In a primarily symbolic vote, Republican-led House rejects resolution authorising Libya mission – but fails in bid to cut funds The Republican-controlled House of Representatives delivered a rare rebuke to Barack Obama over his involvement in the Libyan war on Friday by rejecting a resolution to authorise the US mission. It is an embarrassment for the president to have a vote go against him in time of conflict and reflects the disenchantment in the US over yet another war. The vote is primarily symbolic but members of Congress sympathetic to Obama and the US role in Libya said the danger was that it could leave the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, with the impression that support for the war is collapsing. The House voted 295 to 123 against the resolution to authorise the war. About 70 of the president’s Democratic party joined the Republicans to vote it down. The vote was held to highlight a constitutional debate between the White House and Congress over presidents engaging in wars without congressional approval. It is the first time since during the Bosnian conflict in 1999 that either the House or the Senate has voted against a military operation. The Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to mirror the House vote. The House ignored pleas by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Thursday against voting it down. Obama argues that he does not need congressional authorisation because the Libya mission is not a full-blown conflict. House speaker John Boehner said: “I support the removal of the Libyan regime. I support the president’s authority as commander-in-chief, but when the president chooses to challenge the powers of the Congress, I, as speaker of the House, will defend the constitutional authority of the legislature.” Republican congressman Tom Rooney, who sits on the armed services committee, said: “The last thing that we want as Americans is for some president, whether it’s this president or some future president, to be able to pick fights around the world without any debate from another branch of government.” Rooney had sponsored a separate bill aiming to cut off funds to the Libya campaign, which would have barred drone attacks and air strikes but allowed the US to continue actions in intelligence gathering, refuelling and reconnaissance. The effort to cut off money was defeated by 238 votes to 180. Republican leaders had backed the measure, but did not pressure other Republicans in the House to support it. In a separate development, the Guardian has learned that Nato forces are confident they are successfully tracking Gaddafi as he moves from hideout to hideout in Tripoli. The coalition is abiding by the UN mandate, which does not permit the military to target the Libyan leader directly, and commanders are hoping he will be removed by a revolt from within his circle of closest associates. There is also a privately held wish in London that Gaddafi might be caught up in a legitimate bombing raid on a command and control cell as he flits from one safe haven to another. A senior British source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gaddafi’s movements were being monitored closely, and that the military had been able to track him “racing from one place to another” over recent weeks. Nato has an array of surveillance equipment at its disposal: as well as a Nimrod plane and drones, HMS Liverpool, which is stationed off the Libyan coast, has listening systems which should enable the military to keep watch on the Libyan leader and his entourage. US foreign policy United States Republicans US politics Barack Obama Libya Middle East Africa Ewen MacAskill Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Barney Frank and Ron Paul Introduce Legislation to End Federal Ban on Marijuana
June 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Here’s some bipartisanship I could get behind — taking a step in the right direction to end our ridiculous “war on drugs” which is filling our prisons up with non-violent drug offenders. Marijuana Bill In Congress: Barney Frank, Ron Paul Legislation Would End Federal Ban On Pot : Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) will introduce legislation on Thursday to end the federal ban on marijuana and let the states decide whether to legalize it. “The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal,” according to the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for pot legalization. “The legislation is the first bill ever introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.” More than a dozen states allow the sale of medical marijuana, but the practice is not legal under federal law, leading to confusion and clashes between local and federal authorities. Read on…
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Click here to view this media Hmmm… I wonder if we’ll be hearing anything about our buddy Sheriff Joe Arpaio with this news? LulzSec claims hack of Arizona law enforcement info : Hacking group LulzSec took aim at law enforcement in the state of Arizona on Thursday, saying it was releasing “hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords” belonging to those in law enforcement. The group, which has claimed responsibility for various denial-of-service attacks in recent weeks, ranging from the CIA and U.S. Senate’s public websites to those of various video game companies, said it specifically targeted Arizona “because we are against SB 1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.” SB 1070, a tough immigration law, was passed a year ago by state legislators, but immediately challenged. A preliminary injunction by a federal judge has blocked most of the law from going into effect. Arizona is planning to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the injunction. Read on… Breaking: LulzSec leaks Arizona law enforcement papers (Updated: Details!) : LulzSec just now announced a trove of leaked material it claims is from Arizona law enforcement agencies, made available as a 446MB torrent . We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona. The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements. Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust “war on drugs”. Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors – the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world. See you again real soon! ;D Many of the documents seem to be mundane, but the sheer size of the dump means that it’ll take some time for reporters to parse. After the jump, I’ll post anything newsworthy that I spot on a skim-through.
