Dolores Hope, who was married to Bob Hope for 69 years and accompanied him on many of his trips to entertain American troops overseas, has died at the age of 102. Hope—born Dolores DeFina in Harlem in 1909—sidelined her own singing career after meeting her husband, who died…
Continue reading …At least 25 dead after gunmen open fire on Shia Muslim pilgrims in Baluchistan province in apparent sectarian attack At least 25 Shia Muslim pilgrims have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a bus in western Pakistan, officials said. The pilgrims were going through Mastung district in Baluchistan province, en route to the Iranian border, when the attack occurred, said a senior district official, Saeed Umrani. Two motorcycles blocked the path of the bus and three gunmen stormed the vehicle, opening fire on the roughly 40 pilgrims inside, said a local tribal police officer, Dadullah Baluch, after interviewing survivors and eyewitnesses. At least 25 people were killed and more than a dozen injured in the attack on Tuesday, he added. The dead and wounded were being taken to a hospital in Quetta, about 35 miles to the north, he said. Pakistan is a majority Sunni Muslim state. Although most Sunnis and Shias live there relatively peacefully, extremists on both sides often target each other’s leaders and activists. The Sunni-Shia schism over the true heir to the prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century. Pakistan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Anni Dewani honeymoon murder pair to go on trial in South Africa next year
September 20, 2011 No Comment
Men accused of plotting with Shrien Dewani to kill his wife on their honeymoon will face murder trial in Cape Town Two men accused of plotting with a British businessman to kill his wife during their honeymoon will go on trial in South Africa next year. Xolile Mngeni and Mziwamadoda Qwabe were allegedly hired by Shrien Dewani to murder his wife, Anni , in a fake carjacking in Cape Town. A British judge ruled last month that Dewani, 31, should be extradited to South Africa to face trial. He strongly denies any involvement in his wife’s murder and is fighting against the decision to send him to South Africa. Mngeni, 23, and Qwabe, 25, appeared at Wynberg regional court in Cape Town accused of murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. The two men, who are also accused of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, were told they would face trial at Western Cape high court. Mngeni, who has a malignant brain tumour, was helped into the dock by his co-accused before they were committed for trial. During their last hearing, the court undertook to decide whether to abandon the charges against Mngeni because of his condition, meaning they would only proceed with the case against Qwabe. But there was no mention of his tumour at the committal hearing. Previously the men’s lawyers have alleged to the Guardian that both were tortured by the police. Anni Dewani, 28, was shot dead in an apparent carjacking in the impoverished Gugulethu township on the outskirts of Cape Town last November. Her husband and Zola Tongo, the taxi driver, were ejected from the vehicle. Dewani was implicated in his wife’s murder by Tongo, 31, who claimed in a plea bargain that Dewani had offered him 15,000 rand (£1,400) to arrange the killing. Tongo has been sentenced to 18 years in jail for murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and perverting the course of justice. A pre-trial hearing has been scheduled in the high court for 10 February for Mngeni and Qwabe. This is to ensure there are no unforeseen hitches that could delay the legal process. A date for the trial has yet to be set. During the extradition hearing in London over the summer, Dewani’s legal team argued he was too ill to return and claimed his human rights would be infringed if he was ordered to go to South Africa because of the conditions he would face in prison. Dewani has been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Psychiatrists who have treated Dewani at a medium-secure psychiatric hospital in Bristol warned there was a “high risk” he would commit suicide if he was returned to South Africa. Experts in the South African penal system called by Dewani’s lawyers during the hearing said some prisons were overcrowded, understaffed and rife with diseases, including TB and HIV/Aids. There was a shortage of medical staff and sick prisoners sometimes struggled to get access to the care and medicine they needed. Members of Anni Dewani’s family are keen for Shrien Dewani to return to South Africa to face trial. Dewani murder case South Africa Africa Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A Georgia parole board has denied clemency to Troy Davis, the death-row inmate whose case attracted international attention amid what supporters say are significant doubts over his guilt. With the failure of Davis’ last-ditch appeal, announced Tuesday morning, he appears all but certain to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday at 7 p.m. “He’s guilty,”
Continue reading …Employees say they faced brutal working conditions at Amazon warehouse
September 20, 2011 No CommentTwenty current and former employees at an Amazon warehouse in Pennsylvania say they were forced to work in brutal heat at a breakneck pace while hired paramedics waited outside in case anyone became dangerously dehydrated. Spencer Soper of the Lehigh Valley has published an exhaustive investigation into the massive online retailer’s Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania operation.
