Monday 7 May 2012

Kneecapping of Italian nuclear power firm boss prompts terrorism fears

Shooting of Roberto Adinolfi has similarities with 1970s attacks by Italian Red Brigades


Police officers investigate the site where Roberto Adinolfi was shot



Police officers investigate the site where Roberto Adinolfi was shot. Photograph: Luca Zennaro/EPA
The head of an Italian nuclear engineering company was kneecapped by a gunman on Monday, evoking fears of a return to Italy's violent "years of lead" in the 1970s as the country sinks deeper into recession.
Roberto Adinolfi, the chief executive of Ansaldo Nucleare, was leaving his home in Genoa when a man wearing a motorcycle helmet shot him in the leg with a Tokarev pistol before escaping with an accomplice on a stolen black moped, which was later found by police.
Adinolfi's right knee was fractured in the attack but was he not in a serious condition.
Shooting victims in the legs was a speciality of the Italian Red Brigades, the terrorist organisation which sought to destabilise the Italian government with a series of kidnappings and murders, culminating in the snatching and killing of the former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978.
The group also shot at three executives at companies in the Ansaldo group and kidnapped another in the 1970s, raising suspicions that Monday's shooting was designed to send a message.
"It is like they wanted to say: 'Let's start again like 40 years ago'," one source told Italian news agency Ansa, adding that the attack could be a signal to sleeper cells to launch their own operations.
Genoa's chief prosecutor, Michele Di Lecce, said he could not rule out that the shooting was an act of "terrorism" but added that no one had yet claimed responsibility.
Investigators were also quoted as saying they suspected far-left or anarchist groups, which are known to be active in Genoa and which recently advocated "armed action".
"We don't know who it was but I suspect it was a small group, possibly anarchists, rather than the Red Brigades, even if the continuation of the economic crisis increases the risk of the return to action of larger groups," Stefano Silvestri, a security expert at the Italian thinktank IAI, told the Guardian.
In December an Italian anarchist group claimed responsibility for a letter bomb sent to the headquarters of tax collection agency Equitalia, which nearly blinded a manager.
"If [anarchists] have not yet killed someone it is just by chance," Italy's senior police officer, Antonio Manganelli, warned a parliamentary hearing in February.
The shooting comes as the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, seeks to lower Italy's soaring debt by increasing taxes and cutting pensions, just as the country's unemployment figures soar.
In the latest of a string of suicides linked to the economic crisis a 52-year old estate agent hanged himself in a playground near a primary school in Vicenza on Monday. Last week an armed man briefly took hostages at an Equitalia office near Milan in protest at taxes.
Monday's attack was "a worrying sign of growing tensions and violence", in Italy, said Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the centre-left Democratic party. "Light should be shed on this incident and democracy should be defended," he said, adding that Italy "has already paid a heavy price in blood".
As Italy's welfare and employment minister, Elsa Fornero, seeks to loosen Italy's rigid employment laws she has been placed under guard following the murders by the Red Brigades in 1999 and 2002 of two government advisers who also sought ways to allow firms to hire and fire more easily.
In 2003 two suspected Red Brigades members shot dead a policeman who asked for their documents on a train.
Finmeccanica, the state controlled Italian defence company which has a majority stake in Ansaldo Nucleare, is seeking to increase efficiency at group level by reducing staff numbers, prompting protests during which employees have blocked roads and railways.
Finmeccanica's chief financial officer, Alessandro Pansa, said the firm would not be "intimidated" by the shooting.

Syria goes to the polls in parliamentary elections

But President Assad opponents refuse to participate, saying the elections are designed to reinforce the regime's grip on power


