A Photographer's Guide to Ogmore-by-Sea

Introduction

A classic dramatic Ogmore sunset. Taken at Black Rocks.

Ogmore-by-Sea has a rugged and varied coast which is very popular with fishermen, due in part to the rocky headlands that jut out into the Bristol Channel, but surprisingly, seemingly less so with photographers.

My love for this stretch of coast began long before my interest in photography, with many childhood Summer afternoons spent losing footballs to the waves and crunching sandy picnics. However, it wasn't until I looked at the beach through a viewfinder and actively sought picturesque details and views that I truly began to see the raw beauty that had been before me for so many years and to a great extent had been taken for granted. I have been hooked on the area visually ever since.

Some topographic and geological features of particular interest

• Wide fine grained sand beaches
• Exposed bedrock strata, some teeming with marine fossils
• Large boulders strewn amongst the intertidal zone
• Pebble storm beaches
• Shingle bays
• Rocky headlands

Special Photographic Features

For the purpose of this guide I will take Ogmore Beach to include the main bay directly adjacent to the mouth of the River Ogmore and the handful of smaller bays that run along the coast for about three quaters of a mile directly below the village of Ogmore-by-Sea. The guide is divided into four mini guides for the four main bays, which are marked on the map and ariel photograph below.

1. The main beach (at higher tides appears to be three or four bays, but at low tide is one clear sweep of sand)
2. Bwlch Gwyn (White Bay)
3. Bwlch y Gro (Gravel Bay)
4. Black Rocks

1 The Main Beach

Situated directly below the car park and with the mouth of the River Ogmore on the Western end seperating Ogmore from Treath y Afon across the river.

The main draw of this area of Ogmore for me is the river mouth itself. At sunset, particularly from late Winter to early Summer it is possible to compose a picture so that the Sun appears to be sinking into the middle of the river itself.

Other features of interest are the wide fine sand beach which when fully exposed at low tide must be around a hundred meters wide from shore to sea and some interesting outcrops of rock along the side of the river.

Whilst the main beach has alot to offer especially at low tide when all of that wet sand acts as a mirror doubling the light available to create with I would implore you to explore the full stretch of coast before setting up in one spot. Personally I have found the most inspiring and interesting views can be found amongst the smaller bays further away from the river mouth. A convenient footpath runs from the bottom left (Southern) corner of the car park along the coast above the smaller bays and rocky headlands that seperate them and it is well worth a stroll.

Sunset at the mouth of the Ogmore River

2 Bwlch Gwyn

This small bay is the first around a rocky headland from the main beach and as with all of the smaller bays is accessed by walking along a path found at the bottom left of the car park. Follow the path until you reach a row of bungalows just the other side of a dry stone wall and turn right down a concrete ramp to the bay.This bay has an awful lot to offer the photographer, but the opportunities are heavily reliant on the tide.

At high tide waves roll up against the pebble beach and create a pleasing s shaped curve as they break. To the South East end interesting rock formations sprout up from the pebbles and can provide a very interesting foreground or a main focal point.

Bwlch Gwyn at high tide

At low tide the bay is transformed. A sand beach is exposed which actually links to the main beach around the headland and more interesting rock formations are exposed at the point where the sand gives way to the pebble storm beach at about the half tide mark.

Bwlch Gwyn at low tide

3 Bwlch y Gro

Gro is Welsh for gravel and that is a good description of this small beach. It is backed by small cliffs and is accessed by jumping down these stepped low cliffs. I have never found a satisfying composition here at high tide, but I dare say others could. For me though this bay is at it's best near low tide when the many large boulders poking up through the gravel are amongst the break water.

Another interesting feature of this cove is the exposed limstone bed to the South East corner which looks particularly eyecatching during sunset at low tide when the warm evening light reflects of the wet surace.

In my experience the headland to the North West of the bay is very popular with fishermen so if you intend to shoot towards the Sun as it sets expect some small figures in your pictures as can be seen in the photo below.

Bwlch y Gro sunset at low tide

4 Black Rocks

The final bay in my little guide and the last bay of this short stretch of coast; Black Rocks is currently my favourite spot to photograph at Sunset.

When you approach along the coastal path it seems as though there is no easy way down to the shingle bay, but carry on past it and just as you come to a warning sign saying the lower coastal path is not safe past this point turn right towards the sea and you should see a little slope down to the bed rock which at this point is a few metres above the sea level. Walk down this slope onto the rock and turn right walking down the dipping rock strata and it will take you down into the bay itself.

As with Bwlch y Gro I find this location is best at mid to low tide when the shingle and adjacent limestone rock beds are exposed. At the water's edge the bedrock seems to have been thrust up trough the shingle and at low tide with the waves washing around the rock there is always a good composition to be found. As with Bwlch y Gro I find mid to low tide to be the most fruitful conditions with receeding tide leaving intricate swirls in the shingle and the glistening bedrock disappearing into the Bristol Channel. At very low tide a pebble beach is exposed in the North Western corner of the bay. It is also possible to take some interesting pictures of the bay from above if you set up on top of the rocky cliffs at the back of the bay.

