Florida judge says she will soon be released due to time already served Casey Anthony, who was acquitted of killing her toddler in a trial that became a media sensation, is likely to stay in prison for several more weeks after being sentenced on charges she lied to investigators. Anthony, 25, was sentenced to four years for the four counts of lying to police, but she has already served nearly three years in jail and will also receive some credit for good behaviour. Judge Belvin Perry estimated that she would be freed in late July or early August. An exact date was to be determined later on Thursday after attorneys for both sides decide exactly how much time she should be credited. The judge also fined her $1,000 on each count. Her defence attorneys, who had been pressing for Anthony to be released, argued before sentencing that her convictions should be combined into one, but the judge disagreed. Anthony was convicted of lying to investigators about working at the Universal Studios theme park, about leaving her daughter with a nonexistent nanny named Zanny, about leaving the girl with friends and about receiving a phone call from her. Prosecutors contended Anthony, then 22, suffocated two-year-old Caylee with duct tape because she was interfering with her desire to be with her boyfriend and party with her friends. Defence attorneys countered that the toddler accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool. They said that when Anthony panicked, her father, a former police officer, decided to make the death look like a murder. They said he put duct tape on the girl’s mouth and then dumped the body in woods about a quarter of a mile (half a kilometre) away. The defence said Anthony’s apparent carefree life hid emotional distress caused by sexual abuse from her father. Her father firmly denied both the cover-up and abuse claims. The prosecution called Anthony’s story about what happened to her daughter absurd, and said no one would make an accident look like a murder. When she is released, Anthony could be hard-pressed to piece together some semblance of a normal life. Threats have been made against her, and online she is being vilified. More than 17,000 people “liked” the “I hate Casey Anthony” page on Facebook, which included comments wishing her the same fate that befell Caylee. Ti McCleod, who lives a few doors from Anthony’s parents, said: “Society is a danger to Casey; she’s not a danger to society.” “Anthony will always be dogged by the belief that she killed her child,” said Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “She will never lead a normal life.” Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez, told ABC before the verdict that he was concerned about his client’s safety when she is freed, given the high emotions surrounding the case. “I am afraid for her,” he told ABC television. Jurors declined to talk to reporters immediately after Tuesday’s verdict, and juror Jennifer Ford told ABC television in an interview that the case was a troubling one. “I did not say she was innocent,” Ford told the network. “I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be.” Ford said the fact that Anthony could have faced the death penalty was a consideration. “If they want to charge and they want me to take someone’s life, they have to prove it. They have to prove it, or else I’m a murderer too.” United States guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Paul Ryan thinks voters will go for his Medicare-killing budget plan if it’s just sold right
July 7, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Republicans have been deluding themselves, ever since the debacle in NY-26, that all Republicans really have to do is sell their proposals better, and voters will get on board with the Paul Ryan Path to the Poorhouse budget plan — you know, the one that ends Medicare as we know it, among other things. In an interview with WISN-TV , Ryan himself explained why polls consistently voters strongly disapprove of his plan: RYAN: Those polls don’t describe it very well. When the plan is described accurately, it actually polls very well. Well, Greg Sargent runs through the list and finds that the polls describe his plan perfectly well: In reality, the polls that accurately describe Ryan’s plan almost all show woefully low support for it. What’s more, Republicans have in effect already acknowledged that they lost the larger argument over Medicare by beginning to attack Dems from the left on the issue. They are now accusing Democrats of being the ones who really want to cut Medicare, and have even accused Dems of wanting to “shred the social safety net.” And even Mitch McConnell has distanced himself from Ryan’s plan. How does Ryan intend to improve those poll numbers? The WISN interview makes it plain that his strategy is simple: Slag the Democrats on Medicare. RYAN: Whenever you lead and propose a solution to a complex problem, you’re putting yourself out there to be distorted, to be demagogued to be lied about. What’s happening is the other party’s chosen to try to scare senior citizens to try and get votes. Here’s the deal on our Medicare plan: ObamaCare ends Medicare as we know it. Got that? The whole story on Ryan’s plan is that it’s actually “Obamacare” that’s the problem. Of course, this has been Ryan’s fresh new lie for a week now . And as Brian Beutler observes, it’s profoundly mendacious: Ryan’s plan actually sustains those $500 billion in cuts, while repealing just about all other parts of the health care law. Far beyond that, though, his plan would close the door on traditional Medicare in 10 years, and phase it out by putting new retirees in a private, subsidized health insurance market. As usual, though, privatizing a major entitlement polls really poorly, and Republicans are facing huge voter backlash in their districts after voting to endorse Ryan’s plan. The most amusing part of all this is watching Republicans flop back and forth on scaremongering seniors. After NY-26, they denounced Democrats for waging “Mediscare” tactics . There was no small irony in this, considering that this was the party that invented the “death panels” lie and ran videos of Democrats killing poor grannies.
