The Home Office has said it is considering the possibility of not displaying gender on passports. The proposals follow changes to Australian passport rules, which mean that intersex people who identify as neither gender can be listed as ‘X’, rather than having to choose between male or female. A Home Office spokesman said: “We are exploring with international partners and relevant stakeholders the security implications of gender not being displayed on the passport.” Currently, transgender people can obtain passports in their new gender. But intersex people – those born with chromosomal or genital ambiguity – must pick whether they are male or female. Supporters of gender-neutral passports say there is little need for passports to list gender and argue that other forms of ID do not state the information. Intersex rights campaigner Jennie Kermode told PinkNews.co.uk last week that the change would be easy to implement. She said: “The passport offices in the UK will not issue passports with the ‘X’ option now, although they could do so without, as I understand it, any necessary change in UK laws.” Another campaigner, Jane Fae, said: “The issue of documenting gender goes much wider than the ‘feelings of trans and intersect people’. In fact many in the trans community would oppose the removal of gender as its inclusion on passports is vital to ensure safety when travelling abroad. “Many non-trans individuals would be happier not declaring gender for all sorts of reasons. It should be optional for all.”
Margaret Moran in May 2009 and arriving at Westminster Magistrates Court today (PA/NICHOLAS RAZZELL)
What can the Rolling Stones, Eurythmics and the blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire possibly have in common? More than you think -- at least that's the bet behind Super Heavy, a five-strong supergroup fronted by Mick Jagger whose new album comes out Monday. Five stars from the worlds of rock, soul, pop, reggae and world music -- Jagger, Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, soulwoman Joss Stone, Bob Marley's youngest son Damian and AR Rahman who scored the "Slumdog" soundtrack -- have brought their eclectic styles together for the occasion. The motley make-up of Jagger's new supergroup, the term used when musicians team up on the model of Cream in the 1960s or Damon Albarn's Gorillaz, has raised some eyebrows in music circles. But Jagger insists the resulting album -- titled simply Super Heavy -- is "not all weird". Super Heavy was the brainchild of Dave Stewart, who said he was inspired by the mish mash of sounds he heard wafting through the window of his home above Saint Ann's Bay in Jamaica. "It's kind of the jungle, and sometimes I'd hear three sound systems all playing different things. I always love that, along with Indian orchestras," Stewart told Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year. "I said to Mick, ?How could we make a fusion?'" A few phone calls later and plans for the troupe -- who together claim 11 Grammy Awards -- were in the works, with a first jam session held in Los Angeles six months on, in early 2010. "We didn't know what the hell we were doing," said the Eurythmics founder and co-writer of such 1980s hits as "Sweet Dreams" and "Talking to an Angel". "We were just jamming and making a noise. It was like when a band first starts up in your garage. We might have a 22 minute jam, and it would become a six minute song." Jagger -- who plays the guitar and harmonica as well as singing on the album -- has warned it is "a different kind of record than what people would expect." "It's not all weird and strange though," he told Rolling Stone of the result, a concentrate of musical styles drawn from around the planet. The rhythms and vocals of Damian Marley, who has worked with some of the top names in US hip-hop, leave a strong mark, along with AR Rahman's Bollywood-tinged melodies, some of them sung in Urdu. Joss Stone's deep voice adds a touch of glamour and emotion, while Mick's own performance is Jagger to the hilt. The first single off the album, "Miracle Worker," went on sale online on July 7 and the AZ record label, part of the Universal music group, releases the full album worldwide on Monday. The idea of a supergroup stems back to the 1960s when Cream brought together Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Graham Bond Organisation in 1966 -- becoming a rock monument in its own right. Two years on, David Crosby of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills and Graham Nash of The Hollies split from their bands and reformed as Crosby, Stills and Nash, producing its now-classic vocal harmonies and folk guitar, sometimes with Neil Young. Less of a hit despite an A-list cast, the Traveling Wilburys was set up in 1988 by Bob Dylan, George Harrison, US rockers Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra. The supergroup trend has resurfaced in recent years, spurred in part by the globe-trotting tastes of Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the creative mind behind both the Gorillaz music project and the 2007 supergroup album "The Good the bad and the Queen." Jack White of The White Stripes also helped found two supergroups in the past decade, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. And in 2009, Them Crooked Vultures brought together rock legend Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and the multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones, of Led Zeppelin fame.
