Saturday 14 April 2012
Nepali slaves in the Middle East - videoPete Pattison investigates the trafficking of people escaping poverty and conflict in Nepal. Unscrupulous agents take huge sums of money from them for work abroad then consign them to slavery and appalling conditions in the Middle East. Many are abused by their employers and some are killed at the hands of agents
North Korea launches long-range rocket
North Korea has launched a long range Unha-3 rocket which has reportedly crashed into the sea. Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images
North Korea has fired a long-range rocket defying international warnings against moving forward with a launch widely seen as a provocation.
Space officials had announced they would launch a satellite this week as part of celebrations honouring North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Lift-off took place at 7:39am from the west coast launch pad in the hamlet of Tongchang-ri, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said.
However, the launch appeared to have failed, with the rocket splintering into pieces moments after take-off, South Korea's Defence Ministry said in Seoul.
"We suspect the North Korean missile has fallen as it divided into pieces minutes after lift-off," Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.
In Washington, a US official also said the launch appeared to have failed.
Tokyo, which was prepared to shoot down any rocket flying over its territory, also confirmed a launch from North Korea.
"We have confirmed that a certain flying object has been launched and fell after flying for just over a minute," Japan's Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka said. He said there was no impact on Japanese territory.
"For all their advanced technology, these rockets are fairly fragile things," said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser at Secure World Foundation who is a former Air Force officer at the US Space Command. "You're looking at a metal cylinder that has fairly thin walls that contains a lot of high pressure liquid."
In Pyongyang, there was no word about a launch, and at the time, state television was broadcasting video of popular folk tunes. North Korean officials said they would make an announcement about the launch "soon."
North Korea had earlier announced it would send a three-stage rocket mounted with a satellite as part of celebrations honouring late President Kim Il Sung, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated Sunday.
A failure would be a huge blow to a nation that has staked its pride on a satellite launch seen as a show of strength amid persistent economic hardship as North Korea's young new leader, Kim Jong Un, solidifies power following the death of his father, longtime leader Kim Jong Il, four months ago.
North Korean space officials said the Unha-3 rocket is meant to send a satellite into orbit to study crops and weather patterns its third bid to launch a satellite since 1998. Officials took foreign journalists to the west coast site to see the rocket and the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite Sunday in a bid to show its transparency amid accusations of defiance.
The United States, Britain, Japan and others have called such a launch a violation of UN resolutions prohibiting North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
Experts say the Unha-3 carrier is the same type of rocket that would be used to launch a long-range missile aimed at the US and other targets. North Korea has tested two atomic devices but is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking for the Group of Eight nations after their foreign ministers met in Washington, said on Thursday that all the members of the bloc agreed to be prepared to take further action against North Korea in the Security Council if the launch went ahead.
"Pyongyang has a clear choice: It can pursue peace and reap the benefits of closer ties with the international community, including the United States; or it can continue to face pressure and isolation," Clinton said.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was convening an emergency security meeting, officials said.
According to projections, the first stage of the rocket was to fall into the ocean off the western coast of South Korea, while a second stage would fall into waters off the eastern coast of the Philippine island of Luzon.
Weeden said the launch appeared to be a failure of both space and missile objectives.
"The earlier it breaks up, the less data you've collected, so the less useful that test is likely to be," he said. "It's very likely that the US and its allies probably gathered more information about this test than the North Koreans have."
He said US and other nations had been poised to keep close watch on the launch to gather intelligence about the state of North Korea's rocket program.
North Korea has fired a long-range rocket defying international warnings against moving forward with a launch widely seen as a provocation.
Space officials had announced they would launch a satellite this week as part of celebrations honouring North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Lift-off took place at 7:39am from the west coast launch pad in the hamlet of Tongchang-ri, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said.
However, the launch appeared to have failed, with the rocket splintering into pieces moments after take-off, South Korea's Defence Ministry said in Seoul.
"We suspect the North Korean missile has fallen as it divided into pieces minutes after lift-off," Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.
In Washington, a US official also said the launch appeared to have failed.
Tokyo, which was prepared to shoot down any rocket flying over its territory, also confirmed a launch from North Korea.
"We have confirmed that a certain flying object has been launched and fell after flying for just over a minute," Japan's Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka said. He said there was no impact on Japanese territory.
"For all their advanced technology, these rockets are fairly fragile things," said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser at Secure World Foundation who is a former Air Force officer at the US Space Command. "You're looking at a metal cylinder that has fairly thin walls that contains a lot of high pressure liquid."
In Pyongyang, there was no word about a launch, and at the time, state television was broadcasting video of popular folk tunes. North Korean officials said they would make an announcement about the launch "soon."
North Korea had earlier announced it would send a three-stage rocket mounted with a satellite as part of celebrations honouring late President Kim Il Sung, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated Sunday.
A failure would be a huge blow to a nation that has staked its pride on a satellite launch seen as a show of strength amid persistent economic hardship as North Korea's young new leader, Kim Jong Un, solidifies power following the death of his father, longtime leader Kim Jong Il, four months ago.
North Korean space officials said the Unha-3 rocket is meant to send a satellite into orbit to study crops and weather patterns its third bid to launch a satellite since 1998. Officials took foreign journalists to the west coast site to see the rocket and the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite Sunday in a bid to show its transparency amid accusations of defiance.
The United States, Britain, Japan and others have called such a launch a violation of UN resolutions prohibiting North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
Experts say the Unha-3 carrier is the same type of rocket that would be used to launch a long-range missile aimed at the US and other targets. North Korea has tested two atomic devices but is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking for the Group of Eight nations after their foreign ministers met in Washington, said on Thursday that all the members of the bloc agreed to be prepared to take further action against North Korea in the Security Council if the launch went ahead.
"Pyongyang has a clear choice: It can pursue peace and reap the benefits of closer ties with the international community, including the United States; or it can continue to face pressure and isolation," Clinton said.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was convening an emergency security meeting, officials said.
According to projections, the first stage of the rocket was to fall into the ocean off the western coast of South Korea, while a second stage would fall into waters off the eastern coast of the Philippine island of Luzon.
Weeden said the launch appeared to be a failure of both space and missile objectives.
"The earlier it breaks up, the less data you've collected, so the less useful that test is likely to be," he said. "It's very likely that the US and its allies probably gathered more information about this test than the North Koreans have."
He said US and other nations had been poised to keep close watch on the launch to gather intelligence about the state of North Korea's rocket program.
North Korea's failed rocket launch triggers indifference in Seoul
South Koreans walk past a screen in a Seoul railway station showing a TV report on North
Korea's rocket launch. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
North Korea's doomed rocket may have flown within 100km (62 miles) of their country's coast, but residents of Seoul reacted with a collective shrug of the shoulders to news their neighbour had again defied international opinion and triggered talk of more instability on the Korean peninsula.
The air of nonchalance on the streets of the South Korean capital could be put down to warm spring weather, or political fatigue after Wednesday's parliamentary elections.
Kim Min Ji, a 27-year-old teacher, said she had barely thought about the rocket launch, let alone a malfunction that could have sent the rocket veering from its flight path.
"North Korea did demonstrate its power in a way," she said. "So I think the world should follow the US lead in cancelling food aid and take strong measures.
"If North Korea continues to isolate itself from the rest of the world, it will eventually realise it has made a mistake."
If it was a mistake, it was an expensive one. According to intelligence estimates in Seoul, the launch cost $850m (£535m). That's enough, they say, to feed 19 million people for a year in a country suffering chronic food shortages and malnutrition.
It failed, however, to cause any damage to its neighbour's economy: South Korea's benchmark stock index returned to the 2,000-point level on Friday, finishing more than 1% up on the day.
The much-heralded test of North Korea's rocket technology ended in failure and embarrassment for the Pyongyang regime less than two minutes after liftoff. The Unha-3 rocket, which Washington claimed was cover for a ballistic missile test, exploded into about 20 pieces and fell into the Yellow Sea.
Pyongynag ignored eleventh-hour pleas from the US, South Korea and Japan to halt the launch, saying that its sole purpose was to put an earth observation satellite into orbit.
With rare candour, North Korean state TV acknowledged that the rocket failed to reach orbit. "Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure," the Korean central news agency said.
Soon after the launch, the White House said Pyongyang had violated UN security council resolutions banning it from developing long-range missile technology.
"Despite the failure of its attempted missile launch, North Korea's provocative action threatens regional security, violates international law and contravenes its own recent commitments," said the White House press secretary, Jay Carney.
Washington said it was suspending plans to deliver food aid. But Carney did not say if the launch would mean a permanent end to a deal, agreed in February, in which North Korea agreed to stop enriching uranium and developing ballistic missiles in exchange for 240,000 tonnes of US food aid.
Barack Obama has come under fire from a Republican presidential hopeful for his willingness to engage with ithe North's new leader, Kim Jong-un.
"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was shortlived," Mitt Romney said. He claimed the Obama administration had "emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies".
Carney said the president had insisted that Pyongyang cease provocations, including missile launches and nuclear tests, as a condition for talks. He added: "North Korea is only further isolating itself by engaging in provocative acts, and is wasting its money on weapons and propaganda displays while the North Korean people go hungry."
The foreign secretary, William Hague, voiced "deep concern" at the launch attempt and called for a robust response from the international community.
North Korea's technological shortcomings are the worst possible prelude to celebrations on Sunday to mark the centenary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il-sung. In the main square named after him in Pyongyang, residents were waiting to begin rehearsals for the Great Leader's anniversary celebrations.
The regime may have ruled out any early return to negotiations over its nuclear programme, said John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul. "The big question is, does this completely derail the diplomacy and negotiation that were finally getting a little bit of steam as of early March? It looks likely this will kill it all.
"The other question is what happens between the two Koreas. If diplomacy all falls apart and nothing's happening, then not only is the likelihood of another nuclear test high but the possibility of intra-Korean tension is high and of the South hitting back harder. After the shelling of Yeonpyeong in 2010 the hardliners here wanted to really send a battery to knock out military installations along the maritime border."
The sight of the South Korean navy ploughing the waters near the maritime border with the North will only strengthen the view that the launch was a propaganda exercise gone embarrassingly wrong.
The satellite was supposed to have demonstrated North Korea's emergence as a developed state.