Syrian parliamentary election begin amid heavy security



A Syrian woman stands next to a picture of Bashar al-Assad after voting in parliamentary elections in Damascus on 7 May. Photograph: Nabil Mounzer/EPA
Syrians have voted in parliamentary elections that were hailed by the government as a landmark in the country's reform programme, but derided as a sham by groups opposed to the current regime, who refused to take part.
Polls to elect members of Syria's 250-member parliament opened at 7am on Monday and closed 13 hours later, although many voting booths in the country's war-torn areas remained closed throughout the day or were poorly attended.
The elections follow an amendment to the Syrian constitution earlier this year that allowed multi-party candidates to contest positions in the legislature, which has played a largely secondary role in Syrian society. It has remained in the shadow of the dominant Ba'ath party – that has entrenched the four-decade rule of the Assad clan – rubber-stamping the government's agenda.
The ability of Bashar al-Assad's government to hold credible elections while Syria continues to be ravaged by a violent uprising will be closely monitored. Opposition groups said before the ballot that the process was designed to reinforce the regime's grip on power, rather than open up Syrian society to a plurality of voices and views.
The Syrian National Council (SNC), which has positioned itself as the main opposition group, has ignored the ballot and its members insist that the embattled regime cannot save itself with any sort of reform programme.
A key test of the election will be the performance of the Ba'ath party, which three months ago notionally lost its 50-year monopoly control over all aspects of Syrian society. However, with its pervasive reach into all aspects of civil life, the party has remained one of the most formidable weapons in the regime's attempts to weed out dissent as it attempts to reassert order after a ruthless 15-month crackdown.
Ba'ath party-aligned candidates took part in the ballot, which Damascus claims will attract a large number of the 15 million Syrians who are eligible to take part.
Activists say a clause in the ballot limiting a president to two terms of seven years is proof of its intent to stymie rather than foster change. The clause would not be applied retrospectively, meaning Assad would have 14 years to serve as president from the time the result is declared.
Opposition groups say parties standing against Assad have been sanctioned to do so by the regime and are not committed to driving meaningful change in the region's most inflexible police state.
Some opposition candidates were given airtime on state media and claimed that Syria was ready for fresh voices. Such statements were considered punishable before the uprising took hold, however the SNC insists that they do not amount to a credible threat to more than four decades of totalitarian rule.
Monday's election has generated little regional or international interest, with Assad's critics not expecting it to change the political or security landscape in the country, which continues to unravel in the face of an increasingly armed revolt.
Polling stations stayed largely closed in the most restive areas of the country, such as the battered third city of Homs, Idlib in the north and Deir Ezzor in the largely Kurdish north-east.
Over recent weeks, regime forces have intensified operations in all three areas.
The streets of Derra, where the uprising began in March 2011, appeared to be mostly abandoned throughout Monday.
Loyalist troops and militias have also been active in the second city, Aleppo, where a protest at one of the city's main universities was ruthlessly crushed last week, with scores reportedly killed. Days of large protests and clashes with security forces followed.
Between 9,000 and 10,000 civilians have been killed in the violence, which has transformed from a brutal suppression of demonstrators to a two-way fight involving armed activists, many of them military defectors.
The violence has continued despite a UN-brokered ceasefire that has been widely criticised as a failure. The plan's architect, special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, is due to report to the UN security council on what has been achieved since the plan came into effect in early April.
Meanwhile, Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday toured border districts in the deep south of the country that have housed thousands of refugees who have fled fighting in nearby towns and villages.
Erdogan, a vocal critic of Assad said the rebel groups fighting loyalist forces will eventually oust the regime.

Elderly care funding should focus on poorest, says Duncan Smith thinktank

Report by Centre for Social Justice calls for resources to be concentrated on pensioners with few or no assets


