11:55 PM
Cholera-struck Haiti set to vote: "The quake-stricken Caribbean nation of Haiti prepares for presidential elections, as it continues to battle a raging cholera epidemic."
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Icon Notebook
Icon Notebook:
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Brigada Creativa created fun icon stationery that we featured previously and now they have a notebook available in the same icon design. It’s available through their Big Cartel shop or Etsy.
"Bangladesh wins Asian Games gold
Bangladesh wins Asian Games gold:
"Bangladesh has won its first-ever gold medal in the Asian games, with its cricket team defeating Afghanistan in the Twenty20 competition in China."
"Bangladesh has won its first-ever gold medal in the Asian games, with its cricket team defeating Afghanistan in the Twenty20 competition in China."
Smith expected to face India - SA
Smith expected to face India - SA:
"South Africa captain Graeme Smith will recover from a broken finger in time for the first test against India on 16 December, according to Cricket South Africa."
"South Africa captain Graeme Smith will recover from a broken finger in time for the first test against India on 16 December, according to Cricket South Africa."
Live Ashes - Australia v England
Live Ashes - Australia v England:
"England face a massive rearguard battle after Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin put on 307 to help Australia build a huge lead on day three of the first Ashes Test."
"England face a massive rearguard battle after Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin put on 307 to help Australia build a huge lead on day three of the first Ashes Test."
Hussey and Haddin hammer England
Hussey and Haddin hammer England:
"England face a battle to save the first Test after Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin produce one of the all-time great Ashes partnerships to put Australia in a commanding position after three days in Brisbane."
"England face a battle to save the first Test after Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin produce one of the all-time great Ashes partnerships to put Australia in a commanding position after three days in Brisbane."
Saturday's Ashes gossip column
Saturday's Ashes gossip column:
"Andy Flower 'owes life' to security guard after health scare."
"Andy Flower 'owes life' to security guard after health scare."
Second Test ends drawn in Colombo
Second Test ends drawn in Colombo:
"The second Test between Sri Lanka and the West Indies ends in a draw, after rain washes out most of the match."
"The second Test between Sri Lanka and the West Indies ends in a draw, after rain washes out most of the match."
England ready to fight for draw
England ready to fight for draw:
"England are determined to do whatever it takes to avoid defeat in the first Test against Australia in Brisbane."
"England are determined to do whatever it takes to avoid defeat in the first Test against Australia in Brisbane."
'It's us against the world at 4am'
'It's us against the world at 4am': "
They were the BBC's dream team whose on-screen chemistry had everyone watching. Then they moved to ITV's breakfast show – and it all fell apart. Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley open up to Decca Aitkenhead
Alert: This piece contains strong language
Before meeting Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, my worry had been they might try to conduct the interview in the approved register of breakfast television presenters – brightly glib, impenetrably sunny, with that bulletproof optimism which is apparently mandatory for anyone appearing on screen before 9am. Everyone knows their new show is in trouble – but what if they just smiled tightly, and insisted everything was going brilliantly? What a yawn that would be.
"Well, I'm never, ever going to be positive about anything again, I can tell you that," Chiles says straight away. "Normally I'm pessimistic about absolutely everything. But God forgive me my arrogance, I tried being positive with this, because I felt in my water that it was going to be a storming immediate runaway success. I'd been saying to Christine for two or three years, we should do a breakfast show together, the time is right to do a breakfast show. I was absolutely sure. And I was completely fucking wrong."
All summer, a frenzy of anticipation had been building around Chiles and Bleakley. ITV had pulled off a spectacular coup, everyone agreed, by tempting the BBC's dream team on to its new breakfast show sofa. The pair's legendary chemistry, which had made the One Show such a hit, was widely expected to make Daybreak a soaraway success. Breakfast television might not attract massive viewing figures in this country, but it has become a popular barometer for the fortunes of a channel – and Daybreak was going to be the new morning glory of ITV.
At 8.30am on 6 September, when the first edition came off air, both presenters thought it had gone pretty well. "We got through it anyway, put it that way," Bleakley says. "And I was so nervous about it, I was just glad there were no blazing errors. We thought it was OK."
"And then," says Chiles, "we woke up in the morning and found out that, far from being OK, it was actually one of the biggest crocks of shite anyone had seen in years."
The avalanche of criticism that descended was almost as dramatic as the new show's plunge in the ratings. More than 1m viewers tuned in to see the launch, but by the final week of October, the figure had slumped to just over 500,000, barely a third of those for its BBC's rival, Breakfast. Critics howled with derision at the coldly unwelcoming set, the comically trivial features such as skateboarding dogs, and the ill-conceived gimmicks – what were 4 Poofs & A Piano doing on telly at breakfast time? Above all, they were merciless in their assassination of the show's star presenters. Chiles was said to look miserable – painfully awkward, gloomy and stiff – while Bleakley was accused of grinning like an idiot and appearing completely out of her depth.
