Six In The Morning

Brown blames US and Europe for ‘throwing away’ recovery  

Former prime minister mounts an extraordinary attack on world leaders for mishandling economic crisis and risking ‘a decade of joblessness’  

By Matt Chorley, Jane Merrick, Stephen Foley and Margareta Pagano Sunday, 7 August 2011

Gordon Brown today launches an extraordinary attack on the leaders of America, France and Germany, accusing them of being “wrong” on the big economic decisions and failing to heed his warnings over the EU debt crisis.

The former British prime minister breaks his silence to claim wrong-headed EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had “thrown away” another chance of economic recovery. They ignored his warnings about their banks’ debt levels and are exacerbating the financial crisis which, in turn, risks condemning millions of people to a decade of joblessness.

Emergency talks called to calm global financial crises

Finance chiefs from major powers are to hold emergency talks by telephone to discuss ways to contain the latest turmoil on world financial markets, reports say.

The BBC  7 August 2011

Twin debt crises in the eurozone and the US have caused sharp falls.

Analysts say world leaders want to calm international markets ahead of exchanges reopening on Monday morning.

The rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded America’s top-notch AAA rating to AA+.

Markets have also been rocked by suggestions that the debt crisis in the eurozone could spread to Italy and Spain.

Sources in Rome quoted by AFP news agency said finance ministers of the G7 nations – the US, Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada, and Italy – would hold a telephone conference call to discuss the situation.

Muslim Brotherhood holds first open vote in Egypt



SARAH EL DEEB CAIRO, EGYPT – Aug 07 2011

After decades spent underground because of an official ban, the public vote is also part of a concerted push by the Islamist group to show off its organisation and dispel its reputation as a secretive and closed group. It looks poised to win big at the November polls, largely because of its well-organised political machine and social outreach programs.

Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie hailed Saturday’s vote — which chose three new members to the group’s executive board — saying “the open and transparent elections show the world that the Brotherhood works in the open, to restore Egypt’s freedom and standing”.

Five myths about Africa

Matt Damon, listen up: After five years of covering Africa, our departing correspondent tells how his perceptions have changed about a complex continent, including why some Africans resent celebrity visits.

By Scott Baldauf, staff write

Johannesburg, South Africa

Here we were, stuck axle-deep on a muddy road in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after a very impressive midafternoon rainstorm. Ten miles behind us was a small village with a deep hole in the ground where the village men would dig up chunks of tin and sell them to traveling salesmen. This was the last village under government control before the tin trade fell into the hands of a genocidal rebel group called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

So, with dusk falling, the rain starting, and a mile or two to walk to the closest friendly village, there was nothing to do but get on the cellphone to inform my wife I wouldn’t make it to the hotel that night in Bukavu. Later, in the village, my colleague Stephanie Nolen of the Toronto Globe and Mail would send an e-mail from her BlackBerry to her paper’s editors, explaining that she was safe.

Hip-hop moments that shook the world

From Kool Herc spinning in the Bronx to Jay-Z blinging in the mud, Matilda Egere-Cooper counts down the flash points that turned hip-hop from a marginalised inner-city culture into a global phenomenon

Sunday, 7 August 2011

It wasn’t meant to last. When hip-hop emerged in the 1970s, it aspired simply to capture the sentiments, camaraderie and frustrations of inner-city New York. Yet, refusing to give in to early prophecies that it would come and go, the genre continues to thrive 35 years on, spilling over from music into art, fashion, TV and film. How Hip Hop Changed the World, a new documentary airing this week on Channel 4, will examine the story of the movement and how it has influenced pop culture – but for those who don’t know their hips from their hops, here’s a quick primer of the 10 most notable moments in the genre’s history.

Albert Camus might have been killed by the KGB for criticising the Soviet Union, claims newspaper

Car crash in which French literary giant was killed in 1960 was no accident, claims new theory

Kim Willsher in Paris

The Observer, Sunday 7 August 2011  

When the French philosopher, author and inveterate womaniser Albert Camus died in a car accident in 1960 just two years after winning the Nobel prize for literature, France’s intellectual beau monde mourned what seemed an almost freakish tragedy.

In Camus’s pocket was an unused return train ticket from his home in Provence to Paris. The 46-year-old writer had intended to travel back after the Christmas holidays by train with his wife Francine and their teenage twins Catherine and Jean. Instead, his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard offered to drive him.