The plane, a P-51 Mustang, dubbed the "Galloping Ghost" that was being flown by Jimmy Leeward, 74, crashed at 4.30pm local time (11.30pm GMT) into a box seat area in front of the main grandstand at the Reno Air Races,. "I heard his engine and looked up. He was within 100 feet. He was coming right down on top of us," witness Fred Scholz told CNN, adding that the plane had first flown closer to the stands than allowed. "It just happened very quick." The Federal Aviation Administration halted the air race after the crash, and was investigating the incident alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, an FAA official said. Video apparently taken from the stands and posted on YouTube showed a plane plunging nose-down into the tarmac as spectators were heard gasping: "Oh, my God." Debris billowed near the crash site, and officials then told spectators to remain where they were so emergency workers could get to the scene. The FAA official, spokesman Ian Gregor, said that multiple spectator fatalities and critical injuries were reported. FAA inspectors had been observing the race at the time of the crash, he said. The head of the Reno Air Racing Association, Michael Houghton, put the number of injured at 54 people and said the 74-year-old pilot was among those killed. He said that there appeared to be a "problem with the aircraft that caused it to go out of control". At least 15 people were in a critical condition after the crash, which a spokesman for the event called a "mass casualty situation" in a written statement. Mark Hasara of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a veteran of the Air Force who attended the race and witnessed the crash. "As soon as I saw his nose pointed at the ground, I knew he wasn't going to recover," Mr Hasara told Reuters. The Reno Air Races, which began in the mid-1960s and is an event that is held annually, feature planes facing off in multi-lap races at an airfield north of Reno. Renown Regional Medical Center spokesman Dan Davis said that at least two people were killed, a man and a woman, but they were not identified. Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the regional emergency medical service authority, said 15 of the injured were in a critical condition. "This is a very large incident, probably one of the largest this community has seen in decades," Ms Kruse told the Associated Press. "The community is pulling together to try to deal with the scope of it. The hospitals have certainly geared up and staffed up to deal with it." Mr Houghton said that Mr Leeward, from Ocala, Florida, was a real estate developer who had been racing planes since the mid-1970s. He added that most of Leeward's family had been at Friday's event. Ronald Sargis, a witness who was sitting in the box-seat area, said spectators could tell the plane was in trouble before it crashed. "About six or seven boxes down from us, it impacted into the front row," Mr Sargis told KCRA-TV in Sacramento. He added: "It appeared to be just pulverised." Another eyewitness, Maureen Higgins of Alabama, told the Associated Press that the pilot was on his third lap when he lost control. "I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn't believe it. I'm talking an arm, a leg," Ms Higgins said.
A community with a voracious appetite for scandal, it does appear we are experiencing Murdoch news fatigue. Like frogs in boiling water, we are losing sensitivity to the barrage of sensational News Corp instalments flowing from the phone hacking affair. On Tuesday, two former News International managers - head of legal affairs Tom Crone and News of the World editor Colin Myler - told a British parliamentary committee that James Murdoch had been made aware of widespread phone hacking despite his written statement to the contrary. The testimony was another milestone in the series of explosive revelations of systemic criminal phone hacking which had been going on for years but allegedly covered up by a corporate and police conspiracy. Advertisement: Story continues below Since the hacking affair was blown open, there has been a myriad of developments from the company, government and police - many of them astonishing. Much of this is highly significant to the Murdoch empire, and the ramifications have been difficult to digest. This shameful episode has changed the News Corp organisation and Rupert Murdoch's management style. In a corporate sense, the decision by Murdoch to undertake a $US5 billion ($4.7 billion) share buyback is, on its own, momentous. Aggressive expansion of the News Corp empire has been a hallmark of Murdoch's modus operandi. The decision to undertake a capital management program that allocated cash to shareholders rather than to acquisitions marks a major departure. The focus of News Corp's strategy in the past has been on raising funds and using available cash to expand, and avoiding the dilution of Murdoch family control. This was never more evident than in the creation of News Corp non-voting stock and the move to domicile the company in the lax regulatory jurisdiction of Delaware. The only other incidence of Rupert Murdoch bowing to outside pressure was in the early 1990s, when the Pittsburgh Bank famously forced News Corp to the brink of bankruptcy by threatening to block the rollover to a new debt package. News Corp has otherwise been run by Rupert Murdoch and in his way. The notion of appeasing minority shareholders is new to Murdoch, as is divorcing the hard-wired nepotism.