A successful mission would have also strengthened the position of Kim, as doubts persist over his experience and ability four months after he succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, who died from a heart attack last December.
"This launch was in part a propaganda effort. That effort clearly failed and will have ramifications internally," a US administration official told Reuters.
In an editorial this week, the Korea Herald speculated that internecine strife among party and military elites in Pyongyang was behind the determination to go through with the launch.
"The North's bizarre behaviour is difficult to explain without imagining a power struggle between two groups, with one prioritising dialogue with Washington and feeding the country's starving people and the other putting military strength before anything else," it said.
But it added that cancellation of the US aid deal "carries deep implications. For one thing, we will have to brace for a third nuclear weapons test. At the same time, we need to prepare ourselves for contingencies resulting from a free-for-all scramble for power."
The North American aerospace defence command (Norad) said it had tracked the rocket after its launch at 7:39am local time. The first stage fell into the sea about 100 miles west of Seoul, and the remainder was believed to have broken up and landed in the sea.
Major General Shin Won-sik, a South Korean defence ministry official, said the rocket exploded between one and two minutes after it was launched from a site in Tongchang-ri.
David Wright, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that would not have given North Korea enough time to learn anything of use for its ballistic missile programme..
Foreign journalists who were invited to view the rocket on its launch pad earlier this week were not permitted to watch the launch, even remotely.
The failed launch raises the possibility of a new round of international sanctions. The last round wasw imposed three years ago after a long-range missile launch and a second nuclear weapons test.
The security council is to hold an emergency meeting later on Friday to discuss its response. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said members had agreed to co-ordinate any action against the North.
"Pyongyang has a clear choice," she said on Thursday. "It can pursue peace and reap the benefits of closer ties with the international community, including the United States; or it can continue to face pressure and isolation."
Recent images show that North Korea may be preparing to conduct a third nuclear test at a site where similar tests were carried out in 2006 and 2009.
The South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, convened an emergency security meeting after Friday's launch; his office said the government in Seoul would continue to closely monitor its neighbour's actions.
Korea's rocket launch. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
North Korea's doomed rocket may have flown within 100km (62 miles) of their country's coast, but residents of Seoul reacted with a collective shrug of the shoulders to news their neighbour had again defied international opinion and triggered talk of more instability on the Korean peninsula.
The air of nonchalance on the streets of the South Korean capital could be put down to warm spring weather, or political fatigue after Wednesday's parliamentary elections.
Kim Min Ji, a 27-year-old teacher, said she had barely thought about the rocket launch, let alone a malfunction that could have sent the rocket veering from its flight path.
"North Korea did demonstrate its power in a way," she said. "So I think the world should follow the US lead in cancelling food aid and take strong measures.
"If North Korea continues to isolate itself from the rest of the world, it will eventually realise it has made a mistake."
If it was a mistake, it was an expensive one. According to intelligence estimates in Seoul, the launch cost $850m (£535m). That's enough, they say, to feed 19 million people for a year in a country suffering chronic food shortages and malnutrition.
It failed, however, to cause any damage to its neighbour's economy: South Korea's benchmark stock index returned to the 2,000-point level on Friday, finishing more than 1% up on the day.
The much-heralded test of North Korea's rocket technology ended in failure and embarrassment for the Pyongyang regime less than two minutes after liftoff. The Unha-3 rocket, which Washington claimed was cover for a ballistic missile test, exploded into about 20 pieces and fell into the Yellow Sea.
Pyongynag ignored eleventh-hour pleas from the US, South Korea and Japan to halt the launch, saying that its sole purpose was to put an earth observation satellite into orbit.
With rare candour, North Korean state TV acknowledged that the rocket failed to reach orbit. "Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure," the Korean central news agency said.
Soon after the launch, the White House said Pyongyang had violated UN security council resolutions banning it from developing long-range missile technology.
"Despite the failure of its attempted missile launch, North Korea's provocative action threatens regional security, violates international law and contravenes its own recent commitments," said the White House press secretary, Jay Carney.
Washington said it was suspending plans to deliver food aid. But Carney did not say if the launch would mean a permanent end to a deal, agreed in February, in which North Korea agreed to stop enriching uranium and developing ballistic missiles in exchange for 240,000 tonnes of US food aid.
Barack Obama has come under fire from a Republican presidential hopeful for his willingness to engage with ithe North's new leader, Kim Jong-un.
"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was shortlived," Mitt Romney said. He claimed the Obama administration had "emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies".
Carney said the president had insisted that Pyongyang cease provocations, including missile launches and nuclear tests, as a condition for talks. He added: "North Korea is only further isolating itself by engaging in provocative acts, and is wasting its money on weapons and propaganda displays while the North Korean people go hungry."
The foreign secretary, William Hague, voiced "deep concern" at the launch attempt and called for a robust response from the international community.
North Korea's technological shortcomings are the worst possible prelude to celebrations on Sunday to mark the centenary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il-sung. In the main square named after him in Pyongyang, residents were waiting to begin rehearsals for the Great Leader's anniversary celebrations.
The regime may have ruled out any early return to negotiations over its nuclear programme, said John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul. "The big question is, does this completely derail the diplomacy and negotiation that were finally getting a little bit of steam as of early March? It looks likely this will kill it all.
"The other question is what happens between the two Koreas. If diplomacy all falls apart and nothing's happening, then not only is the likelihood of another nuclear test high but the possibility of intra-Korean tension is high and of the South hitting back harder. After the shelling of Yeonpyeong in 2010 the hardliners here wanted to really send a battery to knock out military installations along the maritime border."
The sight of the South Korean navy ploughing the waters near the maritime border with the North will only strengthen the view that the launch was a propaganda exercise gone embarrassingly wrong.
The satellite was supposed to have demonstrated North Korea's emergence as a developed state.
A successful mission would have also strengthened the position of Kim, as doubts persist over his experience and ability four months after he succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, who died from a heart attack last December.
"This launch was in part a propaganda effort. That effort clearly failed and will have ramifications internally," a US administration official told Reuters.
In an editorial this week, the Korea Herald speculated that internecine strife among party and military elites in Pyongyang was behind the determination to go through with the launch.
"The North's bizarre behaviour is difficult to explain without imagining a power struggle between two groups, with one prioritising dialogue with Washington and feeding the country's starving people and the other putting military strength before anything else," it said.
But it added that cancellation of the US aid deal "carries deep implications. For one thing, we will have to brace for a third nuclear weapons test. At the same time, we need to prepare ourselves for contingencies resulting from a free-for-all scramble for power."
The North American aerospace defence command (Norad) said it had tracked the rocket after its launch at 7:39am local time. The first stage fell into the sea about 100 miles west of Seoul, and the remainder was believed to have broken up and landed in the sea.
Major General Shin Won-sik, a South Korean defence ministry official, said the rocket exploded between one and two minutes after it was launched from a site in Tongchang-ri.
David Wright, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that would not have given North Korea enough time to learn anything of use for its ballistic missile programme..
Foreign journalists who were invited to view the rocket on its launch pad earlier this week were not permitted to watch the launch, even remotely.
The failed launch raises the possibility of a new round of international sanctions. The last round wasw imposed three years ago after a long-range missile launch and a second nuclear weapons test.
The security council is to hold an emergency meeting later on Friday to discuss its response. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said members had agreed to co-ordinate any action against the North.
"Pyongyang has a clear choice," she said on Thursday. "It can pursue peace and reap the benefits of closer ties with the international community, including the United States; or it can continue to face pressure and isolation."
Recent images show that North Korea may be preparing to conduct a third nuclear test at a site where similar tests were carried out in 2006 and 2009.
The South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, convened an emergency security meeting after Friday's launch; his office said the government in Seoul would continue to closely monitor its neighbour's actions.
Anders Behring Breivik trial: the father's story
When Jens Breivik watched the news about the Utøya island shooting, he had no idea his son was responsible. Hit by shock and guilt, he still wonders how far he is to blame
Anders Behring Breivik in court in Oslo in February: his father Jens hasn't seen him since 1995. Photograph: Lise Aserud/AFP/Getty Images
It is an unassuming bungalow in a nondescript village on the edge of a small town in southern France. An unmade driveway runs from the road between similarly recent modest villas to the bars of a large electric gate.
The house beyond is spare but comfortable; three plump cats roam the terraced gardens, by some margin the house's most attractive feature. The floors are tiled, the sofas shiny, the television new but not flashy. That's where he saw the news.
"We had a call from Norway," he recalls. "They said, something's happening in Oslo, in the government district. We turned on the TV; we have BBC and Sky here, no Norwegian channels. We sat and watched. Glued, of course."
All that afternoon and evening, 22 July, nobody could say who it was. Eight people had died in the bombing and a far larger number – it would ultimately be 69, mostly teenagers attending a Labour party youth camp – in the subsequent mass shooting on Utøya island.
"They did not know who was responsible," he says. "They were guessing. An Islamist? Then they started to say, a typical Norwegian. Tall, blond. They did not know who. We went to bed. It was late; we were upset. This was our home country."
It wasn't until the next morning that he turned on his computer and saw that the man who had carried out the bloodiest massacre in modern peacetime Europe had been captured, and that his name was Anders Behring Breivik, his son.
He is not a large man, Jens Breivik. Cautious. Precise. White hair, steel-rimmed specs, sober jumper; ask casting for a 76-year-old retired Norwegian diplomat and you surely wouldn't get better. Visibly ill at ease, for at least the first hour.
"I was so … shocked, I did not know what to do," he says. "I couldn't … I was unable to do anything. I sat with my head in my hands. It was a terrible moment. I just could not face it. The media got here that evening and I hid. My wife told them I was in Spain."
Several months later, with his son in the dock – first judged criminally insane, now declared sane enough to face trial and jail – he still feels "terrible. Such pain. Constantly, I am reminded who I am. In the first few weeks, I thought seriously of taking my own life. I've lost the retirement I always imagined; that's gone. I will forever be asking how a man could possibly develop such thoughts. And could I have done something?"
It may not, of course, have made the slightest difference. But could he?
Others, to Breivik's distress, have not been slow to suggest that he could. Assorted commentators have called him "selfish", "narcissistic", "a terrible father". Katharine Birbalsingh, who describes herself as "Britain's most outspoken and controversial teacher", told the Telegraph she was certain his failings had sown the seeds of his son's madness.