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The Guardian’s editor debates with readers from 2.30pm about issues arising from the phone-hacking scandal Sometimes the forward momentum of newspaper investigations is virtually invisible to the naked eye. It’s lucky that Nick Davies is an exceptionally patient reporter because there must have been times during the past two years when he felt no one wanted to hear what he was so clearly saying. Nick’s first story on the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal was published almost exactly two years ago – on 8 July 2009. It was – or should have been – explosive. It reported that a major global media company – News International – had paid out £1m secretly to settle legal cases which revealed criminality within their business. Instead of going back to parliament or the regulator to admit that they had been misled, the company’s chairman, James Murdoch, signed a large cheque to stop the truth coming out. With any non-media company this revelation would have led to blanket coverage, calls for resignations, immediate action by the regulator etc. Instead there was a kind of ghostly silence. The Metropolitan police – led by Assistant Commissioner John Yates – announced an inquiry. And then, within the space of a few hours, he announced the inquiry was over and there was nothing to inquire into. News International, doubtless pleased by this clean bill of health, came out all guns blazing, denouncing the Guardian’s deliberate attempts to mislead the public. Most of the press decided it wasn’t much of a story. The regulator decided there was nothing wrong. And many MPs were sympathetic in private, but indicated there was little in it for them in sticking their heads above any public parapet. And so we settled in for the long haul. Week by week, story by story, column by column, doorstep by doorstep, Nick Davies prised open the truth. There were some other heroes: a handful of lawyers and MPs and a few journalists – on the New York Times, Independent, FT, BBC and Channel 4. But it was pretty lonely work for those at the heart of it. And there were plenty of people yawning from the sidelines, claiming it was all a bit obsessive. But investigative journalism is a bit obsessive. Sometimes it works by small, incremental, barely perceptible steps. Scroll forward two years and the full truth of what was going on at the News of the World is dramatically being stripped bare. Some kind of mental dam has been broken. MPs, journalists, regulators and police are speaking confidently again as they should. The palpably intimidating spectre of an apparently untouchable media player has been burst. But what now? How can we make sure that we never again have this kind of dominant force in British public life? One positive step yesterday was the announcement that there would be at least one public inquiry into what on earth was going on within the Metropolitan police. There are two outstanding issues that will affect the future of the media in this country. One is the threatened imminent decision to wave through the deal which would give Rupert Murdoch total control over the biggest commercial broadcaster as well as 40% of the national press. Anyone who reads into the story of the last two years can see that’s a terrible idea. But – on the narrow grounds on which Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron are fighting – it’s a complex issue mixing competition law, Ofcom, plurality and politics. And then there’s the question of how the press should be regulated. There will be plenty of calls for statutory regulation in the days and weeks to come. I don’t like the idea. I resist the notion of state licensing of journalists – and I struggle to see how there is any easy definition of “journalist” in 2011. So I would like to see self-regulation continue. But I admit this is shaky ground. When the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone hacking in November 2009 (which, to its credit, it finally retracted yesterday) I warned that this was going to be dangerous for the cause of self regulation and I quit the PCC’s code committee in protest. The PCC’s weakness is that it doesn’t have the powers of a regulator. So it should either abandon the claim to be a regulator – and carry on doing its valuable work of mediation and adjudication – or else it has to acquire powers of compelling witnesses, calling evidence etc. But how does it do that without becoming laboriously legalistic and horrendously expensive to run? These are some of the issues now coming down the slipway and I look forward to discussing them. Comments will be off on this article until 2.30pm on Thursday when Alan Rusbridger will be answering questions live online for two hours. Bochi asks: Oborne goes on to allege you also warned Nick Clegg about Coulson’s activities. Is this true? If so, what were Cameron and Clegg told that is now in the public domain? What have they known all along? Alan Rusbridger replies: Peter Oborne is right. Before the election it was common knowledge in Fleet Street that an investigator used by the NoW during Andy Coulson’s editorship was on remand for conspiracy to murder. We couldn’t report that due to contempt of court restrictions, but I thought it right that Cameron should know before he took any decisions about taking Andy Coulson into Number 10. So I sent word via an intermediary close to Cameron. And I also told Clegg personally. shanecroucher asks: Does the Guardian have any evidence of phone hacking happening at other British newspapers ? If so, once the dust settles over NotW, will the Guardian widen its continuing investigation to these papers too? Alan Rusbridger replies: I think the bulk of Nick Davies’s evidence relates