Coroner gives first spontaneous combustion verdict in 25-year career after man found dead in unexplained circumstances An Irish pensioner found burnt to death at his home died from spontaneous human combustion, an inquest has concluded. The West Galway coroner, Kieran McLoughlin, said there was no other adequate explanation for the death of 76-year-old Michael Faherty, also known as Micheal O Fatharta. He said it was the first time in his 25 years as a coroner that he had returned such a verdict. An Irish police crime scene investigator and a senior fire officer told the inquest in Galway that they could not explain how Faherty burned to death. Both said they had not come across such a set of circumstances before. The assistant chief fire officer, Gerry O’Malley, said fire officers were satisfied that an open fire in Faherty’s fireplace had not been the cause of the blaze. No trace of an accelerant was found at the scene, and there was no sign that anyone else had entered or left the house in Ballybane, Galway city. The inquest heard that asmoke alarm in the home of Faherty’s neighbour Tom Mannion had gone off at about 3am on 22 December last year. Mannion said he went outside and saw heavy smoke coming from Faherty’s house. He banged on the front door but got no response, and then banged on the door of another neighbour. Gardai and the fire brigade arrived quickly at the scene. Garda Gerard O’Callaghan said he went to the house after the fire had been extinguished and found Faherty lying on his back in a sitting room, with his head closest to the fireplace. The rest of the house had sustained only smoke damage. O’Callaghan told the coroner that the only damage was to Faherty’s remains, the floor underneath him and the ceiling above. . The inquest heard that fire officers had been unable to determine the cause or the origin of the fire. The state pathologist, Prof Grace Callagy, noted in her post-mortem findings that Faherty had Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, but concluded he had not died from heart failure. His body had been extensively burned and, because of the extensive damage to the organs, it was not possible to determine the cause of death. McLoughlin said: “This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.” Ireland Europe Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini describes Knox team’s criticism of Italy’s national police forensic service and its findings as slander The Italian prosecutor who put Amanda Knox in jail has accused her and her lawyers of using the same tactics as the Nazis and asked the court that will decide her appeal not to be swayed by a campaign designed to discredit Italian justice. In an emotional closing address on Friday, during which he also showed the jurors grisly crime scene footage of the dead British student, Meredith Kercher, the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, described criticism by Knox’s defence of Italy’s national police forensic service and its findings as slander. But then, he added, slander had played an important role in the case. Knox, he said, had slandered the police and her employer, Patrick Lumumba. After she was arrested for Kercher’s murder four years ago, the American student claimed she was slapped by police during her interrogation and made a statement, which she later withdrew, naming the Congolese bar owner Lumumba as the murderer. “Slander, slander and some of it will stick,” declared Mignini. “It’s what the noted propaganda minister of the Nazis used to say in the 1930s.” Earlier, he told the court: “Our judicial system has been subjected to a systematic denigration by a well-organised operation of a journalistic and political nature.” Knox is appealing against a 26-year sentence. Her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, the son of an Italian doctor, is also challenging his 25-year sentence. Their convictions have been widely questioned in the US media. But, in court, the biggest setback for the prosecution came in June when two court-appointed Italian experts made scathing criticisms of the crucial forensic evidence used to convict the two alleged killers. Kercher was found stabbed to death four years ago at the age of 21 in the flat she shared with Knox while they were both studying at Perugia’s university for foreigners. A third man, Rudy Guede, a small-time drugs peddler from the Ivory Coast, has also been convicted of the murder, which the lower court decided arose from a four-way sex game resisted by Kercher. The national sensitivities that have always lurked below the surface of this tangled affair had also surfaced earlier when Giancarlo Costagliola, the associate chief prosecutor of Perugia, said he and his colleagues were victims of an “obsessive” media campaign helped by American ignorance of the Italian justice system. With Knox’s mother, father and stepfather sitting just a few feet away, he said the outcry over the alleged failings in the case against her “makes everyone feel like the parents of Amanda Knox”. Looking at the two judges and six jurors (technically lay judges), he went on: “We hope, in deciding, you will feel a little like Meredith Kercher’s parents.” The Leeds university student was, he said, someone who was “clever, serious and very tied to her family and whom these kids from rich families prevented from living”. Knox had entered the court for the start of the prosecution summing-up looking tense