LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed Wednesday that the U.K. will withdraw 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, modestly reducing the size of the second largest foreign force in the country to 9,000. Following a two-day visit to Afghanistan to holds talks with troops, officials and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Cameron told the House of Commons the withdrawal would go ahead. His announcement follows President Barack Obama's decision last month that 33,000 American troops will leave the country by the end of next summer. mens tiffany bracelet
About 68,000 U.S. troops will remain. All international forces will end their combat role by the end of 2014, and the majority will leave — bar a small number of troops expected to continue working on training projects. "This reduction reflects the progress that is being made in building up the Afghan national security forces," Cameron told legislators hours after arriving back from Afghanistan. Cameron had previously announced that the withdrawal of 420 troops deployed on temporary missions to Afghanistan is under way and will be completed by February. tiffany bracelet
Those personnel are not considered part of Britain's 9,500-strong permanent force, almost all of whom are based in the restive southern Helmand province. Cameron's visit to the region was marred Monday by the killing of 20-year-old Scott McLaren, who went missing from a checkpoint in central Helmand and was later found with fatal gunshot wounds. "This decision is not only right for Britain, it is right for Afghanistan too," Cameron told legislators. "It has given the Afghans a clear deadline against which to plan and has injected a sense of urgency into their efforts. tiffany earrings
" He insisted that Afghanistan's military and police were growing in confidence, and increasingly able to take full responsibility for the country's security by the end of 2014 when international forces will end their combat role. He sadi that in a meeting in Kabul late Monday, U.S. Gen. David Petreaus had heaped praise on Afghanistan's handling of a deadly suicide attack on a luxury hotel in the country's capital. "Petreaus went out of his way to praise the ability of the Afghan forces in a number of complex operations," Cameron said. Some analysts say the assault raised doubts about the capability of Afghan forces to handle security.
tiffany bracelet heart Local troops needed NATO's assistance to end the incident at Kabul's Inter-Continental hotel, in which 20 people including the attackers died. In a news conference with Cameron on Tuesday in Kabul, Karzai said he hoped that Britain "could continue to help Afghanistan, to build up our infrastructure, build our civil society" at the same time it wound down its military mission. "While there will be a reduction of troops — some drastic, some not so drastic — the process of transition to Afghan authority must go on unhindered and unimpeded," Karzai said. cheap tiffany earrings
cheap tiffany rings saleORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Florida jury has acquitted Casey Anthony of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. Anthony began crying when the jury's verdict was read Tuesday after more than 10 hours of deliberations. She hugged her attorney afterward, and a prosecutor shook his head in disbelief. She could have received a death sentence if she had been convicted of first-degree murder. She was found guilty of lying to investigators. Judge Belvin Perry will sentence her Thursday. She could receive up to a year in jail for each count. Caylee disappeared in June 2008 and her body was found in woods near her grandparent's home six months later. NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bare-headed motorcyclist riding in protest of New York state's helmet law crashed, struck his head on the roadway and died from his injuries, state police said on Sunday. Philip Contos, 55, was riding among a large group of motorcyclists staging an organized protest ride in western New York near Syracuse against the state law requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets.
tiffany ringsThe Parish, New York, resident crashed on Saturday on Route 11 in Onondaga, New York, and was pronounced dead later at a local hospital, state Trooper Robert Jureller said. "The doctor felt that the death could have been prevented if he simply had been wearing a helmet," Jureller said. "He hit the brakes, lost control, was ejected and struck his head on the road. He suffered a skull fracture." INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When 18-year-old Tyell Morton put a blow-up sex doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school, he didn't expect school officials to call a bomb squad or that he'd be facing up to eight years in prison and a possible felony record. The senior prank gone awry has raised questions of race, prosecutorial zeal and the post-Columbine mindset in a small Indiana town and around the country, The Indianapolis Star reported in its Tuesday editions. Legal experts question the appropriateness of the charges against Morton, and law professor Jonathan Turley at George Washington University posed a wider question about Morton's case on his legal blog. tiffany rings for men
"The question is what type of society we are creating when our children have to fear that a prank (could) lead them to jail for almost a decade. What type of citizens are we creating who fear the arbitrary use of criminal charges by their government?" A janitor at Rushville Consolidated High School saw Morton run away from the school May 31, and security footage showed a person in a hooded sweatshirt and gloves entering the school with a package and leaving five minutes later without it, according to court documents. Administrators feared explosives, so they locked down the school and called police. K9 dogs and a bomb squad searched the building before finding the sex doll. "We have reviewed this situation numerous times," Rush County Schools Superintendent John E. Williams told the newspaper last week. "When you have an unknown intruder in the building, delivering an unknown package, we come up with the same conclusion. ... We cannot be too cautious, in this day and age." Morton was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and institutional criminal mischief, a felony that carries the potential of two to eight years in prison. tiffany rings for women
"I know there has been plenty of pranks done at that school," said Morton's mother, Cammie Morton. "I went to that school. When I heard what they was charging him for, my heart just dropped." Joel Schumm, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, questioned the validity of the charges. "Their reaction is understandable, but use the school disciplinary process," he said. "Don't try to label the kid a felon for the rest of his life." The Rush County Prosecutor Philip J. Caviness told The Associated Press that he doesn't intend to seek a prison term for Morton, but said school officials acted appropriately and that the charges are warranted. "I'm pretty comfortable with the charges that we've filed," he said. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts focused on Morton's case recently in his nationally syndicated column, suggesting that Morton's case was another example of unfair treatment for a black youth without a wealthy family.