to the NotW. He did write a more general chapter on the so-called dark arts of Fleet Street in his book, Flat Earth News. To be frank, it’s taken him all this time to land this one, so he’s hardly had time to look elsewhere so far nega9000 asks: The past few days have had me genuinely wondering about what, if any, licensing requirements there are on running a newspaper. If a broadcaster had been up to what the NoW were doing it would quite rightly have been pulled off the air. So what exactly does a newspaper have to do to lose its right to publish in the UK? Alan Rusbridger replies: I’m anxious about the notion of state licensing for the press. We got rid of that more than 150 years ago (date, someone?) and I wouldn’t want to see it back. In an age when anyone can call thsemselves a journalist I see difficulties of definition. Would Huffington Post have to get a licence? So, I think it’s probably unworkable as well as undesirable. But I’d be interested to hear other views. digit asks: Do you agree with Oborne that this renders Cameron’s position questionable? Alan Rusbridger replies: No – but I do think it showed lousy judgement. I don’t think I was the only person to warn Cameron in advance about Coulson, incidentally. passthebucket asks: Many congratulations on your determined coverage of this story. Also, do you ever fear retribution from Mr Murdoch, as many people apparently do? Alan Rusbridger replies: Thank you. But Nick Davies is the hero of the hour. I honestly don’t think Murdoch would win much public sympathy if he started going after the people who have been criticising him or the NoW this week. miket10000 asks: Media regulation. I don’t like the idea of state regulation either, but we’ve seen that self-regulation in its current form just doesn’t work. Do you see a future role for, e.g. Ofcom in providing or overseeing independent press regulation? Alan Rusbridger replies: I agree that this hasn’t been a wonderful advertisement for self-regulation. The short answer is that, no, the PCC can’t go on as it is. Its credibility is hanging by a thread. We did say this back in November 2009 when the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone-hacking. We said in an editorial that this was a dangerous day for press regulation – and so it’s turned out. The PCC has this week withdrawn that report and has a team looking at the issues and at the mistakes it’s made in the past. I don’t know how Ofcom could do the job without falling into the category of statutory regulation. Does anyone else? Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines The Guardian National newspapers Newspapers News International News of the World Alan Rusbridger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Guardian’s editor debates with readers from 2.30pm about issues arising from the phone-hacking scandal Sometimes the forward momentum of newspaper investigations is virtually invisible to the naked eye. It’s lucky that Nick Davies is an exceptionally patient reporter because there must have been times during the past two years when he felt no one wanted to hear what he was so clearly saying. Nick’s first story on the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal was published almost exactly two years ago – on 8 July 2009. It was – or should have been – explosive. It reported that a major global media company – News International – had paid out £1m secretly to settle legal cases which revealed criminality within their business. Instead of going back to parliament or the regulator to admit that they had been misled, the company’s chairman, James Murdoch, signed a large cheque to stop the truth coming out. With any non-media company this revelation would have led to blanket coverage, calls for resignations, immediate action by the regulator etc. Instead there was a kind of ghostly silence. The Metropolitan police – led by Assistant Commissioner John Yates – announced an inquiry. And then, within the space of a few hours, he announced the inquiry was over and there was nothing to inquire into. News International, doubtless pleased by this clean bill of health, came out all guns blazing, denouncing the Guardian’s deliberate attempts to mislead the public. Most of the press decided it wasn’t much of a story. The regulator decided there was nothing wrong. And many MPs were sympathetic in private, but indicated there was little in it for them in sticking their heads above any public parapet. And so we settled in for the long haul. Week by week, story by story, column by column, doorstep by doorstep, Nick Davies prised open the truth. There were some other heroes: a handful of lawyers and MPs and a few journalists – on the New York Times, Independent, FT, BBC and Channel 4. But it was pretty lonely work for those at the heart of it. And there were plenty of people yawning from the sidelines, claiming it was all a bit obsessive. But investigative journalism is a bit obsessive. Sometimes it works by small, incremental, barely perceptible steps. Scroll forward two years and the full truth of what was going on at the News of the World is dramatically being stripped bare. Some kind of mental dam has been broken. MPs, journalists, regulators and police are speaking confidently again as they should. The palpably intimidating spectre of an apparently untouchable media player has been burst. But what now? How can we make sure that we never again have this kind of dominant force in British public life? One positive step yesterday was the announcement that there would be at least one public inquiry into what on earth was going on within the Metropolitan police. There are two outstanding issues that will affect the future of the media in this country. One is the threatened imminent