according to a leaked government document.

The proposal could undermine the Coalition Government's repeated pledges to increase spending on aid to the world's poorest countries. While other ministries will see their budgets cut by up to 40 per cent in a spending review to be concluded by October, the Department for International Development and the Department of Health have been promised more money each year on top of inflation.

The leaked report discloses that the National Security Council (NSC), chaired by David Cameron, has ordered that the ODA (official development assistance) budget should make "the maximum possible contribution to national security".

It adds: "Although the NSC will not in most cases direct DFID spend in country, we need to be able to make the case for how our work contributes to national security."

The report, sent to DFID offices abroad, advises officials to mention national security when submitting bids under a new internal market for aid projects. It adds: "We need to explain how DFID's work in fragile states contributes to national security through 'upstream' prevention that helps to stop potential threats to the UK developing (including work to improve health and education, provide water, build roads, improve governance and security)."

Labour seized on the leak as evidence that spending on relieving poverty could be cut, possibly to ease the cash crisis at the Ministry of Defence.

Gareth Thomas, the shadow minister for International Development, said: "This document is deeply worrying as it confirms the fears of many in the international development and humanitarian community that the Government plans to securitise the aid budget, and weaken its focus in prioritising resources on the poorest people and countries."

He claimed that other ministers, rather than the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, would now call the shots on the aid budget.

"It is right that our development and national security efforts are complementary and co-ordinated, particularly in countries like Afghanistan, but there is a significant risk that we will see our aid budget increasingly geared to narrow security priorities, instead of meeting the wider needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people," said Mr Thomas.

He said that it was becoming clearer why the Tories had abandoned more than 80 of Labour's key international commitments – including a pledge to put millions more children into school – as fewer resources will be available if money is switched to security. "With a key UN summit less than a month away this will be a further blow to those hoping Britain would be leading the effort to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track," he said.

A DFID spokeswoman said: "Relief of poverty is central to everything that DFID does. But countries most struggling to come to terms with the battle against poverty are precisely those where conflict and insecurity are most prevalent. Unless the international community takes a lead in tackling these intractable problems, we cannot hope to achieve a better deal for the world's poorest people."

She added: "A review of all the UK's bilateral aid is looking at all DFID's programmes, but has yet to reach any conclusions. All DFID funding is and will continue to be governed by internationally agreed definitions of what constitutes aid".

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'Statins with your burger?' Doctors want heart pills on menu

August 30th, 2010   by Chloe

Would you like a pill with that? Fast food outlets should offer statins alongside burgers, say top cardiologists. Photograph: Francis Dean/Rex Features

McDonald's, Burger King and other fast food outlets should offer diners free drugs to compensate for the risk of heart disease, cardiologists proposed today.

If burger joints offered cholesterol-lowering statins, customers would offset the unhealthy effects of a cheeseburger and milkshake, according to researchers at Imperial College London.

The pills could be placed beside the salt, pepper and tomato ketchup to encourage people to pop one after their meal.

The suggestion is made in a paper by Dr Darrel Francis, a cardiologist at Imperial's National Heart and Lung Institute, and colleagues published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The idea was criticised by leading doctors, who said the study could encourage ill-health by prompting even greater consumption of junk food and increasing the belief in "a pill for every ill".

Francis said: "Statins do not cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It's better to avoid fatty food altogether. But in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it."

People eat fast food despite knowing that it is bad for them. Given that, said Francis: "It makes sense to make risk-reducing supplements available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are provided free of charge. It would cost less then 5p per customer - not much different to a sachet of ketchup."

The proposal was in line with other established risk-reducing measures such as wearing a seatbelt or buying filtered cigarettes, Francis argued.

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, denounced the proposal. "This paper just amazes me," he said. "Let's get real; we should be encouraging healthy lifestyles, not pill popping. This is an unwelcome addition to the 'pill for every ill' attitude that's already much too common. The danger of this research is that some people will become even more complacent about eating fatty food and high calorie food, and might even increase their intake of them."

While statins were generally safe they could increase the risk of muscle weakness and, in rare cases, of kidney failure, cataracts and liver problems, Field added.