When we meet on set, Bleakley manages to affect more professional good cheer about the criticism than Chiles, but neither pretends for a second to be indifferent. They are reflective and self-critical, analysing every element of the show with forensic rigour and candour, if also with a hint of gallows humour. Bad press, Chiles says, is one thing – "I learned to deal with it years ago" – but there is something uniquely unnerving about having to read it every day at 4am. "I get up at quarter to four," he says. "I get in the car at five past four, I say hello to the driver, he says hello to me. We both say how knackered we are, and then I read the papers. And I read that I'm the ugliest man that's ever presented a programme, I read that my close friend and co-presenter Christine is a social-climbing slag, and that the programme is the worst thing anyone's seen, and it's tanking, and it's a complete failure. I've read all that by the time I've gone round the Hogarth roundabout, so my day bottoms out at 4.15am. And then people say the problem is I'm grumpy. Well, a) I'm grumpy for a reason; and b) if you have got your arse in your hands, is there anything worse than somebody telling you to cheer up?"
Chiles has come across as somewhat Eeyorish on screen, leaving Bleakley to play Tigger, compensating with a bounciness that can at times verge on shrill. "But ironically," she says, "I was the one who was cautious before the show began. I was the one going, 'Please, don't think this is a given, this is going to be a very tough job.' I'd watched a lot of breakfast telly – and breakfast telly's more personal than anything else."
"I wish now I'd watched it a lot more," Chiles agrees ruefully. "I've got a newfound respect for all of them. They look comfortable in their skin, and I think just to be companionable at that time is a challenge. And that laconic, sardonic, cynical thing I do, I'm not sure how that plays in the morning. I've got to be myself, I can't be inauthentic; I've got to do some sort of approximation of myself – but I haven't squared that circle yet. I'd thought we could just fire that big, magic bullet – me and Christine – and it would work."
'I didn't,' she points out. 'No, I knew it was more than that. It was two and a half hours of a tough, tough show.'
Both agree the show got a lot of things wrong. For a start, the new £1m studio had looked fantastic in July, with its spectacular glass backdrop looking out on the Thames. Unfortunately, it hadn't occurred to anyone that come launch-time in autumn, the sun wouldn't rise until the show was nearly over, casting the set into chilly gloom and turning it into what they laughingly call 'the purple cave of sadness'. It was also a misjudgment to come on air only two days after GMTV was consigned to broadcasting history. By then, their predecessors' ratings had sunk to about 750,000, tempting bosses into the misapprehension that almost any replacement was bound to do better.
'That was another mistake,' Chiles says. 'The GMTV audience was down to the bones of its arse, but it's like when West Brom went down to the third division. There were only about eight or nine thousand going to the home games, but that represents the hardcore. So, in fact, these are the last people who are ready for somebody else to come in. They were absolutely, and quite rightly, in love with GMTV and what it stood for. I don't know why I was surprised that they were not really up for this new thing, because we'd killed off what they loved. It was as if some sort of broadcasting fratricide had been perpetrated. So I really wish we'd done a soft launch, just come on air quietly, instead of those big grandiose billboards.' He practically cringes. 'Everyone was driving past them thinking, 'Well, who the hell do they suddenly think they are?''
'To be fair though,' Bleakley says, 'I understand from a bosses' point of view why they want to tell the world about their new baby. But on a personal level you're sort of like, 'Shiiiit… that's us on that billboard, and a lot of it rests with us.''
Chiles has always said the secret of his appeal lay in low expectations; he was never the BBC's main man, and his most successful shows – Working Lunch, Match Of The Day 2, the One Show – all quietly evolved into hits without any great fanfare. Similarly, when Bleakley joined the One Show she was barely known outside of Northern Ireland, and was only standing in for Myleene Klass. "No one cared," she says with a laugh, "so I had time to learn on the job before anyone noticed." Neither had experienced the wrath of media schadenfreude, and seem to have been unprepared for its ferocity.
'The time I knew I had to either give up or get a grip,' Chiles says, 'was when we were interviewing somebody and I was about to come out with a question, and I swear to God, I literally saw myself quoted on, say, Ally Ross' page in the Sun as Twat of the Week. I literally saw it in black and white before my eyes. And once you've got to that stage, I thought the game is up.'
Part of the backlash, they acknowledge, has been to do with money. Chiles' four-year contract is reported to be worth £6m, Bleakley's three-year one £4m. 'It's a bit of a crude thing,' Bleakley squirms, and Chiles admits, 'We're both embarrassed talking about money. We do very well. But it's embarrassing. I go out running and somebody's waving the Sun at me, going 'How fucking much?''
