My Vertu Phone

Have you ever interrupted childbirth, coitus, a wedding or a graduation ceremony, a funeral or a minute's silence to send a text? Does the thought of going cold turkey from technology make you want to daub your social networking status in your own blood across the nearest brick wall? Is your ideal six-month sabbatical from work an extended period playing World of Warcraft in a windowless bedroom?

If so, then box up your broadband, swallow your SIM and visit Capio Nightingale Hospital in London, the location of Britain's first technology-addiction centre. You could be the country's latest gadget junkie, reared on years of laptop hogging and online high living. People are contracting the computer bug early: according to research published last September by Cranfield University School of Management in Northampton, of 260 secondary school pupils surveyed, 26 per cent spent more than six hours a day on the internet. This battalion of hi-tech tykes yielded 63 per cent who felt they were addicted to the web, 53 per cent who had a compulsive attachment to their mobile phones and 62 per cent who were bought their first computer before hitting the age of eight. But is technophilia really such a plague?

"If teenagers become more withdrawn they run the risk of being developmentally out of step with their peers," says Capio Nightingale's consultant psychiatrist Dr Richard Graham. "It's a very young field of research, but there is some evidence to suggest that girls who spend too much time on Facebook miss out on key developmental steps and could feel immature. Extreme cases can put people's education and employment at risk. Then there are the physical aspects. You can have a poor diet, lose weight, not eat properly. If teenagers are pulling all-nighters they might turn to stimulants, like caffeine or taurine, and there is evidence that can increase anxiety in the long-term."
Teenagers, necessarily, are a high-risk group, as are those who've had a bereavement, separation or redundancy. But no one is free from its impact. Technology experts talk anecdotally of the Texan 13-year-old who developed repetitive strain disorder from texting, or the Korean couple who were building a "cyber-baby" on the internet but neglected to look after their real-life offspring. Scientists quizzed by The New York Times last week claimed juggling email, phone calls and other incoming information can change how you think or behave. It undermines our ability to focus. Having Twitter, RSS, Facebook, Digg and email feeds open at the same time capitalise on a physiological response to opportunities or threats. This stimulation provokes excitement, in the form of a dopamine squirt, which can be addictive. It can have deadly consequences – which is why talking on your mobile phone while driving was banned in Britain in 2003.

"At the moment people are trying to study the effects of high exposure to technology during the early parts of people's lives," continues Graham. "There are developmental windows in which 'wiring' of the brain takes place. For example, if you have a squint and it is not dealt with in the first five years of your life, part of your visual cortex switches off. It's a 'use it or lose it' principle in neurology and it might have relevance here."

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Barack Obama last night brought down a curtain on the long, costly and inconclusive war in Iraq, but amid near indifference from a country now worried about the economy to the exclusion of virtually all else.

"It is time to turn the page," the President declared in a prime-time address from the Oval Office – only the second of its kind since he took power in January 2009. "Ending this war is not only in Iraq's interest, it is in our own," he argued. "The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people."

The 15-minute speech marked a historic moment, the departure from Iraq of the last US combat forces after a seven-and-a-half-year conflict, costing some $900bn (£585bn), in which 1.5 million US troops have served and more than 4,400 were killed.
But there was no boasting from either the President or his aides of a "Mission Accomplished", as proclaimed by the fateful banner behind George W Bush, Mr Obama's predecessor, when he prematurely announced military victory from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in May 2003.

"It's not going to be a victory lap. It's not going to be self-congratulatory. There's still a lot of work that we've got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us," Mr Obama said earlier at the US army base at Fort Bliss in Texas, where he met some of the last combat units to return from Iraq.

The administration is acutely aware of the latest resurgence of violence in Iraq, and of the political deadlock that has prevented the formation of a new Iraqi government since the stalemated general election in March.

Indeed, as Mr Obama delivered his address, Vice-President Joe Biden was in Baghdad, ostensibly for a "change of mission" ceremony but above all to put new pressure on Iraq's leaders to settle their differences.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed Iraq's "independence" in a television address yesterday. "Our security forces will take the lead in ensuring security and safeguarding the country and removing all threats that the country has to weather, internally or externally," Mr Maliki said.

Even with combat troops gone, and 2003's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" replaced by "Operation New Dawn," 50,000 US soldiers will remain – some to conduct counterterrorism operations against a still threatening al-Qa'ida organisation in Iraq, but mainly to train Iraqi forces to take full charge of the country's security. In theory, that moment will arrive in 16 months when the last of the hold-over force is scheduled to leave. By the end of next year, all of our troops will be home," the President re-iterated in his regular weekly radio address last Saturday.