decision to wave through the deal which would give Rupert Murdoch total control over the biggest commercial broadcaster as well as 40% of the national press. Anyone who reads into the story of the last two years can see that’s a terrible idea. But – on the narrow grounds on which Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron are fighting – it’s a complex issue mixing competition law, Ofcom, plurality and politics. And then there’s the question of how the press should be regulated. There will be plenty of calls for statutory regulation in the days and weeks to come. I don’t like the idea. I resist the notion of state licensing of journalists – and I struggle to see how there is any easy definition of “journalist” in 2011. So I would like to see self-regulation continue. But I admit this is shaky ground. When the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone hacking in November 2009 (which, to its credit, it finally retracted yesterday) I warned that this was going to be dangerous for the cause of self regulation and I quit the PCC’s code committee in protest. The PCC’s weakness is that it doesn’t have the powers of a regulator. So it should either abandon the claim to be a regulator – and carry on doing its valuable work of mediation and adjudication – or else it has to acquire powers of compelling witnesses, calling evidence etc. But how does it do that without becoming laboriously legalistic and horrendously expensive to run? These are some of the issues now coming down the slipway and I look forward to discussing them. Comments will be off on this article until 2.30pm on Thursday when Alan Rusbridger will be answering questions live online for two hours. Bochi asks: Oborne goes on to allege you also warned Nick Clegg about Coulson’s activities. Is this true? If so, what were Cameron and Clegg told that is now in the public domain? What have they known all along? Alan Rusbridger replies: Peter Oborne is right. Before the election it was common knowledge in Fleet Street that an investigator used by the NoW during Andy Coulson’s editorship was on remand for conspiracy to murder. We couldn’t report that due to contempt of court restrictions, but I thought it right that Cameron should know before he took any decisions about taking Andy Coulson into Number 10. So I sent word via an intermediary close to Cameron. And I also told Clegg personally. shanecroucher asks: Does the Guardian have any evidence of phone hacking happening at other British newspapers ? If so, once the dust settles over NotW, will the Guardian widen its continuing investigation to these papers too? Alan Rusbridger replies: I think the bulk of Nick Davies’s evidence relates to the NotW. He did write a more general chapter on the so-called dark arts of Fleet Street in his book, Flat Earth News. To be frank, it’s taken him all this time to land this one, so he’s hardly had time to look elsewhere so far nega9000 asks: The past few days have had me genuinely wondering about what, if any, licensing requirements there are on running a newspaper. If a broadcaster had been up to what the NoW were doing it would quite rightly have been pulled off the air. So what exactly does a newspaper have to do to lose its right to publish in the UK? Alan Rusbridger replies: I’m anxious about the notion of state licensing for the press. We got rid of that more than 150 years ago (date, someone?) and I wouldn’t want to see it back. In an age when anyone can call thsemselves a journalist I see difficulties of definition. Would Huffington Post have to get a licence? So, I think it’s probably unworkable as well as undesirable. But I’d be interested to hear other views. digit asks: Do you agree with Oborne that this renders Cameron’s position questionable? Alan Rusbridger replies: No – but I do think it showed lousy judgement. I don’t think I was the only person to warn Cameron in advance about Coulson, incidentally. passthebucket asks: Many congratulations on your determined coverage of this story. Also, do you ever fear retribution from Mr Murdoch, as many people apparently do? Alan Rusbridger replies: Thank you. But Nick Davies is the hero of the hour. I honestly don’t think Murdoch would win much public sympathy if he started going after the people who have been criticising him or the NoW this week. miket10000 asks: Media regulation. I don’t like the idea of state regulation either, but we’ve seen that self-regulation in its current form just doesn’t work. Do you see a future role for, e.g. Ofcom in providing or overseeing independent press regulation? Alan Rusbridger replies: I agree that this hasn’t been a wonderful advertisement for self-regulation. The short answer is that, no, the PCC can’t go on as it is. Its credibility is hanging by a thread. We did say this back in November 2009 when the PCC came out with its laughable report into phone-hacking. We said in an editorial that this was a dangerous day for press regulation – and so it’s turned out. The PCC has this week withdrawn that report and has a team looking at the issues and at the mistakes it’s made in the past. I don’t know how Ofcom could do the job without falling into the category of statutory regulation. Does anyone else? Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines The Guardian National newspapers Newspapers News International News of the World Alan Rusbridger guardian.co.uk