and serious, her face notably pallid. Amanda Knox United States Meredith Kercher Europe Italy John Hooper guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini describes Knox team’s criticism of Italy’s national police forensic service and its findings as slander The Italian prosecutor who put Amanda Knox in jail has accused her and her lawyers of using the same tactics as the Nazis and asked the court that will decide her appeal not to be swayed by a campaign designed to discredit Italian justice. In an emotional closing address on Friday, during which he also showed the jurors grisly crime scene footage of the dead British student, Meredith Kercher, the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, described criticism by Knox’s defence of Italy’s national police forensic service and its findings as slander. But then, he added, slander had played an important role in the case. Knox, he said, had slandered the police and her employer, Patrick Lumumba. After she was arrested for Kercher’s murder four years ago, the American student claimed she was slapped by police during her interrogation and made a statement, which she later withdrew, naming the Congolese bar owner Lumumba as the murderer. “Slander, slander and some of it will stick,” declared Mignini. “It’s what the noted propaganda minister of the Nazis used to say in the 1930s.” Earlier, he told the court: “Our judicial system has been subjected to a systematic denigration by a well-organised operation of a journalistic and political nature.” Knox is appealing against a 26-year sentence. Her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, the son of an Italian doctor, is also challenging his 25-year sentence. Their convictions have been widely questioned in the US media. But, in court, the biggest setback for the prosecution came in June when two court-appointed Italian experts made scathing criticisms of the crucial forensic evidence used to convict the two alleged killers. Kercher was found stabbed to death four years ago at the age of 21 in the flat she shared with Knox while they were both studying at Perugia’s university for foreigners. A third man, Rudy Guede, a small-time drugs peddler from the Ivory Coast, has also been convicted of the murder, which the lower court decided arose from a four-way sex game resisted by Kercher. The national sensitivities that have always lurked below the surface of this tangled affair had also surfaced earlier when Giancarlo Costagliola, the associate chief prosecutor of Perugia, said he and his colleagues were victims of an “obsessive” media campaign helped by American ignorance of the Italian justice system. With Knox’s mother, father and stepfather sitting just a few feet away, he said the outcry over the alleged failings in the case against her “makes everyone feel like the parents of Amanda Knox”. Looking at the two judges and six jurors (technically lay judges), he went on: “We hope, in deciding, you will feel a little like Meredith Kercher’s parents.” The Leeds university student was, he said, someone who was “clever, serious and very tied to her family and whom these kids from rich families prevented from living”. Knox had entered the court for the start of the prosecution summing-up looking tense and serious, her face notably pallid. Amanda Knox United States Meredith Kercher Europe Italy John Hooper guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …In the period leading up to last night’s Republican presidential debate, the actions of the Federal Reserve had been a hot topic among the party’s leaders. Rick Perry, the Texas governor, said it would be “almost treasonous” for Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to increase the money supply in order to kickstart the economy. His chief
Continue reading …In the period leading up to last night’s Republican presidential debate, the actions of the Federal Reserve had been a hot topic among the party’s leaders. Rick Perry, the Texas governor, said it would be “almost treasonous” for Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to increase the money supply in order to kickstart the economy. His chief
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FSB using psychological techniques developed by KGB to intimidate and demoralise diplomatic staff, activists and journalists Russia’s spy agency is waging a massive undercover campaign of harassment against British and American diplomats, as well as other targets, using deniable “psychological” techniques developed by the KGB, a new book reveals. The federal security service (FSB’s) operation involves breaking into the private homes of western diplomats – a method the US state department describes as “home intrusions”. Typically the agents move around personal items – opening windows, or setting alarms – in an attempt to demoralise and intimidate their targets. The FSB operation includes bugging of private apartments, widespread phone tapping, physical surveillance, and email interception. Its victims include local Russian staff working for western embassies, opposition activists, human rights workers and journalists. The clandestine campaign is revealed in Mafia State, a book by the Guardian’s former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding, serialised in Saturday’s Weekend magazine. The British and American governments are acutely aware of the FSB’s campaign of intimidation. But neither has publicly complained about these demonstrative “counter-intelligence” measures, for fear of further straining already difficult relations with Vladmir Putin’s resurgent regime. Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, was head of the FSB. British sources admit they have files “five or six inches thick” detailing FSB break-ins and other incidents of harassment against Moscow embassy staff. “Generally we don’t make a fuss about it,” one said. So pervasive is the FSB’s campaign the British government is unable to staff fully its Moscow embassy. The intrusions are designed to “short-tour” diplomats so they leave their posts early, the source said. Despite a recent improvement in US-Russian relations, the FSB has also targeted US diplomats and their families. In a 2009 confidential diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador in Moscow John Beyrle complains that the FSB’s aggressive measures have reached unprecedented levels. Mafia State recounts how the KGB first became interested in “operational psychology” in the 1960s. But it was the Stasi, East Germany’s sinister secret police, that perfected these psychological techniques and used them extensively against dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s. These operations were given a name, Zersetzung – literally corrosion or undermining. According to former Stasi officers the aim was to “switch off” regime opponents by disrupting their private or family lives. Tactics included removing pictures from walls, replacing one variety of tea with another, and even sending a vibrator to a target’s wife. Usually victims had no idea the Stasi were responsible. Many thought they were going mad; some suffered breakdowns; a few committed suicide. It was Erich Honecker, East Germany’s communist leader, who patented these methods after concluding that “soft” methods of torture were preferable to open forms of persecution. The advantage of psychological operations was their deniability – important for a regime that wanted to maintain its international respectability. Putin spent the late 1980s as an undercover KGB officer based in the east German town of Dresden. Harding was himself the victim of repeated FSB break-ins, and last November was, in effect, expelled from Russia when the foreign ministry said it was not renewing his journalist’s accreditation. Mafia State also reveals: • FSB officers privately admit the agency was involved in the assassination of dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko. They regret, however, the bungled way it was carried out. • The British embassy in Moscow has a “polonium” chair sat on by Andrei Lugovoi, the chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder. Uncertain what to do with it, officials have locked it in a room in the Kremlin. • Russia’s footballing union knew a week before a vote in December that Fifa’s executive committee would give Russia, rather than England, the 2018 World Cup The FSB never explained why they targeted Harding with such zeal. Other western correspondents have also suffered from occasional “home intrusions”, but on a much lesser scale. Russia Europe Alexander Litvinenko Vladimir Putin guardian.co.uk
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Man shot dead in West Bank village hours before Mahmoud Abbas’s request to the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state A Palestinian man has been shot dead in a clash with Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank. Hours before President Mahmoud Abbas’s address to the United Nations general assembly and his formal request for recognition of a Palestinian state, the man, identified as Issam Badran, 35, was shot in the neck, according to witnesses including an Associated Press reporter. The incident began with a warning broadcast made over mosque speakers in Qusra of an approach by settlers from a nearby outpost. Scores of village men and youths headed towards a hill where around 20 settlers had gathered, waving Israeli flags. Israeli troops arrived and fired tear gas, then live rounds. Settlers also fired their weapons. Qusra has been the scene of repeated incursions by settlers in recent weeks, including an attack on a mosque in which tyres were set alight inside the building and the walls defaced with Hebrew graffiti. Elsewhere, sporadic clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli military broke out in East Jerusalem and across the West Bank on Friday. Several hundred young Palestinians, swathed in Palestinian flags, their faces covered with scarves, gathered at Qalandiya checkpoint to throw stones, in defiance of Abbas’s call for non-violent demonstration. “We’re not listening to Abu Mazen [Abbas], we never do,” said one 20-year-old student, clutching several rocks in his hand. “Really we’re just playing. It’s a game we play every week. We want to send a message that after 60 years of occupation, we’re still here.” One group of youths marched towards a line of Israeli troops holding aloft an American flag with the word “veto” printed on before torching it. Others threw rocks and miniature molotov cocktails at the advancing soldiers. On the other side of the separation wall, Israeli police reported five arrests in East Jerusalem for rock throwing in an afternoon described by spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld as “relatively quiet”. The arrest of Hamze Jaber, 17, in the neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud sparked outrage. “He did nothing. He just saw the soldiers, got scared and ran. They chased him and jumped on him. Now he’ll be in prison for maybe two months,” said Jamil Abu Madi, 27, a local who struggled to hold back furious young boys from throwing stones at retreating Israeli soldiers. “They closed Al-Aqsa mosque today so we just prayed on the street. Why? Because of a Palestinian state? We just want to live.” In the village of Nabi Saleh, protesters burned Israeli flags and posters of US president Barack Obama in an expression of rage over his UN speech this week, widely seen as overtly sympathetic to Israel. Police fired teargas at the protesters. There were further clashes in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin. Confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli troops in West Bank villages are a routine Friday occurrence. Palestinian territories Israel Mahmoud Abbas Middle East United Nations Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NASA says a giant, defunct satellite making its way toward earth will hit late Friday or early Saturday morning. The only problem is, they don’t know exactly where yet. According to the Telegraph’s Andy Bloxham, the 6.5-ton, 35-foot Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is traveling at a pace of five miles per second. In fact, because the
Continue reading …Thai PM under fire after exiled brother joins ministers’ meeting via webcam
September 23, 2011 No Comment
Yingluck Shinawatra accused of being a puppet after allowing former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to ‘lecture’ ministers The Thai prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is facing criticism for allowing her brother, the deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra, to summon government ministers for a meeting by webcam from his self-imposed exile abroad. Thaksin, a twice-elected former prime minister deposed in a 2006 coup and convicted of graft two years later, is widely believed to be the dominant force behind the two-month-old administration of his sister, a political novice. Recent events have erased all doubt for many, raising questions over whether the 62-year-old billionaire, who remains revered by the rural masses as much as he is reviled by the royalist elite, is making a new, overt grab for power. On Wednesday, Thaksin joined a meeting with Thai ministers at Yingluck’s party headquarters via Skype. “Ministers squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs as Thaksin acted like a teacher, ‘lecturing’ some of them who failed to measure up at the tension-filled meeting, which lasted for more than two hours,” the Bangkok Post newspaper reported on Friday. Thaksin went into detail on plans for a big increase in the minimum wage and a rice intervention plan, it said, adding that he would chair similar meetings each week. Only ministers and deputy ministers from Yingluck’s Puea Thai party were involved, but the party has the bulk of cabinet positions. “It has been clearly shown who is the real prime minister,” said the opposition chief whip, Jurin Laksanawisit, calling Yingluck a “puppet”. “The prime minister should realise that the cabinet chief is the head of the country, not the head of the family.” The move appeared risky for Yingluck, who had no political experience before entering Thailand’s general election. “Thaksin has been pulling the strings for a while behind the scenes. Now he has decided to come out publicly,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of South-east Asian Studies. “But he pushes too hard, moves too fast, and thus leaves too little room for Yingluck to breathe.” Yingluck, chosen by Thaksin to lead her party, galvanised supporters and won a convincing victory. But she has been unable to shake off the charge she is a lightweight proxy leader, keeping the seat warm until her brother can return. Thaksin is at the heart of Thailand’s long-running political crisis and his apparent involvement in the government is bound to antagonise his enemies in military and nationalist circles. His populist policies were opposed by the royalist elite but won over the poor, who gave him two overwhelming election victories before he was toppled by the military in 2006. He fled into exile in 2008, shortly before being found guilty of graft. Yingluck played down the Skype episode. “It was a normal chat, just with Puea Thai ministers, not the whole cabinet. Thaksin called during the end of the meeting to show support to all, not to advise on anything,” she said. No one will be surprised if Thaksin wants to influence policy, but he is still, in theory, on the run from a two-year jail sentence and his presence at the meeting is provocative. “This is the government’s weak point that opposition sides will use to attack Thaksin and Puea Thai, but it won’t make the government collapse,” said the political analyst Kan Yuenyong at Siam Intelligence Unit. Previous pro-Thaksin administrations have been brought down by the courts and undermined in the street by the ultra-nationalist, yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy. Pro-Thaksin “red shirts” have also held protests since 2005, including a two-month rally in Bangkok last year in which more than 90 people were killed, including civilians and troops. Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra guardian.co.uk
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