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Like many a young American with parents who like to spoil him, Declan Kelly spent a roasting hot afternoon last week splashing around his local water park. It had fountains, a simulated beach, and thatched cabanas where he could kick back and watch the world go by. There were areas for learning to swim, in big red buoyancy vests, or surf, on foam boogie boards. The centrepiece was a saltwater pool where instructors taught visitors how to dive.

Declan had the time of his life. Until the moment came to go home, that is. Then, in what looked suspiciously like a demonstration of adolescent frustration, he ran to the far side of the collection of swimming pools and began to urinate against a fence. Later, on his way out to the car park, he approached a female visitor, and proceeded to sniff her bottom.

Fortunately, such things happen all the time at this water park, in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles. That's because Declan is a dog (a German-shepherd-based mongrel) and the water park is part of the Paradise Ranch, an upmarket resort which caters exclusively for extremely pampered canines.
"Everyone knows that dogs love to play in the water, especially in summer time when we are at our busiest, so we thought this would be a brilliant way to keep them entertained," says Kristyn Goddard, the Ranch's owner, of the newly opened facility. "It's the world's first canine water park. They can have swimming lessons if they need, because not every dog takes to water straight away, and boogie board lessons, which are very popular."

The Ranch – which costs $35 (£23) per day or $65 overnight – represents the latest milestone in the rapid development of America's high-end pet industry, which recently saw Disneyland open pet-friendly hotels, together with the launch of Pet Airways, a domestic airline which allows passengers to bring their furry friends in the cabin with them.

Like many a fad, it is being driven by celebrities who have made some breeds of dog as fashionable as designer handbags. This month's ribbon-cutting at Paradise Ranch was carried out, before a gaggle of television news cameras, by Brad Sherwood, a comedian from Who's Line is it Anyway?

Other celebrity clientele, according to a list in reception, have over the years included Jessica Alba, Ozzy Osbourne, Aaron Eckhart, Anthony Hopkins, Halle Berry, and Penelope Cruz. Many of them use the "Mutt Cab," the business's customised Mercedes SUV, to transport their pooches between their homes and the Ranch.

The business was founded in the late 1990s to cater to the growing numbers of cash-rich, time-poor pet owners who didn't want to condemn their domestic animals to the equivalent of solitary confinement by putting them in old-fashioned boarding kennels, where residents are kept apart from each other to prevent fights.

Instead, Goddard allows up to 72 different animals to stay with their peers in air-conditioned, communal homes. "Dogs are social creatures, and putting them in a cage makes them miserable," says Goddard. "When we started, we were the first cage-free boarding facility in America. Now they are everywhere. I guess the water park idea will inevitably be copied, too."

Goddard's guests spend their nights (and the hottest parts of the day) indoors, where they lie on sheepskin rugs and watch flat-screen televisions. Twenty-five members of staff work round the clock to make sure they are happy. Owners can log on to a website 24 hours a day, to look at CCTV footage of their pets, and check they're OK. For an extra $20 a night, they will get a human to share their bed.

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At least 19 people were killed today after Islamist rebels launched an audacious attack on the heavily defended residence of Chechnya's pro-Kremlin president, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chechen officials said that 12 insurgents and two guards were killed after the rebels slipped into Tsentoroi, Kadyrov's home village, also known as Khosi-Yurt, in the early hours of this morning . Russian TV reported that five civilians had also been killed in fierce fighting.

The main rebel website, www.kavkazcenter.com, claimed 60 "mujahideen" had stormed Kadyrov's village at 4.30am, destroying two checkpoints and blowing up an armoured personnel carrier. It said five of its fighters from three units were "martyred" during the operation.

TV footage showed a burnt-out car 150 metres from the entrance to Kadyrov's residence. The rebels claim they carried out a "sweep" of the village, occupying it for one hour, and burning down 10 houses. They also seized ammunition and communications equipment, the website said.

The assault on Kadyrov's fortress-like headquarters appears to be a symbolic blow against Chechnya's pro-Moscow president rather than a genuine assassination attempt. It is a reminder that, despite frequent Kremlin claims to the contrary, Kadyrov and other local leaders have failed to stop the Islamist insurgency in Russia's northern Caucasus.

"This is a very painful strike not only against Ramzan [Kadyrov] but against Moscow," Alexei Malashenko, an expert on the north Caucasus at Moscow's Carnegie Centre, said. "Tsentoroi is like a fortress with a lot of tanks and military men. I've been there several times."

"The situation in the North Caucasus is now much more difficult than [Vladimir] Putin or [Dmitry] Medvedev imagine it. We are talking about a growing Islamist opposition and hundreds or even thousands of militants in Chechnya alone, with more young men joining them up in the mountains. It's a civil war. Invisible or visible, it's a war."

