Karl Rove ranges on to new ground with summer book club

His influence over US readers may fall short of Oprah's, but growing numbers are joining the ex-presidential adviser's projec


Karl Rove, who once held reading contests with George W Bush, has started a book club with news anchor Clayton Morris. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Karl Rove, the former deputy chief of staff to George W Bush and the man known as "Bush's brain", has started a summer book club.

With 349 members and counting, the club – which Rove launched with Fox News channel anchor Clayton Morris – has already tackled Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848. Its readers are currently engrossed in the Brad Thor thriller Foreign Influence, in which a former navy Seal investigates the death of a group of American students in a bombing in Italy.

Rove and Morris have each selected eight books, and the public will vote every week on which one they want to read. The political strategist is an author himself, publishing his memoir Courage and Consequence earlier this year. And he has always been keen to show his credentials as a reader, writing in the Wall Street Journal back in 2008 about the reading contests he used to undertake with Bush, when the pair would race to complete the greatest number of books in a year.

"Much like Oprah we've got sass and now our own book club too," said Morris. But Rove is under no illusions that "Karl and Clayton's Summer Book Club" can match Winfrey in all departments, responding to Politico's suggestion that it might match Oprah's mighty influence over America's book charts with a terse "No, it won't.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

BP faces delay in shutting off new well cap

watches this BP faces delay in shutting off new well cap



BP has suffered yet another setback in its efforts to stem the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, announcing it has been forced to postpone planned tests on turning off valves on a new tighter-fitting cap over the leak.

The gradual shut-off was seen as the first real chance to stop the leak since the start of the environmental disaster almost three months ago.

A White House spokesman had said the operation "represents the best news that we've had in the preceding 85 days".

But Thad Allen, who is overseeing the US response to the crisis, has said that "additional analysis" is needed before the tests can start.

BP has confirmed that analysis is getting under way. "Consequently the well integrity test did not start," it said in a statement.

"It's an incredibly big concern," said Don Van Nieuwenhuise, the director of professional geoscience programmes at the University of Houston. "They need to get a scan of where things are – that way when they do pressure testing they know to look out for ruptures or changes."

The newly installed "capping stack" has a better seal than the last cap placed on the well and aims to stop oil from spewing out of the failed blowout preventer.

Experts said stopping the oil too quickly could blow the cap off or further damage the well.

BP has said the only way to permanently stop the leak is the drilling of two relief wells to intercept the ruptured one. The first is expected to intercept the oil leak by the end of July and plug it with drilling mud and cement by mid-August.

Before the decision to postpone the tests preliminary steps were completed, including mapping the sea bed.

Engineers spent hours on a seismic survey, creating a map of the rock under the sea bed to spot potential dangers like gas pockets. It can be compared with later surveys during and after the test to see if the pressure on the well is causing underground problems.

Experts have said an unstable area around the well could create bigger
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

BP 'installs new sealing cap' on leaking Gulf oil well

We are interesting this BP 'installs new sealing cap' on leaking Gulf oil well

KAMPALA, Uganda - An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group suspected in twin bombings in Uganda's capital that killed 64 people watching the World Cup final endorsed the attacks on Monday but stopped short of claiming responsibility, as Uganda's president vowed to hunt down those responsible. The blasts came two days after a commander with the...

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New Photos of Smiling Fidel Castro Posted on Web

We are enjoy New Photos of Smiling Fidel Castro Posted on Web


HAVANA (July 11) - New photographs of a smiling, tracksuit-clad Fidel Castro greeting workers at a scientific think tank were posted on the blogs of two Cuban journalists and a media website Saturday, offering a rare glimpse of the reclusive revolutionary leader in a public forum.

Castro, 83, appears slightly stooped but otherwise healthy in the pictures, which were said to have been taken Wednesday during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana.

One set of four photos appeared on the blogs of two official Cuban journalists and apparently were taken with a worker's mobile phone. The former Cuban leader is seen raising his hand to wave in one picture and seemingly being led away in another.

Alex Castro, Cubadebate / AP
In this image released on Saturday by state media, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, second from left, stands next to unidentified people during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana. The photo was purportedly taken Wednesday. Castro had not been photographed in public since falling seriously ill in July 2006.

