pTomTom has announced the start of a beta program for an online route planning service that will allow users to plan trips online and then give users a route to follow even if they donÂ’t have a GPS device. The service will offer routes based on real time a.../pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?a=JLsEU14w"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?a=z80SA05F"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?i=z80SA05F" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?a=IRxOswX6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/I4UNews?i=IRxOswX6" border="0"/img/a /div

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40836?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+A+toxic+legacych=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Guantanamo+Bay+%28News%29%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CBarack+Obama+%28News%29%2CUS+foreign+policy%2CUS+news%2CHuman+rights+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Julian+Borgerc7=2008_12_04c8=1128354c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Guant%C3%A1namo+Bayc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGuant%C3%A1namo+Bay" width="1" height="1" //divpEver since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantaacute;namo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration's neck. /ppThe defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the "least worst place" to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that "enemy combatants" could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America's standing in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses, have taken a daily toll. The camp's existence has angered and embarrassed Washington's closest allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies. /ppNearly six years on, there is no debate over whether "Gitmo" should be closed - only how. As it approaches the end of its term, the Bush administration is anxiously attempting to dispose of its own toxic legacy. John Bellinger, the state department's top lawyer, has been trying to persuade other governments to accept detainees cleared for release. More than 500 have already been sent back to their homelands or to third countries, but there are still 250 prisoners left who cannot go home for fear of persecution and who no one else will accept. They are now Barack Obama's problem./ppThe president-elect has frequently stated his intention to close Guantaacute;namo. In an interview since the election, he repeated that pledge, saying it was "part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world". But the question of what to do with the remaining inmates still divides his ideologically diverse national security and justice teams./ppObama's inaugural speech on January 20 will be closely scrutinised around the world for signs of how bold or cautious he decides to be. His policy on Guantaacute;namo will be widely seen as a benchmark for his intentions as president. /ppA report by a non-partisan panel of US security and human rights experts, entitled Closing Guantaacute;namo: From Bumper Sticker to Blueprint, estimates that the camp could be emptied within a year if the Obama administration decided on a clean break from Bush policies and devoted enough resources to the job. The report advocates the establishment of an independent commission to review the cases of all the detainees, to assess the evidence against them and order the immediate release of the innocent./ppThe first task will be to complete the Bush administration's effort to find homes for the 150-200 prisoners who, according to lawyers familiar with their stories, have no case to answer but who cannot be sent back to their native countries for fear they would be victimised, tortured or killed. /ppThe clearest example of inmates stuck in this limbo are the 17 Uighurs, separatists from a Muslim minority in China who were seized in Pakistan during the Afghan war. They have all been cleared for release by the US authorities, most as long ago as 2003, but have so far not been accepted by any third countries. Albania agreed to take in five other Uighur detainees in 2006, but has refused to take any more. /ppBellinger's efforts to find any other government to receive the Uighurs have been undermined by the adamant refusal of the US authorities to allow them to live in America because of the presumed threat they pose to the US, in part because of presumed animosity caused by six years of detention without charge. Obama's envoys may find they have better luck than Bellinger./pp"I don't think anyone is inclined to do this administration any favours, but Obama will find he has a lot of goodwill to draw on," a European diplomat says. But that goodwill will be greatly enhanced if the new administration stops fighting the resettlement of inmates in the US./ppA second category of prisoners will be referred for prosecution outside Guantaacute;namo, but that raises the question of whether that prosecution should be conducted by military courts martial in the US or the civilian legal system. That will be a decision that goes to the philosophical heart of the issue - should the US approach terrorism as a military threat or as a criminal enterprise, or some hybrid of the two? Obama has refrained from using the phrase "war on terror", but he is said to be under pressure from the more conservative national security experts on his team to leave his