Predictably, of course, neither of them will confirm how much they do earn; all they'll say is that most of the reported figures are inaccurate. Presenters always say this, so it's impossible to know what's true, but they are emphatic their decision to defect to ITV wasn't motivated by money. "It's just bullshit," Chiles says hotly. "I would have stayed exactly where I was, and everyone involved knows that, and I thoroughly resent them saying otherwise in the press. Saying it was a big money move – well, it just wasn't bloody like that. I was very happy staying at the BBC doing exactly what I'd been doing for no more money. But then that wasn't deemed possible, so I had to look for something else."
They both certainly seem nostalgic for the One Show: it comes up a lot, always with a certain wistful longing. Had the BBC not decided to parachute in Chris Evans to present the Friday edition – "The climax of the whole week's work," Bleakley says indignantly – both of them would still be there, she insists. But Chiles' pride was, he says, "holed beneath the water line", and he felt his position had become untenable. When Bleakley dithered about following him to Daybreak, declaring herself "torn", her indecision was interpreted in the press as disingenuous manipulation and a bid for more money – but when I bring this up, she looks visibly upset. "Nothing would have changed if the upset and turmoil hadn't kicked in. We were very, very happy to continue as we were. We'd have stayed without a penny more. I loved every second of my time there. I wouldn't change anything."
In the face of so much public criticism, what has not been reported is that viewing figures for Daybreak have been steadily climbing for the last three weeks, now averaging more than 800,000 a day – an improvement on GMTV's average – and peaking at up to 1.4m. The set is gradually being warmed, with sunshine-coloured screens and mounds of flowers, and the presenters' initial stiffness is slowly softening as they seem to find their feet. Watching from inside the studio, it's a surprise to see how much more energy and chemistry there seems to be among the team than has yet translated to the screen; Bleakley seems infinitely more authoritative, and Chiles much warmer and funnier. It's not clear why this isn't yet evident when you watch it at home, but when we go for breakfast afterwards, the famous chemistry between them is perfectly apparent.
Like all successful presenting teams, they are a lot like a married couple – intimate, affectionate and irreverent. They defend each other a lot, and seem to be more hurt by media criticism of each other than of themselves. The endless speculation that surrounded their relationship during the One Show has at last receded, but everyone used to suspect Chiles was a little bit in love with Bleakley. He always denied it, but he did once say of the rumours, "It was like West Brom being linked with Ronaldo or something. Look at her and look at me. West Brom might quite like to sign Ronaldo, but it is simply not going to happen," – which gave the impression he'd have signed Bleakley like a shot.
'Oh God,' Chiles groans. 'I was trying to be clever and get a laugh out of it, and I just caused untold aggravation. I fucking wish I hadn't said it. It was a stupid thing to say. But you're asked the question so many times that you try 100 different ways of answering it, and the cleverer you get trying to answer it, you just dig yourself a bigger bloody hole. You just… you can't disprove a negative, you can't. And then, once it turned out not to be true, people said, 'Oh, you made out it was true to drive figures!' When nothing was further from the bloody truth.' Was it tiresome? 'Fucking tiresome!' He looks as though he might explode.
"You know what it was as well, I think," Bleakley intervenes more mildly. "When there's a couple on telly, people think either you absolutely despise each other and you're pretending to be nice, or you're in love with each other. The truth of the matter is we're literally in the middle of that." When she broke her toe recently, she says, the first person she called was Chiles. "It sounds silly, but you are, you're my best mate."
They see less of each other socially since joining Daybreak, but only because of the hours. Bleakley isn't struggling with sleep anything like as badly as Chiles; after the show, she goes home to bed for a couple of hours, and can stay up in the evenings, whereas Chiles couldn't even sleep for an hour at a time for the first six weeks, and is still managing only three or four hours. "I would sleep for 40 minutes, wake up and even if I took sleeping pills – I was taking Nytol, prescription stuff – it would make me have nightmares or feel drowsy. It was a mixture of caffeine, anxiety, adrenaline… all those things." He is recently divorced from Jane Garvey, the Radio 4 Woman's Hour presenter, but collects their two daughters, 10 and seven, from school every day, and has the shattered air of a new divorcee struggling to hold together several different strands of life.
Bleakley, on the other hand, is contending with all that comes from being a footballer's girlfriend, having been going out with Chelsea's Frank Lampard for the past year. "Unless she went out with somebody who played for West Brom," Chiles jokes, "I couldn't choose a better footballer for her." But some critics have suggested that WAG status is incompatible with the breakfast TV sofa, whose occupants traditionally present a girl-next-door sort of glamour. Does she think there might be some truth in the claim that viewers struggling to get their kids to school simply can't relate to a premiership millionaire's glamorous girlfriend?
"I think that's all nonsense," Bleakley says crossly. "Just because of what he does, suddenly he gets put into this box and that makes you this certain type of person. And that's not the case at all. He's incredibly humble, non-flashy, down to earth. I wouldn't be with him if he wasn't."