It is, to be fair, not a very straightforward story. Nor, maybe, for those who wish to judge such things, a very admirable one. For Jens Breivik, sitting stiffly at his dining-room table confronting roads travelled and turnings taken, it is certainly not easy to tell.
He and Wenche Behring had been together for two years when Anders was born on 13 February 1979. Both had been married before: Jens, then economic affairs counsellor at the Norwegian embassy in Lancaster Gate (his second tour in London), had three children from his first marriage, which had lasted nearly 13 years; Behring, a nurse, had a young daughter, Elisabeth, with her previous husband, who was Swedish.
The couple separated within a year of Anders's birth. "I don't think," says Breivik, cautiously, "she was really interested in marriage. She was an … unusual person. I think what she wanted to be was a single mother. She just left, anyway, went to Oslo with Anders and her daughter. Didn't want me to see my son. You get help in Norway, as a single mother."
(Behring, who later would marry a Norwegian army captain, has never given her side of this story, consistently refusing all media interviews. In a conversation with the psychiatrists who evaluated Anders, leaked to the Norwegian press, she has said only that she first noticed signs of her son's "paranoid delusions" in 2006.)
Breivik senior, meanwhile, stayed in London. Behring reluctantly brought the infant Anders from Oslo to see him, staying at one stage for several months even though the marriage was beyond repair. Then in 1983, Breivik got married, for a third time – to Tove, a colleague – and was posted to the OECD in Paris, subsequently transferring to the Norwegian embassy there.
Anders liked Tove, his new stepmother, and in fact stayed in touch with her until just before the attacks. But soon after the couple arrived in France, Breivik says, it became clear that Anders, now four, was not faring well in Oslo.
"There was a formal report, in 1983, from the Norwegian childcare authorities," he says. "They recommended he should be moved. They said his relationship with his mother, her emotional incapacity to care for him, made it harmful for him to stay. But it was very difficult; Wenche would not admit to any problems. She wouldn't talk to me."
Breivik and his wife applied through the Norwegian courts for custody, hoping the report would work in their favour. It didn't. "This I do not understand, and nor do many people in Norway," Breivik says. "There was an official report saying my son was being harmed by living with his mother. But in Norway, the presumption is always with the mother."
Despite that ruling, father and son appear to have got on fairly well when Anders was still a young child. "In Paris, he visited quite often," Breivik says. "He travelled as an unaccompanied minor; I'd meet him at the airport." Anders stayed at Breivik's embassy apartment, on rue Spontini in the 16th arrondissement; there were summer holidays at a cottage in the Normandy countryside, 10 minutes from the sea at Cabourg.
Anders describes this period in his 1,500-page online "manifesto", remarking that he had "a good relationship with [his father] and his new wife at the time, until I was 15." His upbringing was "privileged", he wrote, in "a typical Norwegian middle class family", with "responsible and intelligent people around me … and no negative experiences" (although he now regretted a "lack of discipline".)
In 1990, Breivik returned to Oslo. "We had what I think anyone would call a normal relationship between a divorced father and his son," he confirms. "He came to my house several times a week, and at weekends. I had a small chalet in southern Norway; he stayed there often, too." There was a trip to the Tivoli amusement park, in Copenhagen, when Anders was 13.
How does he remember his son at that time? Breivik considers. "An ordinary boy. Maybe … not quite ordinary. He was never very communicative; quite withdrawn. He wouldn't talk about his mother, home, school. He came to my place to relax, have a good meal, then – when he was a bit older – to go out afterwards into the city centre to meet his friends."
But by this time Breivik's marriage to Tove was breaking up, too. He is, understandably, reluctant to talk about this; three failed marriages reflect well on no one. This one finally collapsed, he says, when he asked her to contact Alcoholics Anonymous.
Then in 1992 he met Wanda, his fourth and current wife; they married three years later. Wanda "saved my life. Really. I was in a bad way when I met her. Three marriages, three divorces. Wanda's strong. She's helped put me back together. She's helping me through this, too. Though I'm not sure, frankly, that either of us will ever truly get through it."
With his marriage to Wanda, however, the children from Breivik's first marriage decided they wanted nothing further to do with their father. "They're angry with me," he says, flatly. "They think I have made too many … mistakes. Done too many stupid things."
Anders, too, cut loose around the same time, in 1995. Over the previous two or three years, things had become increasingly difficult. In his manifesto, the killer blames his father for the estrangement, saying Breivik "isolated himself when I was 15. He was not happy with my 'graffiti' phase from 13 to 16. He has four children, but has cut off contact with all of them. So I think it is pretty clear who is at fault."
Breivik disputes this. "It's true I was angry," he says. "Several times the police called me to say he had sprayed buildings, trains, buses. He was also shoplifting. But I was always willing to see him, and he knew that. It was Anders who cut it off. His decision, not mine. He was 16, building his own life. He had his hip-hop, too."
Wanda says that the couple saw Anders "regularly" before he finally disappeared. "We invited him to supper, once a fortnight," she says. "I tried with Anders; I really tried. I knew about teenage boys, I knew what interests them. He was always: don't know. Don't care."
Whoever took the initiative, father and son met for the last time in 1995. "He borrowed a jacket from me for his confirmation," says Breivik. "He told me he aimed to study in the States, on an exchange. When I heard no more from him, I thought that was what he had done." Breivik kept sending money, some £200 a month, to Anders's mother.
The two were in contact, briefly, just once more. In 2005, Breivik had a phone call out of the blue. "He told me he was doing well," Breivik says. "He had his own company, data processing, two employees. He didn't want anything; he was just anxious to tell me he was doing well and was happy. I had health problems; I said I was pleased to hear from him, and we should stay in touch. We never did."
In his manifesto, Anders claimed the business was the first step in a nine-year plan leading to the 22 July attacks; a front "for the purpose of financing resistance/liberation-related military operations". Subsequent police inquiries have shown much of this to be delusional – fabulation or wild exaggeration.
This trial will, perhaps, shed some light on what so warped Anders Behring Breivik's perceptions that he was prepared to slaughter 77 of his fellow countrymen in order to "save Norway and western Europe from cultural Marxism and a Muslim takeover".
But in his modest bungalow in France, Jens Breivik lives haunted by the part he may have played in the creation of a monster. Last month Norwegian police, assisted by French officers, spent nearly 13 hours interviewing him in Carcassonne.
The psychiatric report on his son makes clear, he stresses, "that I could have done nothing to prevent what happened." Moreover, he's convinced "I really did all I could when he was small." Maybe, it's true, he could have tried harder to stay in touch later, after 1995.
"But I honestly thought he was okay. Quiet, awkward, but not … abnormal. If he didn't want to see me, there wasn't really much I could do. I had no leverage. And anyway, after that he seemed successful, with his own business, employees. That was good, wasn't it?"
Yet however much he protests, however much he tried or didn't try, Breivik's regrets, one senses, run deeper. He knows his choices have not always been the wisest. Of his relationship with Wenche Behring, he now says: "I was stupid not to see I was being used." His third marriage, to Tove, embarked upon while the wreckage of the second was still smouldering, was also "not perhaps the right step".
In a phrase in his manifesto that, for once, might just come somewhere close to the truth, Anders sums his father up as "just not very good with people". While the photographer is busy with Breivik outside, Wanda seeks to explain.
Her husband is not someone who talks easily, she says. "I ask him to try, to let his feelings out; he really can't. He's trying to write them down. Sometimes, it's true, he has just … followed his feelings. And sometimes he has done things that are not in his own best interests, not at all, so as not to hurt or upset people. But he is a good man."
Both Breivik and Wanda are sure he will never be able to return to Norway. "Some people do feel I am guilty," he says. "I do have feelings of shame, disgrace. Damnation. Maybe … maybe I am to blame."
He has not kept any photographs of Anders, not even as a small boy, for a long time. He moved around a great deal with his job, of course. "But also," he says, "sometimes, when you have made a very serious mistake, you just want to forget it. Not be reminded."
Anders Behring Breivik in court in Oslo in February: his father Jens hasn't seen him since 1995. Photograph: Lise Aserud/AFP/Getty Images
It is an unassuming bungalow in a nondescript village on the edge of a small town in southern France. An unmade driveway runs from the road between similarly recent modest villas to the bars of a large electric gate.
The house beyond is spare but comfortable; three plump cats roam the terraced gardens, by some margin the house's most attractive feature. The floors are tiled, the sofas shiny, the television new but not flashy. That's where he saw the news.
"We had a call from Norway," he recalls. "They said, something's happening in Oslo, in the government district. We turned on the TV; we have BBC and Sky here, no Norwegian channels. We sat and watched. Glued, of course."
All that afternoon and evening, 22 July, nobody could say who it was. Eight people had died in the bombing and a far larger number – it would ultimately be 69, mostly teenagers attending a Labour party youth camp – in the subsequent mass shooting on Utøya island.
"They did not know who was responsible," he says. "They were guessing. An Islamist? Then they started to say, a typical Norwegian. Tall, blond. They did not know who. We went to bed. It was late; we were upset. This was our home country."
It wasn't until the next morning that he turned on his computer and saw that the man who had carried out the bloodiest massacre in modern peacetime Europe had been captured, and that his name was Anders Behring Breivik, his son.
He is not a large man, Jens Breivik. Cautious. Precise. White hair, steel-rimmed specs, sober jumper; ask casting for a 76-year-old retired Norwegian diplomat and you surely wouldn't get better. Visibly ill at ease, for at least the first hour.
"I was so … shocked, I did not know what to do," he says. "I couldn't … I was unable to do anything. I sat with my head in my hands. It was a terrible moment. I just could not face it. The media got here that evening and I hid. My wife told them I was in Spain."
Several months later, with his son in the dock – first judged criminally insane, now declared sane enough to face trial and jail – he still feels "terrible. Such pain. Constantly, I am reminded who I am. In the first few weeks, I thought seriously of taking my own life. I've lost the retirement I always imagined; that's gone. I will forever be asking how a man could possibly develop such thoughts. And could I have done something?"
It may not, of course, have made the slightest difference. But could he?