options open and not bind himself with the procedural constraints of the civilian judiciary./ppOn the other side of the debate is a "rule of law" camp within the embryonic administration which argues that anything short of a complete return to constitutional normality would rob Obama of the international goodwill he might otherwise gain by scrapping Guantaacute;namo./ppThat debate underlies the toughest dilemma the new administration is likely to face on closing the offshore camp: whether there should be a third category of prisoners, deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute. The evidence against them may be in the form of intelligence material that cannot be disclosed in court, or that falls short of legal proof. Confessions would also be ineligible if they were obtained under torture, as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was "waterboarded" (subjected to simulated drowning) by the CIA. And few if any of the inmates of Guantaacute;namo were reminded of their right not to incriminate themselves, which is standard police practice./ppThe Bush administration has been seeking international agreement for a new form of preventative detention that would allow inmates in this third category to be held in the US and abroad. "The problem is you've got 200-plus very dangerous people, and the question is what do you do with them. And these are people who say regularly: 'If I'm let out of here, I will go immediately and start killing Americans again,'" Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing secretary of state, said during a visit to London this week. She argued that "even though you know that this person is a future threat, we don't really have a legal framework for that, which is why it's been done within a war framework. But if you don't hold a person who you know is a future threat, then you risk the deaths of thousands of innocents. So I do think that this is something for the international community to take up."/ppThere is little sign, however, that the international community has any appetite for such a departure from established human rights law. The decision on preventative detention will be Obama's alone. Several of his advisers and allies, liberals included, think that terrorism is such a pernicious threat, and the security risks of releasing suspects are so great, that new legislation allowing for preventative detention is unavoidable. The political risk of a released inmate carrying out an attack are also enormous. Such an event could prove crippling to a new administration. /ppOn the other hand, any new system of preventative detention would be seen around the world as Guantaacute;namo redux, human rights lawyers say. It would be every bit as effective as an al-Qaida recruiting tool, and would perpetuate the extremists' self-image as warriors rather than mere criminals. Within the internal debate under way in the transition team, liberal activists want foreign governments to lobby Obama against creating a new legal limbo. /ppIt is one of the toughest decisions the new president has in his in-tray. What Obama decides will say a lot about his presidency. Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and author of the Closing Guantaacute;namo report, says it is uncertain which way Obama would lean. But she adds: "My sense is the president-elect has taught courses in the constitution in one of the most reputable law schools in country. He ran on opting back into the international system. The idea of going for a new legal regime that will result in more years in litigation is not going to appeal. It will not be the clean break he needs to make."/ph2A history of the prison camp/h2p· January 11 2002: First prisoners arrive/pp· February 27 2002: First hunger strike begins/pp· April 29 2002: The first prison, Camp X-Ray, closes, replaced by a more solid concrete construction, Camp Delta/pp· November 10 2003: US Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals from inmates that they are being held illegally/pp· February 13 2004: Bush administration agrees to establish review panels to establish whether inmates still pose a threat/pp· March 19 2004: Five British detainees freed/pp· February 16 2006: The UN calls for the closing of Camp Delta, arguing that the treatment of some inmates amounts to torture/pp· June 10 2006: Three inmates hang themselves/pp· June 21 2006: President Bush first expresses the wish to close the camp/pp· September 6 2006: Fourteen "high-value" detainees are transferred from secret CIA prisons around the world to Guantaacute;namo, including Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, three alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks/pp· June 12 2008: US Supreme Court rules that inmates have the right to challenge their incarceration in the US courts/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/guantanamo"Guantánamo Bay/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usforeignpolicy"US foreign policy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/humanrights"Human rights/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

