FEDERAL VOTING .COM

London, March 11 (IANS) French President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked his wife Carla Bruni to end a holiday with her lover in Thailand and return home, a news report said. Sarkozy is also travelling to Britain on Friday without his spouse.

Sarkozy has asked Carla, 43, to end a holiday with her alleged lover, singer Benjamin Biolay, 37, and even chartered a plane to bring her home.

The French president confirmed Wednesday night that he will travel to Britain without Carla, amid reports that the marriage is over.

The president is travelling to London to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron. The Elysee Palace has confirmed that Carla “will not be travelling to Britain Friday”, The Sun reported.

French newspaper Journal du Dimanche has said: “The presidential marriage is breathing its last”.

Sarkozy decided to travel alone after media reports said that his wife, a former model, had jetted to Thailand with Biolay several weeks ago. The pair are old friends.

The holiday “was cut short by Nicolas Sarkozy himself. The president chartered a plane to bring his wife back to Paris,” Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve wrote.

According to rumours, the lovers were reported to be living together in the capital. And, Sarkozy, 55, is said to be having his own fling with environment minister Chantal Jouanno.

However a spokesman for Jouanno, 40, said she was “scandalised by this rumour”.

Sarkozy and Carla married in 2008 after a three-month romance.

London, March 9 (IANS) Indian-born industrialist and Labour Party supporter Lord Swraj Paul Tuesday said he is giving up his non-domicile tax status just as British police announced it was dropping a probe into his parliamentary expenses claims.

“I am delighted to be able to announce today (Tuesday) that the Metropolitan Police Service has informed me that it has decided that after due consideration, it will no longer be proceeding with any investigation or inquiry in relation to my House of Lords expenses,” Paul said in a statement released to the media.

Alongside, the steel magnate said he is giving up his non-domicile status that allows Britons and people who are residents in Britain not to pay all their taxes in Britain.

“On the issue of the taxation position of peers (members of the House of Lords), of course it goes without saying that I will be fully complying with the change in the law which the government is bringing forward.

“I strongly support the government’s proposals in relation to the taxation status of peers and MPs and the membership of the House of Lords, and the House of Commons,” he said.

Both the ruling Labour and opposition Conservative parties support proposals to bring in legislation that will make it compulsory for all MPs to pay their taxes in Britain in a bid to tighten the law over who is allowed to fund political parties.

Paul, who is chairman and founder of the Caparo Group of industries, was dragged into the controversy on the funding of political parties after revelations that the Conservative Party Vice Chairman Lord Michael Ashcroft is a non-domicile taxpayer.

Ashcroft, a key strategist in his party, has given the Conservatives 4.5 million pounds while Paul, a close friend of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has given 69,000 pounds to Labour – including 45,000 pounds to Brown’s 2007 party leadership campaign.

Paul, who will end his non-domicile status from the next tax year, said in a magazine interview the switch will make little difference to his tax burden: the amount would be “definitely not millions of pounds, or hundreds of thousands”.

New York, Mar 8 (ANI): Supermodel Naomi Campbell is said to be planning a humanitarian mission to Haiti in an effort to see where the money from her Fashion for Relief charity is being invested.

Campbell, 39, revealed she would be travelling to earthquake hit Haiti next month with White Ribbon, a philanthropic group founded by Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“I will be there after Easter to confirm first-hand the work of White Ribbon with women and children, and especially with 37,000 pregnant women who are facing extreme risk situations,” the New York Daily News quoted her as telling Brazilian newspaper O Dia.

Her own humanitarian group, Fashion for Relief, has raised more than 1.5 million dollars to help women and children devastated by the January 12 earthquake in Haiti.

“I am not a humanitarian leader, but someone who wishes to improve the world in which we live,” she said.

“I want to see first hand where the money is being invested,” she added. (ANI)

London, March 8 (ANI): Controversial paintings depicting the wives of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Leader of the Opposition David Cameron in a raunchy pose are set to go on public display in Glasgow.