"Everything Christine says is right," Chiles agrees, "but that doesn't help if that's the perception. But the perception will change. Th more people watch, they'll realise that. She's got more empathy with the ordinary Joe, and I hope they'll see us for our true colours – but, you know, if the press every day are painting Christine as some social-climbing minx, well then…" He tails off looking glum.
If Bleakley's beauty is said to be a problem on the Daybreak sofa, this isn't a criticism anyone has levelled at Chiles, whose physical appearance has come in for surprisingly cruel jokes. He has been described, among other things, as "the ugliest man on TV" and a "talking Toby jug". It is the convention for male presenters to laugh off mockery about their looks and pretend not to care, but Chiles brings it up several times, and very obviously does.
"Well, of course you do," Bleakley says protectively. "When you're getting slated about it and people are being incredibly personal, well, of course." Chiles looks awkward for a moment, and says, "I don't want to sound like I'm exercised about it. But I just think, well, it's just an unpleasant thing to say about somebody. The day you stop being pissed off about it, you've ceased to be human." Then he laughs and adds, "I still have the advantage that I don't think I'm as bad-looking in the flesh as I am on the telly, so people always say to me, 'Ooh, you're not as ugly as we thought you were. Oh, and you're quite tall! Not as bad as I thought at all.' So it works to my advantage in that respect, I suppose.'"
By 11am, both of them are starting to look bleary and ready for bed. Is there any truth, I ask, in the rumours that one or other will be soon be leaving?
'We've only been doing it eight weeks!' protests Bleakley. 'Who quits at anything after that length of time? And it kind of feels like it's getting better already. Also, you feel like it's us against the world at 4 o'clock in the morning. We're all in this together.
"I'm in it for the long-haul. I don't ever consider myself to be a quitter at anything, just because it's not going according to plan. In my head, it's a long-term plan. There's no show in the land that's on every day, doing what we do, that gets it right immediately."
What about the rumours that ITV might sack them? "People say they could get rid of us," muses Chiles mischievously, "but I don't think they can, can they? We've got contracts, haven't we? Unless I say 'cunt' on air or something. Which I might do on a bad morning, and try it to see if that gets me off… On a particularly dark moment the other morning, something had fucked up and I just felt miserable. I just thought, perhaps Peter Fincham will call me in and say, 'You can leave Daybreak, but you've got to do I'm A Celebrity… next year.' Would I do that? Fucking yeah. Bring on the beetles. I'm scared of heights, rats, snakes, spiders – fucking bring them on. I'll have them all,' he laughs.
Then he says seriously, 'I don't think anyone would blame me for thinking like that when you are getting such a kicking. Sometimes I look at myself and think, 'Do people really want to wake up with you?' Some days I've thought very definitely no, in which case my days are numbered. But I've changed my mind about that. I think it can work. The figures are getting a bit better. Lately we've been having a laugh, it was a bit more like the old days and we felt a bit happier in our skins.'
If the qualities that made them great evening TV broadcasters really do make them hopeless breakfast presenters, the show probably is doomed. But the possibility they might instead create a version of morning television less saccharine, more ironic, than the one with which we've been familiar seems plausible, too. There's no chance, Chiles laughs, of him ever becoming sugary sweet – "I just can't fucking do that, that would be an absolute car crash." But nor is there a law that says breakfast television presenters must conform to the same old shiny prototype for ever more.
"It's still early days," Bleakley keeps pointing out. "It's not all bad, and that's why I want to be positive. And let's keep it in perspective," she adds, laughing. "No one is going to die today if we get our words wrong. This is television, and as wonderful as it is – and it is our lives, and we live and breathe it – no one's ultimately going to die."
'Well,' mutters Chiles, with a dry chuckle, 'somebody might die. There's a couple of TV critics who might die if I get hold of them."
Warning over WikiLeaks disclosures
Warning over WikiLeaks disclosures: "
Government issues defence advisory notice to remind newspaper editors about their responsibility over leaked documents
David Cameron and other world leaders were being briefed by the US state department about what American diplomats fear will be contained in the expected leak of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables sent to Washington by US ambassadors around the world.
The leak is expected to be co-ordinated by the WikiLeaks website, which has previously published secret details of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Newspaper editors were today asked to brief the government if they plan to publish sensitive diplomatic files. But Downing Street stressed that the DA (defence advisory) did not mean court action was likely to suppress publication of the documents. The issue of the so-called D-notice is supposed to be a reminder that newspapers should be concerned for UK military operations.
US officials, including the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, have been trying to brief allies, including Cameron, on what they expect to be in the documents.
The head of the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen, called on WikiLeaks to stop the publication of the documents. 'I would hope that those who are responsible for this would, at some point in time, think about the responsibility that they have for lives that they're exposing and the potential that's there, and stop leaking this information,' he told CNN in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
A spokesman for Cameron declined to discuss the nature of any confidential communications that might have been obtained by WikiLeaks. It is thought that the American ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman, has been trawling files to guess what might have been leaked.