Outcropping bed rock at Black Rocks

Further notes

I have only adressed the four bays that I see as the most interesting along this coast, but there is interest all the way along the sea front.

The rocky headlands themselves providing some striking angular formations next to rounded polished rock. There are many small rock pools and fossils nestled amongst the rock.

Also there are other very small coves some easily accessable others only after a tricky descent of steep rock that I have not mentioned, so I would urge you to walk the full length of the coast before deciding on a location to photograph and don't just stick to those I have mentioned.

Night Photography

I've taken many night time photographs at Ogmore by Sea and while it's true that there's alot of light pollution in the sky to the North, above Porthcawl, I see this as an opportunity rather than a hinderence.

Facing South there is little artificial light in the sky, but it is a view that I find uninspiring. I am sure there must be good photos to be had though.

Nightfall at Bwlch Gwyn

Special Equipment

• Tripod essential for long exposures and helpful for carefully composing your pictures in any event.
• Filters: You may wish to use a polarizing filter to cut down reflections on wet rocks or increase contrast in the sky. I often use a three stop neutral density filter to prolong exposures in brighter light and record movement in the waves. Graduate neutral density filters are essential at sunset to balance the brightness of the sky and land or water.
• Torch very useful if you plan to be at the beach untill after sunset as some of the rocky parts of the coast can be very uneven under foot.
• Lens cloth very handy especially on more blustery days when sea spray can be a real nuisance.

Best Time of Day and Year

As you can probably tell if you have read this far I have only really photographed here at sunset so can say little about sunrise or daytime, but it's a location full of promise at sunset. As it faces mainly South West during the Summer the Sun provides more sidelighting to the coast as it is further South in the sky.

Tidal Information

As with all of the coast along the Bristol channel Ogmore is under the influence of the second highest tidal range in the world, some twelve metres of varience. As I've mentioned my favourite tidal condition in which to photograph the area is a receeding tide around half way out or lower, but there are opportunities at all tide levels.

I check the coastal/tidal observations on the BBC weather website (www.bbc.co.uk/weather) before any visit so I know what to expect. Just look at the tide tables for Porthcawl which is the nearest place information is given for.

Wind Information

This entire stercth of coast is rather exposed in three directions; North, South and West and is most often subject to sometimes strong South Westerlys blowing in off the Atlantic. At higher tides moderate gusts of wind can send sea spray a long way so take a lens cloth and if possible position your body between the camera and the sea during exposures, to sheild the lens from the worst of it.

Getting There

1.	Head west on Exit 35	0.1 mi
2.	At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto A473 heading to Bridgend/Pen-y-bont/Porthcawl Go through 2 roundabouts	3.0 mi
3.	At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto A48/By Pass Rd Go through 1 roundabout	0.7 mi
4.	At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto B4265/Ewenny Rd Continue to follow B4265	0.9 mi
5.	Turn right at B4524/Ogmore Rd Continue to follow B4524

6. As you reach the crest of the hill overlooking the river mouth and just after a cattle grid turn right down a steep road into the car park above the main beach.

Nearby Photographic Opportunites

Dunraven Bay Southerndown is another great spot for photographers, especially those hooked on coastal landscapes, like myself. See Rob Hudson's guide here fro more information. http://knol.google.com/k/rob-hudson/a-photographers-guide-to-dunraven-bay/cd5mu2qxlvy6/2#view

Ogmore castle is a 12th century ruin about half a mile upriver from the Ogmore River mouth.

Google reveals exec salary deal

Google has seen its shares soar since listing

Search engine giant Google only paid its three executives salaries of $1 (50p) in 2006, accounts show.

But chief executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw their combined Google shares worth $31.5bn by the end of the year.

Mr Schmidt's "other compensation", was $555,742 while Mr Page's hit $36,795. For both men, much of this went towards personal security.

One perk was Mr Schmidt's corporate jet, also used by other executives.

Strong shares

Of Mr Schmidt's "other compensation", over 95% - $532,755 - was for personal security.

All three executives saw bonuses of $1,723, but Mr Brin, president of technology, did not receive "other compensation".

However, his shares in Google were worth $13.2bn, while Mr Page had shares totalling $13.4bn and Mr Schmidt's were worth $4.9bn by year end.

Since listing in August 2004 shares in the internet giant have risen from $85 to $460.48 last year.

While the three men's salaries were only a $1 apiece, this was not the case for other employees in key positions.

Four vice presidents - George Reyes, Shona Brown, David Drummond and Jonathan Rosenberg - all saw salaries of $250,000 last year.

Google unveils UK payments system

The core of Google's business is selling advertising

Search giant Google has launched its payment service, Google Checkout, in the UK.