Iain Duncan Smith



Iain Duncan Smith's thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice, says low pay, poor training and lack of oversight has to led to 'very poor quality of home care for the most disadvantaged older people'. Photograph: Geoff Newton
Funding for the long-term care of elderly people should be targeted at the poorest with few or no assets, according to a report by Iain Duncan Smith's thinktank. In a direct challenge to the Dilnot commission, whichcalled for an increase in support for those with assets, the report, by theCentre for Social Justice, calls for resources to be concentrated on pensioners solely dependent on state support.
The centre was established by the work and pensions secretary while he was in opposition. Its report, to be published on Tuesday, is likely to influence ministers as they consider their response to Dilnot. They are holding cross-party talks before the publication of a white paper setting out their proposals.
Dilnot recommended that the threshold of savings and assets above which the state stops offering help with care costs should rise from £23,250 to £100,000. Its other key recommendation was to impose a cap of £35,000 on the amount any individual would have to pay towards their own care costs during their lifetime.
But Transforming Social Care, the new report, sweeps aside these arguments and says the government should concentrate on the neediest pensioners. It is careful not to define who falls into this group, but it is thinking of those who are wholly dependent on the weekly state pension of £107.45 and have few or no other assets.
Christian Guy, managing director of the Centre for Social Justice, says: "Understandably, there is a lot of concern about better-off pensioners being forced to sell their homes and use the proceeds to pay for their care until they drop below the means-tested threshold. But ministers should make the most vulnerable people and the unacceptable conditions they face their first priority, then phase in the Dilnot recommendations so that help can be extended to all."
The centre says that any extra resources should be focused on the poorest members of the "extraordinary generation" who lived through the second world war, because they suffer most severely from the country's "broken" care system.
The report points out that of the 400,000 elderly people living in care homes, nearly two-thirds are funded by the state. Many, according to the centre, suffer poor care because councils use their purchasing power to drive down fees.
The centre says Dilnot "says little about ameliorating the current system, which is in large part failing many … Those proposals do not address the means-tested system for those who have not been fortunate enough to own their own houses but instead find themselves dependent on the state in their old age."
The CSJ report, which points out that nearly £1bn has been "stripped out of social care budgets in England" in the last year, warns that a failure to target resources on the neediest will have a major impact on the NHS.
"Older people, we know, account for two-thirds of overnight stays in hospitals … Free at the point of use, and always open, accident and emergency departments have in many of the most deprived areas become 'catch-alls' for suffering."
Sarah Pickup, chair of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said the new report was a welcome reminder that implementing the Dilnot proposals on their own would not solve the crisis in adult social care.
"The CSJ is right to say that the commission has provided a good answer to the question about how to provide people with more certainty about the costs of care and to reduce the risk of catastrophic costs, but also to point out that solving this problem will not address the wider issue of the need for a level of funding which is sufficient to fund quality support and services to meet needs."
Labour questioned the premise of the CSJ report on the grounds that the current system already focuses on the poorest. People with combined income and assets above £23,250 have to pay for long-term care. Only pensioners with income and assets below £14,250 qualify for the maximum help from local council social care service. Councils have discretion for people with income and assets between those two figures.
Liz Kendall, the shadow social care minister, said: "The current social care system already focuses on the poorest and neediest in society. The problem is that the government's cuts to local council budgets have pushed the care system to breaking point.
"More than £1bn has been cut from council budgets for older people's social care since the coalition came to power. We need sufficient funding for existing services as well as reform for the future. It's a false choice to suggest otherwise."

Chen Guangcheng fears detained nephew may be tortured

Chinese activist recovering after house arrest says he is concerned about 'lawlessness' in home province of Shandong
Chen Guangcheng and Gary Locke

Chen Guangcheng holds hands with the US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, at a Beijing hospital. Photograph: AP
The blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has said he fears his nephew may be beaten and tortured after being detained by police.
Although Chen was confident last week's high-level deal between Chinaand the US would ensure his own wellbeing and freedom of movement, he told the Guardian he was concerned about the vulnerability of his relatives because of the "lawlessness" of his home province of Shandong.
The activist, who escaped from house arrest and initially fled to the US embassy last month, is now recuperating in a Beijing hospital.
But it has emerged that his nephew, Chen Kegui, is being investigated in connection with a bloody fight that broke out when local officials tried to enter the family home in Linyi, in Shandong province, after the escape.
The nephew previously said he stabbed one of the intruders in an act of self-defence. His lawyer, Liu Weiguo, who is being closely monitored by the police, said he was unable to talk freely about the case, which was still under investigation, but he feared the arrests of family members could hinder Chen's departure.
"It is hard to know how the local authorities will act as they do not seem to behave rationally," Liu said. "But if more family members are arrested, it will be less likely that Chen can go abroad. Maybe he will end up stuck in China." Chen said he was unaware of his nephew's condition, but his own experience in Linyi had taught him to fear the worst.
"My nephew certainly can't be in good condition in their hands. He'll certainly be tortured there … The public security organs, procuratorial organs and people's courts are absolutely lawless in Shandong province."
The treatment of Chen's relative and supporters has been mixed. He Peirong, the activist who drove Chen from Shandong to Beijing, has been released from police detention but ordered not to give interviews, and is likely to be under tight surveillance.
Chen said he had not been allowed to see his own lawyers, and expressed grief at reports that one of them – Jiang Tianyong – had been beaten. His own access to information is limited because diplomats, journalists and friends have been unable to go freely into his hospital room.
Another friend, Zeng Jinyan has been put under tighter restrictions since last Wednesday, and is now allowed out only to take her daughter to nursery school and to collect her.
Zeng revealed at the weekend that the police have also repeatedly denied her request to leave mainland China so that she can take up a university place in Hong Kong. "Last year, I began to talk to police about my study plans," she tweeted. "But until now, the result is always the same: they won't let me go."
Chen, in contrast, feels that he has a public, high-level assurance that he can leave to study. At the end of last week, he was offered a fellowship in the US, and the Chinese foreign ministry said he could apply for travel documents.
These guarantees remain somewhat ambiguous. Along with critical commentaries in the domestic media that accuse Chen of stirring up trouble in his home village over a UK-funded well that he helped to arrange, the vague words have prompted scepticism that the state will allow Chen to leave.
But the activist was optimistic the central government authorities would honour the arrangement.
"There may be a few obstacles, but I believe it will work out OK. They agreed to let me go abroad in full public view. They should let me go. This is my civil right," he said.
Asked whether he would like journalists and diplomats to visit him before he leaves, he was clear: "Generally, I like to interact with people – any people."