The village may also have been chosen out of revenge, Malashenko said. Kadyrov – who has been accused of involvement in the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a claim he denies, as well as numerous human rights abuses – has his own private prison in Tsentoroi, where inmates including captured rebels are often tortured, survivors have testified.

Despite two brutal Kremlin wars in Chechnya, Russia's Islamist rebellion has multiplied in recent years and has spread to the neighbouring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia. Over the weekend, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed it was winning this struggle, and had shot dead 30 rebels in the month of August. Over the past few days violence has spiked across the region, possibly in response to the killing on 21 August by federal forces of Magomedali Vagabov, a top rebel leader in Dagestan.

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Six trawlermen from Shetland face unlimited fines and multi-million pound confiscation orders for illegally landing £15m worth of herring and mackerel to cheat strict quotas designed to conserve fish stocks.

The six skippers from Lerwick admitted today that they made false declarations about the true size of their catch after nearly 200 voyages between January 2002 and March 2005, deliberately breaching their own annual fishing quotas.

Their conviction followed a long-running investigation by police and the Scottish fisheries protection agency which also led to guilty pleas from a Lerwick-based fish wholesalers Shetland Catch Ltd for supplying false reports about the size of the landings.

The case is one of the largest-ever involving so-called "black landings", the illegal practice once widespread in Scottish ports where skippers deliberately caught and landed fish which breached quotas, in defiance of European conservation measures.

The practice has largely died out, but Scott Pattison, director of operations with Scotland's prosecution authority, the Crown Office, said there were other similar investigations under way.

"This is not a victimless crime. The consequences of overfishing on this scale are far-reaching and the impact on fish stocks and the marine environment is potentially devastating," he said. "The legislation is to protect the marine environment for the good of all and to safeguard the fishing industry."

The six men were caught after the fisheries agency suspected widespread and significant quota breaches. Detailed "forensic accounting" uncovered significant discrepancies between the declared income for Shetland Catch and its actual income.

Detective superintendent Gordon Gibson of Grampian police, who led the investigation, said: "As can be seen from the pleas tendered today, this was criminality at an extremely high level."

The Scottish mackerel fishery, the largest of its kind for the British fishing industry, is now accredited for its conservation practices by the Marine Stewardship Council.

However, British ministers and industry leaders are currently in a furious dispute with Iceland and the Faroes for dramatically increasing their self-declared mackerel quotas. Last week, one Faroese boat was blockaded at the quayside by angry local skippers in Peterhead.

Precise details were released after the hearing at the high court in Glasgow about the scale of the illegal landings by all six men, who had shared three trawlers.

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Baroness Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, yesterday issued an unusually sharp rebuke to Israel over a military court's conviction of a Palestinian activist prominent in unarmed protests against the West Bank separation barrier.

Lady Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" that Abdallah Abu Rahma was facing a possible jail sentence "to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the separation barriers in a non-violent manner".

Though acquitted on two charges – including one of stone-throwing – Mr Abu Rahma, 39, a leader of the anti-barrier protests which have taken place every Friday for five years in the West Bank village of Bil'in, was convicted on Monday on another two: "incitement" and "organising and participating in an illegal demonstration".

He is in jail, awaiting sentencing next month. He was detained last December by troops who arrived at his Ramallah home at 2am in seven jeeps as part of what anti-barrier activists say has been an escalating wave of arrests of protesters in West Bank villages, angry about the barrier and settlements encroaching on Palestinian land.

Pointing out that the European Union regarded the barrier as "illegal" where – as at Bil'in – it was built on Palestinian land, the EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy said the EU considered Mr Abu Rahma, who works as a teacher at a private school, to be "a human rights defender committed to non-violent protest".

The protest by Lady Ashton, who was yesterday accused by Israel's foreign ministry of "interfering" in the country's judicial process, follows mounting concern by Western diplomats over the severity of measures taken by Israeli security forces against the mainly rural protests. Officials from several European countries, including Britain, were present for the verdict in the Ofer military court on Monday.

Her intervention was partly designed to demonstrate that the EU representatives will continue closely to watch developments on the ground in the West Bank while direct peace negotiations, due to start in Washington next week, get under way.

The military judge also acquitted Mr Abu Rahma of a charge of illegal arms possession which arose from a collection of used tear gas canisters and bullet cases he had been making to demonstrate that police and troops used violence against protesters.

The Popular Struggle Co-Ordination Committee said the "absurd" charge demonstrated the lengths the military was prepared to go to "to silence and smear unarmed dissent".

It added that the incitement charge had been upheld even though it was based on the testimonies of minors who had been arrested in the middle of the night, and which the court recognised had defects. No other evidence had been offered, despite the routine filming of the protests by the security forces. It said the charge of organising demonstrations had not been used since the first intifada, from 1987 to 1993.