centerimg border=0 title="LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey" alt="LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey" src="http://www.uberphones.com/photos/2008/12/lg-su100.jpg" style="margin: 0 0 0 0;" //center br/pUsers who love to plan their time will probably be fairly familiar with the name Franklin Covey, and this time, they’ve teamed up with LG to release the LG-SU100 handset in Korea. The stand-out feature of the phone is an electronic planner in the phone which is based on their famous Franklin Planner, though it’s obviously in electronic form. Other features of the phone include:/p ul li3” OLED WVGA touchscreen display/li liDMB TV tuner/li liBluetooth connectivity/li liIntegrated camera (unknown megapixel count)/li /ul pPermalink: a href="http://www.uberphones.com/2008/12/lgsu100_by_franklin_covey/"LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey/a from a href="http://www.uberphones.com"Uberphones/a | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"BlackBerry Storm/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1I8zN2vHajzxzw-SVxx1nSxf34U/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1I8zN2vHajzxzw-SVxx1nSxf34U/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

centerimg border=0 title="LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey" alt="LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey" src="http://www.uberphones.com/photos/2008/12/lg-su100.jpg" style="margin: 0 0 0 0;" //center br/pUsers who love to plan their time will probably be fairly familiar with the name Franklin Covey, and this time, they’ve teamed up with LG to release the LG-SU100 handset in Korea. The stand-out feature of the phone is an electronic planner in the phone which is based on their famous Franklin Planner, though it’s obviously in electronic form. Other features of the phone include:/p ul li3” OLED WVGA touchscreen display/li liDMB TV tuner/li liBluetooth connectivity/li liIntegrated camera (unknown megapixel count)/li /ul pPermalink: a href="http://www.uberphones.com/2008/12/lg/lgsu100_by_franklin_covey/"LG-SU100 By Franklin Covey/a from a href="http://www.uberphones.com"Uberphones/a | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"BlackBerry Storm/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/d8F7BDD4SqWzJ2BGh7UYfkN6dqY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/d8F7BDD4SqWzJ2BGh7UYfkN6dqY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

centerimg title="LG-SU100 Launched By Franklin Covey" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="LG-SU100 Launched By Franklin Covey" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/lg-su100.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pMost people would have heard of the 7 habits of highly effective people with the Covey name in tow. Well, Franklin Covey has teamed up with LG to release its new LG-SU100 handset in Korea that will feature the following specifications :- /p p ul li3rdquo; OLED WVGA touchscreen display/li liDMB TV tuner/li liBluetooth connectivity/li liIntegrated camera (unknown megapixel count)/li/ul p/pWithin, you will also find a unique feature designed by Franklin Covey based on their famous Franklin Planner, a binder-like agenda albeit in electronic form. If you're one of those management types or want to start living a more effective and organized life, then the LG-SU100 could be just the handset for you. pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/lgsu100_launched_by_franklin_covey.html"LG-SU100 Launched By Franklin Covey/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081203083007" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081203083007?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081203083007" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081203083007amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Flgsu100_launched_by_franklin_covey.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tikmc_m3PWvx-jDnGt8gxcQ2s30/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tikmc_m3PWvx-jDnGt8gxcQ2s30/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=sGyvtXYK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=VXi05pq5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=VXi05pq5" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=eprUbhYa"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=xndFgNeZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=xndFgNeZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=hpC7SGFV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=hpC7SGFV" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/A9DklwnjDok" height="1" width="1"/

divp style="text-align:justify" a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-17125-LG+et+Franklin+Covey+main+dans+la+main+en+Cor%C3%A9e.html"img src="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news_pics/17125/b.jpg" width="128" height="83" border="0" alt="LG+et+Franklin+Covey+main+dans+la+main+en+Cor%C3%A9e" title="LG+et+Franklin+Covey+main+dans+la+main+en+Cor%C3%A9e" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5" //abr / br / br / LG et Franklin Covey ont présenté un nouveau petit téléphone pour le marché Coréen, le LG-SU100. Avec un écran tactile 3'' AMOLED WVGA, Tuner TV DMB, Bluetooth, APN intégré, notre téléphone possède une fonctionnalité unique conçu par Franklin Covey qui est en fait basé sur le célèbre Franklin Planner (Genre d'agenda avec feuille à Å“illet: http://www.Franklincovey.com/)br / br / Rien de bien excitant ici, mais bon, si vous êtes un gros fan de LG et de Franklin Covey, alors ce no...br /br / a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/fr/news-17125-LG+et+Franklin+Covey+main+dans+la+main+en+Cor%C3%A9e.html#comments"Reader Comments/a/pbr clear="all" //div pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_fr?a=6G9EkQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_fr?i=6G9EkQ" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=KQDgO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=KQDgO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=0we5O"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=0we5O" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=S2XIo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=S2XIo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=fZtDo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=fZtDo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=u0nXo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=u0nXo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=uRf4O"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=uRf4O" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=icepO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=icepO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?a=gorBo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_fr?i=gorBo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Akihabaranews_fr/~4/473387479" height="1" width="1"/

divp style="text-align:justify" a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-17125-LG+and+Franklin+Covey+hands+in+Hands+in+Korea.html"img src="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news_pics/17125/b.jpg" width="128" height="83" border="0" alt="LG+and+Franklin+Covey+hands+in+Hands+in+Korea" title="LG+and+Franklin+Covey+hands+in+Hands+in+Korea" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5" //abr / br / br / LG and Franklin Covey announced a new phone for the Korean market, the LG-SU100. With its 3” AM OLED WVGA touchscreen, DMB TV tuner, Bluetooth, Integrated Camera, our phone has a unique feature designed by Franklin Covey based on their famous Franklin Planner (Binder like agenda http://www.franklincovey.com/).br / br / Nothing really exciting here anyway but if you happen to be a huge LG and Franklin Covey fan this new handset is definitively made for you !...br /br / a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-17125-LG+and+Franklin+Covey+hands+in+Hands+in+Korea.html#comments"Reader Comments/a/pbr clear="all" //div div id="partners_feeds" ul lia href="http://www.dannychoo.com" target="_blank"dannychoo.com/a - Your portal to Japan (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dannychoo_com_main_article_feed_eng" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.japanprobe.com" target="_blank"Japan Probe/a - Japan news and entertainment (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/JapanProbe" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.kirainet.com" target="_blank"Kirainet.com/a - A geek in Japan (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/kirainet-english" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li /ul /div script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/Akihabaranews_en?i=http://www.akihabaranews.com" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"/script pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?a=tgHZzs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?i=tgHZzs" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=S44CO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=S44CO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=oCFIO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=oCFIO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=rmj5o"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=rmj5o" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=ub3No"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=ub3No" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=UVEzo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=UVEzo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=ILqSO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=ILqSO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=E6aNO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=E6aNO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=7jViO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=7jViO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Akihabaranews_en/~4/473380572" height="1" width="1"/

pHealth editor strongSarah Boseley/strong discusses major research published by the Lancet into the extent of the maltreatment of children in the UK. It says one in 10 children suffer abuse or neglect./ppChief political correspondent strongNicholas Watt/strong looks at the expected Commons clash over Damian Green's arrest - it's likely to overshadow today's Queen's Speech./ppAs an international treaty is signed banning cluster munitions, strongIan MacKinnon/strong reports from Laos, in south-east Asia. It's the most bombed country on earth./ppSports writer strongDavid Conn/strong assesses the effects of the recession on Championship football clubs. They don't have the benefit of the Premier League's TV deals, and are considering imposing a cap on players' wages./ppOne of Prince Charles's favourite architects, strongAndres Duany/strong, has devised a masterplan for building more than 80,000 homes in Hertfordshire. He explains where Britain's planners have been going wrong since the second world war./ppAnd we hear some musical instruments made of ice, courtesy of the Norwegian composer strongTerje Isungset/strong./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qtXiAT8bRfC02F8nIRTCgipHXBg/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qtXiAT8bRfC02F8nIRTCgipHXBg/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/60279?