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Writers Guild asks members to ratify contract, end strike

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — The Writers Guild of America moved swiftly Sunday toward a resolution of its three-month-old strike, with guild leaders voting unanimously to ask members to decide on ratifying the contract and ending the walkout.

Membership meetings will be held Tuesday to allow writers to decide whether the strike should be brought to an immediate end, said Patric Verrone, president of the guild’s West Coast branch.

The writers Saturday gave resounding support to a tentative agreement with studios. About 3,500 writers packed the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to hear from union leaders about the proposed deal that was finalized just hours before meetings were held on both coasts by the Writers Guild of America.

If guild members support lifting the strike order, they could return to work as early as Wednesday. Watch Showbiz Tonight’s Brooke Anderson’s report on the tentative deal

The feeling in the room was really positive, said screenwriter Mike Galvin, adding that no one at the Los Angeles gathering said the deal was crummy.

Compensation for projects delivered via digital media was the central issue in the 3-month-old walkout, which idled thousands of workers, disrupted the TV season and moviemaking and took the shine off Hollywood’s awards season.

I believe it is a good deal. I am going to be recommending this deal to our membership, Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East, told reporters before the New York meeting at a Times Square hotel. Watch for the latest on WGA’s meeting

Winship said afterward that he was encouraged by the membership’s response.

We had a very lively discussion. I’m happy with what happened. … At the moment, I feel strongly it [the proposed deal] has a strong chance of going through, he said.

Writers leaving the two-hour-plus New York meeting characterized the reaction as generally positive and said there was cautious optimism that the end of the strike — the guild’s first in 20 years — could be near.

Carmen Culver, a film and TV writer, lauded the guild for hanging tough.

It’s a great day for the labor movement. We have suffered a lot of privation in order to achieve what we’ve achieved, Culver said.

Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker (Bowling for Columbine) and a nominee this year for his health-care film Sicko, attended the New York meeting.

It’s a historic moment for labor in this country, Moore told The Associated Press.

Winship cautioned that it was not a done deal until the contract is ratified by members who need to be polled by mail in a process that usually takes two weeks.

An outline of the three-year deal was reached in recent talks between media executives and the guild, with lawyers then drafting the contract language that was concluded Friday.

According to the guild’s summary, the deal provides union jurisdiction over projects created for the Internet based on certain guidelines, sets compensation for streamed, ad-supported programs and increases residuals for downloaded movies and TV programs.

The writers deal is similar to one reached last month by the Directors Guild of America, including a provision that compensation for ad-supported streaming doesn’t kick in until after a window of between 17 to 24 days deemed promotional by the studios.

Writers would get a maximum $1,200 flat fee for streamed programs in the deal’s first two years and then get a percentage of a distributor’s gross in year three — the last point an improvement on the directors deal, which remains at the flat payment rate.

Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success, guild leaders Winship and Patric Verrone, head of the Writers Guild of America, West, said in an e-mailed message to members.

Together, the guilds represent 12,000 writers, with about 10,000 of those involved in the strike that began November 5 and has cost the Los Angeles area economy alone an estimated $1 billion or more. Studios are represented by Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

One observer said the guild gained ground in the deal but not as much as it wanted.

It’s a mixed deal but far better than the writers would have been able to get three months ago. The strike was a qualified success, said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney with the TroyGould firm and a former associate counsel for the writers guild.

The walkout paved the way for the directors to get a better deal than they would otherwise have gotten. That in turn became the foundation for further improvements the writers achieved, Handel said.
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Firefighters sift London market ruins

LONDON, England (AP) — Firefighters dug through the wreckage of London’s famed Camden market Sunday trying to determine what sparked a massive blaze that damaged the market and area buildings.

It took 100 firefighters three hours to put out the fire Saturday night. There were no casualties, but the blaze damaged clothing and craft market stalls and nearby buildings.

The Hawley Arms, a pub popular with celebrities such as singer Amy Winehouse, rocker Pete Doherty and model Kate Moss, was among the casualties.

In a word, I’m devastated, Ruth Charles-Ridler, the pub’s landlady, said as she arrived at the scene to assess the damage Sunday morning. Everyone I’ve spoken to is in complete shock. Watch a report from the scene

This was a good community pub where everybody knew everybody else, she said. It is a great loss to Camden Town.

The bustling commercial and residential area in north London, with its open markets and a scenic canal, is one of the British capital’s top shopping and tourist destinations.

It’s quite a heavy blow to Camden’s many small shops, said local business owner Steve Norris.

Sunday is traditionally the busiest day of the week for shoppers at Camden Town’s shops, cafes, pubs and markets. Watch an I-Reporter’s dramatic video of the fire

Police kept the burned-out area closed off with a cordon on Sunday morning but allowed tourists and shoppers to use a large part of the unaffected Camden High Street commercial area.

Firefighters said it was too early to say what caused the disaster.

About 40 firefighters were working their way through the remaining hot spots toward the center of the blaze, said senior firefighter Guy Foster. Their progress was hampered by concerns that some buildings were structurally unsafe.

Some roads, sidewalks, subway and train lines remained closed Sunday.

Among the tourists hoping to shop at Camden Market was Marie-Francoise Tagnais, who was visiting the area for the first time.