The documents revealing the cosy relationship between top British and Libyan intelligence officials are embarrassing not just because they confirm Britain's rendition of Islamist terror suspects, including Abdel Hakim Belhadj, the Transitional National Council's new security commander in Tripoli, but also because they lend credence to Britain's reputation as a slippery operator in the Middle East. David Cameron's support for the TNC was meant to gain souk cred by tying Britain's banner to the spirit of the Arab Spring. Cameron has said the new documents should be examined by the independent Detainee Inquiry, chaired by Sir Peter Gibson. They show how keen Tony Blair was to bring Gaddafi into the fold following Saddam Hussein's fall in April 2003 and to trade an end to Libya's pariah status in return for help in the war against terrorism. There was little wrong with that. What is sickening is the extent to which Britain sought to ingratiate itself by delivering up Gaddafi's opponents. No less disturbing is the manner in which Britain's cosying up to Gaddafi has been represented as a mistake by misguided individuals, for which institutions such as the London School of Economics have suffered. Perhaps the most fascinating new document was sent on March 18, 2004 to Musa Kusa, head of Libyan intelligence, by Mark Allen, MI6's director of counter-terrorism, who crowed about Belhadj's rendition while arranging a forthcoming visit by Blair to Libya. A week later Gaddafi welcomed the British PM in his Tripoli tent (as requested by Allen for publicity reasons). It is difficult to say who was the greater showman: the unctuous Blair or Gaddafi joking how his Third Universal Theory, the basis of his Green Book, paved the way for Blair's Third Way politics. Within two months, Allen was pipped as the next MI6 head by John Scarlett, who, two years earlier, as chief of the Joint Intelligence Committee, had backed Blair's argument that Saddam had dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Allen left the SIS shortly afterwards. For Middle East watchers, an interesting outcome has been these glimpses of intelligence machinations in this most secretive of regions. A Le Carré of the al Qaeda conflict will surely follow. It is Cameron who now has to deal with the practical consequences. The ultimate fate of Gaddafi and his family is out of his hands. But Britain has tough decisions to make about other players, including Musa Kusa, who defected from Libya in March, came to Britain, and was last heard of in a Qatar hotel. In 1980 he was expelled from Britain for advocating the murder of Libyan dissidents. For this and his wider role in Libyan terrorism, many powerful voices argue that he should be tried in Britain. But, even at this stage, it may be that he has too much to reveal. More immediately, the Prime Minister needs to assess the role of former Islamists such as Belhadj in the new regime and take appropriate measures. It will not be enough to kick the rendition issue into the long grass by referring it to the Gibson inquiry, which has yet to begin its work. If David Cameron hoped for an easy ride in post-Gaddafi Libya, these papers have disabused him of that notion.
The News International chairman has reportedly cancelled a trip to Asia to monitor first-hand what is said at the select committee hearing. When James Murdoch appeared with his father Rupert before the Culture, Media and Sport committee in July, he was asked if he knew about a document known as the "for Neville" email. This email has been seen as critical to the hacking inquiry. It indicates that the practice of hacking was more widespread than News International originally admitted. James Murdoch said he was unaware of the document at the time he sanctioned a payout to the Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor, whose phone was hacked by the News of The World. His denial of knowledge of the email was subsequently contradicted by Colin Myler, the NOTW's last editor, and the paper's former lawyer Tom Crone, both of whom will give their side of the story to the committee. Daniel Cloke, ex-HR director at NI, and Jon Chapman, NI's former head of corporate and legal affairs, are also due to appear. Mark Lewis, who represented Mr Taylor when he won his payout from the NOTW, said if today's evidence finds James Murdoch knew about the email it could be the end of him.
Four former News International executives will face a fresh round of questioning from MPs over the phone-hacking scandal. The Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee will quiz the News of the World's former editor Colin Myler and ex-legal manager Tom Crone after the pair publicly challenged evidence given by James Murdoch over his knowledge of the illegal practice. News International's former director of legal affairs Jonathan Chapman and Daniel Cloke, former group HR director, will also appear before the committee as the probe into the scandal is resumed following the summer recess. Mr Myler and Mr Crone have been summoned before MPs for the second time after publicly disputing claims made by Mr Murdoch earlier in the Parliamentary inquiry. The News International chairman told the committee he was not made aware of an email in 2008 indicating that the practice of illegally intercepting voicemails was not confined to a single "rogue" reporter. But the two former Sunday tabloid executives insist that they told him about the message in June of that year. The panel of MPs could now recall Mr Murdoch "depending on their evidence under questioning". Committee chairman John Whittingdale said the latest round of questioning was an attempt to uncover the truth in the "continuing difference in the accounts of James Murdoch and Tom Crone and Colin Myler about whether or not James Murdoch was aware of the so-called 'for Neville' email". The 2005 email contained transcripts of hacked phone messages and was headed "for Neville", in an apparent reference to the News of the World's then-chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck. Its existence came to light in April 2008 when Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor brought a damages claim against the paper over the interception of his voicemail.