Others, to Breivik's distress, have not been slow to suggest that he could. Assorted commentators have called him "selfish", "narcissistic", "a terrible father". Katharine Birbalsingh, who describes herself as "Britain's most outspoken and controversial teacher", told the Telegraph she was certain his failings had sown the seeds of his son's madness.
It is, to be fair, not a very straightforward story. Nor, maybe, for those who wish to judge such things, a very admirable one. For Jens Breivik, sitting stiffly at his dining-room table confronting roads travelled and turnings taken, it is certainly not easy to tell.
He and Wenche Behring had been together for two years when Anders was born on 13 February 1979. Both had been married before: Jens, then economic affairs counsellor at the Norwegian embassy in Lancaster Gate (his second tour in London), had three children from his first marriage, which had lasted nearly 13 years; Behring, a nurse, had a young daughter, Elisabeth, with her previous husband, who was Swedish.
The couple separated within a year of Anders's birth. "I don't think," says Breivik, cautiously, "she was really interested in marriage. She was an … unusual person. I think what she wanted to be was a single mother. She just left, anyway, went to Oslo with Anders and her daughter. Didn't want me to see my son. You get help in Norway, as a single mother."
(Behring, who later would marry a Norwegian army captain, has never given her side of this story, consistently refusing all media interviews. In a conversation with the psychiatrists who evaluated Anders, leaked to the Norwegian press, she has said only that she first noticed signs of her son's "paranoid delusions" in 2006.)
Breivik senior, meanwhile, stayed in London. Behring reluctantly brought the infant Anders from Oslo to see him, staying at one stage for several months even though the marriage was beyond repair. Then in 1983, Breivik got married, for a third time – to Tove, a colleague – and was posted to the OECD in Paris, subsequently transferring to the Norwegian embassy there.
Anders liked Tove, his new stepmother, and in fact stayed in touch with her until just before the attacks. But soon after the couple arrived in France, Breivik says, it became clear that Anders, now four, was not faring well in Oslo.
"There was a formal report, in 1983, from the Norwegian childcare authorities," he says. "They recommended he should be moved. They said his relationship with his mother, her emotional incapacity to care for him, made it harmful for him to stay. But it was very difficult; Wenche would not admit to any problems. She wouldn't talk to me."
Breivik and his wife applied through the Norwegian courts for custody, hoping the report would work in their favour. It didn't. "This I do not understand, and nor do many people in Norway," Breivik says. "There was an official report saying my son was being harmed by living with his mother. But in Norway, the presumption is always with the mother."
Despite that ruling, father and son appear to have got on fairly well when Anders was still a young child. "In Paris, he visited quite often," Breivik says. "He travelled as an unaccompanied minor; I'd meet him at the airport." Anders stayed at Breivik's embassy apartment, on rue Spontini in the 16th arrondissement; there were summer holidays at a cottage in the Normandy countryside, 10 minutes from the sea at Cabourg.
Anders describes this period in his 1,500-page online "manifesto", remarking that he had "a good relationship with [his father] and his new wife at the time, until I was 15." His upbringing was "privileged", he wrote, in "a typical Norwegian middle class family", with "responsible and intelligent people around me … and no negative experiences" (although he now regretted a "lack of discipline".)
In 1990, Breivik returned to Oslo. "We had what I think anyone would call a normal relationship between a divorced father and his son," he confirms. "He came to my house several times a week, and at weekends. I had a small chalet in southern Norway; he stayed there often, too." There was a trip to the Tivoli amusement park, in Copenhagen, when Anders was 13.
How does he remember his son at that time? Breivik considers. "An ordinary boy. Maybe … not quite ordinary. He was never very communicative; quite withdrawn. He wouldn't talk about his mother, home, school. He came to my place to relax, have a good meal, then – when he was a bit older – to go out afterwards into the city centre to meet his friends."
But by this time Breivik's marriage to Tove was breaking up, too. He is, understandably, reluctant to talk about this; three failed marriages reflect well on no one. This one finally collapsed, he says, when he asked her to contact Alcoholics Anonymous.
Then in 1992 he met Wanda, his fourth and current wife; they married three years later. Wanda "saved my life. Really. I was in a bad way when I met her. Three marriages, three divorces. Wanda's strong. She's helped put me back together. She's helping me through this, too. Though I'm not sure, frankly, that either of us will ever truly get through it."
With his marriage to Wanda, however, the children from Breivik's first marriage decided they wanted nothing further to do with their father. "They're angry with me," he says, flatly. "They think I have made too many … mistakes. Done too many stupid things."
Anders, too, cut loose around the same time, in 1995. Over the previous two or three years, things had become increasingly difficult. In his manifesto, the killer blames his father for the estrangement, saying Breivik "isolated himself when I was 15. He was not happy with my 'graffiti' phase from 13 to 16. He has four children, but has cut off contact with all of them. So I think it is pretty clear who is at fault."
Breivik disputes this. "It's true I was angry," he says. "Several times the police called me to say he had sprayed buildings, trains, buses. He was also shoplifting. But I was always willing to see him, and he knew that. It was Anders who cut it off. His decision, not mine. He was 16, building his own life. He had his hip-hop, too."
Wanda says that the couple saw Anders "regularly" before he finally disappeared. "We invited him to supper, once a fortnight," she says. "I tried with Anders; I really tried. I knew about teenage boys, I knew what interests them. He was always: don't know. Don't care."
Whoever took the initiative, father and son met for the last time in 1995. "He borrowed a jacket from me for his confirmation," says Breivik. "He told me he aimed to study in the States, on an exchange. When I heard no more from him, I thought that was what he had done." Breivik kept sending money, some £200 a month, to Anders's mother.
The two were in contact, briefly, just once more. In 2005, Breivik had a phone call out of the blue. "He told me he was doing well," Breivik says. "He had his own company, data processing, two employees. He didn't want anything; he was just anxious to tell me he was doing well and was happy. I had health problems; I said I was pleased to hear from him, and we should stay in touch. We never did."
In his manifesto, Anders claimed the business was the first step in a nine-year plan leading to the 22 July attacks; a front "for the purpose of financing resistance/liberation-related military operations". Subsequent police inquiries have shown much of this to be delusional – fabulation or wild exaggeration.
This trial will, perhaps, shed some light on what so warped Anders Behring Breivik's perceptions that he was prepared to slaughter 77 of his fellow countrymen in order to "save Norway and western Europe from cultural Marxism and a Muslim takeover".
But in his modest bungalow in France, Jens Breivik lives haunted by the part he may have played in the creation of a monster. Last month Norwegian police, assisted by French officers, spent nearly 13 hours interviewing him in Carcassonne.
The psychiatric report on his son makes clear, he stresses, "that I could have done nothing to prevent what happened." Moreover, he's convinced "I really did all I could when he was small." Maybe, it's true, he could have tried harder to stay in touch later, after 1995.
"But I honestly thought he was okay. Quiet, awkward, but not … abnormal. If he didn't want to see me, there wasn't really much I could do. I had no leverage. And anyway, after that he seemed successful, with his own business, employees. That was good, wasn't it?"
Yet however much he protests, however much he tried or didn't try, Breivik's regrets, one senses, run deeper. He knows his choices have not always been the wisest. Of his relationship with Wenche Behring, he now says: "I was stupid not to see I was being used." His third marriage, to Tove, embarked upon while the wreckage of the second was still smouldering, was also "not perhaps the right step".
In a phrase in his manifesto that, for once, might just come somewhere close to the truth, Anders sums his father up as "just not very good with people". While the photographer is busy with Breivik outside, Wanda seeks to explain.
Her husband is not someone who talks easily, she says. "I ask him to try, to let his feelings out; he really can't. He's trying to write them down. Sometimes, it's true, he has just … followed his feelings. And sometimes he has done things that are not in his own best interests, not at all, so as not to hurt or upset people. But he is a good man."
Both Breivik and Wanda are sure he will never be able to return to Norway. "Some people do feel I am guilty," he says. "I do have feelings of shame, disgrace. Damnation. Maybe … maybe I am to blame."
He has not kept any photographs of Anders, not even as a small boy, for a long time. He moved around a great deal with his job, of course. "But also," he says, "sometimes, when you have made a very serious mistake, you just want to forget it. Not be reminded."
'Gay cure' Christian charity funded 20 MPs' interns
Christian Action Research and Education has supplied staff to Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats
The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, is among the ministers who have used Care-funded interns. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
A Christian charity which sponsored a conference promoting the idea that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality has funded interns for an estimated 20 MPs, including some who are now ministers in the coalition government.
The Christian Action Research and Education charity (Care) has provided staff to the parliamentary offices of Caroline Spelman, Alistair Burt and Steve Webb. In 2009 it sponsored a London conference about homosexuality and Christianity which included sessions on "mentoring the sexually broken". The event in London was also organised by Anglican Mainstream, one of the conservative Christian charities that was blocked this week from showing adverts on London buses that supported the idea that with therapy, homosexual people can become "ex-gay".
The conference featured a keynote by Joseph Nicolosi, a Californian psychologist and founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. The organisers said they were "very worried about the continued progress of the gay – and in fact the LGBT – agenda across the board in the UK. Social, cultural, political and religious sectors are being targeted and most of them are capitulating".
MPs involved in accepting assistance from Care under its educational leadership programme are now facing pressure to sever their ties with the charity. None of Spelman, Burt or Webb were available for comment.
"It's a complete disgrace that any elected representative would have associations with an organisation that promotes a 'gay cure' in the 21st century," said Phillip Dawson, who launched a campaign when he discovered his local MP, David Burrowes had an intern sponsored by Care. "The Royal College of Psychiatrists has explicitly stated that discussions of a 'gay cure' fuel discrimination and prejudice. MPs should be fighting homophobia wherever it occurs but by associating themselves with Care they are actually helping to fuel it. We have to be clear that there is no place for groups that promote a 'gay cure' in the corridors of power."
The register shows that Spelman, now secretary of state for the environment, declared an intern sponsored by Care from 2007 until July 2009. Both Burt, a Foreign Office minister, and Steve Webb, pensions minister, declared they had interns sponsored by the charity between October 2009 and July 2010. Each of them estimated the value of the support to be £8,880.