Checkout will compete with both the mainstream card processing services used by many online merchants and auction site eBay's Paypal service.

It is designed to boost Google's core money-maker, the selling of online adverts, by offering cheap order processing for its advertisers.

Until now, Checkout has only been available to US buyers and sellers.

"The starting point is our core products," said Google's UK consumer marketing chief, Obi Felton.

Checkout "is the conclusion of the transaction cycle" of consumers finding retailers through searches and advertising.

Google was unwilling to say when the service might expand into the rest of Europe.

Speculation

Google's dominance of the search market has led it to revenues of $7.1bn in 2006 - not to mention the evolution of its name into a synonym for internet searches.

Even so, its other services have yet to make anything like as much of a splash in market share terms.

Rumours were rife about a Google payments service - dubbed "GBuy" by bloggers - well ahead of Checkout's US launch in June 2006.

Checkout's history to date has been a bit like Paypal's evolution on steroids Ed Kountz, Jupiter Research

Much of the speculation focused on whether Google could use its search muscle to produce a "Paypal killer", to rival the way that eBay has used its dominant presence in online auctions to help drive Paypal's reach.

"If Google Checkout was positioned to kill Paypal in year one, they've got a long way to go," said Ed Kountz, senior analyst at Jupiter Research.

"But if their goal was to establish themselves in the market and work out the kinks (in the service), they've certainly done that."

Google staff are keen to play down the "Paypal killer" chatter - even in retrospect.

"There were plenty of sleepless nights going up to the launch," said Jerry Dischler, now Checkout's senior product manager for Europe but one of the launch team in June last year.

"We were moving forward so fast that (the rumour mill) didn't really touch us."

Leader of the pack

Still, Paypal remains the dominant single payments player in the US.

A Jupiter Research survey carried out in November and December 2006 found the majority of payments are still credit or debit card transactions processed through retailers' own systems.

Of end-to-end payments services - those which try to smooth the process of shopping online by storing payment information centrally - Paypal led the pack, with about 25% of the US online payments market.

Other players such as Billmelater took about 5-6% and Google Checkout was on 2%.

But Ed Kountz pointed out that if eBay transactions were taken out of the picture, the non-eBay share for Paypal drops to an estimated 8%-9% - still a comfortable lead, but less overwhelming.

"Checkout's history to date has been a bit like Paypal's evolution on steroids," he said.

Discounts

There had been early hitches with returns and cancelled orders.

These were factors, according to a JP Morgan report in January of this year, which led to relatively low US customer satisfaction with Checkout's service.

Still, the presence of Google in the payments market has driven a frenzy of offers and promotions, from Paypal, Google and their competitors.

Paypal remains the biggest name in online payments

The US holiday season, for instance, saw Google offering free processing till the end of 2007 for retailers, and sizable discounts to consumers.

UK retailers will get the same offer, as well as the standard price break of £10 of orders processed for free for each £1 a retailer spends buying advertising through Google.

Competition

Google is also trying to take advantage of what could be Paypal's biggest reputational risk.

As market leader and provider of a fully-integrated payments system - running transactions and transferring money directly between buyers' and sellers' bank accounts - Paypal is by far the biggest target for fraudsters and abuse of its service.

Google Checkout, in contrast, works solely as a wrapper for regular credit and debit card transactions, offering to simplify the process by storing card data and shipping information centrally.

Its staff promise that they will "make buyers whole" if they suffer fraud, as well as representing retailers when they face the risk of losing money when a deal goes wrong.

And Google's Obi Felton is also at pains to stress that Google Checkout buttons tend to sit alongside retailers' other payment methods when it comes time for the customer to pay, rather than trying to supplant them.

Google tops global brand league

Google knocked Microsoft into third place for brand value

Google has knocked Microsoft off the top spot in the annual Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful Brands ranking.

Google's brand value of $66.4bn (£33.1bn) was top, ahead of General Electric and Microsoft, which was pushed into third place.

The total value of the Top 100 brands has increased by 10.6% in the past year to $1.6 trillion.

In the UK, mobile giant Vodafone was the most valuable brand, followed by HSBC bank and supermarket Tesco.

Top 10 Brands 1 Google 2 General Electric 3 Microsoft 4 Coca-Cola 5 China Mobile 6 Marlboro 7 Wal-Mart 8 Citi 9 IBM 10 Toyota Source: Millward Brown

The biggest riser was Marks & Spencer, which tripled its brand value to take the number 68 spot globally and fourth place in the UK.

The Brandz Top 100 is compiled by the consultancy Millward Brown, which combines balance sheet values with consumer sentiment.

The report says that the past year has seen companies such as BP and Toyota boost their brand value with the promise of more environmentally friendly policies and products.

Personal touch to Google homepage

Increasingly people want to publish their own content online

Google is reinventing its simple homepage to offer users greater scope for personalisation.

The search giant is introducing features to allow users to publish their own content on a personalised Google homepage.

It represents Google's latest move towards a more user-centric web.