Artist Laetitia Guilbaud is said to have courted trouble after drawing Sarah Brown on a bed in suspenders and Samantha Cameron in a pair of Union Flag knickers.

The paintings are to go on show at the Braewell Galleries next month, the Daily Express reported.

Guilbaud, who said she wanted to highlight “the sexiness and sensuality” of the women in the portraits, previously drew frowns with her portrayal of Scottish Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a racy red outfit and brandishing a whip.

Nicola’s partner was suggested to have dodged embarrassment and bought the artwork when it went under the hammer for 1,500 pounds.

The Prime Minister and Cameron may have to resort to similar measures to preserve their wives’ modesty, the paper said. (ANI)

London, March 7 (ANI): British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared to have lost the battle to Leader of the Opposition David Cameron in a study examining their body languages.

Voters participating in the research found Cameron’s body language more attractive than that of Brown, and with stronger leadership qualities.

Lead researcher Robin Kramer, Bangor University, and team transformed the leaders’ characters into moving stick man images, defined by lines representing their limbs and torso, the Telegraph reported.

Boffins then showed their video address at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons to the members of the public, asking them to assess the qualities of the two speakers.

The study found Cameron’s stick figure took the lead when compared to Prime Minister’s stick man that came across as more anxious and more depressed, and was perceived to be the more aggressive of the two.

Kramer said: ‘The response that we got showed that people generally found Cameron’s movement to be more attractive and healthy. They associated his movements with that of someone quite active and young. His stick figure came across as more gesturey, more comfortable, and more relaxed than Brown’s.

‘Brown’s figure was less smooth. He appeared a bit more uncomfortable and perhaps a bit more aggressive. He came across as more static and stocky, and people seemed to associate him with someone a bit older.’

Kramer added: ‘The body language of the party leaders will be put to the ultimate test during the live television debates.

‘And our research shows that looking and acting healthy and expressing that in your body language will be very important when it comes to people’s perceptions.’

The findings were due to be published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. (ANI)

London, Mar. 7 (ANI): Amid concerns that British football clubs’ high-spending ways will cost England the chance to stage the World Cup in 2018, the British Government has told them to put their finances in order.

Culture and Sport Secretary Ben Bradshaw has told the game’s top executives that the financial chaos, combined with confusion over overseas ownership of teams, is damaging the country’s reputation in the eyes of FIFA, which will decide on the 2018 hosts later this year, The Times reports.

Bradshaw has been told by Gordon Brown to do everything in his power to ensure that England beats off rival World Cup bids.

The teams of the Premier League have combined debts of about 3 billion pounds — the same amount as all the sides in Europe’s main leagues put together.

Much of this debt is at Manchester United and Liverpool, which both have American owners.

Last month, Portsmouth FC went into administration and has changed owners four times over the course of the current season.

Bradshaw told the game’s bosses to put their house in order when he attended last week’s friendly international between England and Egypt at Wembley.

He wants more background checks on would-be owners to establish they have the money they claim and is keen for supporters to have a greater say in the running of clubs. (ANI)

London, Mar. 6 (ANI): Former British commanders have accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of misleading the Iraq war inquiry by saying that his government had provided sufficient equipment to the Armed Forces for the invasion, and it was the military that failed to equip troops properly.

Admiral Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff up to the start of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, said that Brown was being disingenuous during his interview before the Chilcot inquiry.

“He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed. There may have been a 1.5 per cent increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds,” The Times quoted Lord Boyce, as saying.

On Friday, while Brown admitted to curbing spending while troops were fighting in Iraq, he insisted this had not affected soldiers on the front line.

Brown, who was Chancellor at that time – shifted the blame on to generals when confronted with complaints from the relatives of soldiers killed by in attacks on Snatch Land Rovers.

However, Colonel Stuart Tootal, former commander of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, said: “I am quite staggered by the lack of any sense of responsibility. He was the man with the purse strings.”