Most water companies not required to cut leaks before 2015 despite drought

More than half of water companies will not be required to reduce leakages before 2015, despite the worst drought in 25 years
Water leak


Workers replace water pipes in north London. Ofwat data shows the water industry will cut leaks by only 1.5% by 2015. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
More than half of water companies will not be required to reduce their leakages by a single drop before 2015, despite the worst drought in 25 years. Data obtained by the Guardian from the regulator Ofwat also shows the entire water industry will cut leaks by only 1.5% in that time.
Every day, 3.4bn litres of water leaks from the system, almost a quarter of the entire supply. After two years of low rainfall, drought has been declared across southern and central England, with no end in sight for the hosepipe ban imposed in many places. The wettest April on record has revived rivers, but groundwater reserves remain low as the water runs off hardened ground.
Since the privatisation of the water industry in 1989, Ofwat has set leakage reduction targets for the 21 water companies, which operate local monopolies across England and Wales. Analysis of the data, supplied to Ofwat by the companies themselves, revealed:
• Eleven companies have targets of zero reduction of leaks by 2015. They include Yorkshire Water, which failed to meet its 2010-11 targets and as a result was required to spend an additional £33m on leak repairs.
• Leaks have been reduced across England and Wales by only 5% over the past 13 years.
• The worst-performing company, Southern Water, which supplies Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, missed its latest leak target by 16% and had to pay £5m back to customers, but will be allowed to increase its leakage by 6% by 2015.
• The 25-year management plans of the water companies envisage reducing leakage by only 10% in that time.
Ofwat and the water industry highlight a one-third reduction in leakages since privatisation, but over the past 12 years, year-on-year leakages have increased as often as they have fallen, suggesting no long-term downward trend.
The average annual customer bill for water has risen by £64 since 2001 and is now £376, while the companies collectively made £2bn in pre-tax profits and paid £1.5bn in dividends to shareholders in 2010-11.
"Clearly there are vested interests at play," said Gavin Shuker, the shadow water minister. "It costs more to repair leaks than the immediate value of the water itself, so while it makes sense for a water company to ignore leaks, it certainly doesn't stack up in the long term for us, the consumers, or for our environment. Yet the government appears to have dropped its water bill from the forthcoming Queen's speech. What will it take to ensure ministers start holding these offshore-owned water companies to account?"
A government spokesman told the Guardian that leakage targets were set to be reviewed in the light of the drought, and an interim verbal agreement had been struck with water companies that extra efforts would be made to tackle leakage. But no new targets have been set. "We have to find a balance between the need to fix leaks with keeping water billsaffordable for people," he said.
The 1.5% reduction in leaks will be supplemented by measures to reduce water usage such as more efficient taps and toilets and the installation of meters, said a spokesman for Ofwat. Both actions together will cut just under 2% from current daily usage.
"In the last six years, we have made companies failing on leakage pay out more than £200m from their own pockets to put problems right," said the Ofwat spokesman. "During a period of drought, companies need to step up to the plate and do more. We also need to take a long term view: climate change and more households will stretch water supplies even further in coming years."
A spokesman for the trade body Water UK, which represents the 21 water companies, said: "Water companies take leakage and their customers' views of leakage extremely seriously. It is fair to focus on the agreed leakage targets [but] the cost to make the system completely watertight would be simply unaffordable for consumers' water bills."
A House of Lords report on 3 May recommended that water bills increase to help reduce usage.
Southern Water said severe winters in 2009-10 and 2010-11 had caused it to miss its targets. "Two exceptionally cold winters saw pipes burst at an alarming, record high rate," said a spokesman. He said the company, whose customers' bills rose by an above-average £82 from 2001-2011, delivered one of the lowest levels of leakage per property of the 21 water companies, with 16% of supplies lost overall. The weakening in the target set by Ofwat was because Southern's leakage targets were "reprofiled" after the severe winters.
There are more than 210,000 miles of water pipes across England and Wales, a length equivalent to eight times the circumference of the Earth, which serve 23m properties. Ofwat said it would cost £100bn to replace all the pipes in England and Wales, which would cut leaks by only 50% because even new pipes quickly leak. The water industry has invested just under £100bn in infrastructure since 1989.
Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said: "Ofwat's approach to setting leakage targets needs to recognise customers' perception that water companies are not doing enough about their leaky pipes. It's not just about economics. The negative perception of leakage is the biggest barrier to customers doing more to save water."
• This article has been amended on May 7 to remove the assertion that water companies have no targets on reducing leaks