I’m going back to France today and I wanted to see this market, which is famous in London, she said. So I am disappointed.
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500 flee oil rig after security alert

LONDON, England (CNN) — British air force helicopters and a bomb disposal team are en route to an oil rig in the North Sea on Sunday, responding to a security incident, a Ministry of Defense spokesman told CNN.

Five Royal Air Force helicopters headed to the rig off the Scottish coast after a request from Grampian police, the local force, the spokesman said.

According to the British Press Association, around 500 oil workers are being evacuated from the Safe Scandinavia rig, around 280 kilometers (175 miles) northeast of the Scottish coastal town of Aberdeen.

An explosive ordinance device team is being scrambled to the scene, the spokesman said, adding that the evacuation was being coordinated by Grampian police. E-mail to a friend

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Junta: Myanmar to hold elections by 2010

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s military government, a target of sharp international criticism for failing to hand over power to a democratically elected government, announced Saturday that it will hold elections in 2010.

The junta also said a national referendum to approve a new constitution will be held in May.

The time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule, official announcements on state radio and television said.

The country’s last election was in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won. Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize winner, has been in prison or under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

It was the first time the government has set dates for stages of its so-called road map to democracy.

But the announcement was unlikely to mollify critics who say that the proposed constitution will likely be unfair and undemocratic.

Suu Kyi’s party reacted cautiously, noting the lack of detail on how the referendum would be carried out.

The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange, said spokesman Nyan Win.

Even before knowing the results of the referendum, the government has already announced that elections will be held in 2010, he said, implying that the government was certain that the draft constitution will be approved.

Scheduling the constitutional referendum for May makes it difficult for critics to mount a campaign against it. Most of the country’s leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many in connection with anti-government demonstrations in August and September.

After violently quelling the protests, the junta came under increased international pressure to work toward political reconciliation and quickly return to democracy. At least 30 people died in the crackdown, according to a U.N. estimate.

Britain, one of the military’s regime’s harshest critics, noted that Suu Kyi and other independent political leaders had not been consulted about the constitution or the election process.

A genuine and inclusive process of national reconciliation is necessary for Myanmar’s transition to democracy, Britain’s Foreign Office said, calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since the last one was scrapped in 1988, when the army brutally put down earlier pro-democracy demonstrations.

The country has been in a political deadlock since the military refused to recognize the 1990 election results, saying the country first needed a new constitution.

Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted by a national convention last year, and a government-appointed commission is now drafting the document.

Critics have denounced the constitutional convention process as a farce because the military hand-picked most delegates and Suu Kyi could not attend.

The National League for Democracy said the junta was trying to draft a constitution unilaterally, and it therefore could not be expected to guarantee democracy, human rights and public well-being.

Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups, some of whom have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, say the constitution would give the central government greater powers even as minorities seek more administrative and judicial autonomy in their home areas.

A clause in the draft guidelines guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the country’s parliament, with the representatives nominated by the commander in chief.

The new constitution also disqualifies presidential candidates who are entitled to the rights and privileges of a … foreign country — thereby barring Suu Kyi, whose late husband was British.
found here.

Junta: Myanmar to hold elections by 2010

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s military government, a target of sharp international criticism for failing to hand over power to a democratically elected government, announced Saturday that it will hold elections in 2010.

The junta also said a national referendum to approve a new constitution will be held in May.

The time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule, official announcements on state radio and television said.

The country’s last election was in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won. Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize winner, has been in prison or under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

It was the first time the government has set dates for stages of its so-called road map to democracy.

But the announcement was unlikely to mollify critics who say that the proposed constitution will likely be unfair and undemocratic.

Suu Kyi’s party reacted cautiously, noting the lack of detail on how the referendum would be carried out.

The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange, said spokesman Nyan Win.

Even before knowing the results of the referendum, the government has already announced that elections will be held in 2010, he said, implying that the government was certain that the draft constitution will be approved.

Scheduling the constitutional referendum for May makes it difficult for critics to mount a campaign against it. Most of the country’s leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many in connection with anti-government demonstrations in August and September.

After violently quelling the protests, the junta came under increased international pressure to work toward political reconciliation and quickly return to democracy. At least 30 people died in the crackdown, according to a U.N. estimate.

Britain, one of the military’s regime’s harshest critics, noted that Suu Kyi and other independent political leaders had not been consulted about the constitution or the election process.

A genuine and inclusive process of national reconciliation is necessary for Myanmar’s transition to democracy, Britain’s Foreign Office said, calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since the last one was scrapped in 1988, when the army brutally put down earlier pro-democracy demonstrations.

The country has been in a political deadlock since the military refused to recognize the 1990 election results, saying the country first needed a new constitution.

Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted by a national convention last year, and a government-appointed commission is now drafting the document.

Critics have denounced the constitutional convention process as a farce because the military hand-picked most delegates and Suu Kyi could not attend.

The National League for Democracy said the junta was trying to draft a constitution unilaterally, and it therefore could not be expected to guarantee democracy, human rights and public well-being.

Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups, some of whom have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, say the constitution would give the central government greater powers even as minorities seek more administrative and judicial autonomy in their home areas.

A clause in the draft guidelines guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the country’s parliament, with the representatives nominated by the commander in chief.

The new constitution also disqualifies presidential candidates who are entitled to the rights and privileges of a … foreign country — thereby barring Suu Kyi, whose late husband was British.
found here.