During the inquiry, Brown repeatedly expressed sorrow for the British and Iraqi deaths.

“I think this is the gravest decision to go to war. It was the right decision and it was for the right reasons,” he said. (ANI)

London, March 5 (IANS) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Friday defended Britain’s 2003 invasion of Iraq as the “right decision” but admitted the invading forces’ failure to win peace more quickly.

“It was the right decision and it was for the right reasons,” Brown told an inquiry headed by former civil servant Sir John Chilcot here.

Brown, who was finance minister in Tony Blair’s cabinet at the time, described the decision to invade Iraq as “the gravest decision of all” – taken because Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had consistently flouted international law.

“We cannot have an international community that works if we have either terrorists who are breaking these rules or aggressor-states that refuse to obey the laws of the international community,” said Brown.

However, he said he was “developing the concept of a just peace” – with reconstruction and giving people a “stake in the future” – as a lesson of the Iraq invasion.

“We won the battle within almost seven days but it has taken almost seven years to win the peace in Iraq,” Brown said.

Former cabinet minister Claire Short, who quit the government in 2003, said last month that Brown was “marginalised and not in the inner group” when Blair took Britain to war against Iraq.

London, March 5 (DPA) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Friday gave a staunch defence of the government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 but also paid his respects to the many military and civilian victims of the conflict.

“It was the right decision for the right reasons,” Brown told the Iraq War Inquiry in London at the start of a four-hour hearing.

But he also said he wanted to pay his respects to the “soldiers and members of the armed forces” for the sacrifices they had made and made a point of mentioning the “huge loss of life” among Iraqi civilians.

“My thoughts are with their families,” said Brown, referring specifically to the “thousands of civilian fatalities” and the “many civilian injured” in Iraq.

“Any loss of life is something that makes us very sad indeed,” said Brown.

Outside, a protestor shouted: “Gordon Brown to The Hague”, in a reference to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Dutch capital.

The hearing, which takes place just weeks ahead of a general election in Britain, is expected to throw some light on Brown’s role in the decision-making process and financing of the war.

Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for the duration of the conflict, has said he has “nothing to hide” – while keeping a remarkable public silence on the issue.

A string of former armed forces chiefs Friday accused Brown in newspaper articles of being responsible for a grave loss of life among soldiers who they claimed were not adequately equipped because of spending cuts introduced by Brown.

Last month, former prime minister Tony Blair, who was in power when the Iraq decisions were taken, defended his actions and refused to offer any sign of regret or sympathy to relatives of victims, some of whom were sitting right behind him at the hearing.

United Nations, March 5 (IANS) Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission, is among the 19 members of the high-level advisory group set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeking to mobilise financing to help developing countries combat climate change.

Philanthropist George Soros and prominent British academic Nicholas Stern are also on Ban’s Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, which will be co-chaired by British and Ethiopian Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown and Meles Zenawi. President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway will also participate.

The four leaders will be joined by high-level officials from government ministries, including Mexican Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, as well as representatives of central banks, such as Jean-Pierre Landau, the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of France.

The Advisory Group is slated to hold its first meeting on March 29 in London and is expected to submit its final report to Ban before the next conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Mexico later this year.

The Copenhagen Accord reached at December’s UN conference in the Danish capital aims to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action, with developing countries to be given $30 billion until 2012 and then $100 billion a year until 2020.

It also includes an agreement to work towards curbing global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and efforts to reduce or limit emissions.

The Advisory Group will be tasked with creating practical proposals to boost both short and long-term financing for mitigation and adaptation strategies in developing countries.

The UNFCCC announced last month that by the 31 January deadline specified in the Copenhagen Accord, some of the world’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide – including the United States and China – had formally submitted their national targets to cut and limit greenhouse gases by 2020.

It said that it had received specific pledges from 55 countries that together account for 78 per cent of global emissions from energy use.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that to stave off the worst effects of climate change, industrialised countries must slash emissions by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, and that global emissions must be halved by 2050.