tiffany necklaceMorton's father brushed off that suggestion when Pitts asked him about it, and Morton's mother declined to discuss that point with The Star. Morton's attorney, Robert Turner, also downplayed race, suggesting that the size of the small blue-collar city an hour southeast of Indianapolis played a role. "I don't think they do this sort of thing very often," Turner said. "Had this happened in Indianapolis ... they would not have had this kind of charge filed." Morton's mother said Tyell Morton wants to attend college, but is worried about the case. "It's stressful for Tyell," Cammie Morton said. "He doesn't know where his life is going to end up. He has been looking — I'll just put it this way: He's scared." cheap tiffany necklace
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The rules of Treasury auctions may not sound like the stuff of high-stakes diplomacy. But a little-noticed 2009 change in how Washington sells its debt sheds new light on America's delicate balancing act with its biggest creditor, China. When the Treasury Department revamped its rules for participating in government bond auctions two years ago, officials said they were simply modernizing outdated procedures. The real reason for the change, a Reuters investigation has found, was more serious: The Treasury had concluded that China was buying much more in U.S.
government debt than was being disclosed, potentially in violation of auction rules, and it wanted to bring those purchases into the open - all without ruffling feathers in Beijing. Treasury officials then worked to keep the reason for the auction-rule change quiet, with the acting assistant Treasury secretary for financial markets instructing subordinates to not mention any specific creditor's role in the matter, according to an email seen by Reuters. Inquiries made at the time by the main trade organization for Treasury dealers elicited the explanation that the change was a "technical modernization," according to a document seen by Reuters. There was no mention of China. The incident calls into question just how clear a handle the Treasury has had on who is buying U.S. debt. Pandora Charms On Sale
Chinese entities hold at least $1.115 trillion in U.S. government debt, and are thought to account for roughly 26 percent of the paper issued by Washington, according to U.S. government data released on June 15. China's vast Treasury holdings are both a lifeline and a vulnerability for Washington - if the Chinese sold their Treasuries all at once, it could undermine U.S. markets and the economy by driving interest rates higher very quickly. Scenarios of this sort have been discussed in Washington defense-policy circles for at least a year now. Pandora Charms Online
Not knowing the full extent of these holdings would make it even more difficult to assess China's political leverage over U.S. finances. The Treasury has long said that it has a diversified base of investors and isn't overly reliant on any single buyer to digest new U.S. Treasury issuance. Evidence that China was actually buying more than disclosed would cast doubt on those assurances. THE 'GUARANTEED' BID The United States sells its debt to investors through auctions that are held weekly - sometimes four times per week - by the Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt, in batches ranging from $13 billion to $35 billion at a time. Pandora Bangles
Investors can buy the bonds directly from the Treasury at auctions, or through any of the 20 elite "primary dealers," Wall Street firms authorized to bid on behalf of customers. The Treasury limits the amount any single bidder can purchase to 35 percent of a given auction. Anyone who bought more than 35 percent of a particular batch of Treasury securities at a single auction would have a controlling stake in that batch. By the beginning of 2009, China, which uses multiple firms to buy U.S. Treasuries, was regularly doing deals that had the effect of hiding billions of dollars of purchases in each auction, according to interviews with traders at primary dealers and documents viewed by Reuters. Using a method of purchases known as "guaranteed bidding," China was forging gentleman's agreements with primary dealers to purchase a certain amount of Treasury securities on offer at an auction without being reported as bidders in that auction, according to the people interviewed. Pandora Beads Sale
After setting the amount of Treasuries the guaranteed bidder wanted to buy, the dealer would then buy that amount in the auction, technically on its own behalf. To the government officials observing the auction, it would look like the dealer was buying the securities with the intent of adding them to its own balance sheet. This technicality does not preclude selling them later in the secondary market, but does influence the outcome of bidding in the auction, by obscuring the ultimate buyer. In fact, the dealer would simply pass the bonds on immediately to the anonymous, guaranteed bidder at the auction price, as soon as they were issued, according to the people interviewed. The practice kept the true size of China's holdings hidden from U.S. Pandora Bracelets Sale