Susman today personally briefed London officials, including the Foreign Office and No 10, requiring sometimes painful explanations.
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'Obviously, the government has been briefed by US officials, by the US ambassador, as to the likely content of these leaks. I don't want to speculate about precisely what is going to be leaked before it is leaked.'
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, said tonight: 'I appreciate why the DA notice might make people anxious. But, from my reading of the WikiLeaks material, only a tiny part of it is covered or relevant.'
Before the notice was released, a spokesman for the US state department, PJ Crowley, warned that publication could erode trust in the US as a diplomatic partner. 'When this confidence is betrayed and ends up on the front pages of newspapers or lead stories on television or radio, it has an impact. We wish this would not happen, but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will.'
The main American concern is that the diplomatic cables will reveal either damaging episodes or duplicity by the Americans that will undermine trust in the good faith of the US. Diplomats are expected to produce unvarnished accounts of the state of the political leaders and the balance of forces, as well as to disclose any form of intelligence activity.
The Obama administration today warned that the WikiLeaks release would endanger 'lives and interests'.
Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said he spoke with the state department on Friday, which told him that there would be documents regarding Italy in the leak, 'but the content can't be anticipated'.
'We're talking about thousands and thousands of classified documents that the US will not comment on, as is their custom,' Frattini said.
He claimed to have been told that the person responsible for the leaks had been arrested.
The governments of Canada, Israel, Iraq and Norway also said they had been briefed by US officials.
The US says it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables."
Australia assume control against England
Australia assume control against England: "
• Record-breaking partnership gives Australia 200-run lead
• England negotiate final hour's play but not without alarm
England have been this way many times in Australia and they have rarely been able to bounce back. The harsh realities of a tropical sun, hard clods of unrelenting Queensland turf and two proud, teak-tough Aussies have delivered fiercesome blows to the solar plexus of this touring party.
Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin broke records at The Gabba. Their partnership of 307 was the highest ever in Test cricket on this ground. But have they broken the resolve of the touring team? It was a brilliant union of two fine cricketers of mighty resolve and long experience and it left England with a monumental task on the last two days.
Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook managed to survive to the close but not without alarms. To the very first ball of England's second innings Strauss padded up to a straight ball from Ben Hilfenhaus. The lbw shout was declined by Aleem Dar; a review was sought and to Strauss's relief the ball was shown to be going over the top of the middle and off stumps – just. But there is a whole lot of batting to be done.
If England could draw here, it would be an achievement on a par with their Houdini act of Cardiff in 2009, an outcome that managed to deflate the Australians for the next Test of that series. That is the most that Strauss and his team can hope for after Hussey had posted his highest score in Test cricket alongside Haddin, who hit a masterful and magnificently paced 136.
In the first half of the partnership Haddin, against his instincts, was ever-watchful. Eventually he gave himself permission to swing his bat and no-one in the Australian side strikes the ball more sweetly. By his standards it was an innings of some self-denial, though he did allow himself the luxury of reaching his century with a six over long on off Graeme Swann.
Hussey was simply Hussey; his footwork precise and positive and his energy limitless as he raced earnestly down the pitch at every chance to snatch a single. But there were boundaries as well – 27 in all. Allied to the trademark pull shot – utterly reliable until his last one on 195 – was the cover drive. I don't think they will drop him now.
Australia finished with a mammoth lead of 221. The ridiculous thing is that there could have been something like parity after the first innings. England took the new ball immediately at the start of play and James Anderson bowled one of the best wicketless spells of his career. The bald statistics of 8-2-14-0 don't tell the story.
Time and time again he eluded the bat of Hussey with that new ball. In Anderson's second over the West Australian was hit on the pad and up went the umpire Dar's finger. Immediately Hussey asked for a review. It transpired that the ball pitched outside of Hussey's leg-stump by a few millimetres. Then four overs later England could only rue the fact that they had used up all their reviews on Friday.
Once again Hussey was struck on the pad by a ball swinging into him. But this time Dar kept his finger down. There was no review available to England. If there had been the third umpire would have reported that Anderson's delivery satisfied all the necessary criteria. Hussey was on 85 at the time and Australia were 229-5 on a day when an Anderson smile was as rare as a Blackburn fan in Burnley.
So England had to wait another 59 overs and 221 runs for their wicket. They had two chances to rid themselves of Haddin. On 63 he drove at Paul Collingwood and Cook retreating at mid-off could not cling on to an extremely difficult chance. More surprising was Anderson's inability to get his hands to a mishit pull, which might have provided Stuart Broad with his first Test wicket in the Antipodes when Haddin was on 113.
To emphasise the importance of Hussey's escape in the morning, we witnessed the tail come and go rapidly once Haddin finally edged to slip off Swann. Australia's last five wickets went for 31 runs. Steven Finn was the beneficiary.
