Kopi Ketan

Described by one critic as "better than Baryshnikov," Sergei Polunin was the great hope of British ballet and at 19 was the youngest ever dancer to make the rank of principal at the Royal Ballet.
Rumours swept the industry yesterday over whether he had been tempted by a lucrative offer from a rival company – with the American Ballet Theatre and Mikhailovsky Ballet in St Petersburg among the names speculated – or even whether he was to hang up his pumps for good.

Polunin, who has several tattoos including tiger claw marks on his torso, part owns The London Tattoo Company, based in North London. He was said to have spent time there yesterday, while later he was in rehearsals for a show he had agreed to do in Sadler's Wells.

Polunin, now 21, dropped the bombshell on Tuesday. During rehearsals for The Dream, in which he was to play the lead role of Oberon, he approached director Dame Monica Mason and told her he would no longer be dancing for the company.

Dame Monica, who is in her final season as director, said it had "obviously come as a huge shock" – especially just over a week before the first performance. She added: "Sergei is a wonderful dancer and I have enjoyed watching him tremendously, both on stage and in the studio."

One ballet insider said: "This is really unexpected and it is really quite shocking, he was ballet's boy wonder and a remarkable dancer." They added: "In career terms, it doesn't sound like a brilliant decision. He was given a lot of backing by the Royal Ballet and he was their biggest star."

It is believed that Polunin had become frustrated that his performances at the Royal Ballet meant he could not accept guest invitations with the American Ballet Theatre and in Russia, but there was no clue as to what triggered his departure.

His mother said he had called her to tell her the news on Tuesday night, but "did not tell me the reason for it or what he is going to do next. He just said he was leaving." She told the London Evening Standard: "I know Sergei is a talented young man, he must know what he is doing. Believe me, he will never be lost in this world. If he made up his mind to do this, he must have thought it over very deeply indeed."

Emilia Spitz, of the BalletBag blog, said: "He is very young still. It probably is difficult to handle all that pressure. He has talked of not being quite ready for some of the responsibility... This could be part of the 'Money Ballet' trend where companies are offering advantageous contracts to star dancers."

The Ukrainian dancer grew up in poverty in Kherson, close to the Black Sea, with no electricity or hot water after 6pm. He trained in the gymnastic school there, harbouring dreams of winning an Olympic gold medal.
Forced to quit after contracting pneumonia, which put him in hospital for six weeks, he later said he was unable to shake off the illness until he saw "this guy who heals with his hands".

His family moved to Kiev to join the State Ballet School when his mother thought he had the chance of a better life with a career in dancing. He was accepted into the Royal Ballet School in 2003 at the age of 13, and four years later was named Young British Dancer of the Year.

Polunin said he unwinds by playing the video games Call of Duty or FIFA on his PlayStation against the co-owner of his tattoo parlour. He has also said he is inspired by Al Pacino movies and Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator.

The Royal Ballet was still coming to terms with the news yesterday, although a spokesman insisted it was "business as usual" and that there were other principals ready to assume Polunin's role. In private, senior members were bemoaning the loss of an exceptional talent.

Steven McRae, who beat Polunin to the award for best male dancer at the National Dance Awards this week, is expected to take on all the lead duties.Polunin will no longer play the male lead in Romeo & Juliet or the Jack of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for the Royal Ballet.

The dancer will appear in Men in Motion at Sadler's Wells, overseen by Ivan Putrov, who quit the Royal Ballet in 2010. The source said: "Putrov's departure was also rather abrupt but there had been rumblings about it. In Polunin's case there was nothing."

New research commissioned by the Government shows that if no further plans are made to adapt to changing flood risks, as temperatures rise and population grows, by the 2080s damage to buildings and property could reach £12bn per year, compared with current costs of £1.2bn. In the worst-case scenario, five million people could be affected. Flooding is regarded as the most serious of 100 separate challenges from a changing climate to Britain's economy, society and natural environment, which have been identified in a comprehensive new study, the Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA).

These include increased health problems for vulnerable people in hotter summers, increased pressure on the UK's water resources, droughts affecting farmers and the potential introduction of new pests and diseases.
The study says that if no further precautions are taken, the number of people affected by flooding is likely to hit between 1.66 million and 3.64 million annually by the 2050s, and by 2.43 million to 4.98 million by the 2080s.