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Priceless 12-century manuscript, which contains Europe’s first travel guide, went missing from a safe in Spanish cathedral A priceless 12th-century illustrated manuscript containing what has been described as Europe’s first travel guide has been stolen from the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. The Codex Calixtinus, which was kept in a safe at the cathedral’s archives, is thought to have been stolen by professional thieves on Sunday afternoon. Archivists did not notice its disappearance, however, until Tuesday, when the cathedral’s dean was told it was missing. The local Correo Gallego newspaper reported that distraught cathedral staff spent hours searching for the manuscript before contacting police late that night. “Although security systems have been improved considerably it is true to say that they are not of the kind one might find in a bank or a well-protected jewellers,” the newspaper reported. Only five security cameras were used to watch the archive area, according to the newspaper, and none were pointing directly at the safe where the priceless manuscript was stored. Police reportedly believe that a black market dealer in antique manuscripts may have commissioned the robbery. The codex was rarely removed from its safe, with researchers wishing to study it generally being handed a copy kept at the same archive. The 225 parchment pages include a guide to the pilgrimage routes to Santiago, apparently written by a French friar, Aimeric Picaud. They also tell the story of how St James the Apostle’s body was supposedly transported from Judea on a raft without oars or sails, which swiftly crossed the Mediterranean and travelled north through the Atlantic before grounding in north-western Spain. From there it was supposedly dragged inland by two oxen, and the body was buried in a forest. It was only eight centuries later, however, that locals began to claim the tomb of St James could be found there. Pilgrims eventually began to travel to the site, and an 11th-century pope declared that on certain years pilgrims could obtain plenary indulgence for their sins and so avoid purgatory. The manuscript, apparently commissioned by Pope Calixtus II, helped popularise a pilgrimage that still attracts tens of thousands of people every year. The author claimed pilgrims travelled from as far away as Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Jerusalem and Asia seeking “mortification of the body, increase of virtue, forgiveness of sins … and the protection of the Heavens”. His guidebook also included warnings against eating some local fish which would cause you to “die soon afterwards or fall ill”. Spain Catholicism Santiago de Compostela Europe Religion Christianity Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Reuters Ignores Projected August Debt Payments in ‘Exclusive’ About Preventing Default
July 7, 2011 No Comment
Reuters on Thursday issued what it called an “exclusive” report about the Treasury department “secretly” weighing options to avert a default if the debt ceiling isn't raised by August 2nd. In the piece , the authors shared with readers the amount of tax revenue Treasury projects it will collect in August as well as projected Social Security payments, but conspicuously ignored what the department expects to pay in interest costs on the federal debt: A small team of Treasury officials is discussing options to stave off default if Congress fails to raise the country's borrowing limit by an August 2 deadline, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have repeatedly said there are no contingency plans if lawmakers do not give the U.S. government the authority to borrow more money. But behind the scenes, top Treasury officials have been exploring ways to prevent a financial meltdown that would be triggered if the government were unable to pay its bills on time, sources told Reuters. Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately, Reuters failed to accurately report what those contingencies could be: In August, the Treasury will take in roughly $172 billion, but is obligated to make $306 billion in payments — meaning it cannot pay about 45 percent of its bills without borrowing more money, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank. That would force the administration to make some difficult choices, even though officials believe emergency measures will buy little time and cannot stave off an economic catastrophe. If Treasury were to decide to delay some payments, one option could be to postpone a disbursement of more than $49 billion to Social Security recipients that is due on August 3. It would be a politically explosive step but one that could allow the government to temporarily pay bondholders to try to avoid foreign investors dumping U.S. Treasuries and the dollar. Notice something missing? Like how much interest is due on our debt in August? If we're going to bring in $172 billion next month, and we owe $49 billion to Social Security recipients, that leaves $123 billion, right? As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, our August interest payment isn't likely to be higher than $35 billion, meaning we will have more than enough in revenues to make our debt payment and fulfill our obligations to America's seniors. After paying the interest due on our debt and Social Security bills, we'll still have $88 billion remaining to pay military men in the field, Medicare expenses, and a whole host of things. Wouldn't this have been valuable information for Reuters to share in an article titled “Exclusive: Treasury Secretly Weighs Options to Avert Default?” Or would informing the public that there really is absolutely no danger whatsoever of America defaulting on its debt not fit the media's current desire to gin up hysteria about this supposedly looming “crisis” in order to put pressure on Congressional Republicans to raise taxes? Shouldn't it be the press's responsibility to actually give the public the complete picture without withholding key elements of the story? Or would that be too much like journalism?