view, according to Treasury dealers interviewed, and may have allowed China at times to buy controlling stakes - more than 35 percent - in some of the securities the Treasury issued. The Treasury department, too, came to believe that China was breaching the 35 percent limit, according to internal documents viewed by Reuters, though the documents do not indicate whether the Treasury was able to verify definitively that this occurred. Guaranteed bidding wasn't illegal, but breaking the 35 percent limit would be. The Uniform Offering Circular - a document governing Treasury auctions - says anyone who wins more than 35 percent of a single auction will have his purchase reduced to the 35 percent limit. Pandora Bracelets Online
Those caught breaking auction rules can be barred from future auctions, and may be referred to the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Justice Department. The Treasury Department generally does not comment on specific investors but a source in the department said China was not the only Treasury buyer striking guaranteed bidding deals. People familiar with the matter named Russia as being among the guaranteed bidders. But Russia's total Treasury holdings, while significant, represent 2.8 percent of outstanding U.S. debt, versus one-fourth for China's. CHANGING THE RULE Traders at primary dealers did not have the same diplomatic concerns about the level of Chinese buying. But they did have reasons to dislike guaranteed bidding, and they began clamoring for a change. One trader said in an interview he first brought the issue to the attention of Treasury officials in 2007.
Pandora Bracelet Charms Some primary dealers began expressing concern that the deals were opaque in a way akin to the Salomon Brothers Treasury trading scandal in the early 1990s. In that case, traders from the securities firm submitted false bids under other bidders' names in Treasury auctions in order to more closely control the results, and their bids altered the auction prices. The idea that unseen bidders were again influencing auction prices raised similar concerns among traders. There were also commercial concerns: Dealers say that knowing that the practice was going on at other firms made them less confident they could see and understand overall patterns of buying in the Treasury market. Pandora Charms Sale
Such visibility can be one of the greatest benefits of being a primary dealer, since the service itself often doesn't pull in big profits directly. Some traders at primary dealers say they simply refused to do the deals and ended up turning away customers, including China. That irked sales colleagues who were promising clients guaranteed bidding deals. At the beginning of 2009, Treasury officials began discussing the issue of guaranteed bidders, with a focus on China's behavior, internal documents seen by Reuters show. The culmination of their efforts was a change to the Uniform Offering Circular published on June 1, 2009 that eliminated the provision allowing guaranteed bidding. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was in Beijing that day meeting with Chinese government officials on his first formal visit to China since taking up his cabinet post. Pandora Beads Charms
There is no evidence he discussed the rule change with Chinese officials there. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department said: "We regularly review and update our auction rules to ensure the continued integrity of the auction process. The auction change made in June 2009 eliminated some ambiguity in auction rules and increased transparency, which ultimately benefits taxpayers and investors." The rule change had an immediate impact. In the first auctions conducted after guaranteed bidding was banned, a key metric rose sharply: the percentage of so-called indirect bidders, those who placed their auction bids through primary dealers. Indirect bidders are seen as a proxy measure for foreign central bank buying, because foreign central banks most often bid through primary dealers. With the elimination of the guaranteed bidder provision, far more buyers were put in this class in reports to the Treasury Department. The seven-year U.S. Tre pandora packages
asury note, which was sold in sizes of between $22 billion and $28 billion once a month from February 2009 to September 2009, had an average indirect bid percentage of 33 percent from February through May. But from June to September the average indirect bid rose to 63 percent. BIDDERS REACT Shortly after the Treasury revised the auction rules, U.S. officials learned from dealers that some bidders were seeking to continue using guaranteed bids.