Vladimir Putin inaugurated as Russian president amid Moscow protests

Putin sworn in as riot police, backed by armoured cars, empty streets of protesters and detain more than 100


Vladimir Putin




Vladimir Putin heads for his inauguration in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow. Photograph: Dmitry Astakhov/AP
Walking a long red carpet through gilded doors, Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian presidency on Monday in an inauguration fit for a king.
Followed by police motorcycles, Putin sped in a black Mercedes through streets that had been emptied of people. There were no protesting – or adoring – crowds for him to see or be seen by. He made the journey to the Kremlin silently and alone.
There was no mention on the three state television channels of the hundreds of anti-Putin protesters who roamed the streets of Moscow, hoping to outmanoeuvre the riot police who had been called in to quash them.
Putin looked sombre as he stepped from the limousine on to a red carpet that extended for many hundreds of feet up marble staircases, round sharp corners and through heavy doors dripping with gold. When at last he reached the Kremlin's ornate Andreyevsky Hall, he was greeted by 3,000 applauding guests.
Military officers stood alongside cabinet ministers and priests. Mikhail Gorbachev was there, as was Boris Yeltsin's widow, Naina. Foreign guests were few, the most notable being Putin's longtime friends Silvio Berlusconi and the former chancellor of Germany Gerhard Shröder. Most surprising for many was the appearance of Putin's rarely seen wife, Lyudmila. Wearing a white skirt-suit, she grimaced throughout the ceremony, swaying back and forth.
The outgoing president, Dmitry Medvedev, spoke first. He was later nominated by Putin as the country's new prime minister, fulfilling the duo's promise to switch roles in what some Russians have likened to a "castling" move in chess.
"The inauguration of a new president always marks a new stage in our country's life and history," Medvedev said, making no mention of Putin's two previous terms as president. "Continuity in the country's policy is essential for Russia to keep moving forward."
Medvedev praised his own achievements, highlighting citizens' increased involvement in civic life and the authorities' "openness for dialogue and co-operation".
At that moment, less than one mile from the Kremlin, riot police moved in to arrest dozens of protesters for shouting "Russia without Putin!" and wearing the opposition movement's white ribbon symbol.
Putin then took the presidency, gravely placing his hand on a red bound copy of the constitution and swearing to "respect and protect human and civil rights and freedoms" and "the sovereignty and independence, security and integrity of the state".
In a short speech, Putin declared that "the whole point and purpose of my life is serving our fatherland and our people". In perhaps the only acknowledgement of the fissures in Russian society that followed the announcement of his intention to return to the presidency, he urged unity.
"We want to live and we will live in a democratic country," Putin said.
Putin shook hands with dozens of well-wishers in the crowd as he walked away to his next engagement, the receipt of the "nuclear suitcase" containing the codes to Russia's powerful nuclear arsenal, a symbol of presidential might. Thirty cannons fired a sustained salute, before Putin entered the Kremlin's church-filled courtyard, greeting the military officers waiting to parade for him with a hearty: "Hello comrades!"
With the official and militaristic parts of the ceremony over, Putin and his wife retired for a private prayer with Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
A lavish party is reported to have followed, with 5,000 bottles of champagne as well as vodka, caviar, Kamchatka crab and other Russian delicacies.
Clashes continued around Moscow as the dinner began. Thousands of riot police, backed by armoured cars, poured through the streets of the city as protesters attempted to outrun them.
More than 100 people were detained, including protest leader Boris Nemtsov, who was also briefly detained at a violent protest on Sunday. Many of the more than 400 people arrested at that protest remained in prison. Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov were released after being ordered to pay a small fine.
In a new twist, riot police began targeting cafes frequented by Russia's opposition. As the inauguration began, they stormed the central Jean-Jacques cafe, overturning outdoor tables and grabbing patrons, seemingly at random.
"France gets a new president, and we get this," said Irina Yelenina, 50, as riot police closed in on protesters near Jean-Jacques. "It's very scary."
One Russian uploaded a video to social networks of riot police storming another café on Sunday night and grabbing a patron.
Riot police also roamed the streets in the Chistie Prudi neighbourhood grabbing anyone wearing a white ribbon. Several of the young men detained on Sunday and Monday took to Twitter to write that after being arrested, they had been ordered to report for military service.
Valery Astanin, a member of the Moscow army draft board, confirmed the strategy to Interfax news agency: "There were more than 100 young people of draft age among those detained by law enforcement, including more than 70 who have long avoided the military draft."
Many Muscovites bribe their way out of Russia's military service, obligatory for men aged between 18 and 27, because of the army's notorious hazing rituals and poor living conditions.
Officials continued to downplay the protests. "I don't see a link between these incidents and the situation in the country as a whole," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Russia Today. "What I saw was a bunch of marginal people."