Finn is the most grounded and intelligent of men and he will be the first to recognise the absurdity – and injustice – of how the spoils were shared in this innings. Broad did not deserve to have a blank final column in his figures; Anderson's efforts warranted more than two wickets; Finn was certainly flattered by six. Only two England bowlers have better figures at the Gabba: Bill Voce 6-41 in 1936, John Snow 6-114 in 1970."
Irish to protest over austerity plan
Irish to protest over austerity plan: "
Tens of thousands expected on Dublin march against Ireland's four-year plan to cut spending and raise taxes
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets of Dublin today to protest against Ireland's austerity plan.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) organised the march, saying the four-year plan of spending cuts and tax rises, intended to save the country €15bn (£12.7bn), 'will do irreparable damage'.
The ICTU general secretary, David Begg. said the protest would be good-humoured and well organised, although there were some clashes between demonstrators and police on a march earlier this week.
The protest comes after the government's majority fell to just two yesterday following a crucial byelection defeat.
Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty took the Donegal South West seat, saying the vote sent a message to the taoiseach, Brian Cowen, to 'get out of office'.
He said the win reflected increasing public opposition to the austerity budget and the €85bn bailout planned for Ireland by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, which the coalition government is expected to agree to this weekend.
Ahead of the march the ICTU said in a statement: 'If they go ahead with their plans, they will do irreparable damage and turn this country into a social and economic wasteland.'
The four-year plan will take €6bn out of the economy next year and aims to reduce Ireland's proportion of debt to 3% of gross domestic product. It includes major cuts in social welfare and funding for voluntary and community organisations, public-sector job cuts and rises in property tax and VAT."
Christmas tree 'bomb' foiled in US
Christmas tree 'bomb' foiled in US: "
A Somali-born teenager is arrested in Oregon after trying to blow up a crowded tree lighting ceremony with fake explosives
A Somali-born teenager has been arrested on suspicion of trying to detonate a car bomb in the United States.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction after he tried yesterday to blow up what he thought was an explosives-laden van at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, the justice department said.
But the bomb was a fake and had been provided to Mohamud as part of a long-term sting by undercover FBI agents.
'The threat was very real,' Arthur Balizan, a senior FBI agent in Oregon, told Reuters. 'Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale.'
'This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people even here in Oregon who are determined to kill Americans,' US attorney Dwight Holton said.
'We have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case.'
Officials said Mohamud had been in contact with an unnamed individual believed to be in north-west Pakistan and involved in terrorist activities.
Mohamud, a naturalised US citizen and student at Oregon State University, was arrested at 5.40pm local time yesterday, after using a mobile phone to try to detonate the fake explosives, which instead brought the FBI and Portland police to the scene. He lashed out at agents, shouting and kicking them, and had to be restrained.
He is due to appear in court on Monday. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a $250,000 (around £159,000) fine if convicted.
Thousands of people attended the tree lighting in Portland square. Officials said the public had never been in danger at any time during the sting operation, which lasted months.
The incident came almost a year after a Nigerian man was charged with attempting to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underpants aboard a passenger jet from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
"18 Common Mistakes of Google Adsense Violation – Keep Your Adsense Account Safe from Getting Disabled
18 Common Mistakes of Google Adsense Violation – Keep Your Adsense Account Safe from Getting Disabled
What is Google Adsense Program?
Google Adsense is a popular Web Advertising Program that provides a good income source for many websites.Anyone can earn through Adsense, but in a right way. If you follow the wrong ways [Fraudulent Activities], your account will be in great danger and also Google may penalize you [Account Ban]. so, here are the common mistakes that violate Google Adsense TOS.
1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. Never use automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Google is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. this is a very popular mistake everyone doing these days.
Tip: If you want to preview your ads without your impressions or clicks being recorded, use Google Adsense Preview Tool.
2. Never change the Adsense code. There is no need of altering the code. If you do so, Google easily knows about it and bans your account.
Tip: You can change the color and size of your ads in the adsense account itself. After Modifying, Just copy the code and paste it in your site.
3. Number of Adsense Ad Units to be placed in your website is not more than 3 Text/Image ads, 3 Link Ads and 2 Search Boxes.
Tip: this will not make your account banned. even if you place more ads, they will be hided.
4. You can run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. but, they should not resembleAdsense ads.
Tip: Place the other Publisher ads beneath Google Ads. Best is that always Adsense ads will be on top.
5. do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. however, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.
6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.
7. Never launch a new Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.
8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. they will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.
9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.
10. do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same color as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.
Step-By-Step Guide of Making Money from Google Adsense in Pakistan
Step-By-Step Guide of Making Money from Google Adsense in Pakistan
Our blog readers are constantly demanding for a “Step-By-Step Guide of Making Money from Google Adsense in Pakistan” so we finally decided to write this post to help everyone earn and make some extra money online in Pakistan or anywhere else for that matter.