According to a Treasury document, a large client asked one primary dealer whether the Treasury might make an exception to the new rule for them. Neither the client nor the dealer were named. Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, RBS Securities and UBS all received calls from clients asking for secret bid arrangements immediately after the rule change went into effect, according to the internal Treasury document, a summary of inquiries received seeking guidance from dealers after the rule change. Pandora Charms for bracelets
Deutsche Bank, according to the document, said their client canceled a bidding deal. Goldman told Treasury that a large client would be going to other dealers who in the past had done the deals after Goldman turned them away, the document said. JPMorgan asked if there were any exceptions to the new prohibition on guaranteed bids. RBS said it actually struck a deal with a customer for a guaranteed bid after the rule change, but it used a different structure and wanted to know what was legal. UBS told the New York Fed that its former guaranteed-bidder client would now change its behavior and buy Treasuries in the secondary market directly after an auction, according to the document. Spokespeople for Goldman Sachs and UBS declined to comment for this story. Deutsche Bank, RBS, and JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment.
Pandora NecklaceThe change came at a delicate time in U.S.-Chinese financial relations. China, long a major buyer of American government securities, was at the time snapping up huge amounts of debt as Washington was suffering a sharp drop in tax revenue during a crushing recession. Almost all of the business of buying Treasuries on behalf of the Chinese government is conducted by China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), an arm of the Chinese central bank which manages China's currency reserves, which include large amounts of U.S. Treasury bonds. SAFE, for its part, was facing heat in China over the extent of its U.S. holdings. Pandora Charms Bracelets
SAFE was hit hard by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the doomed investment bank that was SAFE's trading counterparty in the U.S. overnight-lending market. And the potential losses SAFE faced upon the collapse of the U.S.-backed mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whipped up such a storm in China that Chinese officials publicly berated the Americans for lapses in financial stewardship. SAFE officials in Beijing did not respond to a request for comment. After evidence mounted that China was disconcerted by the auction-rule change, U.S. officials moved to tweak the system, to offset some of the pinch of the stricter bidding rules. The move gave big buyers a way to maintain some anonymity, by increasing the amount of securities it was possible to buy at a single auction without having to declare the purchase in a letter to the New York Fed. Pandora Necklace Silver
The old requirement stipulated that any purchase of $750 million in Treasury securities had to be declared by the buyer in a letter to the New York Fed. Officials increased the threshold to $2 billion. 'TECHNICAL MODERNIZATION' The official explanation for eliminating guaranteed bidders did not mention foreign central banks at all. It focused instead on "technical modernization" of auction rules. One government official warned others in a written message "not to include the words 'China' or 'SAFE' in email subjects." The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the main trade organization for Treasury dealers, asked the Treasury in early June 2009 to explain the change.
The Treasury's response: It had found that a detail in its auction rules no longer applied to the way auctions were conducted, and so the rule was changed, according to an internal Treasury memo. Separately, the Treasury's acting assistant secretary for financial markets, Karthik Ramanathan, told subordinates in an email: "Please let's stick to the 'Modernization of Auction Rules' when outside requests come in on the (rule) change. Please DO NOT emphasize the guaranteed bid portion, or mention any specific investors. Pandora Beads
" Ramanathan, who left the Treasury in March of 2010 and is now senior vice president and director of bonds at Fidelity Investments in Merrimack, New Hampshire, declined to comment. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which interacts directly with primary dealers on Treasury auctions, issued a strongly worded letter on June 23, 2009, dealers say, urging them to "comply with the spirit as well as the letter of this recent auction rule clarification." "That was how we knew they wanted us to tell them who was buying what," said a trader at one primary dealer. Pandora Charms
Pandora Charms for braceletsWildlife enforcement troopers at Dillingham reported this past week citing 13 individuals for violations in sport angler fisheries. Except as otherwise noted, bail was set at $100 and all were scheduled for arraignment in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Daniel P. Wiard, 51, of Dillingham was cited on June 20 for failure to record a king salmon taken in the Nushagak River immediately upon landing as required. Justin Orr, 32, of Anchorage AK was cited on June 19 for failure to record a king salmon taken in the Nushagak River immediately upon landing as required. Kent D. Anderson, 42, of Welches OR. was cited June 18 for failure to complete sport fish guide log book as required while sport fish guiding on the Nushagak River. Pandora Necklace
Bail was set at $200 and arraignment scheduled in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Tyler C. Novak, 33, of Boulder, CO, was cited on June 22 for aiding his clients in committing a violation while engaged as a sport fish guide on the Nushagak River. Arraignment is scheduled in Dillingham District Court on July 13. Richard W. Brown, 61, of Sekiu WA, was cited June 25 for sport fishing with more than one line on the Nushagak River. Pandora Necklace Silver
David Carson, 40, of Charlotte, NC was cited June 22 for fishing for king salmon on the Nushagak River without a valid king salmon stamp in his possession. Bail was set at $200, with arraignment in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Bruce Pendleton, 71, of Reno, NV, was cited June 25 for failing to record a king salmon taken on the Nushagak River immediately upon landing as required. Richard Carson, 42, of New Mexico was cited June 22 for fishing for king salmon on the Nushagak River without a valid king salmon stamp in his possession.