Cabinet in confusion over NHS risk register publication

Ministers to decide whether to veto ruling that it should publish assessment of impact of the new Health and Social Care Act
David Cameron Andrew Lansley during a round table discussion at Downing Street in London



David Cameron and health secretary Andrew Lansley face confusion over publishing an assessment of impact of the Health and Social Care Act. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
The cabinet will decide on Tuesday whether the government wants to veto a ruling that it should publish a full and frank assessment of the impacts of its Health and Social Care Act, which was passed in March.
Ministers plan to discuss a possible appeal or veto amid confusion over whether they might have missed the deadline for both, following a rulingby the information tribunal last month that the risk register must be made public.
The disagreement over dates – which relates to whether the 20-day deadline for a veto and 28 days for an appeal include weekends and bank holidays – is awkward for a government already embarrassed byconfusion over another deadline in the Home Office's continuing efforts to deport the radical cleric Abu Qatada. That dispute has become part of the litany of criticisms rolled into claims that the coalition has become an "omnishambles" – a tag it appears to be finding it hard to shake off.
The information tribunal announced in March that it rejected an initial government appeal against the information commissioner, and published its full ruling on 5 April, setting out that the Department of Health should publish the risk register.
Under the tribunal's rules, the government has 20 days to exercise a veto – a drastic step it has taken only three times in more than a decade – 28 days to lodge an appeal, or 30 days to publish the information. After a day of confusion, lawyers for the MP who first lodged the request for the risk register to be published suggested that the 28 days to appeal did include weekends and bank holidays, and so had passed. But the government said the 20 days to veto the ruling included only working days, and so the deadline was Tuesday. A third option for the government is to launch a late appeal if it can convince the tribunal that there were good reasons for the delay.
Either way, the decision is likely to be controversial, despite the original health bill having passed into law, because Labour has continued to keep up its strong opposition while ministers try to get the necessary secondary legislation passed.
John Healey, the Labour MP who made the original request for the risk register under the Freedom of Information Act, said an application for a veto would be "a desperate act which will backfire badly".
"People will suspect ministers of burying this bad news on the eve of the Queen's speech," added Healey. "It adds to the aura of political panic, and will only fuel doubt and distrust about the government's NHS plans. There must be some very big risks in the government's NHS reorganisation for ministers to override the law."
Government officials, however, emphasised that any veto or appeal would be because they did not want a precedent set for publishing "confidential" advice from civil servants to ministers about prospective policies, which includes "worst-case scenarios".
"Our position on this hasn't changed," said one senior official. "The idea of a risk register is they are frank information for minsters on which to make decisions. If, instead of being confidential, risk registers are now effectively public documents, the nature of the advice would inevitably be different and not necessarily the advice we would require."