The changes come as Google dismissed Viacom's copyright claims and argued that its litigation threatened the very foundations of social networking.

iGoogle

In its $1bn lawsuit, entertainment giant Viacom alleged that Google-owned video-sharing website YouTube has used around 160,000 unauthorised clips.

In an official response filed with the US District Court in New York, Google argued that the lawsuit threatens the whole social networking eco-system.

"By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression," it said.

Google's whole-hearted embracing of social networking was cemented by the release of new features that could see an end to the traditional uncluttered Google homepage.

Under the umbrella term iGoogle, users will be able to share their own writings, photos and lists as well as getting a personalised view of the web based on geographical location and search history.

To encourage users to share their creative work, Google is introducing Gadget Maker, which allows users who do not know how to code to publish content simply.

There will be seven templates that can be used for personalisation, including ones that allow for the publishing of photos, sending virtual greeting cards or creating lists of favourite songs or films.

Google is also giving users the option to tailor their search to their geographic location.

Users who give their home location on Google Maps will receive search results based on that specific location.

"I look at personalised search and I think it is one of the biggest advance we have had in the last couple of years," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of user experience in a news briefing.

According to Ms Mayer, tens of millions of users have signed up for the personalised approach to search since Google introduced it two years ago.

Last week Google introduced a feature that allowed users who have given Google prior permission to store their web surfing patterns to refer back to their personal web history from the last few years.

Personalisation will play a huge part in allowing marketers to target advertisements, but Ms Mayer said that iGoogle will remain non-commercial for the foreseeable future.

s People walk past a Google logo The news archive search is one of several new Google services Web giant Google is further expanding its online empire

The new view gives a global view of search results

Google is overhauling its search system so it returns "universal" results not just those from webpages.

The change means users will also get results from news sites, blogs, video services and other relevant places.

Before now the different categories have been separate which meant searches had to be repeated to pick up all possible results.

The expanded results will be available via a series of tabs that will appear on the results page.

Drilling down

"It's breaking down the silos of information that have been built up," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search and user experience.

"It's a broad, long-term vision that will unfold over the next few years," she said.

Initially the changes only affect searches done on Google.com in English.

The change means when users carry out a search, it will also be run in the background on all the other categories of information that Google indexes.

A series of tabs will appear between the search box and the results that let users navigate to other categories.

Clicking on a tab will let people drill down into a specific category of results such as patents or products.

Results returned in other categories, such as blogs or video, will not just be from companies that Google owns.

As well as the changes to searches, the firm is introducing drop-down lists that let users quickly switch to other Google properties, such as GMail, and search for results there.

By making the move Google is following other search sites such as Amazon's A9 and Ask which let users navigate quickly to other categories of information or relevant results.

Google opens up 200 years of news

The news archive search is one of several new Google services

Web giant Google is further expanding its online empire with the launch of the Google News Archive Search.

The web-based tool allows users to explore existing digitised newspaper articles spanning the last 200 years and more recent online content.

People using the search are shown results from both free and subscription-based news outlets.

Partners in the project include the websites of US newspaper the New York Times and the Guardian from the UK.

Other sources include news aggregators, websites which collect and display news stories from multiple sources.

"The goal here is to be able to explore history as it unfolded," said Anurag Acharya, an engineer at Google and one of the team behind the project.

"It's fascinating to see how people's attitudes and emotions have changed through time."

History lesson

The new service searches hundreds of different news sources to answer a user's query. The exact number of sources is confidential.

Results are presented in similar fashion to a Google News search, with "related" articles about the same event grouped together. Free and charged-for articles are displayed side by side.

The ability to browse this historical overview allows users to identify key time periods and get some sense of the flow of events Anurag Acharya Google's empire

With pages from commercial websites, the cost of viewing them is also shown. Google says search results are based on relevance, not partnerships with companies.

Users can also view articles using a timeline that displays key dates associated with a story.

So the first Moon landing would highlight 1969 as a key date, but also identify other years when lunar landings took place or when the topic was in the news.

"The ability to browse this historical overview allows users to identify key time periods and get some sense of the flow of events," said Mr Acharya.

The earliest known searchable story is, he said, from "somewhere in the mid-1700s" - considerably older than the current 30-day archive offered through Google News.

The service is accessed through the news archive website or the Google news page. It is also activated when it can provide relevant results to a user's search on google.com.

In this case, links to the most relevant historical news articles are displayed separately above the normal search results.

Historical challenge

The launch of the news archive search extends Google's influence over how the world's information is indexed, searched and accessed.

The way we access information is changing

According to online research firm Nielsen/NetRatings, more than 380 million people used the search engine every month in 2005.

The company is also expanding into areas other than search. In August it announced plans to offer consumers the chance to download and print classic novels free of charge.

"I'm strongly in favour of the democratisation of access to historical documents, but also cautious about how much information Google now controls," said Professor Roy Rosenzweig, a historian from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in the US.