It is significant that of the many problems posed by climate change, flooding is now seen as the most important. The man behind the CCRA, Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said. "I think the flooding issue is the most dominant."
However, this seems at odds with the Government's spending priorities, as expenditure on flood defence has been cut by 27 per cent from the last Labour administration's £354m annually, to £259m a year for the next four years. "Ministers are playing Russian roulette with people's homes and businesses by cutting too far, too fast," the shadow Environment Secretary, Mary Creagh, said.

The flooding threat comes mainly from the more intense rainfall predicted in a warmer atmosphere. "What the climate projections show, especially in winter, is significantly more precipitation, but also more heavy precipitation," Sir Bob said.

Such cloudbursts can cause river flooding, but also the new phenomenon of surface water flooding in towns when volumes of rainwater are too big for drainage systems to deal with. Both of these happened in the summer of 2007, which was Britain's wettest.

Sir Bob said the current risk assessment was based on modelling of river flooding and coastal flooding, which will be made worse by rises in sea-level. But it does not include the risk from surface water flooding, which is still being researched.

Summertime blues: The washout of 2007
If we want to get a feel for what the future may hold, in terms of flooding, we should look back at the washout summer of 2007. This was the wettest summer recorded in Britain since rainfall records began in 1766.
It was characterised not only by incessant rain, but especially by two stupendous downpours, the first coming on 24 June in Yorkshire, and the second on 19 July centred on the valley of the River Severn.

The former displayed the new phenomenon of surface water flooding, when the drainage in towns such as Hull and Doncaster simply could not cope; the latter downpour led the Severn to burst its banks and turned the town of Tewkesbury into an island.

I drove through the July downpour; it was the heaviest rainfall I have ever experienced in my life, including the Amazon in the rainy season.
Michael mccarthy

Meredith Alexander stands down after accusing Olympics organisers and the 2012 ethical watchdog of acting like "apologists" for Dow Chemical by publicly repeating the company's own public relations line on human rights.

Lord Coe, the 2012 chairman, and the Games organisers Locog, have faced criticism from MPs, Olympians and human rights groups including Amnesty International and Bhopal Medical Appeal, ever since Dow was awarded a sponsored fabric "wrap" around the outside of the Olympic Stadium in a deal worth £7m.
Dow is the 100 per cent owner of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), which was the majority shareholder of Union Carbide India Limited [UCIL], the company responsible for the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed 25,000 people.

Campaigners say the continuing water contamination is responsible for high rates of congenital deformities and cancers among communities living around the old factory site.

Ms Alexander was appointed to the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 by the Mayor in 2009 for her expertise in trade and workers' rights. It is the official watchdog set up to ensure London 2012 meets its commitment of being the most sustainable Games ever.

Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001 and denies any responsibility for UCC liabilities in Bhopal – which Locog accepts. Dow claims the $470m paid in 1991 for the disaster victims (currently contested in the Indian Supreme Court) was final. Yet Dow and UCC are defendants in an Indian litigation case about cleaning up the site.

Ms Alexander, who is head of policy at the charity Action Aid, told The Independent that Locog's failure to properly examine Dow's ongoing responsibilities to Bhopal was "inexcusable".

The "deal breaker" for her was a letter from the Sustainability Commission's chair, Shaun McCarthy, stating that it was satisfied with Locog's decision to work with Dow. "That letter has been used to justify Dow's position that it has no responsibility for the ongoing human rights tragedy in Bhopal," she said. "I cannot have my name associated with that.

"To my mind it is inexcusable that Locog did not find reference to Bhopal when they looked at Dow from a sustainability perspective. A two-second search on Google would have done it. This is not consigned to history – the site is still an ongoing environmental disaster. It's totally unjustifiable."

Ms Alexander's resignation comes as a blow because the Commission's work to ensure compliance with workers' rights – her area of expertise – is still outstanding. She is largely complimentary about the Commission's work. The Commission and Locog have never met Bhopal victims or survivor groups. Ms Alexander said: "Firstly, Locog didn't even know that this was going on, and then when they did find out, they only listened to one side of the story."

Lord Coe has defended Dow's record on Bhopal, telling MPs: "We have looked at this, and we are satisfied that Dow were not the owners or the operators or were involved with that plant at the time of the disaster, and at the time the overall settlement was made."

Dow's corporate social responsibility policies are in part why it was awarded the contract over five other bidders, according to Olympic organisers.