Care has said interns on its leadership programme are not involved in lobbying. The Rev Lyndon Bowring, the organisation's executive chairman, wrote in a foreword to the internship scheme's latest brochure: "Christian graduates are given the opportunity to explore how to live out their faith as they meet and learn from leaders in the public arena; and actively engage in the world of policy whether in Westminster, in Edinburgh, in media or in the third sector."
A spokesman for Care said the programme was "a well-respected training initiative for Christian graduates". Asked about the organisation's belief in reparative therapy for gay people in the church, he said: "If there are people who want to change their sexual behaviour or orientation, who have an unwanted same-sex attraction and voluntarily seek help, there is no reason why they should not be at liberty to do so."
Care interns are currently recorded for Conservative MPs John Glen and Gary Streeter, Labour's Sharon Hodgson and Catherine McKinnell and the Lib Dem president Tim Farron. The register for the 2009-2010 parliamentary session showed that the Lib Dem MPs Alan Beith and Alan Reid as well as Labour MP David Drew also employed Care interns.
Some MPs who employed interns from Care, including Labour's David Lammy, have already cut their links with the charity. Farron has told Care that he will not employ another of their interns because, he said on Friday night, "I don't agree with the idea of a gay 'cure' and I think it is grossly offensive, homophobic and wrong. It shows the church in such an awful light."
The extent of the internship programme's reach inside Westminster provided fresh evidence of conservative Christian organisations' desire to address what they feel is an increase in secularism. On Thursday an attempt by Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues Trust to run adverts on London buses promoting the possibility of gay people using therapy to change their sexual orientation was stopped by the London mayor, Boris Johnson. Anglican Mainstream said on Friday it had instructed a lawyer to prepare action against the mayor and CBS Outdoor, the company that booked the adverts, unless they reverse their decision.
"It is of deep concern that there can only be one point of view and that is the point of view of individuals who are determined to push through gay marriage and apparently believe that homosexuality cannot be altered in any possible way," said Core Issues' co-director Mike Davidson. "That is not a universally held view. This is a disturbing development and it is disappointing the UK finds itself in this position."
In January, Core Issues staged conferences in Belfast and London backed by Anglican Mainstream, entitled The Lepers Among Us. The lead speaker was Dr Jim Reynolds, an evangelical preacher from the US, and the programme explained that homosexuality, or as he it put it "same-sex sin", is "a disease of epic proportions, a malignancy that spreads". Sessions included "naming the sin, lifting the shame" and "normal sinfulness or a sickness". The event drew protests from gay groups appalled by the title and the content of the conference.
Speaking at the event at Belfast's Orangefield presbyterian church, Reynolds said of gay rights protesters: "We disagree about the fact they want to live their life in a homosexual relationship and we do not think that is the will of God."
Jeremy Marks, founder and director of Courage, a Christian group that supports same-sex partnerships, said: "I find some of Anglican Mainstream's messages and the way they set about things to be extremely offensive and unpleasant.
"They are marginal in the Christian community but they have a lot more influence than their size suggests."
The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, is among the ministers who have used Care-funded interns. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
A Christian charity which sponsored a conference promoting the idea that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality has funded interns for an estimated 20 MPs, including some who are now ministers in the coalition government.
The Christian Action Research and Education charity (Care) has provided staff to the parliamentary offices of Caroline Spelman, Alistair Burt and Steve Webb. In 2009 it sponsored a London conference about homosexuality and Christianity which included sessions on "mentoring the sexually broken". The event in London was also organised by Anglican Mainstream, one of the conservative Christian charities that was blocked this week from showing adverts on London buses that supported the idea that with therapy, homosexual people can become "ex-gay".
The conference featured a keynote by Joseph Nicolosi, a Californian psychologist and founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. The organisers said they were "very worried about the continued progress of the gay – and in fact the LGBT – agenda across the board in the UK. Social, cultural, political and religious sectors are being targeted and most of them are capitulating".
MPs involved in accepting assistance from Care under its educational leadership programme are now facing pressure to sever their ties with the charity. None of Spelman, Burt or Webb were available for comment.
"It's a complete disgrace that any elected representative would have associations with an organisation that promotes a 'gay cure' in the 21st century," said Phillip Dawson, who launched a campaign when he discovered his local MP, David Burrowes had an intern sponsored by Care. "The Royal College of Psychiatrists has explicitly stated that discussions of a 'gay cure' fuel discrimination and prejudice. MPs should be fighting homophobia wherever it occurs but by associating themselves with Care they are actually helping to fuel it. We have to be clear that there is no place for groups that promote a 'gay cure' in the corridors of power."
The register shows that Spelman, now secretary of state for the environment, declared an intern sponsored by Care from 2007 until July 2009. Both Burt, a Foreign Office minister, and Steve Webb, pensions minister, declared they had interns sponsored by the charity between October 2009 and July 2010. Each of them estimated the value of the support to be £8,880.
Care has said interns on its leadership programme are not involved in lobbying. The Rev Lyndon Bowring, the organisation's executive chairman, wrote in a foreword to the internship scheme's latest brochure: "Christian graduates are given the opportunity to explore how to live out their faith as they meet and learn from leaders in the public arena; and actively engage in the world of policy whether in Westminster, in Edinburgh, in media or in the third sector."
A spokesman for Care said the programme was "a well-respected training initiative for Christian graduates". Asked about the organisation's belief in reparative therapy for gay people in the church, he said: "If there are people who want to change their sexual behaviour or orientation, who have an unwanted same-sex attraction and voluntarily seek help, there is no reason why they should not be at liberty to do so."
Care interns are currently recorded for Conservative MPs John Glen and Gary Streeter, Labour's Sharon Hodgson and Catherine McKinnell and the Lib Dem president Tim Farron. The register for the 2009-2010 parliamentary session showed that the Lib Dem MPs Alan Beith and Alan Reid as well as Labour MP David Drew also employed Care interns.
Some MPs who employed interns from Care, including Labour's David Lammy, have already cut their links with the charity. Farron has told Care that he will not employ another of their interns because, he said on Friday night, "I don't agree with the idea of a gay 'cure' and I think it is grossly offensive, homophobic and wrong. It shows the church in such an awful light."
The extent of the internship programme's reach inside Westminster provided fresh evidence of conservative Christian organisations' desire to address what they feel is an increase in secularism. On Thursday an attempt by Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues Trust to run adverts on London buses promoting the possibility of gay people using therapy to change their sexual orientation was stopped by the London mayor, Boris Johnson. Anglican Mainstream said on Friday it had instructed a lawyer to prepare action against the mayor and CBS Outdoor, the company that booked the adverts, unless they reverse their decision.
"It is of deep concern that there can only be one point of view and that is the point of view of individuals who are determined to push through gay marriage and apparently believe that homosexuality cannot be altered in any possible way," said Core Issues' co-director Mike Davidson. "That is not a universally held view. This is a disturbing development and it is disappointing the UK finds itself in this position."
In January, Core Issues staged conferences in Belfast and London backed by Anglican Mainstream, entitled The Lepers Among Us. The lead speaker was Dr Jim Reynolds, an evangelical preacher from the US, and the programme explained that homosexuality, or as he it put it "same-sex sin", is "a disease of epic proportions, a malignancy that spreads". Sessions included "naming the sin, lifting the shame" and "normal sinfulness or a sickness". The event drew protests from gay groups appalled by the title and the content of the conference.
Speaking at the event at Belfast's Orangefield presbyterian church, Reynolds said of gay rights protesters: "We disagree about the fact they want to live their life in a homosexual relationship and we do not think that is the will of God."
Jeremy Marks, founder and director of Courage, a Christian group that supports same-sex partnerships, said: "I find some of Anglican Mainstream's messages and the way they set about things to be extremely offensive and unpleasant.
"They are marginal in the Christian community but they have a lot more influence than their size suggests."
'Roman centurions' in violent scuffle with police outside Colosseum
Men dressed as Roman centurions protest outside the Colosseum in Rome. Photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters
Italian men dressed as Roman centurions have scuffled with police outside Rome's Colosseum over their right to pose for photos with tourists in return for payment.
One man was taken away on a stretcher as about 60 centurions and supporters stopped tourists entering the Colosseum, waved fake swords and tussled with police in protest at a decorum drive which has seen them banned from plying their trade outside Roman monuments.
As two centurions who had unfurled banners from an upper tier of the Colosseum were evicted from the site by police, their armour-wearing colleagues chanted abuse at officers as some tourists reportedly yelled: "We're with the centurions."
The centurions are well-known to Roman police. In the wake of claims that they were selling fake tours to tourists and pressuring visitors into handing over large sums for a photograph, 30 arrests were made last August. Rival bands of centurions fighting a turf war have also traded blows outside the Colosseum.
Spokesmen for the centurions, who have recently held meetings with city officials over the new ban, claim they would like to see their unlicensed profession recognised, with licenses and identity badges handed out.
Italian men dressed as Roman centurions have scuffled with police outside Rome's Colosseum over their right to pose for photos with tourists in return for payment.
One man was taken away on a stretcher as about 60 centurions and supporters stopped tourists entering the Colosseum, waved fake swords and tussled with police in protest at a decorum drive which has seen them banned from plying their trade outside Roman monuments.
As two centurions who had unfurled banners from an upper tier of the Colosseum were evicted from the site by police, their armour-wearing colleagues chanted abuse at officers as some tourists reportedly yelled: "We're with the centurions."
The centurions are well-known to Roman police. In the wake of claims that they were selling fake tours to tourists and pressuring visitors into handing over large sums for a photograph, 30 arrests were made last August. Rival bands of centurions fighting a turf war have also traded blows outside the Colosseum.
Spokesmen for the centurions, who have recently held meetings with city officials over the new ban, claim they would like to see their unlicensed profession recognised, with licenses and identity badges handed out.
Obama paid higher rate than Mitt Romney, 2011 tax returns reveal
White House says president believes he should pay more tax as returns show he and Michelle paid 20.5% on $789,674
The Obamas' earnings fell by nearly $1m on the previous year. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The White House has said the president believes he should pay more tax as the release of Barack Obama's returns showed he was taxed at a higher rate than his Republican presidential rival, Mitt Romney, last year but below many ordinary Americans.