He says that increasingly the model of how we access information and what information we have access to is changing, as public archives such as libraries are replaced by private companies. But, he says, he is "extremely excited" about Google's latest offering.

"As a scholar and historian I want as much information as possible, accessible to as many people as possible at the least cost, and the extent to which Google is doing that is compelling."

Google says it plans to launch the news archive search service on other international Google sites soon.

Sci/Tech Search engine seeks billion URLs

The world's biggest search engine being installed (Fast photo)

By Internet Correspondent Chris Nuttall

A search engine that promises to index all of the World Wide Web has been officially launched.

Alltheweb.com says it already holds 200m unique Web addresses in its database, or 25% of the 800m URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) estimated to be out there.

A study published in last month's Nature calculated that the leading search engines indexed no more than 16% of the Web. Northern Light achieved this figure, with AltaVista covering 15.5% and Hotbot, 11.3%.

Powered by Norwegian algorithms

The Norwegian company, Fast Search and Transfer ASA, is behind alltheweb. It has already made a name for itself and created a court case over its MP3 search engine used by Lycos.

Fast says its new search engine "is the result of more than a decade of research into optimising search algorithms and architectures in a project initiated at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim."

It plans to catalogue the entire Web in the space of a year, by which time it should be more than one billion pages in size at current rates of growth.

The "Fast Search" architecture is based on Dell PowerEdge servers and PowerVault storage subsystems, operating in parallel to distribute user queries, search the catalogue and spider the Web.

Fast says a typical query can search all 200m documents in less than a second and the parallel systems mean a document index can be built in only 12 hours, compared to several days or even weeks for some of the other search engines.

Fast targets Inktomi

Fast's strategy will be similar to that of its major rival Inktomi - reselling the system to major portals, search engines, ISPs and content sites.

"Smaller search engines will miss a number of web site 'gems' that would have been ranked in the first one or two pages - if only the search engine had those sites in its catalogue", says Espen Brodin, president and CEO of Fast Search and Transfer.

"The massive size of Fast Search allows it to find more of these highly rated gems and place them on the first or second page of search results, resulting in a better and more satisfying search experience."

Big ain't necessarily better

But size is not everything and while alltheweb seemed lightning fast when I tried it, it did not appear to match the relevancy of a much smaller search engine now gaining popularity, google.com.

"There's always going to be people who want really comprehensive results so there's certainly every reason to go for alltheweb now," says Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch.

"But you just can't pull relevancy out of all that. This is a technology showcase for them so they can power other people like Inktomi.

Google has links edge

"Google is a perfect example of a search engine that is attracting a lot of loyal users and people are saying is a good service.

"That's because it's providing very good results by looking at the amount of links pointing to another page and deducing that page must be more relevant than one with fewer links."

"But people should go and try all the tools out there and stick with the ones they feel comfortable with."

Head to head: Fujimori verdict

A verdict is expected on Tuesday in the "mega-trial" of ex-Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori. He is accused of human rights abuses, including two death-squad massacres in which 25 people were killed. He faces up to 30 years in jail if convicted.

Should the 70-year-old former leader, who denies the charges, be sent to prison?

PRO-FUJIMORI - FERNANDO AYALA

ANTI-FUJIMORI - MONICA MIRANDA

Ms Miranda spray-paints slogans calling for a guilty verdict at a rally in Lima

Monica Miranda is an activist from Lima.

He has to go to prison because he committed many crimes.

As president, the representative of all Peruvians, he violated the human rights of many of them.

He will be judged and sentenced for those human rights crimes - that is to say he had people killed.

He also violated the constitution, committed crimes of corruption and embezzlement for which he is not yet being tried.

Me personally, I was in school when he took office and he carried out the coup dissolving the parliament and courts when I had just finished school.

When I was at university there was a lot of persecution of students. I had friends who were forced to flee the country for political reasons.

For those who stayed, we had all our democratic rights to protest and organise severely restricted.

'Least worst leader'

To a degree, I am pleased that he is being tried in Peru, something which has not happened in the majority of Latin American countries where dictators continue to walk free.

I feel proud that the state is trying him while he is still alive.

Fujimori's mega-trial Profile: Alberto Fujimori

On the other hand, he will only be punished for some of the crimes he committed, that is something that needs to be dealt with.

He needs to be charged and tried for the totality of his crimes, especially the rampant corruption. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

The problem in Peru is that we are used to making do with the least bad option - not the best, just the least-worst leader.

So if one does something positive this supposedly covers up all the negative things he has done.

The people have a certain tolerance for impunity if there were positive achievements - that is something which has to change.

Either you are good or you are not. We cannot allow someone who is more or less OK but commits crimes to be then judged as a good president.

I understand he did positive things for many Peruvians who had been abandoned by all the previous governments, but that doesn't absolve him of his crimes now and it never will.