Let us clarify one point very openly that the Google Adsense is not a Get-Rich-Quick scheme and its not that easy to make money through it. You need persistency, patience, and real smart work to make some reasonable income through Google Adsense. Please take it as a business which grows gradually, it’s not going to happen overnight you’ll have to learn it step by step. So, here is the step one.
Step 1: Get one new Google Adsense Account without having a website or blog (Tested and Verified Method)
Although, this step is already explained in details in our previous post, but it is again explained here briefly : -
a. Sign up for a new gmail account. (Ignore this step if you already have one with no adsense enabled)
b. Sign up with Flixya. (Using the same gmail account which you have created earlier for this purpose)
As soon as you start sign up with Flixya, it will ask you:
Do you already have a Google Adsense account?
Click: No
As soon as you click No, It will show the option to sign up for Google Adsense using the same gmail account. Now click on “Sign up of Adsense” button to continue sign up.
Now you will receive two email notifications in your gmail account, one from Flixya for continuing signup and second from Google Adsense for sign up. Completely fill your Google Adsense signup form with accurate information and make sure the name and address should be the same as it appears on your CNIC and other official documents. Also complete the signup for Flixya.
Update: You need to add some original content (i.e pictures, articles, videos etc) to your Flixya account otherwise Google Adsense will not approve your application due to no content.
It is a proven and tested method to get your Google Adsense ID without having a blog or website. Now, you will have to wait for adsense account approval it will take 4-5 days to get it approved.
Step 2: Make your first blog using Blogger.com
Blogs are the online diaries or journals which anyone can use to publish his/her own choice content. The content can be any article, picture, videos etc. There are several platform where you can make your own blog but Blogger.com provides the simplest method to create a blog and it is most commonly used for this purpose.
By the time you get your Google Adsense ID’s approval, you can make your plan about creating a profitable blog. Remember, if you are not planning it means you are planning to fail. Instead of creating a blog on the topic which you are not familiar with, create a blog for which you are passionate about. For example if you are good in cooking, you should make your blog about cooking tips and if you are passionate about mobile phones then you should create a blog about latest mobile phones. We can discuss this in our upcoming posts, we are sticking to step two i.e making your first blog.
a. Sign up for Blogger.com. (Make sure you are signed in with the same gmail account)
b. Naming your blog (Tip: Choose an interesting and catchy name which your target readers can remember and recall.)
c. Choosing right blog URL. (Tip: It can be either your name or a combination of few key words)
d. Choosing right template for the blog. (Tip: Just start of with any template because you can easily change it later)
Once you are done with creating your first blog, you start posting your new content i.e. articles, videos, photos etc without worrying aboutmaking money out of it. Make sure that you write your own content or you mention the source from where you get that content. Original content appears fast on search result as compare to duplicate content.
Here is a list of blogs which are using blogger.com which can be off help to you.
Step 3: Integrate your Adsense Account with your Blog
It is not a good idea to display google ads on newly established blog, so make sure you have enough content on your blog which is good to attract readers. Once your GoogleAdsense account is approved, you can integrate it in your blog to display relevant ads by Google. This is how you can integrate your adsense account with your blog: -
1. Click on the Monetize button (Make sure you are logged in to your blogger account and you have selected the blog where you can see the Monetize button)
2. Choose (and click next)
3. Enter your PIN (i.e. gmail id and postal code or last 5 digits of phone numbers)
Note:- You can also integrate your adsense account with blogger through Layout >> Page Element >> Add a Gadget >> Adsense and again you can mention your email and PIN to get new ads by Google in your blog.
Step 4: More Traffic Means More Adsense Income
Traffic through search engines (Organic Traffic) are the most likely source of generating adsense revenue. If your blog appears on the top ten search result of a particular keyword, then it will become a continuous source of residual income from Google Adsense. But it will take a lot of effort and continuous improvement in your blog to appear on the top search results.
There are various ways to generate traffic on your blog, we suggest the following articles to help you understand the traffic generation techniques.
You can simply start sharing your posts on you facebook and other social networking websites to get started.
Step 5: Google Adsense Milestones and How to achieve them
a. Earning first $10: Google Adsense issues PIN Code once you have $10 in your account. As soon as you have earned $10 in your Google Adsense account. Google Adsense will send Adsense PIN Code to your mailing address. You can enter PIN Code and remove payment hold from your Adsense Account.
b. Earning first $100. Google Adsense issues payment when your account balance reaches $100 or more. For example if you have completed your $100 in the month of January then you will receive your payment at the end of February. For detail you can check youradsense account.
c. Receiving your first Payment. The best part about Google Adsense program is its payment method via Western Union Money Transfer. You can receive payment from any Western Union Money Transfer Outlet on the same day when you get your payment status from Google Adsense.