The president's joint tax return with his wife, Michelle, released by the White House on Friday, reveals they paid tax at a rate of 20.5% on income of $789,674 in 2011.
The Obamas' earnings fell by nearly $1m on the previous year as sales of the president's bestselling books declined. The first couple paid $162,074 in income tax. They also donated a similar amount to 39 charities.
The vice-president, Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, paid tax at 23% on income of $379,035.
The release of the returns was politically charged because the president has built part of his re-election campaign around accusing the Republicans of giving millionaires tax breaks paid for by cutting services to the less well off.
The White House has also targeted Romney, who paid tax at less than 15% over the past two years on his multimillion-dollar income from a vast fortune.
Obama has been campaigning for the imposition of the "Buffett rule" that would see those earning more than $1m a year, whether from salary or investments, pay tax at a rate of at least 30%. The rule is named after the business magnate, Warren Buffet, who called for the rich to pay more to the treasury because he said it is wrong that he should be taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.
The White House acknowledged that the president believes he should pay more tax.
"Under the president's own tax proposals, including the expiration of the high-income tax cuts and limitations on the value of tax preferences for high-income households, he would pay more in taxes while ensuring we cut taxes for the middle class and those trying to get in it," it said.
The president's tax policy is aimed at the Republicans in general and directly at Romney, his likely rival in the presidential election, who has an estimated fortune of $220m yet paid tax at a rate of less than 15% on income of $45m over the past two years. Most of the income, which places Romney in the top 1% of earners in the US, was derived from investments, which are subject to a lower tax rate.
Romney has refused to release his tax returns for before 2010.
Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, on Friday used the release of the president's returns to accuse Romney of continuing to hide his own declarations from the time he made most of his fortune.
"Governor Romney has yet to provide tax returns from the period in which he made hundreds of millions as a corporate buyout specialist, or as governor of Massachusetts, the experience he says qualifies him to be president," he said.
The Obamas' earnings fell by nearly $1m on the previous year. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The White House has said the president believes he should pay more tax as the release of Barack Obama's returns showed he was taxed at a higher rate than his Republican presidential rival, Mitt Romney, last year but below many ordinary Americans.
The president's joint tax return with his wife, Michelle, released by the White House on Friday, reveals they paid tax at a rate of 20.5% on income of $789,674 in 2011.
The Obamas' earnings fell by nearly $1m on the previous year as sales of the president's bestselling books declined. The first couple paid $162,074 in income tax. They also donated a similar amount to 39 charities.
The vice-president, Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, paid tax at 23% on income of $379,035.
The release of the returns was politically charged because the president has built part of his re-election campaign around accusing the Republicans of giving millionaires tax breaks paid for by cutting services to the less well off.
The White House has also targeted Romney, who paid tax at less than 15% over the past two years on his multimillion-dollar income from a vast fortune.
Obama has been campaigning for the imposition of the "Buffett rule" that would see those earning more than $1m a year, whether from salary or investments, pay tax at a rate of at least 30%. The rule is named after the business magnate, Warren Buffet, who called for the rich to pay more to the treasury because he said it is wrong that he should be taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.
The White House acknowledged that the president believes he should pay more tax.
"Under the president's own tax proposals, including the expiration of the high-income tax cuts and limitations on the value of tax preferences for high-income households, he would pay more in taxes while ensuring we cut taxes for the middle class and those trying to get in it," it said.
The president's tax policy is aimed at the Republicans in general and directly at Romney, his likely rival in the presidential election, who has an estimated fortune of $220m yet paid tax at a rate of less than 15% on income of $45m over the past two years. Most of the income, which places Romney in the top 1% of earners in the US, was derived from investments, which are subject to a lower tax rate.
Romney has refused to release his tax returns for before 2010.
Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, on Friday used the release of the president's returns to accuse Romney of continuing to hide his own declarations from the time he made most of his fortune.
"Governor Romney has yet to provide tax returns from the period in which he made hundreds of millions as a corporate buyout specialist, or as governor of Massachusetts, the experience he says qualifies him to be president," he said.
Obama engagement policy 'in tatters' after North Korean rocket defiance
US officials expect Pyongyang to carry out third nuclear test in near future, respresenting significant policy failure for president
The Obama administration called the rocket launch a 'provocative action' that threatens regional security. Photograph: Ekaterina Shtukina/Ria Novosti/EPA
Barack Obama's policy of engagement with North Korea lies "in tatters" after it was effectively shot down by Pynongyang's defiant but failed attempt to launch a long-range rocket.
Former US officials closely involved with North Korea policy said Washington's attempt to win agreement from Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and rockets in exchange for desperately-needed food aid has failed. They now expect North Korea to try and overcome the embarrassment caused at the rocket breaking into pieces over the Yellow Sea by carrying out a third nuclear test in the near future.
If that goes ahead, it will represent a significant foreign policy failure for Obama and prove a severe political embarrassment in an election year.
In February, the Washington and Pyongyang reached an agreement under which the communist regime would halt its missile testing and uranium enrichment, and agree to the resumption of international monitoring of its nuclear sites, in return for Washington providing 240,000 tonnes of food to the North Korea which has faced widespread shortages and famine.
The US says it warned North Korea that the rocket launch – which Pyongyang said was intended to carry a satellite but which the Obama administration claimed was a ballistic missile test – would violate the agreement.
Charles Pritchard, a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea in the Bush administration and a special assistant to Bill Clinton on national security, said Obama's policy of engagement has now failed.
"It is essentially in tatters. They made a calculation. They reached out to North Korea and it fell apart," he said. "I think the US will be essentially regrouping on an international basis. They're not going to go back to a bilateral engagement with the North Koreans any time soon."
Pritchard said that the regime's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, is likely to attempt to restore Pyongang's credibility – and possibly also his own with North Korea's military – by pressing ahead with development of a nuclear weapon.
"The failure of the rocket makes it much more likely that there will be a third nuclear test. This has been a huge public and domestic embarrassment for North Korea. A brand new, untested, inexperienced regime that has gone out on a limb to really have a spectacular successful celebration, and now it'll be a dark shadow over all of their celebrations. They need some new achievement."
That view was backed by Christian Whiton, a US state department deputy special envoy to North Korea in the Bush administration.
"It looks pretty likely. The way this usually comes out is that South Korean intelligence starts leaking information to the South Korean press. That has happened and it looks like preparations are underway," he said. "If you step back and look at this it looks like a failure by North Korea with its rocket but actually what you're seeing is more of a power move by the regime."
One of Obama's deputy national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, denied that the administration's dealings with North Korea have been a failure. He argued that the president has taken a tougher stand with Pyongyang than the Bush administration because Washington will not now deliver the promised food aid.
"What this administration has done is broken the cycle of rewarding provocative actions by the North Koreans that we've seen in the past. Under the previous administration, for instance, there was a substantial amount of assistance provided to North Korea. North Korea was removed from the terrorism list, even as they continued to engage in provocative actions. Under our administration we have not provided any assistance to North Korea," he said. "The message that we've been delivering is that North Korea is wasting its money on these weapons as many of their people starve and as their economy is one of the most backward in the world."
Asked if it is proper to leave ordinary North Koreans to go hungry or even starve because the actions of their government, Rhodes said that it is the regime in Pyongyang "that is holding its own people hostage".
He said he would not be surprised if Pyongyang now attempts a nuclear test.
"The North Koreans have tended to pursue patterns of provocative actions to include missile launches, nuclear tests as they undertook in 2006, 2009. And so we're certainly concerned about the pattern of provocative behaviour that the North Koreans engage in. What we want to make clear to them is that each step that they take in terms of provocations will only lead to a deeper isolation, increase consequences. And frankly, that's not just a message they're hearing from us, they're hearing it from the Chinese and the Russians as well," he said.
The US was expected to lead the condemnation at a UN security council meeting on the crisis on Friday. The White House warned of new sanctions.
Obama's domestic critics swiftly accused him of creating the crisis through weakness. Some have contrasted the president's stand against Iran with his more cautious approach on North Korea.
Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said Obama was incompetent and naive in handling North Korea.
"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived," said Romney. "This incompetence from the Obama administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies."
Jon Kyl, the Republican whip in the US Senate, called on the White House to "abandon its naive negotiations with North Korea".
Pritchard said the crisis now threatens to become an election issue.
"In a presidential election year, the president can't afford a spectacular loss on the foreign policy side over North Korea where he's been very cautious over the last three years. It will essentially erase all the good things he can point to in other areas of his foreign policy," he said. "So I think Obama steps back. You're not going to see any bilateral engagement on the part of the United States for the remainder of this term."
The former officials now expect the White House to abandon bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang and to attempt to build on collective international pressure.
Pritchard said that will be made difficult by China's dual role of attempting to pressure North Korea while also shielding it. That, he said, will give Pyongyang a relatively free hand.
"This regime (in North Korea) cannot afford to negotiate away, to be seen to be knuckling under to pressure from others to stop what they are doing. They have nothing else going on for them. They are going to march forward and there's very little the international community can do," he said.
Whiton said he regards that as very dangerous.
"There's a cost to doing nothing with North Korea because North Korea proliferates nearly every weapons system it has. In 2007, one of the reasons the last round of talks fell apart was because we caught the North Koreans helping the Syrians build a carbon copy of the North Korean nuclear reactor.
"They were building it in Syria. There were North Koreans on the site. Thankfully the Israelis blew it up," he said.
The Obama administration called the rocket launch a 'provocative action' that threatens regional security. Photograph: Ekaterina Shtukina/Ria Novosti/EPA
Barack Obama's policy of engagement with North Korea lies "in tatters" after it was effectively shot down by Pynongyang's defiant but failed attempt to launch a long-range rocket.
Former US officials closely involved with North Korea policy said Washington's attempt to win agreement from Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and rockets in exchange for desperately-needed food aid has failed. They now expect North Korea to try and overcome the embarrassment caused at the rocket breaking into pieces over the Yellow Sea by carrying out a third nuclear test in the near future.
If that goes ahead, it will represent a significant foreign policy failure for Obama and prove a severe political embarrassment in an election year.
In February, the Washington and Pyongyang reached an agreement under which the communist regime would halt its missile testing and uranium enrichment, and agree to the resumption of international monitoring of its nuclear sites, in return for Washington providing 240,000 tonnes of food to the North Korea which has faced widespread shortages and famine.