PRO-FUJIMORI - FERNANDO AYALA

Fernando Ayala is originally from the Andean region of Ayacucho, the birthplace of the Shining Path and the heart of the violence in the 1980s and 1990s. He now lives in Manchay on the outskirts of Lima with other migrants who were internally displaced during that period.

Mr Ayala works as a manager in Manchay on the outskirts of Lima

I was 14 or 15 years old during the worst of the violence in the 1980s in Ayacucho.

In those days we slept in the mountains, we never stayed in our houses because we were scared of the Shining Path and the army.

If the Shining Path found you they would take you away to fight for them - to be a terrorist - and if the soldiers got you they would kill you, even if you were a teenager. So you just hid.

I came to Lima at that age because they killed my brother who was on his way to start university. They also killed my brother-in-law who looked after us.

The time when Fujimori governed, it was extremely hard to bring stability. I don't think that any president we have now could have achieved what he did

I remember how the soldiers intimidated us and threatened to kill us in the 1980s. When I returned in 1994, when Mr Fujimori was president, the soldiers just asked for your ID. Things had got better.

Where I come from in Ayacucho, it now has a road, water and electricity. The people realised that was thanks to Fujimori - he turned failure into a success.

That is why here in Manchay, the people support him. We all had to leave Ayacucho, we suffered so much and he helped us create this place, our new home, it was a great relief, not just for me, but for everyone.

So this issue with the massacres in Barrios Altos and La Cantuta that they've charged Mr Fujimori with, in contrast with Ayacucho there were massacres every day, every day!

And in so many cases we didn't know who had done it and the bodies disappeared. You couldn't say anything for fear of being killed even if you found bodies while walking somewhere.

'Opened doors'

So while they are talking so much about human rights abuses in this trial, what about all those who were killed in Ayacucho whose bodies have never been found, like my brother's?

Supporters credit him with putting the economy back on track and defeating the Shining Path

The time when Fujimori governed, it was extremely hard to bring stability. I don't think that any president we have now could have achieved what he did.

The Shining Path were so strong - a force to be reckoned with - but he had an impressive ability to counter the terrorists.

I don't know what Fujimori did exactly but he achieved stability and peace for the country.

Fujimori worked with the poorest people, solving their problems, helping the young people study, to get a career and get work.

Fujimori opened the doors to the outside world so we could get foreign investment, and cheap second-hand cars from abroad.

Thanks to him working people like us could actually buy a car and earn a better living.

ANTI-FUJIMORI - MONICA MIRANDA

Ethics arrive in business schools

By Shola Adenekan

Business schools are investigating the failures of financial institutions

Spyros Pyrgiotis is one of the youngest people ever to be offered a place on an MBA course in Britain.

But with no job and multiple loan refusals, the budding entrepreneur and his girlfriend have turned to the internet to fund his quest for an MBA degree.

While Spyros Pyrgiotis has launched the website thetextpage.com to link to advertisers, his girlfriend Liana Stewart has also started a Facebook support group.

"I'm hoping that the MBA will equip me for my business ventures and provide me with a vast amount of business understanding," says the 23 year-old former sound engineer and radio presenter.

"I'm looking to combine the knowledge I will gain with my previous education and work experience."

Mr Pyrgiotis and his girlfriend are not the only couple thinking outside the box by turning to the internet to create awareness for their MBA dilemma.

On the other side of the Atlantic in America, Robin Stearns has also started a website to help her unemployed husband Michael secure a job.

On myhusbandneedsajob.com, Mrs Stearns can be seen holding up a sign that says "Hire my Husband."

Mr Stearns' resume is strong; he has work experience in the financial industry and has recently received an MBA degree from the prestigious Georgetown University.

He has tried everything from networking to placing ads in newspapers, but he still cannot find a job in corporate marketing.

Some of the emails Mr Stearns have received so far mocked him for subjecting himself to public ridicule.

'Hasty solutions'

Desperate times, desperate measures: As the tumult in the financial markets continues, current and prospective MBA students are finding it difficult to secure bank loans or find openings in the job market.

And with the world economy in panic and many multinationals on both sides of the Atlantic struggling, a lot of people are also wondering what role business schools played in the biggest global crisis in nearly eight decades.

For many years, studies show that almost half of MBAs have chosen jobs in the financial sector, with the largest proportion going into investment banking.

And critics of business education blame the crisis on business schools for running programmes short on ethics.

Seventy five years of financial stability lulled everyone Sharon D Oster, Dean of Yale School of Management

They point out that students are trained to devise hasty solutions to complicated financial problems.

Others say business schools have become too removed from the real world, and instead have been producing students who are too focused on protecting shareholders' interest to the detriment of social considerations.

Sharon D Oster, Dean of Yale School of Management in Connecticut, USA, admits business schools failed to see the full picture in terms of what has gone on in the past six months or so.

The fact that the housing bubble was likely to burst was of course known by some; one of her colleagues Robert Shiller was one of the early people to predict this.