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Judges uphold ruling holding Michael McKevitt and fellow Real IRA member responsible for 1998 atrocity The Real IRA’s founder, Michael McKevitt, has lost his appeal against a historic civil case ruling that held him responsible for the Omagh bomb atrocity in 1998. The court of appeal in Northern Ireland upheld the 2009 ruling against McKevitt and fellow Real IRA figure Liam Campbell on Thursday. But in a mixed day for the Omagh victims’ families, the judge in the Belfast court directed a civil retrial of the claims against Colm Murphy, and Seamus Daly’s appeal has been allowed. The court will hear arguments for a retrial. In 2009, a judge found the men liable for the single biggest massacre of the Ulster Troubles, awarding £1.6m damages to some of the families’ victims. That decision opened the way for the victims of other terrorist atrocities in Ireland and overseas to consider taking civil legal action against armed groups responsible for their injuries or relatives’ deaths. Twenty-nine people and a pair of unborn twins were killed when the Real IRA car bomb exploded in the County Tyrone town in August 1998. Lawyers for the families had also appealed against the compensation awarded. They said it should have been more because of the scale of the outrage. The 12 relatives who took the 2009 case were told by the court that the £1.6m figure awarded to them would not be increased. No one has ever been convicted in a criminal court of causing the deaths of the Omagh victims. The only man to face criminal charges over the Omagh killings, Sean Hoey from Jonesborough in south Armagh, was acquitted in 2007. None of the men being sued has the capacity to make any kind of large-scale payment. From the start the families made clear the civil action was a vehicle for putting as much information as possible into the public domain about the bombing and the men they claim were involved. In his 2009 ruling, Mr Justice Morgan also found the dissident republican organisation the Real IRA liable for the bomb. He said it was clear that the bombers’ primary objective was to ensure that the bomb exploded without detection, and the safety of those members of the public in Omagh town centre was at best a secondary consideration. He said he was “satisfied that those involved in the planning, preparation, planting and detonation of the bomb recognised the likelihood of serious injury or death from its detonation but decided to take that risk”. McKevitt founded the Real IRA in November 1997 following a split within the Provisional IRA (PIRA) over the terms of Sinn Féin’s entry into party talks that led to the Good Friday agreement in 1998. He was at one time the PIRA’s quarter-master general – effectively the man in charge of their secret arsenal of weapons. McKevitt is also the brother-in-law of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. His wife, Bernadette, Sands’s sister, has denounced the Sinn Féin peace strategy and claimed it was a betrayal of what her brother died for in the Maze prison in 1981. Real IRA Omagh bombing Northern Ireland UK security and terrorism IRA Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Humberto Leal due to die despite protests from lawyers, Mexican ambassador and the White House The planned execution on Thursday of a Mexican national in Texas has prompted a flurry of appeals on his behalf, including a rare plea from the White House, because of what it could mean for other foreigners arrested in the US and Americans detained in other countries. Humberto Leal, 38, is awaiting a ruling by the US supreme court on whether to block his lethal injection in Huntsville. He was sentenced to die for the 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda. Leal’s lawyers contend that Texas authorities did not tell him after his arrest that he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty, and that such assistance would have aided his defence. Leal moved to the US as a toddler. Leal’s lawyers have support from the White House, the Mexican government and other diplomats who believe the execution should be delayed so his case can be thoroughly reviewed. “There can be little doubt that if the government of Mexico had been allowed access to Mr Leal in a timely manner, he would not now be facing execution for a capital murder he did not commit,” Leal’s lawyers told the Texas board of pardons and paroles in a clemency request that was rejected on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, Mexico’s assistance came too late to affect the result of Mr Leal’s capital murder prosecution.” Barack Obama’s administration took the unusual step of intervening in a state murder case when it asked the supreme court last week to delay Leal’s execution for up to six months. The US solicitor general told the court that Congress needed time to consider legislation that would allow federal courts to review cases of condemned foreign nationals. The legislation, backed by the US state department and the UN, would bring the US into compliance with provisions in the Vienna convention on consular relations regarding the arrest of foreign nationals. Lower courts have already rejected the pleas, agreeing with the Texas attorney general’s office that the legislation does not apply because it has not been signed into law. At least two similar measures have already failed in Congress. “Leal’s argument is nothing but a transparent attempt to evade his impending punishment,” Stephen Hoffman, an assistant attorney general for the state of Texas, told the supreme court. Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the US, has written to congressional members and Texas officials calling attention to the case and urged the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, to stop the execution. Perry had the authority to issue a 30-day reprieve but made no decision while the courts remained involved. Prosecutors said that on the night Sauceda was killed, she was drunk and high on cocaine at an outdoor party in San Antonio and was assaulted by several males. Leal said he knew her parents and would take her home. Witnesses said Leal drove off with Sauceda around 5 am. Her body was found later that morning. Her head had been battered with a chunk of asphalt and there was evidence that she had been bitten, strangled and raped. Leal, a mechanic, was identified as the last person seen with her. He was questioned and arrested. A witness testified that Leal’s brother appeared at the party, agitated that Leal had arrived home bloody and saying he had killed a girl. Leal admitted being intoxicated and doing wrong but said he was not responsible for what prosecutors alleged. The question of protection for foreign nationals under the international treaty is not new. President George W Bush in 2005 agreed with an international court of justice ruling that Leal and 50 other Mexican-born inmates nationwide should be entitled to new hearings in US courts to determine if their consular rights were violated at the time of their arrests. The supreme court later overruled Bush. In 2008, José Medellín, who had been sentenced to death for participating in the rape and murder of two Houston teenage girls, raised a Vienna convention claim similar to the one pending for Leal. It failed and he was executed. Capital punishment Texas United States Mexico guardian.co.uk