The US says it warned North Korea that the rocket launch – which Pyongyang said was intended to carry a satellite but which the Obama administration claimed was a ballistic missile test – would violate the agreement.
Charles Pritchard, a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea in the Bush administration and a special assistant to Bill Clinton on national security, said Obama's policy of engagement has now failed.
"It is essentially in tatters. They made a calculation. They reached out to North Korea and it fell apart," he said. "I think the US will be essentially regrouping on an international basis. They're not going to go back to a bilateral engagement with the North Koreans any time soon."
Pritchard said that the regime's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, is likely to attempt to restore Pyongang's credibility – and possibly also his own with North Korea's military – by pressing ahead with development of a nuclear weapon.
"The failure of the rocket makes it much more likely that there will be a third nuclear test. This has been a huge public and domestic embarrassment for North Korea. A brand new, untested, inexperienced regime that has gone out on a limb to really have a spectacular successful celebration, and now it'll be a dark shadow over all of their celebrations. They need some new achievement."
That view was backed by Christian Whiton, a US state department deputy special envoy to North Korea in the Bush administration.
"It looks pretty likely. The way this usually comes out is that South Korean intelligence starts leaking information to the South Korean press. That has happened and it looks like preparations are underway," he said. "If you step back and look at this it looks like a failure by North Korea with its rocket but actually what you're seeing is more of a power move by the regime."
One of Obama's deputy national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, denied that the administration's dealings with North Korea have been a failure. He argued that the president has taken a tougher stand with Pyongyang than the Bush administration because Washington will not now deliver the promised food aid.
"What this administration has done is broken the cycle of rewarding provocative actions by the North Koreans that we've seen in the past. Under the previous administration, for instance, there was a substantial amount of assistance provided to North Korea. North Korea was removed from the terrorism list, even as they continued to engage in provocative actions. Under our administration we have not provided any assistance to North Korea," he said. "The message that we've been delivering is that North Korea is wasting its money on these weapons as many of their people starve and as their economy is one of the most backward in the world."
Asked if it is proper to leave ordinary North Koreans to go hungry or even starve because the actions of their government, Rhodes said that it is the regime in Pyongyang "that is holding its own people hostage".
He said he would not be surprised if Pyongyang now attempts a nuclear test.
"The North Koreans have tended to pursue patterns of provocative actions to include missile launches, nuclear tests as they undertook in 2006, 2009. And so we're certainly concerned about the pattern of provocative behaviour that the North Koreans engage in. What we want to make clear to them is that each step that they take in terms of provocations will only lead to a deeper isolation, increase consequences. And frankly, that's not just a message they're hearing from us, they're hearing it from the Chinese and the Russians as well," he said.
The US was expected to lead the condemnation at a UN security council meeting on the crisis on Friday. The White House warned of new sanctions.
Obama's domestic critics swiftly accused him of creating the crisis through weakness. Some have contrasted the president's stand against Iran with his more cautious approach on North Korea.
Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said Obama was incompetent and naive in handling North Korea.
"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived," said Romney. "This incompetence from the Obama administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies."
Jon Kyl, the Republican whip in the US Senate, called on the White House to "abandon its naive negotiations with North Korea".
Pritchard said the crisis now threatens to become an election issue.
"In a presidential election year, the president can't afford a spectacular loss on the foreign policy side over North Korea where he's been very cautious over the last three years. It will essentially erase all the good things he can point to in other areas of his foreign policy," he said. "So I think Obama steps back. You're not going to see any bilateral engagement on the part of the United States for the remainder of this term."
The former officials now expect the White House to abandon bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang and to attempt to build on collective international pressure.
Pritchard said that will be made difficult by China's dual role of attempting to pressure North Korea while also shielding it. That, he said, will give Pyongyang a relatively free hand.
"This regime (in North Korea) cannot afford to negotiate away, to be seen to be knuckling under to pressure from others to stop what they are doing. They have nothing else going on for them. They are going to march forward and there's very little the international community can do," he said.
Whiton said he regards that as very dangerous.
"There's a cost to doing nothing with North Korea because North Korea proliferates nearly every weapons system it has. In 2007, one of the reasons the last round of talks fell apart was because we caught the North Koreans helping the Syrians build a carbon copy of the North Korean nuclear reactor.
"They were building it in Syria. There were North Koreans on the site. Thankfully the Israelis blew it up," he said.
Fox News hits back at 'bitter' Newt Gingrich over claims of campaign bias
News channel says Gingrich is 'auditioning for a gig at CNN' after former House speaker complained Fox favoured Romney
Gingrich told a group of Tea Party activists in Delaware: 'I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through'. Photograph: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images
Fox News has attacked the struggling Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, after an outburst in which he blamed the network for the failure of his campaign and claimed it was biased in favour of Mitt Romney.
The channel, where Gingrich had a contract before hitting the campaign trail, dismissed the accusations and claimed his criticism of the network was motivated by a desire for a job at rival CNN.
Gingrich's outspoken criticism of Fox came at a meeting in Delaware on Wednesday with Tea Party activists.
According to the RealClearPolitics website, which was given access to the meeting, Gingrich said: "I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through. In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year.
"We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we're more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That's just a fact."
Fox hit back in a strongly personal attack. In a statement provided to the Guardian, it said: "This is nothing other than Newt auditioning for a windfall of a gig at CNN – that's the kind of man he is. Not to mention that he's still bitter about the fact that we terminated his contributor contract."
While Gingrich has chosen to remain in the Republican race after the exit of Rick Santorum on Tuesday, he has won only two states so far and is trailing well behind Romney. He is also struggling financially, having accumulated huge debts during the campaign and suffered the indignity of seeing a $500 cheque to the Utah Republican party bounce.
Gingrich is campaigning this week in Delaware, one of several states where he hopes he can benefit from Santorum's departure.
At the Delaware meeting, he said he was working on the assumption that Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Fox's parent company, had thrown his support behind Romney.
"I assume it's because Murdoch at some point said, 'I want Romney', and so 'fair and balanced' became 'Romney'. And there's no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches Fox."
Fox, led by Roger Ailes, has been the main media forum for the Republican candidates. Fox insists it has been fair and balanced. In the initial stages of the primary and caucus season, it even seemed to be more hostile toward Romney than the other candidates. But by March, Santorum was complaining, on Fox, about bias.
Santorum said Romney enjoyed a huge advantage in terms of money, organisation and media coverage. "He's had Fox News shilling for him every day," Santorum said.
Gingrich is to attend the White House correspondents' dinner at the end of the month, but as a guest of CNN, not Fox. He insisted he was largely indifferent to the views of journalists: "They know I don't care about their opinions. I don't go to their cocktail parties. I don't go to their Christmas parties. The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we're going to go to the White House correspondents' dinner because she wants to. And we're actually going to go to CNN's table, not Fox."
He expressed disappointment that former colleagues Fox, with whom he had a contract until he officially joined the Republican race, had apparently written him off last summer.
Gingrich enjoyed massive media coverage when he won the South Carolina primary in January, but interest dipped after he failed to win Florida the same month. Since then, coverage has gradually evaporated, with no print journalists any longer attached full-time to coverage of his campaign.
In the meeting in Delaware, according to the RealClearPolitics report, he expanded his criticism of the media beyond Fox, in particular columnist George Will, whom he accused of personal jealousy.
"In the case of Will, I was on [George] Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning with him, and it was kind of a 'You're not allowed to run for office – I mean, if you could run for office, why am I not running for office?' " Gingrich said. "And it's almost like they were personally offended. You know, 'This can't be real', and 'How can this guy go do that?'
"I got that reaction from Will a few years back about writing a book, because I'm supposed to be a politician. He's supposed to be the writer. Well, I've now written 24 books, and 13 of them are New York Times bestsellers. I mean, there's a morning when George ought to just get over it."
As well as criticising the media, Gingrich attacked the Republican party, describing it as "inarticulate". He added: "The Republican party is a managerial party that doesn't like to fight, doesn't like to read books."
He described Delaware as his best chance of a win on April 24.
Gingrich told a group of Tea Party activists in Delaware: 'I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through'. Photograph: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images
Fox News has attacked the struggling Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, after an outburst in which he blamed the network for the failure of his campaign and claimed it was biased in favour of Mitt Romney.
The channel, where Gingrich had a contract before hitting the campaign trail, dismissed the accusations and claimed his criticism of the network was motivated by a desire for a job at rival CNN.
Gingrich's outspoken criticism of Fox came at a meeting in Delaware on Wednesday with Tea Party activists.
According to the RealClearPolitics website, which was given access to the meeting, Gingrich said: "I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through. In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year.
"We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we're more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That's just a fact."
Fox hit back in a strongly personal attack. In a statement provided to the Guardian, it said: "This is nothing other than Newt auditioning for a windfall of a gig at CNN – that's the kind of man he is. Not to mention that he's still bitter about the fact that we terminated his contributor contract."
While Gingrich has chosen to remain in the Republican race after the exit of Rick Santorum on Tuesday, he has won only two states so far and is trailing well behind Romney. He is also struggling financially, having accumulated huge debts during the campaign and suffered the indignity of seeing a $500 cheque to the Utah Republican party bounce.
Gingrich is campaigning this week in Delaware, one of several states where he hopes he can benefit from Santorum's departure.
At the Delaware meeting, he said he was working on the assumption that Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Fox's parent company, had thrown his support behind Romney.
"I assume it's because Murdoch at some point said, 'I want Romney', and so 'fair and balanced' became 'Romney'. And there's no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches Fox."
Fox, led by Roger Ailes, has been the main media forum for the Republican candidates. Fox insists it has been fair and balanced. In the initial stages of the primary and caucus season, it even seemed to be more hostile toward Romney than the other candidates. But by March, Santorum was complaining, on Fox, about bias.
Santorum said Romney enjoyed a huge advantage in terms of money, organisation and media coverage. "He's had Fox News shilling for him every day," Santorum said.
Gingrich is to attend the White House correspondents' dinner at the end of the month, but as a guest of CNN, not Fox. He insisted he was largely indifferent to the views of journalists: "They know I don't care about their opinions. I don't go to their cocktail parties. I don't go to their Christmas parties. The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we're going to go to the White House correspondents' dinner because she wants to. And we're actually going to go to CNN's table, not Fox."