And many people also well understood that a fall in house prices would have an economic impact on consumption by households and therefore potentially cause an economic slowdown.

"The piece that most people - in economic departments and finance departments across business schools, but also in banks, regulatory entities and governments - all failed to see, was the way in which financial institutions essentially fell apart," Prof Oster says.

"Seventy five years of financial stability lulled everyone.

"In retrospect, more attention to risk management and the way in which all the pieces fit together would have been helpful."

Theory and practice

It is a sentiment shared by Carolyn Y. Woo, Dean of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business in Indiana, USA.

"I believe that our current crisis is caused by a failure of values fuelled by perverse incentives, which trumped sound judgment and overwhelmed regulatory enforcements," she says.

While agreeing this is a time for self-reflection by business educators, Prof Woo, like many heads of MBA programmes in Britain and America, believe that the association between business education and the crisis is dangerously over-generalized.

"Many responsible parties do not have MBAs," she says. "Conversely, many MBAs populate highly successful and complex companies which create both economic and social value.

Business education is examining its curriculum in the light of the crisis

"Having noted the above, this is definitely an opportunity for business schools to do more to make ethical thinking part of the fabric of their curriculum."

Employers and recruiters agree that the MBA remains a highly regarded qualification and can certainly open up career opportunities for professionals, however, they say that they are now looking for more than just a qualification.

Phil Sheridan, UK Managing Director of Robert Half, a leading recruitment company for the financial sector, says: "Clearly, the technical aspects of finance are important, but for our clients, their focus is on bringing in great performers who can hit the ground running, and really show how they can deliver measurable value like identifying tangible savings or streamlining processes to cut costs."

"In this market, it's about the pound, shilling and pence savings you deliver, not theory."

For many top universities in Europe and America, business education is the goose that keeps on laying golden eggs.

Recovery

Admission tutors in many top business schools confirm they are already witnessing a surge in applications, as diminished job prospects force many to get new skills. In addition, MBA programmes are less expensive to run than other postgraduate courses that demand state-of-the-art laboratories.

These students are also more likely to be matured, wealthier and make less demand on university resources.

Tuition fees for a course in Britain can be as much as £64,000, and business schools' alumni tend to be big donors to their alma mater.

In recent years, critics have been warning of an endemic culture of cheating among MBA students, which they attributed to a growing list of corporate ethics scandals.

A 2006 study of cheating among US graduates, published in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education, found that 56% of all MBA students cheated regularly - more than in any other discipline.

The study also suggested that business students are also more likely to find out about a test from a fellow student who had taken it.

Both Yale and Notre Dame business schools say they initiated change long before the current crisis unfolded, by incorporating ethics in the core as well as driving ethics discussion across the curricula.

In Britain, the Association of Business Schools, which represents more than 100 institutions in the UK, says in 2004, it became a partner in the UK Government's Corporate Social Responsibility Academy.

This, the organisation points out, further embedded social, environmental and ethical considerations into the delivery of courses among its members.

Business educators agree it is important that ethics are not an appendage in the margin but are built into the curricula.

And students, they say, need to be "dyed-in-the-wool ethicists."

Chris McKenna, director of MBA at Oxford University's Said Business School, says the curriculum is now being reviewed.

"We are collecting records from failed institutions and holding public discussions, and talking to executives about this failure.

"We want to help people understand what happened in and outside the classroom."

Faith Diary: Vote Jesus?

Despite being criticised by mainstream Churches, the BNP has decided to use Jesus in its election campaigning, as the BBC's Religious Affairs correspondent Robert Pigott reports in his latest Faith Diary. Also this week - why some Saudis have begun to stand up to traditionalist Islamic doctrines, and the fate of the churches with no congregations.

HOW WOULD JESUS VOTE?

In the UK most politicians are markedly reluctant to "do God".

But the British National Party has recruited Jesus Himself in its efforts to get an MEP elected to the European Parliament in June.

The BNP has produced an election poster bearing a passage from John's gospel and a traditional image of Jesus.

"What would Jesus do?" it asks, and then supplies the answer - "vote BNP".

The party has recently stepped up its efforts to present itself as a staunch defender of Christianity and recently set up what it called the Christian Council of Britain, under the leadership of the Reverend Robert West, a clergyman with an independent church.

But being the defender of Christianity requires voters to accept that the religion is under attack.

The BNP: praying for victory in June's EU elections

BNP officials speak of the Islamification of Britain, pointing to other European countries such as the Netherlands and France, which they say are rapidly losing their Christian identity.

It's an appeal to people worried by the growth of Islam, and to traditionalist evangelical Christians anxious about the secularism they feel is eroding their values in society.

The party tries to strike a chord with them by claiming that "church leaders actively shun the word of God on issues like sodomy, abortion and social justice".

Christian groups have accused the BNP of using the word "Christian" as a synonym for "white", and "Islamic" to mean "Asian", but it's a claim the party dismisses.