Millions of Britons who have dangerously high cholesterol levels, and those with existing heart problems, take statins regularly to reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The suggestion that the harmful effects of a junk food meal might be erased by taking a cholesterol-lowering statin tablet should not be taken literally. Statins are a vital medicine for people with, or at high risk of developing, heart disease. They are not a magic bullet."

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Popping pills, plus moles and melanoma

August 28th, 2010   by Chloe

Is it OK to swallow medication with liquid other than water, such as milk, coffee, tea or even alcohol, particularly if you find pills hard to swallow?
Most times, yes. There are, however, a few medications that should not be taken with milk, and your doctor should be able to advise you if that's the case with the ones you are taking – it's all a matter of the milk interfering with (mostly delaying, but not usually preventing) your uptake of the drug from your gut. Tea and coffee are not a problem. Why some people find swallowing pills so very difficult is hard to understand – after all, at every meal, they swallow items of food that are much bulkier than a small pill or capsule – but the problem is a real one. If you have trouble swallowing tablets, your doctor may be able to offer you a soluble preparation.

I'm 28 and fair-skinned with loads of moles. While dry-shaving my legs, the top skin of a mole on my lower leg came away perfectly intact and it didn't bleed; the mole is still there on the leg, as it was before. Over the last year, another mole has appeared on my foot on the same leg. Should I be worried about this? Unfortunately, I have allowed myself to burn in the sun over the years, and have been lax about using suncream, too. Does having lots of moles put me at greater risk of melanoma?
You need to make an appointment with your doctor, if only for reassurance. Having lots of pigmented naevi (the medical term for moles) does not raise your risk of melanoma, but, sadly, you have increased the risk by allowing yourself to get sunburnt. Shaving the top off a naevus bloodlessly doesn't make any difference to its risk of becoming malignant – in fact, it strongly suggests that the mole is benign and therefore nothing to worry about. The same goes for the rest of your naevi. However, it is wise to have them checked professionally, because this should put your mind at rest. Benign naevi can arise at any age, so don't feel that a new one must be a risk. However, it's best to be sure, so you can put this worry completely behind you.

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How did rebels rape 200 women just miles from UN base in Congo?

August 27th, 2010   by Chloe

The UN Security Council yesterday condemned the mass rape of almost 200 women by rebels in eastern Congo as the organisation's top officials struggled to account for the failure of peacekeepers to prevent the attacks.

The UN has a large and costly peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which appeared powerless to prevent the rebel rampage through a string of rural villages.

UN officials in Congo said they only learned of the rape from an international medical charity 10 days after they occurred. But there is some dispute when the information was passed on. What seems clear now is that between 30 July and 3 August, Rwandan and Congolese rebels besieged the village of Luvungi in North Kivu, separated men from wives – and sometimes babies from mothers – before engaging in the mass rape of between 150 and 200 women. It happened even though the UN peacekeeping mission has a forward encampment just 19 miles away from Luvungi.

The Security Council held an emergency session in New York yesterday and called for those who carried out the attacks to be brought to justice.

Compounding the political embarrassment for the UN is evidence now surfacing that on 30 July, the day the rapes began, an email was sent out by the UN's safety and security divisions to humanitarian groups in Congo warning them to keep away from the Luvungi area because it had been overrun by rebels. The email made no mention of rape, however.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said he was "outraged" by the attacks. He dispatched his top peacekeeping official, Atul Khare, to Congo to talk with the victims and UN commanders. He will deliver his findings to the Security Council next week. "This is another grave example of both the level of sexual violence and the insecurity that continue to plague the DRC," said Mr Ban.

The UN is insisting it could not have responded to an incident that it had no information about. Officials said that even when patrols did go through the towns several days later, rebels still lingering disappeared into the surrounding countryside and none of the residents spoke to anyone about what had happened, either out of shame or because of fears of rebel reprisals against them. The attacks were blamed on a group involved in Rwanda's genocide and fled across the border to Congo in 1994 and who have been terrorising civilians ever since.

The charity that first sounded the alarm was the International Medical Corps (IMC). "Two hundred to four hundred armed men systematically pillaged and raped women in the villages," Giorgio Trombatore, country director for the IMC in the Congo confirmed. The UN has said that it learned of the mass abuse from the IMC on 12 August, but officials with the group have said details of what happened were passed on to the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs on 6 August.