He expressed disappointment that former colleagues Fox, with whom he had a contract until he officially joined the Republican race, had apparently written him off last summer.
Gingrich enjoyed massive media coverage when he won the South Carolina primary in January, but interest dipped after he failed to win Florida the same month. Since then, coverage has gradually evaporated, with no print journalists any longer attached full-time to coverage of his campaign.
In the meeting in Delaware, according to the RealClearPolitics report, he expanded his criticism of the media beyond Fox, in particular columnist George Will, whom he accused of personal jealousy.
"In the case of Will, I was on [George] Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning with him, and it was kind of a 'You're not allowed to run for office – I mean, if you could run for office, why am I not running for office?' " Gingrich said. "And it's almost like they were personally offended. You know, 'This can't be real', and 'How can this guy go do that?'
"I got that reaction from Will a few years back about writing a book, because I'm supposed to be a politician. He's supposed to be the writer. Well, I've now written 24 books, and 13 of them are New York Times bestsellers. I mean, there's a morning when George ought to just get over it."
As well as criticising the media, Gingrich attacked the Republican party, describing it as "inarticulate". He added: "The Republican party is a managerial party that doesn't like to fight, doesn't like to read books."
He described Delaware as his best chance of a win on April 24.
Anti-gay adverts pulled from bus campaign by Boris Johnson
London mayor steps in to stop buses carrying Christian group's ads that claim therapy can stop people being gay
The ad, backed by the Core Issues Trust, which stated: 'Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!'
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, intervened to prevent a Christian advertising campaign from promoting the idea that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality.
Just days before the posters were due to appear on buses in the capital, Johnson ordered his transport chiefs to pull the adverts booked by two conservative Anglican groups following outrage among gay campaigners and politicians saying that they were homophobic. The adverts were booked on behalf of the Core Issues Trust whose leader, Mike Davidson, believes "homoerotic behaviour is sinful".
His charity funds "reparative therapy" for gay Christians, which it claims can "develop their heterosexual potential". The campaign was also backed by Anglican Mainstream, a worldwide orthodox Anglican group whose supporters have equated homosexuality with alcoholism. The advert was due to say: "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!"
Johnson, who contacted the Guardian to announce he was stopping the adverts within two hours of their contents becoming public, said: "London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses."
His main rival in next month's mayoral election, Ken Livingstone, said Johnson should never have allowed the adverts to be booked. "London is going backwards under a Tory leadership that should have made these advertisements impossible.
"They promote a falsehood, the homophobic idea of 'therapy' to change the sexual orientation of lesbians and gay men."
The Christian groups insisted the advert had been cleared with Transport for London (TfL), which is chaired by the mayor. Davidson said: "I didn't realise censorship was in place. We went through the correct channels and we were encouraged by the bus company to go through their procedures. They okayed it and now it has been pulled."
CBS Outdoor, the media company that sells the bus advertising sites, said the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice. It is understood TfL was due to make around £10,000 for allowing the adverts to run on about two dozen buses across five routes.
The campaign was an explicit attempt to hit back at the gay rights group Stonewall, which as part of its lobbying for the extension of marriage to gay couples is running its own bus adverts saying: "Some people are gay. Get over it." The Christian groups used the same black, red and white colour scheme as Stonewall and in a statement announcing the campaign accused it of promoting the "false idea that there is indisputable scientific evidence that people are born gay".
The gay ex-vicar, Labour MP and former minister Chris Bryant, said the advert was cruel for promoting the idea that you could become "ex-gay" and he said it would particularly hurt teenagers struggling to come to terms with their sexuality.
"The emotional damage that is done to the individuals who try to suppress their sexuality, the women they marry and the children they might have is immeasurable," he said. "Most sane Christians believe that homosexuality is not a lifestyle or a choice but is a fact to be discovered or not. The pretence that homosexuality is something you can be weaned off in some way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of creation."
Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said the adverts were "clearly homophobic" and added: "The only reason some gay people might want to stop being gay is because of the prejudice of the people who are publishing the ad.
"The promotion of this voodoo therapy is hugely irresponsible given the damage that it appears to do to some people."
Both men said the advert should not be banned, however, because they believed in freedom of speech.
Attempts to "treat" or alter sexual orientation have been strongly condemned by leading medical organisations. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that "so-called treatments of homosexuality create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish" and concluded in 2010: "There is no sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed."
The British Medical Association has also attacked "conversion therapy", a related field to reparation therapy, passing a motion asserting that it is "discredited and harmful to those 'treated' ".
The Rev Lynda Rose, a spokesperson for the UK branch of Anglican Mainstream, said her group adhered to scripture that all fornication outside marriage is prohibited and believed that homosexuals were "not being fully the people God intended us to be". She said therapies endorsed by Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues were not coercive and were appropriate for people who wanted to change their sexual attractions, for example if they were married and worried about the impact of a "gay lifestyle" on their children.
The decision to pull the adverts is being seen as a potential boost for conservative Christian organisations attempting to become more politically active in the UK. "Banning this is usually a fairly good way to encourage a sense that people are being marginalised and persecuted," said Simon Barrow, co-founder of the Ekklesia thinktank which has tracked the progress of what it calls aggressive conservative Christianity. "It could be part of a developing tactic to draw attention to themselves and a way of using victimhood to galvanise sympathy and support."
Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, said: "From personal experience as a gay Christian, I can tell you that it's much better to be out than in. We should be celebrating the diversity for which London is known, not denigrating it.
Revelations about the adverts came as Johnson was due to appear at a hustings organised by Stonewall on Saturday.
• The original version of this article stated that 'the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice and it complied with Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines'.
In fact the ASA does not pre-clear adverts and had nothing to do with the decision to pass the advert. The article has been amended to reflect this and to also remove a subsequent quote misattributed to the ASA.
The ad, backed by the Core Issues Trust, which stated: 'Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!'
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, intervened to prevent a Christian advertising campaign from promoting the idea that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality.
Just days before the posters were due to appear on buses in the capital, Johnson ordered his transport chiefs to pull the adverts booked by two conservative Anglican groups following outrage among gay campaigners and politicians saying that they were homophobic. The adverts were booked on behalf of the Core Issues Trust whose leader, Mike Davidson, believes "homoerotic behaviour is sinful".
His charity funds "reparative therapy" for gay Christians, which it claims can "develop their heterosexual potential". The campaign was also backed by Anglican Mainstream, a worldwide orthodox Anglican group whose supporters have equated homosexuality with alcoholism. The advert was due to say: "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!"
Johnson, who contacted the Guardian to announce he was stopping the adverts within two hours of their contents becoming public, said: "London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses."
His main rival in next month's mayoral election, Ken Livingstone, said Johnson should never have allowed the adverts to be booked. "London is going backwards under a Tory leadership that should have made these advertisements impossible.
"They promote a falsehood, the homophobic idea of 'therapy' to change the sexual orientation of lesbians and gay men."
The Christian groups insisted the advert had been cleared with Transport for London (TfL), which is chaired by the mayor. Davidson said: "I didn't realise censorship was in place. We went through the correct channels and we were encouraged by the bus company to go through their procedures. They okayed it and now it has been pulled."
CBS Outdoor, the media company that sells the bus advertising sites, said the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice. It is understood TfL was due to make around £10,000 for allowing the adverts to run on about two dozen buses across five routes.
The campaign was an explicit attempt to hit back at the gay rights group Stonewall, which as part of its lobbying for the extension of marriage to gay couples is running its own bus adverts saying: "Some people are gay. Get over it." The Christian groups used the same black, red and white colour scheme as Stonewall and in a statement announcing the campaign accused it of promoting the "false idea that there is indisputable scientific evidence that people are born gay".
The gay ex-vicar, Labour MP and former minister Chris Bryant, said the advert was cruel for promoting the idea that you could become "ex-gay" and he said it would particularly hurt teenagers struggling to come to terms with their sexuality.
"The emotional damage that is done to the individuals who try to suppress their sexuality, the women they marry and the children they might have is immeasurable," he said. "Most sane Christians believe that homosexuality is not a lifestyle or a choice but is a fact to be discovered or not. The pretence that homosexuality is something you can be weaned off in some way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of creation."
Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said the adverts were "clearly homophobic" and added: "The only reason some gay people might want to stop being gay is because of the prejudice of the people who are publishing the ad.
"The promotion of this voodoo therapy is hugely irresponsible given the damage that it appears to do to some people."
Both men said the advert should not be banned, however, because they believed in freedom of speech.
Attempts to "treat" or alter sexual orientation have been strongly condemned by leading medical organisations. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that "so-called treatments of homosexuality create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish" and concluded in 2010: "There is no sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed."
The British Medical Association has also attacked "conversion therapy", a related field to reparation therapy, passing a motion asserting that it is "discredited and harmful to those 'treated' ".
The Rev Lynda Rose, a spokesperson for the UK branch of Anglican Mainstream, said her group adhered to scripture that all fornication outside marriage is prohibited and believed that homosexuals were "not being fully the people God intended us to be". She said therapies endorsed by Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues were not coercive and were appropriate for people who wanted to change their sexual attractions, for example if they were married and worried about the impact of a "gay lifestyle" on their children.
The decision to pull the adverts is being seen as a potential boost for conservative Christian organisations attempting to become more politically active in the UK. "Banning this is usually a fairly good way to encourage a sense that people are being marginalised and persecuted," said Simon Barrow, co-founder of the Ekklesia thinktank which has tracked the progress of what it calls aggressive conservative Christianity. "It could be part of a developing tactic to draw attention to themselves and a way of using victimhood to galvanise sympathy and support."
Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, said: "From personal experience as a gay Christian, I can tell you that it's much better to be out than in. We should be celebrating the diversity for which London is known, not denigrating it.
Revelations about the adverts came as Johnson was due to appear at a hustings organised by Stonewall on Saturday.
• The original version of this article stated that 'the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice and it complied with Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines'.
In fact the ASA does not pre-clear adverts and had nothing to do with the decision to pass the advert. The article has been amended to reflect this and to also remove a subsequent quote misattributed to the ASA.
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