The BNP has also been stung by strongly worded instructions to voters from Church leaders telling them not to vote for the party.

The UK's first black archbishop, John Sentamu, said in 2004 that voting for the BNP was "like spitting in the face of God".

The BNP wants to be seen as a political party with Christian values

At its last meeting, in February, the Church of England's Synod voted overwhelmingly to ban clergy or any staff who speak for the Church from membership of the BNP, partly on the basis of BNP claims to speak for Christians.

The gospel verse on the BNP's election poster quotes Jesus's words: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

The party has accused the Church of persecuting it, having itself failied to defend Christianity from erosion from Islam and secularism.

The BNP's spokesman Simon Darby said: "It's something that the Church brought on themselves when they decided to interfere in the democratic process. If someone wants to take us on, they can expect the same in return."

SAUDI HARD-LINERS ON BACK FOOT

Saudi Arabia is noted for its traditionalist interpretation of Islam and the determination of its clergy to maintain the strictest standards.

The country is the birthplace of Islam and regards the Koran as its constitution.

Saudi Religious Police often patrol in public places where men and women might mingle

There are several thousand religious policemen - employed by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - whose duty is to enforce prayer times, the dress code and the segregation of men and women.

Women have to conform to strict rules about what clothes they wear, are not allowed to drive and need a man's permission to travel.

But there are signs of reform in the kingdom.

The head of the commission was among several hard-line traditionalists who were replaced by King Abdullah in a cabinet reshuffle last month.

The move was seen as part of efforts to speed up reforms which began soon after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

It seems that Saudi citizens have been emboldened by such measures into more open resistance.

Last month a Saudi man filed a formal complaint against the religious police over his arrest after dropping his wife off at a shopping mall in the capital, Riyadh.

The religious police had accused him of being with a woman who was not his wife.

The man claimed that despite showing them his marriage certificate - which he evidently had with him - he was beaten and taken to the police station before later being released with an apology.

They noted "well-rooted perversity" in the ministry

Another recent case resulted in a 75-year-old Syrian woman being sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison for having two men who were not relatives in her house.

Saudi media reported that one of the men, a 24-year-old known in court as Fahd, claimed to have been breast-fed as a baby by the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, and that he was therefore a son to her in Islam.

Fahd and his friend - who claimed to be delivering bread - were both sentenced to jail and lashes.

However, Sawadi is not inclined to accept the verdict, and a human rights lawyer promptly announced his intention of filing an appeal.

In other signs of the waning power of traditionalist clergy, music was allowed on the government-run television station, and women journalists were allowed to interview men.

The comedy film "Manahi" was screened in Saudi Arabia - but only for one week

Newspapers publish pictures of Western women, although bare arms and cleavage are obscured.

Such changes have caused alarm among traditionalist clergy.

In a recent statement, 35 clerics called on the new information minister to keep women off television, and photographs of them out of newspapers and magazines.

They noted "well-rooted perversity" in the ministry.

When he visited Saudi Arabia, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner seemed to highlight a different view of perversity.

He told a news conference that he had sat between a female Saudi surgeon and a female Saudi journalist at lunch. He remarked that although one woman operated on people and the other helped to teach them, neither was allowed to drive a car.

"I find that bizarre" he said.

MODERN USE FOR ANCIENT CHURCHES

Back to the BNP, and another of their preoccupations is the closure of parish churches, especially when they are converted into mosques.

It is a concern shared by several heritage groups, even if for slightly different reasons.

As congregations dwindle, one church group predicted that buildings would become disused - or redundant - at the rate of almost one a week.

The Church of England alone has some 16,000 parish churches and more than three-quarters of them are listed.

Keeping medieval buildings in good repair creates a huge drain on the Church's resources.

Redundant churches - 340 of them - are cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), which celebrated its 40th birthday last week with a "present" from the Church of the latest casualty of empty pew syndrome.

There are hundreds of churches facing a decline in congregations

The church of St Margaret of Antioch, in Knotting in Bedfordshire, is, like so many of the CCT's other buildings, full of history.

St Margaret's is thought to be of Saxon origin, and is in a village recorded in the Domesday Book - Knotting was collectively fined two marks in 1176 for trespassing in the King's Forest, which virtually surrounded it.

With only about 100 people left in the village, Knotting no longer supplies a congregation.

The Churches Conservation Trust - in common with other heritage bodies - thinks the government ought to do more to fund the upkeep of historic churches, rather as the French government does.

But other strategies have been mooted, including modernising the way churches are used.

In the Middle Ages the main body of the parish church - the nave - was open for public use, as a market, storeroom or meeting place. Only the area near the altar - the chancel - was reserved for the priest.

One notable campaigner for the preservation of old churches, Sir Roy Strong, says it was the building of village halls that has been killing the parish church.

Shops and post offices are among the planned developments to bring churches closer to the people.

A medieval attitude to common ownership of the church could turn out to suit the modern age.