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Ban on bluefin tuna would 'threaten Japanese culture'

August 26th, 2010   by Chloe

The fate of the Atlantic bluefin tuna – beloved by sushi gourmets and on the brink of extinction – could be decided within days.

The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) opened yesterday in Qatar to debate proposals banning the international trade in the fish. Delegates will also discuss moves to restrict the sale of sharks' fins.

Cites has been successful in restricting trade in big cats; great apes and elephants but this is the first time a marine species has taken centre stage.

Willem Wijnstekers, the secretary general of Cites, said there was much more support than two years ago for restricting or banning trade in many marine species, including the bluefin. "I don't think anyone has an argument against the listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna. There is no scientific argument against that."

He added that countries were turning to his organisation because tools to manage stocks were not working and that many of the oceans' commercially fished species were under threat. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says more than half of all marine fish stocks are under threat.

Plans to ban fishing and the international trade of bluefin and sharks has prompted a bitter international tussle, with Europeans and Americans pitted against the fishing nations in North Africa and Asia, especially Japan, which has already vowed to ignore any bluefin ban. The Japanese consume 80 per cent of bluefin eaten worldwide, and the ban proposal has provoked public protests in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

Opponents claim Japanese culture is under siege and that concerns about bluefin extinction are overblown. Sushi is a popular dish in Japan, where fatty bluefin – called o-toro – sells for as much as 2,000 yen (£13) apiece in high-end Tokyo restaurants.

Canada, which has a sizeable tuna fleet, is known to oppose export bans.

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Do they mean Lindsay?

August 25th, 2010   by Chloe

Lindsay Lohan recently filed a $100m lawsuit against E-Trade, an online stock brokerage, over a TV ad featuring a "milkaholic" baby named Lindsay (or possibly "Lindsey"; the screenplay isn't readily available). Lohan's lawyer Stephanie Ovadia says it's defamatory, and a "subliminal" parody of her client. E-Trade says the US contains 250,000 Lindsays. Ovadia says Lohan's first name has the stand-alone status of Oprah's or Madonna's. Not so, says E-Trade: "Oprah" and "Madonna" are registered trademarks. This week Ovadia filed new papers: "Some names such as Bill, Hillary, Bush, Tiger, Paris, Johnny, Allen, are very common names," she contends. "There may be millions, if not billions, of people with these names in the world. Some words may not necessarily be just the names for human beings but may convey other meanings also... 'Tiger' is an animal and is associated with a jungle or zoo in a particular context. However, when used in the context of [the] Golf game world, it conveys [a] totally different message." Who could argue with that?

* James McGrath was one of a flurry of aides forced to depart City Hall under a cloud following Boris Johnson's 2008 London mayoral victory. The Australian spin doctor, 36, then Johnson's chief political adviser, made the unfortunate suggestion (to a journalist, on tape) that disgruntled African-Caribbean Londoners should move to the Caribbean if they didn't fancy living under a Tory regime. Two years later, and McGrath is being credited with the resurgence of Tony "the Budgie-Smuggler" Abbott's Liberal Party in Queensland, the key swing state in Australia's knife-edge election. The former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull told The Australian that McGrath was "an astounding political professional". Another former employer, the Coalition's Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, described him as "magnificently efficient". Maybe Boris ought to invite him back for 2012 – if he runs again, that is.

* Also in Australia for the election, though with less to boast about in its aftermath, is the Labour spin doctor David Taylor. Taylor works for the shadow Welsh secretary, Peter Hain, but decided to spend his summer holidays volunteering with the Julia Gillard campaign. Bless. The 25-year-old from Denbighshire told the Western Mail he was struck by Gillard's frequent references to her Welsh roots. "I find it very refreshing that she has no inhibitions about her connection with another country – I'm not sure many British politicians would be prepared to do that." No, and something tells me Mr McGrath would have advised her against it.

* Plenty of names were floated for the Camerons' new daughter yesterday. William Hill's 2/1 favourite was Marnie, but the bookmaker also offered 50/1 on Margaret, 100/1 on Edwina and 1,000/1 on Speed (geddit?). Ladbrokes led its more conservative (small "c") assortment with Isabella at 8/1, but took into account the possibility of public input – on which Cameron is famously keen – with Cheryl at 33/1. I'd suggest Lindsay, but you never know: it might get me sued.

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