In 2008 Mr Abu Rahma was given an award by the International League for Human Rights in Berlin for "outstanding service in the realisation of basic human rights". He met "the Elders", a group of global statesmen and women including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when they made a solidarity visit to Bil'in last year.

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More than a third of the nation's dogs are overweight, veterinary charity PDSA warned today.

An assessment of almost 30,000 dogs across the UK over the past four years revealed the country's obesity epidemic is not confined to humans, with 35% of canines carrying too many pounds.

The figure is an increase on 21% recorded four years ago and, if the trend continues, almost half of all dogs could be overweight by 2013 - putting them at risk of dying early, PDSA said.

While many owners appear to view a podgy pet as cute and cuddly, the charity warns obesity poses a threat to the animals' health and lifespan.

Senior veterinary surgeon Sean Wensley said: "Overweight pets are less mobile, less willing to play and more likely to develop a number of serious health conditions.

"Ultimately, owners control their pet's diet and exercise. The good news is it's never too late to achieve positive change with their veterinary practice."

As part of efforts to highlight the problem PDSA is relaunching its annual pet slimming competition, Pet Fit Club, which aims to encourage owners to get their pets to lose weight.

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Two of motorsport's greatest legends, Michael Schumacher and Valentino Rossi, have come under the microscope during the summer.

Both are multiple champions widely regarded as the modern-day greats of their sports. The Italian may have a way to go to catch the winning tally of the great Giacomo Agostini, whereas the German surpassed Juan Manuel Fangio long ago, but in many ways they are very similar despite a 10-year age gap (41 to 31).

In their heyday they were their respective sports' yardsticks. Each has survived with only a broken leg apiece to show for their derring-do, though where Rossi came back within six weeks, Schumacher angered the Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo by playing football long before he reluctantly declared himself fit to return to the cockpit in support of his team-mate Eddie Irvine's World Championship campaign.

Therein lies one of their crucial differences. Rossi might not have been all that enamoured to have Jorge Lorenzo as his team-mate, especially this year, but there has never been a stage where he has insisted, as Schumacher always has, that his team-mate should be a stooge, there purely to help his own quest for greatness.

And, as we were so forcibly reminded at the last race in Hungary, Schumacher is prepared to do things on the track that Rossi, a gentleman at all times, would never remotely countenance. The German was panned by his critics after pushing his former Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello within an inch of a major accident at almost 190mph.

Sir Jackie Stewart, the cleanest of the clean, said: "It was one of the most blatant abuses of another driver that I have seen. It is a terrible example from a man who has seven world titles – bully-boy tactics." Fellow triple champion Niki Lauda said: "To endanger another competitor in such a way is totally unnecessary. I cannot understand why he does those things."

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London, Manchester, Newcastle and Sunderland will be the potential World Cup host cities visited by Fifa's inspection team over the next four days, the English bid committee announced last night.

The inspectors, who will then compile a crucial technical report about what they have seen, are doing the rounds of countries competing to stage the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, the result of which will be declared on 2 December, 100 days from Tuesday.

Led by Harold Mayne-Nicholls, president of the Chilean FA, the six-man delegation also includes Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the local organising committee at the South African World Cup. They visited Holland and Belgium (who are running a joint bid) in July and last week were in Russia, now regarded as England's closest rivals.

Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Milton Keynes, Bristol and Plymouth are the other venues earmarked in the English bid; Derby, Leicester and Hull having been were dropped last December, partly in response to the desire for a wider geographical spread than was seen in either 1966 or at Euro 96. The previous English World Cup was based on London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester and the North-east; 30 years later, the spread was much the same, with Nottingham and Leeds added.

Both those tournaments comprised only 16 teams, but a 32-team World Cup offered the chance to include the West Country as well as one or two venues not in the Premier League; what Lord Mawhinney of the bid committee called "a sprinkling of tomorrow". Hence the presence of Plymouth and Bristol, as well as Milton Keynes. Plymouth Argyle are committed to doubling the current capacity of Home Park to the minimum requirement of 40,000 and Bristol City need to build a new stadium altogether, which Nottingham Forest are also promising.

There is uncertainty over whether Liverpool will deliver a new Anfield or simply update the current stadium. Down in London, which is allowed three venues, no decision has yet been taken on whether Wembley and the Emirates will be joined by Tottenham's new ground or the Olympic stadium.

None of that need worry Fifa's inspectors. No bidding country yet has the requisite number of ultra-modern grounds with the required capacity, which increases to 60,000 for quarter-finals onwards and 80,000 for the final. Russia has more work to do than anyone, yet bookmakers now make them second favourites behind England, just ahead of Spain/Portugal.

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