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+Architect+slams+%27dismal%27+UK+designch=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Architecture%2CArt+and+design%2CCulture+section%2CUK+news%2CCommunities+%28Society%29%2CSocietyc5=Society+Weekly%2CArt%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CCommunities+Society%2CArchitecturec6=Robert+Boothc7=2008_12_03c8=1127808c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Architecturec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FArchitecture" width="1" height="1" //divpOne of Prince Charles's allies in his battle against modern architecture has attacked the "disappointing to dismal" design of British postwar towns./ppSparking anger among architects, Andres Duany flew in from America and yesterday unveiled a 64-point litany of mistakes made by British architects and planners over the last 50 years. /ppHe accused architects of being "infantile" in pursuing ego-driven visions and said they were "heedless of technical and social dysfunction and widespread lack of popularity" caused by their designs./ppDuany is one of the original designers of Poundbury, the prince's new town in Dorset, and said the leading lights of modernist architecture including Richard Rogers, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Peter Eisenman were "increasingly irrelevant"./ppHe called on architects and planners to step aside and allow a new generation of amateurs to lead development in the 21st century. /ppThe broadside was met by a vociferous response from leading modern architects who have become used to regular disputes with the prince and his allies. Sunand Prasad, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said Duany was "living in another world"./ppHe conceded that architects' craft skills and traditional knowledge had been swept aside too easily between the 1950s and 1970s, but said architects were now building the "highest performance" buildings ever./ppDuany's outburst, will reignite a battle between architects who believe in modernism and his own "church" of new urbanism, which argues that towns should be built to strict codes, often based on traditional design./ppDuany used new urbanism to design Seaside, the Florida community which provided the backdrop to the film The Truman Show, and Charles has embraced the principles of new urbanism on projects to design new settlements from Newquay, Cornwall to Llandarcy, near Neath. /ppHis intervention was timed to coincide with the unveiling of a masterplan for Hertfordshire, his most ambitious UK scheme yet. In it he advocates a new town and a series of garden villages built on open land in which residents would be obliged to grow fruit and vegetables for market./pp"It is inexplicable why architects and planners continue to pursue radical innovation as if it were 1945 every morning," he said./pp"Only architecture, confusing itself with fashion as a platform for cultural expression, continues to be avant garde, heedless of its cost overruns, social and technical dysfunction and widespread lack of popularity."/ppHe cited "gratuitous shapes" in buildings such as winged roofs which quickly go out of fashion, "amazingly rude" colours on shop signs which "are just a vulgar way to attract attention" and civic buildings that "look common" when they should be grand./ppOut-of-town retail parks, excessive road signage and "placeless architecture that could be anywhere in the world" were also criticised. Duany advocates a return to "matter of fact architecture" as exemplified by the traditional English village. /ppPrasad said it was "obviously untrue" that the majority of architects want to express themselves regardless of context. "It is not so much the innovation and the ego that is causing the problem," he said. /pp"It is the commercial pressure to build large on sites which can't take it; it is the haphazard development of towns and the widespread confusion over our democratic planning process."/ppPrasad said many of Duany's complaints seemed to stem from the decision to build a car-based society, and the way highways engineers took control of urban design./pp"It was wrong to aim for a society dominated by cars," he said. /pp"But most architects and planners have moved on, so he is really railing against a problem that doesn't exist anymore."/ph2What not to do/h2p· Avoid fashionable architecture - buildings that are obsessively of our time will be out of date too soon/pp· Civic buildings should be grand and private buildings should recede into the background/pp· Avoid overly transparent facades - mess inside a building looks like an unkempt yard/pp· Avoid many buildings by one designer - diversity is the hallmark of a great place/pp· Avoid meandering streets - excessive curves confuse and aggravate/pp· Avoid gated-off estates - they undermine social interaction/pp· Avoid businesses in the suburbs - every job means one less person to enliven a town centre/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture"Architecture/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/communities"Communities/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ebN1kc003nMCZPSXanM9fynNtzw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ebN1kc003nMCZPSXanM9fynNtzw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p