You can use same Google Adsense Id for multiple blogs or other revenue sharing websites, forums etc. As already explained in our previous posts.
This is just the beginning, we are hopeful that you’ll learn new techniques of blogging with us so that you can get your own domain for blogging and utilize all the experience you got from using Blogger.com’s blogs. Avoid mistakes done by bloggers and be a successful blogger.
We hope that above information will be useful to you, if you have any confusion please feel free to comment on this post, we will reply ASAP.
Note: You can promoted your newly established blog here by commenting on this post.
Updated on : December 3, 2009
Beware of Click Fraud while Making Money Online in Pakistan
“Making Money Online through Google Adsense in Pakistan” is becoming a buzz in online world and it is catching a lot of attention of jobless people in Pakistan. We have already seen real life example of people legitimately making money online through Google Adsense in Pakistan in previous posts.
The evil forces are also out there to misuse and misguide the innocent people in Pakistan. If someone wants to make money online via Google Adsense, then he/she has to follow all the terms and conditions of this program.
Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer programme imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.
Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer programme imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.
Click Fraud is a global phenomena and Google is perfectly aware of this dilemma. The mafia of Click Fraud is strengthening its roots in Pakistan. We often hear from national dailies and from various websites that one can spend two to three hours online to earn handsome amount. How is it possible? Is there really anything worth doing online? If yes, then what it is and how does it work?
There are some people in Pakistan who are working in the form of groups and organization to earn money from Google AdSense by illegal ways. These people take benefit of the innocent jobless youth who has no idea what and why to do something. They eagerly spent there precious time in clicking advertisement links to get the most of what they have.
Kabeer Khan, the so called GM of Google Link, falsely claimed himself a member of Google Company; in fact a distributor of Google. Furthermore, he said that Google gives out free web site to those who click their ads and so on.
Other company is called PakEarn.com they have a specialized web site with franchises throughout country. They have thousands of people in their group and are exploiting and forcing people to earn through Adsense.
Now the question rises that what these companies do and how?
• First of all a new member is asked to get a three day training for which they pay an amount of
Rs 1,000
Rs 1,000
• Once training is done, they make Blogspot blog for their members with AdSense account as well
• Afterwards, they give out a list of 1000 Yahoo IDs to each member and ask them to stay in touch with them for cross clicking
• Out of 1000, members are asked to interact with specific members on a specific day of month – this way, each member will click a web site after 7 days, to avoid fraud click detection;
• Members are asked to pay the company 10 per cent of their first month revenues.
This mafia is not only misusing Pakistan’s human resources but also destroying its international image. Pakistan is already fighting with the existing security issues. If Google is ever going to discover the massive amount of corruption populated in Pakistan and spread across the globe then it might ban the AdSense in Pakistan. This will not only cause great financial loss to the genuine workers but also those youngsters who are ignorantly attached with these fraudulent.
We strongly recommend that stay away from these types of illegal activities and keep working the right way, by adhering to the Google Adsense Program Policies.
Mass Misuse of Google Adsense in Pakistan Create Problems for Newbies
Google Adsense is one of the most reliable source of making money online and it can really help everyone make some extra money online to improve his/her standard of living. This has become an open secret and every newbie now wants to explore more about Google Adsense in Pakistan to generate an alternate source of revenue by working online.
Getting new Google Adsense ID in Pakistan is getting very difficult nowadays. The obvious reason for this is the mass misuse of Google Adsense through invalid click activities and other violation of Google Adsense terms and conditions as already
Google Pakistan is now getting very strict towards issuing new adsense IDs which means the method of getting new adsense ID in Pakistan which is explained in our Step-By-Step Guide of Making Money from Google Adsense in Pakistan might become obsolete. Which means now all other shortcuts of getting new adsense IDs are also useless and Google Pakistan is thoroughly evaluating each and every application manually before issuing new adsense IDs.
My method was 100% working before, when Google Pakistan was encouraging new adsense publishersfew people are trying to sell new Google Adsense IDs for Rs.1,000/- per ID, which is again violation of Google Adsense Terms and conditions. Not only that, they also offerred me to reduce the prices if I get IDs in bulk and become their reseller. These people are now making it more difficult for newbies because Google Pakistan will definetly take serious actions against such persons and buyers of such IDs will pay the price when their IDs will be banned by Google forever. and accepting their applications with the minimum qualifying criteria. Now that it has become difficult to get new Google Adsense IDs,
The curse of misusing the available money making opportunities in large scale minimize the national earning potential. It would have been much better if we had utilized this opportunity in legal way and earned a lot more than earning it the illegal way in short term. In the upcoming post, I will update you guys about how to get new Google Adsense ID in Pakistan legally and how to make sufficient income using Google Adsense. So, keep reading our blog and share your thoughts through comments.