Most everybody was busy pointing fingers following Casey Anthony’s acquittal yesterday, but defense attorney Cheney Mason had a choice one to point at the media. Spotted while drinking cocktails at an Orlando restaurant to celebrate the verdict, Mason flipped off reporters peering into the window at him … and an AP…
Continue reading …Prince William will soon be visiting Southern California —and what better place to get a little “work” done? The prince will indeed have a plastic surgeon at the ready during his visit, but only in case of emergency, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Beverly Hills doctor will be on…
Continue reading …Think “Tea Party” and you’ll probably think “Republican”—but it turns out Tea Party Democrats do, in fact, exist. But it’s hard to say just how many, and harder still to gauge how much of an impact they have on elections, the Washington Post reports. Polls have put the percentage…
Continue reading …Al-Qaida could use hidden ‘belly bombs’ to attack passenger planes, US warns
July 6, 2011 No Comment
Airlines told of terrorists developing ‘surgically implanted’ explosive compounds in effort to beat airport security American officials have warned airlines that they believe al-Qaida is developing “belly bombs” to beat airport security and allow suicide bombers to launch terror attacks on board passenger planes. The department of homeland security has sent a bulletin to airline executives saying it has identified a potential threat from terrorists who could “surgically implant explosives or explosive components in humans”. Although many airports use advanced imaging technology that can “see” through people’s clothing, the technology might not pick up a bomb which is hidden inside a body. “Due to the significant advances in global aviation security in recent years, terrorist groups have repeatedly and publicly indicated interest in pursuing ways to further conceal explosives,” said Kawika Riley, spokesman for the department’s transport security administration. “As a precaution, passengers flying from international locations to US destinations may notice additional security measures.” Experts say the explosives could be implanted in abdomens, buttocks and breasts allowing suicide bombers to pass undetected through airport body scanners. Explosive compounds such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) could be implanted, then the person’s wounds allowed to heal, making the material difficult to detect. On board the plane, the material could be detonated by injection. US officials have been on high alert for terror attacks since US forces killed al-Qaida’s leader, Osama bin Laden in May. They say there is no intelligence about a plot, but US and international carriers are being urged to consider the threat. The bombs are thought to be a particular risk in Europe and the Middle East where full body scanners are not as widely used as they are in the US. Authorities told ABC News that these “belly bombs” were thought to be the work of 28-year-old Ibrahim Asiri, who became a high-profile target for the US after his failed attempt to hide bombs in printer cartridges being moved from Yemen to Chicago. He was also believed to be behind the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on 25 December 2009 by the “underwear bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian had a pouch of PETN in his underwear. He tried injecting the pouch with a chemical to create a detonation but he set his clothes on fire instead and was overpowered by passengers. Research conducted by the BBC after the underwear bombing suggests that Abdulmutallab would have failed to damage the plane’s fuselage even if the bomb had gone off. The BBC documentary claimed that the blast would only have been strong enough to kill the bomber and the person who was sitting next to him. Al-Qaida terrorists are known to have hidden explosives inside their bodies for suicide bombings. In August 2009 Asiri’s brother, Abdullah Hassan, died trying to kill Saudi Arabia’s deputy interior minister with a bomb hidden in his anal passage. al-Qaida Global terrorism Air transport United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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• Inquiry pledge, but David Cameron and Nick Clegg at odds • Ministers resist delay to decision on Murdoch BSkyB takeover David Cameron and Nick Clegg are wrangling over the membership and status of the inquiries that will be held into illegal phone hacking at the News of the World and wider questions about the future of media regulation. The prime minister bowed to pressure to hold at least one inquiry, but is resisting calls by Clegg for a judge to take charge. The differences between Clegg and Cameron came as the government faced calls from across the Commons and from City shareholders to delay its final decision on the proposed takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, gave the provisional go-ahead for the deal last Friday, subject to a final seven-day consultation over plans to spin off Sky News as a separately listed company to allay plurality fears. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, took the momentous step of turning against Rupert Murdoch’s empire, calling for the resignation of News International’s chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, and demanding the BSkyB decision be referred to the Competition Commission. “The public will react with disbelief if next week the decision is taken to go ahead with this deal at a time when News International is subject to a major criminal investigation and we do not yet know who charges will be laid against,” he said. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said he would ask Ofcom to exercise its right to assess whether the directors of News Corp were “fit and proper” to take full control of BSkyB. “Ofcom … has a statutory obligation to consider at any time who is appropriate to hold a broadcasting licence. The message from this House must be that we want it actively to consider that obligation. “If it comes to the view that the future owners of BSkyB are inappropriate, it should rule accordingly, which would mean that the BSkyB merger could not go ahead.” Nicholas Soames, the former Tory defence minister, called for a pause in the BSkyB bid on the grounds of “serious criminality on the part of some people at News International”. Soames is listened to with care because he is close to the Prince of Wales who was angered when Prince William’s phone was hacked. Several City shareholders called for Hunt to delay his final decision while investigations into the operations of the News of the World were ongoing. Robert Talbut, chief investment officer of Royal London Asset Management said: “There are issues here that go beyond a simple financial transaction.” Another investor, speaking on the basis of anonymity said: “Hunt should hold fire because we are faced with a further concentration of media power in News Corp’s hands at a time when there are allegations of malpractice within one of its major subsidiaries.” Government sources insisted it was wrong to talk about pausing the process. They said that Hunt would consider submissions made during the consultation period and would make a decision in consultation with Ofcom and the OFT. Shares in News Corp and BSkyB fell as the News of the World phone-hacking scandal put Murdoch and his bid to take control of the broadcaster under scrutiny. News Corp shares fell by 5% at one stage on Wall Street, to $17.17. BSkyB shares in London closed 2.1% lower at 827p. Murdoch denounced as “deplorable and unacceptable” the revelation in the Guardian earlier this week that the News of the World hacked into the telephone of Milly Dowler after she disappeared. But Murdoch offered support for Brooks, who was NoW editor at the time of the schoolgirl’s murder. “I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks’s leadership.” Cameron announced the inquiry or inquiries would be held after consulting Clegg on his return from Afghanistan. It is expected one inquiry will examine how phone hacking was started and tolerated, while a second will examine the future of media regulation and the future of the Press Complaints Commission. But there were differences with Clegg over whether a judge would be involved. A Downing Street source said: “We do not have to have a judge-led inquiry to make it effective.” But Clegg insisted a judge would have to be involved in at least one inquiry. In an email to Lib Dem members, he said: “The inquiries must be independent, open, able to access all information and call witnesses, and that crucially the inquiry dealing with legal issues (eg relationship between police and media) must be presided over by a judge.” One Lib Dem source said: “There is no point in having an enquiry if it does not have teeth. We do not want a talking shop. Unless you have a judge you can’t deal with the crunchy bit.” The scale of the anger at News International across the Commons was highlighted when Tom Watson, a former Labour minister, accused it of entering the “criminal underworld” by “paying people to interfere with police officers and were doing so on behalf of known criminals”. He said James Murdoch, the tycoon’s son, had “personally, without board approval, authorised money to be paid by his company to silence people who had been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation”. John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons culture select committee, named a series of News International executives who had told his committee that only one reporter was responsible for phone hacking while police possessed evidence of widespread illegality. News International is planning to relieve the pressure on Brooks, by claiming she was on holiday when a mobile phone belonging to Dowler was hacked into. The Guardian understands that the company has established that Brooks, News of the World editor from May 2000 until January 2003, was on holiday in Italy when the paper ran a story which referred to a message that had been left on the teenager’s phone. That is likely to focus attention on Andy Coulson, who was Brooks’s deputy at the time, and would normally have edited the paper in her absence. Procter & Gamble, Britain’s biggest advertiser, plus O2, Vauxhall, Butlins and Virgin Holidays joined Ford in pulling ads from this weekend’s News of the World. P&G, which spent almost £1.5m in the News of the World in the last year, said it shared the “growing concern” over the phone-hacking allegations. The Press Complaints Commission said that it “no longer stands by” a 2009 report which it concluded there was no evidence that phone hacking was carried out by journalists other than Clive Goodman. The chancellor, George Osborne, was notified by the Metropolitan police that his name and home phone number appeared in notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire and Goodman. Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers News International Rupert Murdoch News Corporation Media business Rebekah Brooks Newspapers Jeremy Hunt Nicholas Watt James Robinson Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media While our media in the United States has largely ignored this story, the press overseas has not to say the least. BBC World News not only made this the opening segment on their show that reairs locally here on PBS, but did a follow up segment with as well. Our national media here appears to be too busy distracting the American public and ambulance chasing the Casey Anthony murder trial to bother reporting for the most part on this story. Here’s more from their web site on the story — Calls grow for inquiry into newspaper phone-hacking : Ex-Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, actor Hugh Grant and dozens of other public figures are demanding an inquiry into newspaper phone-hacking. It follows allegations that a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler’s phone. Mr Grant said people felt “viscerally sickened” by the revelations. The House of Commons is to debate the calls for an inquiry for up to three hours on Wednesday. News International, which owns the News of the World, has promised to investigate the claims made against it. Hacked Off, a campaign supported by Mr Grant, Lord Prescott, Conservative former Health Secretary Lord Fowler, Labour MP Chris Bryant, Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders and the Dowlers’ lawyer, Mark Lewis, has started an online petition calling for a full public inquiry . Police are already investigating allegations over phone-hacking by detectives working for the News of the World, but the group described this as too “narrowly focused”. Read on… And here is Robert Greenwald’s interview with the BBC who’s done lots of great work documenting Murdoch and his media empire here in the U.S. in their Fox Attacks series . Click here to view this media
Continue reading …California set to put US gay and lesbian history on public school curriculum
July 6, 2011 No Comment
Governor Gerry Brown must make final decision on issue that has upset religious and conservative groups California is poised to become the first state in America to make the teaching of positive contributions made by gay and lesbian people to US history and society compulsory in public schools. The governor of California, Jerry Brown, must decide whether to incur the wrath of religious and conservative groups lined up against the move and approve a bill that has now cleared both houses of the state assembly. If signed into law, it would require the rewriting of school textbooks and redrawing of the social science curriculum to include lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender history – a move that could have wide ramifications given that California’s school roll of 6.2 million children is the largest in the country. Supporters argued that it would give gay teenagers role models and help combat homophobic bullying. It would redress the imbalance in state schools that are already required to teach about women, entrepreneurs and labour and minority ethnic groups including African-Mexican- and Native Americans. “We gain a greater appreciation for what it means to be an American,” John Pérez, the first openly gay speaker of the Californian assembly, told the San Francisco Chronicle. During debate about the bill, supporters gave examples of historical figures they said would be featured, including Friedrich von Steuben, a military adviser to George Washington forced out of Prussia because he was gay, and the British mathematics genius Alan Turing. Opponents, including all but one of the assembly’s Republicans, criticised the bill as unnecessary and objectionable. “Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves,” Republican Tim Donnelly told Associated Press. Some opponents , such as the campaigning website SaveCalifornia.com, are encouraging parents to take their children out of state schools. A similar bill was vetoed by the previous California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brown, who took over the post earlier this year, has given no indication whether he will sign or veto the legislation. Once he receives the bill, probably this week, he will have 12 days to make his decision. California Gay rights United States US politics Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Eight former police officers accused of fabricating Lynette White murder case
July 6, 2011 No Comment