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Customers bombarded after glitch in call-centre technology – leading to Ofcom ruling against two firms Communications regulator Ofcom has evidence that nPower and HomeServe have been breaching the rules around silent and abandoned calls that could lead to a fine of up to £2m. Ofcom has issued a notification to both companies under the Communications Act as part of an ongoing investigation into activities that took place between 1 February 2011 and 21 March 2011. Ofcom said it has reasonable grounds to believe HomeServe and nPower “persistently misused an electronic communications network or services by virtue of its use of an automated calling system”. The evidence shows that HomeServe made an excessive number of abandoned calls during the period investigated; and made one or more repeat calls to specific numbers within 24 hours, when a call had been identified by Answer Machine Detection equipment as having been put through to an answer machine. Ofcom said nPower broke the rules by including marketing content within a recorded information message played in the event of an abandoned call. The notification gives both groups until 10 August 2011 to reply and take steps to “cease the misuse identified” or they could face fines of up to £2m each. On January 31 2011 Ofcom warned the industry to comply with new rules to clamp down on silent calls or face enforcement action, writing specifically to the call centre industry to spell out the regulations. The new rules place restrictions on the use of automated dialling equipment to prevent consumers being harassed by repeated silent calls from the same company. The technology is used by call centre operators to detect answer machines. But this can mistake a “live” consumer for an answering machine and cut off the call without the person hearing anything, resulting in a silent call. Ofcom said they can cause “significant distress” to consumers which can be made worse by repeated calls, leading to some people believing they are being specifically targeted. Ofcom received more than 9,000 complaints in 2010 about silent calls. Over 70% of those who complained told the regulator they had received two or more calls in a day from the same company. These silent calls were often over a period of days or even weeks. An nPower spokesman said: “Our average abandon rate has been consistently below the regulatory 3%. Ofcom’s concerns relate to individual non-consecutive days in which the rate exceeded this level. We believe that our prompt reminder to make energy savings is fully consistent with energy policy and does not constitute marketing.” A HomeServe statement said: “HomeServe confirms that this limit was exceeded by a single outsourced supplier. This fact was uncovered by our own internal audit processes, verified by independent, external auditors and reported to Ofcom on 26 April, 2011. The problem resulted from the use of answering machine detection (AMD) technology, and was remedied immediately upon discovery. “HomeServe takes the Ofcom regulations very seriously and as a result, AMD is no longer used on any HomeServe outbound calls, whether they originate in our own or in outsourced call centres. HomeServe has reviewed its internal control processes and can confirm that all of its internal and external dialler systems are now fully compliant with the new Ofcom regulations regarding silent/abandoned calls.” CPR Global , which manufactures call-blocking devices for use in the home, pointed out that Ofcom’s new rules do not apply to the 31% of nuisance calls that come from overseas companies. A spokeswoman said: “Cold calling can affect people in different ways and for those who suffer from Alzheimer’s, dementia or even depression, the calls can have dire effects on their anxiety levels which can result in adverse health implications. “Our Call Blocker is pre-programmed with 200 telemarketers and scam telephone numbers that are recognised as being the most persistent companies to CPR Global. Its unique ‘block now’ application means 100 extra telephone numbers can be blocked.” Consumers receiving nuisance calls should also join the telephone preference service register , although it takes up to 28 days after registering for all to be stopped, and complain to PhonepayPlus , the regulator for all UK premium rate phone services. Consumer affairs Internet, phones & broadband Ofcom Homeserve Mark King guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media For anyone not already familiar with Frank Schaeffer, I posted this interview back in 2009 just after Schaeffer came out with his book, Crazy for God — Frank Schaeffer, Author of “Crazy for God” on What’s Left of the GOP: Today the Republican Party is rooting for doom . Schaeffer has a new book out , this time focusing on his mother rather than his father as the previous book did and MSNBC’s Richard Lui brought him on to discuss the current crop of GOP presidential candidates and whether Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry should he get in, would actually have a chance at winning the nomination. Schaeffer didn’t pull any punches when explaining that Michele Bachmann’s radical right-wing religious beliefs are too far to the right even for most evangelical Christians and that the more voters get to know about her, the less likely the chances of her winning the nomination. I’d say I agree with him, but of course that relies on our corporate media doing their jobs, which we know they won’t unless we see a whole lot more interviews like this