Continue reading …Who’s crazy now? Charlie Sheen is hammering out a settlement with Warner Bros. for his firing from Two and a Half Men amounting to $25 million, TMZ and the Los Angeles Times are reporting. The wacked out actor filed a $100 million lawsuit for wrongful termination against Warner Bros. when…
Continue reading …Move over, Greens. Make way for the Pirates. For the first time in German history the upstart Pirate Party has won representation in regional elections to grab 15 of 130 seats in the German parliament. Members support a host of civil rights, including Internet freedoms some might consider … piracy. “I…
Continue reading …
Georgia man who insists he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989 set to be executed on Wednesday Georgia’s pardons board has rejected clemency for death row inmate Troy Davis, who has attracted high-profile support for his claim that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989. According to his defence lawyers, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected Davis’s request for clemency after hearing hours of testimony from his supporters and prosecutors. “I am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice,” Brian Kammer, one of Davis’s attorneys, said after the decision was announced. Davis is set to die on Wednesday for the murder of off-duty Savannah officer Mark MacPhail, who was killed while rushing to help a homeless man who was being attacked. It is the fourth time in four years his execution has been scheduled by Georgia officials. Davis was convicted at a 1991 trial almost exclusively on the basis of nine witnesses who all said they had seen him carry out the shooting. Davis was present at the scene, but has always insisted that another man, Sylvester Coles, attacked the homeless man and shot MacPhail when he intervened. The murder weapon was never found, and there was no DNA or other forensic evidence. In the years since the trial, seven of the nine witnesses have come forward and recanted their evidence, saying they were put under pressure to implicate Davis by the investigating police. Other witnesses have come forward to say they had heard Coles confess to killing the officer. The parole board heard from one of the jurors who originally recommended the death penalty for Davis. Brenda Forrest told the panel she no longer trusted the verdict or sentence: “I feel, emphatically, that Mr Davis cannot be executed under these circumstances,” she said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The board also heard from Quiana Glover, who testified she had heard Coles confess in June 2009 to having been the killer, at a party where he had been drinking heavily. Following the arguments for clemency, members of MacPhail’s family and the prosecution side were expected to call for the execution to go ahead. Brian Evans, a death row specialist at Amnesty International’s US branch, said the extraordinary outpouring of support for Davis was partly of a reflection of changing attitudes in America towards executions. Opinion polls suggest the US has softened its view from its once-hardline, pro-capital punishment position, and is now fairly evenly divided between defenders of the death penalty and those who see life without parole as a satisfactory alternative. State of Georgia Capital punishment United States Human rights guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Rebecca Leighton, who was freed without charge over patients’ deaths, speaks about her experience on ITV’s This Morning A nurse who was held on remand for six weeks on suspicion of being responsible for the deaths of patients at Stepping Hill hospital has spoken of her ordeal and criticised her portrayal by the media following her arrest. In her first interview, with ITV’s This Morning programme on Tuesday, Rebecca Leighton described being arrested by police as absolutely horrendous, and said she was too scared to walk down the street alone because of public hostility. Leighton, from Heaviley, Stockport, said she had “pleaded” with the police after her arrest not to stop looking for the real culprit in the investigation. “I pleaded with the police, every day, all the time: ‘Just don’t stop looking. Don’t stop with me because if you do then surely the person that has done these horrific things is still going to be out there,’” she said. “It worried me so much that the patients, everybody, were still going to be affected by it all.” She believes the media were responsible for public hostility towards her, which resulted in a judge refusing her bail at Manchester crown court on 5 August. She was released from Styal prison in Cheshire, where she spent six weeks on remand, on 2 September, after the Crown Prosecution Service dropped all the charges against her. “Because of how the media have portrayed me to be … they could not be any more wrong, people have formed an opinion about me, so I believe it [the bail refusal] was for that reason,” she said. She said: “It’s hard to even say about having a normal life because even now my life is not normal. “I am living at my parents’, I am not living where I was living. I’m not working. I can’t go outside my house without people taking pictures of me. “I can’t walk down the street on my own because I’m a bit scared. Someone has always got to be with me all the time. It’s far from normal.” She said nursing was all she had ever done, adding: “I am so passionate about my job and looking after patients. That’s what I do. That’s what I have worked so hard for. “All this attention has been totally out of my control and I have been left now to try and sort everything out myself.” She said she wished her name had not been published in the media before she was charged. Police arrested the nurse in July after her fingerprints were apparently found on bags of saline fluid that had been contaminated with insulin at the Stockport hospital. Greater Manchester police have established that insulin was present in three patients – Tracey Arden, 44, Alfred Derek Weaver, 83, and Arnold Lancaster, 71 – who all died in July. Speaking of her arrest, she said: “Obviously I was asleep in bed because I was meant to be in work the next day. The police banged on the door. I thought the police wanted to ask further questions. “They came up to my flat. I was not expecting what was to come at all. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Even though I’d been arrested, I thought I’d be home in time for teatime.” She initially refused to have a solicitor present during questioning as she felt she had nothing to hide. But a police officer advised her to have a solicitor with her. “I just couldn’t make sense. I couldn’t string a sentence together. I just couldn’t understand what was going on, why it was me that was arrested, any of it. None of it made sense to me,” she said. “It was hard. I learned, obviously, through what I had been through, not to look too far down the line as to which way my life is going to go. “I just had that little bit of faith that this is going to end and it has got to end because surely they have got to realise at some point that it is not me.” She defended her portrayal in pictures posted on her Facebook page that were published in the press, saying she was “just being any normal 27-year-old girl” who goes out with her friends. “I was just out with my friends having a good time,” she said. “I have got a big group of friends and the media portrayed it to be that work got in the way of my social life. “Ask any of my friends – my friends will tell you that I never used to go out half as much as they wanted me to because I had a choice of working and I ended up working because that is what I loved.” She said she would love to go back to her life as it had been before, adding: “Anything bad that happens, you’ve got to turn it into a positive.” Last week, the Nursing and Midwifery Council revoked the suspension of her nursing registration with certain conditions. But she remains suspended on full pay by Stepping Hill while inquiries continue into allegations that she stole medication. Nursing Crime Television Health Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Navy Lt. Gary Ross, like every other gay and lesbian service member, was free to disclose his sexuality as of midnight—and he did it in style. The 33-year-old service man and his partner of 11 years traveled from their home in Arizona to Vermont so they could marry as…
Continue reading …