Trial follows jailing of three innocent men for the 1988 murder of the 20-year-old Cardiff woman, who was working as a prostitute Eight former police officers fabricated a case against three men wrongly convicted of the brutal murder of a woman working as a prostitute, a jury was told on Wednesday. The officers “acted corruptly together” to manufacture the case against the men they suspected killing of Lynette White in Cardiff in 1988. Nicholas Dean QC, prosecuting, said the case was “almost entirely a fabrication” and the accusations were “largely the product of the imagination and then the theories and beliefs of police officers”. The case is believed to be the biggest trial of police officers in British legal history and could last six months. The most senior officer in the dock was a superintendent when he retired and two others were chief inspectors. At the start of the prosecution’s opening, the jury was taken back to February 1988 when White’s body was found at an “unfurnished and squalid” flat above a bookmakers in the docks area of Cardiff. The 20-year-old had been “brutally stabbed and slashed”. Hundreds of people were questioned but by mid-November 1988, nine months after the killing, the investigation had got “almost nowhere”, Dean told Swansea crown court. Suddenly in December 1988 White’s boyfriend, Stephen Miller, and four other men – Yusef Abdullahi, Tony Paris and cousins Ronnie and John Actie – were arrested and charged with her murder. In November 1990 Miller, Abdullahi and Paris were found guilty of the killing while the Acties were acquitted. But Dean said all five were innocent. “Indeed they were more than just innocent, they simply had nothing at all to do with the killing,” he said. The three men who were found guilty were freed on appeal in 1992 and in February 2003, 15 years after the killing, another man was arrested for White’s murder. Former police officers Graham Mouncher, Richard Powell, Thomas Page, Michael Daniels, Paul Jennings, Paul Stephen, Peter Greenwood and John Seaford deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice. They are accused of agreeing to “mould, manipulate, influence and fabricate evidence”. Four other men are “likely” to face trial on the conspiracy charge at the end of these proceedings, the jury was told. Mouncher also denies two charges of lying while on oath during the trials of the five men. Also in the dock are civilians Violet Perriam and Ian Massey, who each deny two charges of perjury. They are accused of telling “clear and deliberate lies” during the trials. Dean said the “starting point” was the shocking murder in a “pretty rough” area of Cardiff. White was discovered after a friend reported that the door of the flat was locked and she feared White might be inside. Police broke in and found the body. The investigation was always going to be problematic. “Faced as they were by the murder of a prostitute in an anonymous and squalid flat, the police were confronted by real difficulties,” Dean said. “Working the streets as she did, Lynette White would have had contact with many men who were strangers.” Dean said police had to consider White’s boyfriend, Miller, who used the money she gave him from her earnings as a prostitute to fund his drug-taking, as a possible suspect. “But otherwise the most obvious murderer was a customer, a man who might be local to the docks or Cardiff generally but who could just as easily be a visitor,” said Dean. The prosecutor reminded the jury that forensic science techniques were not as advanced as they are now. “Today the murder scene would present a goldmine of scientific clues,” said Dean. “Blood was spread around the flat and some of that blood was found to belong to someone other than Lynette White.” But scientific tests did not provide the vital clue. It was a statement given by Perriam, a receptionist at a health club, that led to a “breakthrough” in November 1988. She is accused of falsely claiming that she saw John Actie and others “at or near the scene of the murder”. Dean said the “fiction” that was to emerge was “absolutely extraordinary”. “It involved no less than five men murdering Lynette White in that small flat. It was a story that did not begin to explain how Lynette White or any of the men came to be together nor why any one of them, let alone five acting together, should participate in a brutal and savage murder of a girl most of these men barely knew.” Dean said it was not known why Perriam had allegedly given false evidence. “It might be that Mrs Perriam was primed and prompted by police officers to help them out when the investigation had reached an impasse,” he said. The trial continues. Crime Wales Police Prostitution Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Brooks summoned to meeting with Scotland Yard to be told her journalists had spied on behalf of murder suspects As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was confronted with evidence that her paper’s resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime. Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice. Brooks was also told of evidence that Marunchak had a corrupt relationship with Rees, who had been earning up to £150,000 a year selling confidential data to the News of the World. Police told her that a former employee of Rees had given them a statement alleging that some of these payments were diverted to Marunchak, who had been able to pay off his credit card and pay his child’s private school fees. A Guardian investigation suggests that surveillance of Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook involved the News of the World physically following him and his young children, “blagging” his personal details from police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a “Trojan horse” email in an attempt to steal information from his computer. The targeting of Cook began following his appearance on BBC Crimewatch on 26 June 2002, when he appealed for information to solve the murder of Morgan, who had been found dead in south London 15 years earlier. Rees and Fillery were among the suspects. The following day, Cook was warned by the Yard that they had picked up intelligence that Fillery had been in touch with Marunchak and that Marunchak agreed to “sort Cook out”. A few days later, Cook was contacted by Surrey police, where he had worked as a senior detective from 1996 to 2001, and was told that somebody claiming to work for the Inland Revenue had contacted their finance department, asking for Cook’s home address so that they could send him a cheque with a tax refund. The finance department had been suspicious and refused to give out the information. It is now known that at that time, the News of the World’s investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook’s home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged by Mulcaire from confidential databases, apparently including the Met’s own records. Mulcaire obtained the mobile phone number for Cook’s wife and the password she used for her mobile phone account. Paperwork in the possession of the Yard’s Operation Weeting is believed to show that Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, the paper’s assistant editor and a close friend of Marunchak. About a week later, a van was seen parked outside Cook’s home. The following day, two vans were seen there. Both of them attempted to follow Cook as he took his two-year-old son to nursery. Cook alerted Scotland Yard, who sent a uniformed officer to stop one of the vans on the grounds that its rear brake light was broken. The driver proved to be a photojournalist working for the News of the World. Both vans were leased to the paper. During the same week, there were signs of an attempt to open letters which had been left in Cook’s external postbox. Scotland Yard chose not to mount a formal inquiry. Instead a senior press officer contacted Brooks to ask for an explanation. She is understood to have told them they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Hames for some years; the couple had two children, then aged two and five; and they had previously appeared together as a married couple in published stories.”The story was complete rubbish,” according to one source. For four months, the Yard took no action, raising questions about whether they were willing to pursue what appeared to be an attempt to interfere with a murder inquiry. However, in November 2002, at a press social event at Scotland Yard, Brooks was asked to come into a side room for a meeting. She was confronted by Cook, his boss, Commander Andre Baker, and Dick Fedorcio, the head of media relations. According to a Yard source, Cook described the surveillance on his home and the apparent involvement of Marunchak, and evidence of Marunchak’s suspect financial relationship with Rees. Brooks is said to have defended Marunchak on the grounds that he did his job well. Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plan a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst. Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children. Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Marunchak, Miskiw and Mulcaire. Operation Weeting is also understood to be investigating. News of the World Rebekah Brooks Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Channel 4 Television industry Police Nick Davies guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …To no one’s surprise, Exxon/Mobil was lying about the severity of the Yellowstone River oil spill
July 6, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media We already noticed that Exxon/Mobil officials were downplaying the severity of that oil spill in the Yellowstone River. Now it turns out — to absolutely no one’s surprise — that they were lying through their teeth : Federal documents show it took Exxon Mobil nearly twice as long as it publicly disclosed to fully seal a pipeline that spilled roughly 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. Details about the company’s response to the Montana pipeline burst emerged late Tuesday as the Department of Transportation ordered the company bury the duct deeper beneath the riverbed, where it is buried 5 to 8 feet underground to deliver 40,000 barrels of oil a day to a refinery in Billings. The federal agency’s records indicate the pipeline was not fully shut down for 56 minutes after the break occurred Friday near Laurel. That’s longer than the 30 minutes that company officials claimed Tuesday in a briefing with federal officials and Gov. Brian Schweitzer. An Exxon Mobil spokesman said the longer time span was based on information provided to the agency by the company and the discrepancy might have come about because Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. President Gary Pruessing was speaking without any notes in front of him when he addressed Schweitzer. There’s also been a startling lack of information for the people who are directly affected by the spill. Gee, who could have foreseen this? Drill, baby, drill!
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