Pandora Charms BraceletsBail was set at $200.00, with arraignment in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Felicia A. Bill, 21, Goleta, CA was cited June 17 for failing to record a king salmon taken on the Nushagak River immediately upon landing as required. Peter M. Digrazia, 71, of Reno, NV was cited June 25 for taking an over limit of king salmon and failing to record a king salmon taken on the Nushagak River immediately upon landing as required. One king salmon was seized during the investigation and donated to charity. Cheap Pandora Jewelry
Bail was set at $350, with arraignment in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Jason A. Jaime, 33, of Soldotna, was cited June 25 for aiding his clients in committing a violation while engaged in sport fish guiding on the Nushagak River. Arraignment set for Dillingham District Court on July 28. Dallas Countryman, 24, of Wenatchee, WA., was cited June 25 for failing to complete his sport fish guide log book as required while sport fish guiding on the Nushagak River. Bail for the offense is $200 and arraignment was set for Dillingham District Court within 20 days.
Jeffrey H. Wilson, 56, of Huron, OH, was cited June 26 for failing to complete his sport fish guide log book as required while conducting sport fish guiding services on the Nushagak River. Bail was set at $200, with arraignment in Dillingham District Court within 20 days. Pandora Jewelry
tiffany outletNEW ORLEANS (AP) — Lt. Michael Lohman knew police had a serious problem when he arrived at the scene of deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina. Officers had shot and killed two people and wounded four others, but no guns were found on any of the victims. Lohman, the ranking officer on the scene of the Danziger Bridge shootings, testified Tuesday that he didn't order officers to devise a cover story and wouldn't have objected if they had acknowledged wrongdoing. But instead of encouraging them to tell the truth, Lohman said he helped orchestrate a cover-up to make the shootings of unarmed residents on Sept. 4, 2005, appear justified.
"The guys who were involved in this were co-workers, and some of them were friends of mine. I didn't want anybody to get into trouble," Lohman testified on the second day of a federal trial of five other current or former officers. Lohman retired last year and is one of five former officers who have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up. Now he is a key government witness in the case against Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso, former officer Robert Faulcon and Sgt. Arthur Kaufman. Feeling remorseful, Lohman said he decided in December 2009 to cooperate with the Justice Department's probe of the shootings. "I feel pretty horrible about all of it, but most particularly about the people who were killed and wounded," he said.
"They were people who didn't deserve what they got." Lohman said the gunfire had stopped by the time he arrived. He testified that Bowen told him residents had fired at officers before they returned fire on the east side of bridge, where 17-year-old James Brissette was shot and killed. Bowen also allegedly told Lohman that 40-year-old Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled man, was seen reaching into his waistband before he was shot on the west side of the bridge. No guns were recovered from Madison or Brissette, however. "They seemed to be unsure of what actually happened," Lohman recalled. "There was too much uncertainty, and things didn't add up." Lohman said he told the officers to calm down, "get their story together" and come back to tell him what happened, although he didn't expect them to tell the truth. "Did you order them to make up a story?" prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein asked. "No," he responded.