one. Schaeffer also did a great job of explaining how none of them actually care about the social issues other than to use them to dupe religious voters into supporting them so they can go serve their real masters after they get in office. Rough transcript below the fold. LUI: Frank, so, you know, as Americans and really Republican primary voters get to know Michele Bachmann a little bit more each and every week, will her faith be an asset going forward, do you think, to the election or a liability here? SCHAEFFER: It will be a liability with the general public when they learn how radical she is. She comes from a wing of the evangelical movement where takes the Bible literally, and that includes the old testament that has passages about stoning gay people to death and all the rest of it. And, of course, Michele Bachmann, like Sarah Palin and others on the far religious right is too politically savvy to express clearly what she believes. But the fact of the matter is, the part of Christianity she comes from is radical even for evangelical Bible believers. And so I think- I think gradually, it will become apparent to American voters that she could not win the general election. And Republicans are going to have to make a choice to either be a normal political party or, really, theocracy in waiting with people like Michele Bachmann, who in the best of all possible worlds, as far as she would see it, would produce a theocracy in the country where the Bible would be paramount and no longer the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. LUI: As we see the Tea Party energy continuously grow in the GOP, do you find that in the primary then that she will have some attraction, that she will generate a lot of momentum? SCHAEFFER: Yeah. I mean, you know, you mentioned my book Sex, Mom and God and one of the things I talk about in that book is charting the course of the religious right from their beginnings in the 1970s with the anti-abortion movement that my family had something to do with, to the present. And the fact of the matter is they have always engaged in these culture war topics when it comes to primary voters, this small core of hard right religious voters and then they have to change later. But you’ve got to understand something, and that is that Michele Bachmann and the others on the far right of the Republican Party have moved the whole party so far right that they are no longer normal political party. They are out of the mainstream to the extent that she represents a fringe. The problem is that fringe controls the nomination process in the primaries and you have to understand that the liability they run is that when the general public gets a look at this, they are going to run a long way away. So that’s the bind they are in, appeal to the fringe in the primaries or the general population. LUI: Now, Frank, your father was a writer, a theologian; Bachmann or the Bachmann family, reportedly, looking towards his writings. SCHAEFFER: Right. LUI: So there is some link here, at least to your family’s background, and you self-describe yourself as one of the founders of the religious right, to what she’s thinking and what she’s doing today. SCHAEFFER: Yeah. And I got out obviously, and the story of why I got out in Sex, Mom & God is very clear. But, I came to understand that these people actually hate the United States as it is. Look, they love a fictional, Christian America that wouldn’t include gay people, would not have choice and abortion rights for women and all the rest of this. But in terms of the real America, inclusive, diverse, sustaining of gay people as well as heterosexuals and so forth, this is an America they despise and that’s why they talk in terms of taking it back. Well from whom? That would be from the rest of us, ordinary American citizens under the rule of law. LUI: But Frank, hate is a pretty strong word here. These certainly are citizens of the United States and so far given what they have said and done… SCHAEFFER: Sure. LUI: …have not expressed hatred towards the United States. SCHAEFFER: Well, you know when you mentioned her husband talking about gay people being barbarians and if you look, for instance at Sarah Palin’s family, they’ve had a lot to do with the secessionist movement in Alaska. You’re not part of a movement that says it wants to secede from the union in the United States if you like this country. Folks like Michele Bachmann wrap themselves in the flag, but when push comes to shove, their religious values, theocratic values, they are not talking about the same America the rest of us are looking at. And the irony is of course when they get elected or they get famous in their politics, when Republicans actually come into office, the only people they actually serve is Wall Street, and so really these social issues are a red herring because they may get the votes of a certain portion of America, mostly white, middle and lower middle class Americans in the evangelical wing of Christianity, but when they get into national office what happens? It’s all about tax cuts for the wealthy, defunding education, narrowing the public space. That’s what the real program is and unfortunately they take advantage of a lot of well-meaning people who vote for them on social issues they care passionately about. When they get into power, it’s all about Wall Street and you know, they wouldn’t let the kind of people vote for them caddy for them on their golf link. LUI: Frank, we have got to go, but I do want to mention Rick Perry because we’ve had the introduction very quickly. He also has support from the religious right, from the conservative right. Would he not be a good possibility here to move towards the primary? SCHAEFFER: Well loo, any guy that starts a national run by calling a prayer meeting and mixing the issues of church and state as he has in Texas is someone who has his eye on this little group. But I say one more time just before we go. It’s total hypocrisy because these people know that group helps them win the primary but when the Republicans get into office it’s about serving corporate Wall Street interests. It has nothing to do with the social agenda they get elected on so it’s a scam, but it’s a scam that keeps working. Forty years of Republican domination of the American political process based on abortion, gay rights, these other things they wave around, but actually it’s really about corporate America.
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