CIA 'foiled al-Qaida bomb plot' around anniversary of Bin Laden death

Officials say al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen plotted to blow up US- bound jet using upgrade of 2009 underwear bomb, AP reports
al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsular

US officials say the plot involved al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen. Photograph: AFP/Getty
The CIA has thwarted a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.
US officials say the plot involved an "upgrade" of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
This new bomb was also built to be used in a passenger's underwear but contained a more refined detonation system.
The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.
The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It is not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.
The operation unfolded even as the White House and department of homeland security assured the American public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the US around the anniversary of bin Laden's death. The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way.
Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.
The White House confirmed the story after the AP published it on Monday afternoon. Caitlin Hayden, the deputy national security council spokeswoman, said in a statement that Obama was first informed about the plot in April by his homeland security adviser John Brennan, and was advised that it did not pose a threat to the public.
She said: "The disruption of this IED plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad. The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand."
It's not clear who built the bomb, but, because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Detroit bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the US on cargo planes in 2010.
Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.
The operation is an intelligence victory for the United States and a reminder of al-Qaida's ambitions, despite the death of bin Laden and other senior leaders. Because of instability in the Yemeni government, the terrorist group's branch there has gained territory and strength. It has set up terrorist camps and, in some areas, even operates as a de facto government.
But along with the gains there also have been losses. The group has suffered significant setbacks as the CIA and the US military focus more on Yemen. On Sunday, Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaida leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern Shabwa province of Yemen.
Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $5m reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the US for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.
Al-Quso was believed to have replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as the group's head of external operations.

CIA 'foiled al-Qaida bomb plot' around anniversary of Bin Laden death

Officials say al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen plotted to blow up US- bound jet using upgrade of 2009 underwear bomb, AP reports
al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsular




US officials say the plot involved al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen. Photograph: AFP/Getty
The CIA has thwarted a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.
US officials say the plot involved an "upgrade" of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
This new bomb was also built to be used in a passenger's underwear but contained a more refined detonation system.
The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.
The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It is not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.
The operation unfolded even as the White House and department of homeland security assured the American public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the US around the anniversary of bin Laden's death. The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way.
Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.
The White House confirmed the story after the AP published it on Monday afternoon. Caitlin Hayden, the deputy national security council spokeswoman, said in a statement that Obama was first informed about the plot in April by his homeland security adviser John Brennan, and was advised that it did not pose a threat to the public.
She said: "The disruption of this IED plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad. The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand."
It's not clear who built the bomb, but, because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Detroit bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the US on cargo planes in 2010.
Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.
The operation is an intelligence victory for the United States and a reminder of al-Qaida's ambitions, despite the death of bin Laden and other senior leaders. Because of instability in the Yemeni government, the terrorist group's branch there has gained territory and strength. It has set up terrorist camps and, in some areas, even operates as a de facto government.
But along with the gains there also have been losses. The group has suffered significant setbacks as the CIA and the US military focus more on Yemen. On Sunday, Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaida leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern Shabwa province of Yemen.
Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $5m reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the US for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.
Al-Quso was believed to have replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as the group's head of external operations.

Eurozone crisis: Merkel tells Athens and Paris to stick to spending limits

Efforts to save the euro under threat after EU leaders' strategies collide with the wishes of voters in Greece and France
Angela Merkel reacts before a party board meeting in Berlin

German chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted Athens must comply with the stringent terms of its €130bn (£100bn) bailout. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
Europe's 30-month effort to save the euro by slashing spending and debt levels risks turning into a crisis of political legitimacy after EU leaders' strategies collided spectacularly with the wishes of voters in Greece and France.
The impasse was most graphically demonstrated when Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, insisted Athens must comply with the stringent terms of its €130bn (£100bn) bailout even though more than 60% of the Greek electorate had voted for parties rejecting those terms.
Following a French election campaign in which she strongly backed the loser, Nicolas Sarkozy, and snubbed the president-elect, François Hollande, Merkel stressed her opposition to Hollande's central campaign pledge: reopening the euro's new rulebook, or fiscal pact.
"That's just not on," she told a Berlin press conference called to address the huge shift from right to left in France.
The first attempt to cobble together a new Greek government collapsed quickly when Antonis Samaras, the centre-right leader, called off negotiations. Greece appears to be on the brink of ungovernability as a result of a messy election triggered by the euro crisis. The stock market suffered its worse fall since 2008, losing as much as 8% of its value before closing 6.7% down. The country's banking index was 13% lower.
Market analysts shortened the odds against the country's chances of surviving in the single currency.
"The irresistible force of German austerity has clashed with the immovable object of Greek popular resistance," said Tristan Cooper, sovereign debt analyst at Fidelity Worldwide Investment. "The eurozone's weakest link just got weaker. Although it should be no surprise that Greeks are spurning the bitter medicine, the violence of the rejection is a shock. A Greek eurozone exit is now firmly on the cards."
But Klaus Regling, the German head of the eurozone's temporary bailout fund, warned that a return to the drachma would "be a catastrophe for Greece".
In an election that saw the most spectacular collapse of big established parties in modern European democracy, the centre-right New Democracy and the centre-left Pasok mustered just over 30% of the vote between them, compared with almost 80% three years ago.
Samaras, the New Democracy leader, said he had "returned the mandate", abandoning the attempt to construct a parliamentary majority. "We did whatever was possible," he said.
The big winner, Syriza, a coalition of leftist radicals that came second, squarely blamed Merkel for the mess. "European leaders and especially Merkel have to understand that austerity policies have suffered defeat," said its young leader, Alexis Tsipras.
After two years of prescribing austerity as the cure for the debt disease and establishing the legal instruments to entrench it, EU leaders have now switched to talking of growth strategies. They speak of the merits of growth, but are split on how to achieve it.
Both centrist leaders in Athens, Antonis Samaras of New Democracy and Evangelos Venizelos of Pasok, called for the bailout terms to be renegotiated, putting the commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank on the spot.
"We've said over and over that Greece should stay in the euro. But everyone has to carry their responsibilities. Solidarity is a two-way street," said Amadeu Altafaj, spokesman for Olli Rehn, the euro commissioner. "Timely implementation of the programme is of the essence."
That appears a tall order, though, with Greece apparently condemned to weeks or months of instability and the possibility of having to stage yet another election.
Merkel has her own electoral problems. After losing a regional state election on Sunday and facing a sterner test next weekend in the key state of North-Rhine Westfalia, she stuck to her hard line on fiscal rigouron Monday. But she was also generous towards Hollande, saying she would welcome him to Berlin "with open arms". Hollande, who has never met Merkel, has said he will go to Berlin the day after he is sworn in, scheduled for next Tuesday.
With European politics flirting with meltdown as incumbent leaders are felled, the renewed air of emergency is generating heated language from senior figures, mainly directed at Merkel.
On Monday the former president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, argued that the EU was becoming both dominated and neglected by Germany.
"Is the Europe that is emerging from the euro crisis a German one? During the euro crisis, power in the EU seems to have shifted towards one national capital in particular, Berlin," she wrote in Warsaw's Gazeta Wyborcza, together with Italy's former European commissioner Antonio Vitorino. "Germany, it seems, is becoming a 'geo-economic power' driven by the needs of its export sector. By using economic means to pursue its foreign-policy ends, Germany is gradually turning its back on its European partners."
The anti-German sentiment, which has Berlin worried, is echoed in a cri de coeur from Greece's outgoing development minister and former European Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou, to Jacques Delors and Romano Prodi, two former commission heads, couched as an "SOS" to save Europe. Her letter, leaked to the Guardian, argues passionately that the austerity gripping Europe has reduced the union to quasi-wartime conditions. "It is like a war when a country loses 20% of its GDP in 18 months. It is like a war when we have the reappearance of rations in European capitals. It is like a war when millions of young people, the best and the brightest, leave their countries behind," she wrote.
"Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even France are in the midst of a forest fire which is spreading alarmingly fast. The belief that such a fire can be stopped at national borders is misjudged. The European Council has been shrunk by the authority of its financial powerhouse, Germany."