Lohman said he assigned Kaufman to investigate the shootings but knew the goal of the probe would be to justify the officers' actions, despite his misgivings. "I felt things had gone wrong on the bridge that day and inappropriate actions had been taken," Lohman said. Lohman said he and Kaufman discussed a plan to plant a gun. He said Kaufman assured him the planted gun couldn't be traced back to police or a crime scene. Prosecutors say Kaufman took a gun from his garage and turned it into the evidence room, trying to pass it off as a gun found at the scene. Police didn't collect any shell casings or other evidence from the bridge, one of many gaps in the probe. "We can write it off on Katrina," Kaufman said, according to Lohman. Lohman said he wrote his own false report on the shootings after Kaufman submitted a "horrible report" that cleared police of wrongdoing without justifying their actions in a believable way.
"It didn't make any sense," he said. The suspected cover-up was in danger of unraveling when the New Orleans district attorney's office opened a probe of the shootings. Seven officers were charged in state court with murder or attempted murder in December 2006, but a judge threw out all the charges in 2008. Federal authorities launched their own investigation afterward. Lohman said he wasn't surprised, adding, "The police reports were shoddy and there were too many holes in it." In August 2009, prosecutors served him with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. He initially refused to cut a deal, but changed his mind after a meeting with prosecutors in December 2009. "At that point, I knew you had the truth," Lohman told Bernstein. Lohman faces a maximum of five years in prison when he is sentenced, a fact that defense attorneys seized on during his cross-examination.
Steve London, Kaufman's lawyer, pointed out that Lohman was "looking at 25 to 30 years" before making his deal. London also questioned Lohman why he added Kaufman's name to a false report, asking if he intended to make it look as if Kaufman had written it. "I wasn't trying to make it look like Kaufman wrote that," Lohman said. "We were working on it together. I didn't go off by myself and write this." Lohman said he went along with the cover-up because he did not want anyone to get into trouble, but London implied a different reason Kaufman's name was on the documents. "You actually hate Sgt. Kaufman, don't you?" London asked. "No," Lohman responded. "We had disagreements, but I would not say it was a hate relationship." Lohman is expected to return to the witness stand Wednesday to answer more questions from Berrnstein.
Pandora Bracelet CharmsJonathan Edwards, the Olympic gold medallist triple jumper, has called on the government to make sport as much of a priority as maths and English if the legacy benefits of the 2012 Games are to be realised. The government was forced into a U-turn in December last year over plans to slash the ￡162m budget of the Youth Sport Trust, which opponents said would have devastating consequences for school sport. Funding – albeit at a lower level – was found to keep the trust going, and plans unveiled for a new inter- and intra-school competition that will culminate in finals at the Olympic stadium. But Edwards, who now sits on the board of the London 2012 organising committee, said the government needed to go further to ensure that all schools took sport as seriously as other academic subjects.
"The biggest single change you could make to ensure a sporting legacy would be to make physical activity as much a part of the curriculum as maths and English. The value of sport is not in finding an Olympic champion, but in the benefits of health and wellbeing," said Edwards, speaking at the launch of the Lloyds TSB National School Sport Week, which involves more than 4 million schoolchildren. "School sport has to be at the heart of it. If you're going to have an impact on young people's lives, you have to get it right in school. The majority of them are not just going to pitch up at a club unless their parents push them to," said Edwards, who is also deputy chair of the London 2012 countries and regions group. "I can understand the focus of education being much more decentralised and people making local decisions. I can see why you would go down that route. But you have to have some key metrics, which you have academically but don't have within sport," added Edwards, who won a gold in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has announced plans for a new English baccalaureate, which pupils will qualify for if they obtain five A to C grades in maths, English, science, a foreign language and a humanities subject. But there are fears that subjects not included within it will suffer. Following a concerted campaign by schoolchildren, athletes and opposition MPs, David Cameron announced funding would be found to maintain the Youth Sport Trust's network. But 450 Youth Sport Trust co-ordinators on five-day week contracts will be made redundant on 31 August, and must decide whether to re-apply for new three-day week positions. And funding that is currently provided to release PE teachers for two days a week to work with other schools in the area will be replaced by cash to allow each secondary school to release a teacher one day a week to work with primary schools.
"The entire drive behind the modern Olympic movement with [Pierre] de Coubertin began with his desire to integrate education and sport. The Olympic Games was, for him, a means to creating healthier, more vibrant young people," said Edwards. Inspiring more young people to play sport was a key element of the pitch made by Lord Coe to the International Olympic Committee in 2005 that helped secure the Games for London. Since then debate has raged over whether successive governments have put in place policies that will deliver on youth participation, as well as broader hopes that the Games would drive an upturn in sports participation among the population at large.