Monday marked the six month anniversary of Winehouse's death and her father broke news of a forthcoming memorial concert only days ago. Gaultier's tribute was well-intentioned, clearly, but gave rise to a palpable sense of unease.

While his handwriting is entirely confident where French dressing is concerned and no one understands Parisian chic and a decadent undercurrent better, his grasp of a more British dress sense was less assured. The uniform of the dominatrix – rubber trousers, fishnets and underwear as outerwear – in this instance appeared more Soho sex shop than French couture salon which, given the context, made for uncomfortable if not plain confusing viewing.

True there were moments of clarity – Gaultier's use of colour was sensational in places and few cut either a trench coat or mannish trouser suit better – but this was not his most accomplished collection by any stretch of the imagination.

Earlier in the day, the rather less controversial Beirut born and based designer, Elie Saab, showed his spring/summer haute couture collection which was, conversely, as pretty as the proverbial picture. Saab has a booming couture business and that was clear as guests arrived: there appeared to be almost as many princesses front row as their were members of the press.

This season's collection will suit them down to the ground. Saab focussed on ultra-feminine shapes (sweet prom dresses with bouncing skirts and floor length columns with fluttering trains), fondant colour (peach, pistachio, lemon and rose) and fragile embroideries (crystals and flower petals decorated the surface of clothes).

Saab first became known outside his own country when Halle Berry was awarded the Oscar for best actress in 2002 wearing one of his designs. "It was a very important moment for us," the designer told Women's Wear Daily earlier this week. His managing director, Chucri Cavalcanti added: "The red carpet definitely has a direct impact on the business because when the customer sees a celebrity wearing that dress, there is more demand." With that in mind, while there was nothing ground-breaking on offer, there was much to appeal to Hollywood A-listers and royalty alike.

Palestinian representatives believe that negotiations have run their course as a deadline for both sides to present proposals on borders and security expires today. Israel, which has criticised the deadline as "artificial," said talks should continue.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, said yesterday that the talks aimed at reviving top-level negotiations had ended without progress. "If we determine the borders it is possible to return to negotiations, but the Israelis don't want to determine the borders," he said.

While mounting international pressure may yet persuade Mr Abbas to keep talking, the Palestinians are increasingly convinced that Israel's hawkish Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is unwilling to make the compromises necessary for a two-state solution.

The Palestinians want Israel to accept the pre-1967 borders as a basis for negotiations, and halt Jewish settlement construction – deemed illegal in international law – in the occupied West Bank, the acceleration of which has convinced many that a two-state solution is moving out of reach. On both counts, Israel's right-wing government has refused to yield.

Reflecting the mood in the Palestinian camp, one official said: "For us, it's over... Israel chose to [promote] settlements over peace". Previously, Mr Abbas has warned that he would employ "other measures" to isolate Israel if the talks fail. It is thought that this could include reviving a UN statehood bid and asking the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged war crimes during the Israeli invasion of the Palestinian-controlled Gaza strip in 2008.

The Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, comprising the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, which is represented by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, said in October that both sides should present proposals and wrap up exploratory talks within three months, or by 26 January. Israel has refused to do so, claiming that it has until April.

Low-key meetings, mediated by Jordan, were launched with little fanfare at the beginning of January in a last-ditch attempt to bring the two sides together.

Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief on a visit to the region, said yesterday "we need to keep talks going and increase the potential of these talks to become genuine negotiations".

Israeli officials have rejected the notion that they are responsible for the looming break-off in talks, arguing that the Palestinians had fixed on an "artificial date" to create an "artificial crisis".

"They would be making a mistake if they are looking for excuses to leave the table," an Israeli official said. "Walking away...is not going to solve anything."

But some Israeli analysts say responsibility lies primarily with Mr Netanyahu's administration, which is seen as loath to make tough political compromises in the absence of compelling external or domestic pressures.
The last top-level talks collapsed in September 2010 following another row over settlements. In an effort to break the deadlock and move the conflict into the international realm, Mr Abbas launched a doomed statehood bid at the UN a year later, drawing Israeli fury which prompted a range of punitive measures.
There has been lukewarm international support for Mr Abbas's UN bid, but some are calling for a new approach to resolve the conflict. "The Quartet has failed," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week. "Let's stop kidding ourselves. We have to widen the circle of negotiations and involve everybody who can help resolve the conflict."