More images from the same event were posted later in the day on Cubadebate, a state-run media website. In those pictures, Fidel is seen laughing and talking with the workers, some of whom line an overhead walkway to wave and clap at him. In one, he leans back casually against a desk, looking animated.

"He is thin but he looks good, and according to our director, he is very good mentally," reads a comment accompanying photos on the blog of Rosa C. Baez, a journalist who works for official Cuban media.

The comments were sent to her along with the photos by an unidentified Cuban worker, who said Castro stopped, said hello and blew kisses to the employees.

"They didn't let us get close to him, but when he left, there were too many people standing around and I was standing just three meters (yards) from him," gushes the worker.

Those photos were also posted on the blog of Norelys Morales, a well-known Cuban television journalist. Morales told The Associated Press she got them in an e-mail sent to various people by the worker. She would not reveal the worker's name.

Repeated calls to the think tank went unanswered Saturday.

Cuban media are strictly controlled by the government, and the fact the photos appeared on blogs of two official journalists and later on Cubadebate was significant. Cubadebate said the revolutionary icon visited the science center to celebrate its 45th anniversary.

Castro had not been photographed in public since falling seriously ill in July 2006. The illness forced him to turn over power - first temporarily, then permanently - to his younger brother Raul, who is 79.

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Summit raises hopes for new Mideast peace talks

Together understanding Summit raises hopes for new Mideast peace talks

ELEANOR HALL: The US president Barack Obama said today that he hopes that direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians will begin by September this year.

Mr Obama made the comments after a meeting in the Oval Office with Benjamin Netanyahu, a meeting where the Israel prime minister received a much warmer reception than during his visit in March.

But while they were there to talk peace, the two leaders first tried to make it clear that their relationship is back on track, as Washington correspondent Kim Landers reports.

KIM LANDERS: The two leaders sat close together in the Oval Office, chatting, smiling and staging a long, tight handshake for the cameras.

It's the first meeting between US president Barack Obama and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu since their tense behind closed doors encounter in March.

It's also their first meeting since Israel's deadly raid on an aid flotilla headed for Gaza. Both men said their talks had been excellent and president Obama said the special bond between the US and Israel is unbreakable.

BARACK OBAMA: I believe that prime minister Netanyahu wants peace. I think he's willing to take risks for peace.

KIM LANDERS: While the US media has been portraying this visit as a fence mending effort, president Barack Obama certainly was at pains to sing the praises of Benjamin Netanyahu.

BARACK OBAMA: I know the press, both in Israel and stateside enjoys, you know, seeing if there's news there. But the fact of the matter is that I've trusted prime minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president and have said so both publicly and privately.

KIM LANDERS: The Israeli prime minister also did his best to play down notions of a rift between the US and Israel.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relations, ah relationship, aren't just premature they're just flat wrong.

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New national guidelines for foster care

The traditionally New national guidelines for foster care

ELEANOR HALL: The Federal Government is moving to give foster children more choice in how they're cared for.

For the first time all foster children in Australia will be covered by uniform national standards that will ensure that they receive health checks as well as individual education plans.

They will also have a whole of plan care that will travel with them if they move.

It's the first time that a national foster care standards system has been designed and carer groups have welcomed the move, as Jennifer Macey reports.

JENNIFER MACEY: Ken Abery has four children, 13 grandchildren and in the past 50 years has had up to 700 foster children.

KEN ABERY: I mean they range from overnight stays to children that come to you. We had one guy came to us, he was four months old, he's just moved out now at 22. I mean and it's important that when a young person gets to 18 that they're just not suddenly cast adrift because they're no longer under departmental ordinance.

JENNIFER MACEY: Ken Abery is also the chairman of the Australian Foster and Kinship Carers Partnership and lives in Tasmania, which has policies but no standards in place for foster carers.

He says the rules for foster carers varies widely from state to state such as - for example - whether a child gets a health check before going into care.

KEN ABERY: And depending on the state and territory, it's one of the first things that should be happening when a child comes into care to ascertain the needs of the child. But again you see it's not uniform and that's what the national standards are about is to get uniformity.

JENNIFER MACEY: To create some sort of uniformity the Federal Government has today released a set of draft national guidelines for children in out of home care.

The Minister for Families and Housing is Jenny Macklin.

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