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The Chinese Communist party’s 90th birthday is the perfect excuse for a modern campaign to glorify the values of the past On a sultry summer afternoon, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek stand face to face in Beijing’s Longtan Park. In spite of the oppressive heat and the vicious civil war they waged, the chairman gazes at his old foe with serene benevolence. For a moment, the passing tourists freeze. Then they break into grins and crowd around China’s best-known figure for photographs and handshakes. “We saw him on television and were impressed, but this time it was for real, standing in front of us. We’re really honoured to meet him in person,” said 40-year-old Wang Fei. Mao is not, of course, quite the person he was. Thirty-five years after his death, his shoes are filled by impersonator Shang Qingrui. And as the Communist party of China (CPC) prepares for its 90th anniversary , demand for his services has boomed, with guest appearances already lined up at a string of official events. The CPC has plenty to celebrate. It began in 1921 when 13 men gathered on a boat in eastern China to create an illegal organisation. Today it is the world’s largest and most powerful political party, with more than 80 million members and control of the world’s second largest economy. Despite this, it seems necessary to keep today’s members in awe of the glory of the past, hence a busy campaign complete with revolutionary tours, red song concerts and a new patriotic movie that sprinkles its account of the party’s creation with a host of star cameos aimed at younger viewers . As the party moves ever further from its roots – the new film is co-sponsored by Cadilllac – it exploits them to bolster its relentless, Leninist grip on political power. “This is an absurd era,” Professor He Bing of the China University of Politics and Law told graduates in a bold speech this month. “They encourage you to sing revolutionary songs, but do not encourage you to make revolution; they encourage you to watch [the new movie] The Great Achievement of Founding The Party, but they do not encourage you to establish a party.” He Bing’s view is clearly not part of the official campaign. “Let history tell the future!” booms Shang, in between drags on a cigarette that seems as much prop as habit. The impersonator is reliving the highlights of his last engagement – a party for cadres in Inner Mongolia – where he paid tribute to young red heroines who lost limbs to frostbite fighting to save a herd of sheep. His next booking is at a Beijing jail, to raise the morale of staff and re-educate prisoners. He also takes on corporate work although he drew the line at promoting a spa, judging it too undignified. He is one of several “Mao Zedongs”. When it comes to the impersonation business, you could almost say that Mao is China’s Elvis. They even share slicked-back, jet-black hair and instantly recognisable uniforms – although the chairman’s two piece is rather more sombre than the King’s jewelled jumpsuits. But imitating Mao is no joke: this act is deadly serious. Shang, who has also played the leader in television dramas, is hired not for boozy weddings but staid official events. Others make their living impersonating Song Qingline, revolutionary and widow of Sun Yat-sen, and Deng Xiaoping, who began China’s economic reform in the 1980s. But what does it take to become a successful impersonator? “First we need a person to look like them, and then we need the right character and a high level of thought like the great leaders,” said Shang. “Even though China is huge, it’s not easy to find someone combining those aspects.” Only bushy-eyebrowed former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai – Zheng Jianshan to friends – actually belongs to the party. But Shang, 56, sees their work as a vocation. “In Mao’s generation, the spirit was to serve the people. Now everyone has got their eyes on money,” he said. “We grew up learning this culture. It is my responsibility to pass it on, otherwise it will be lost and young people will be lost.” Others believe the real problem is too much reverence for an imagined past. Last month the Caixin website published a taboo-breaking essay on Mao by influential liberal economist Mao Yushi – no relation. It accused the chairman of wrecking the country and unleashing the turmoil of the cultural revolution to avoid blame for the Great Famine – observations commonplace to Westerners but heretical in China. While the party has admitted Mao made mistakes, it cannot dwell on them without jeopardising its own position. Though swiftly deleted, the piece sparked a mass petition demanding the arrest of the “traitorous” author. Some even threatened the 82-year-old with violence . For these Maoists, many of whom are relatively young and stand against what they see as capitalist excesses and foreign influence, this competing version of history represents a struggle between left and right. This is different from the paternal, patriotic, almost apolitical image of the party promoted by current leaders such as Bo Xilai, Chongqing province’s ambitious party secretary . Some think the red culture drive makes the rise of “princelings” such as Bo – the children of revolutionary leaders – look less like inherited opportunity and more like the continuation of a glorious tradition. But it also reflects his populist touch. While many young people dismiss the campaign as dull and irrelevant, others warm to its message of togetherness and the sense of something “purer” than individual consumerism. “The party may have moved far away from some elements of Marxism and Maoism, including the focus on class struggle,” said historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. “But it is easy to see why, when many people feel it stands for nothing other than maintaining its own position of authority, its leaders might want to invoke memories of a more ideological time.” China Communism Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Director of public prosecutions says Bellfield trial raised ‘fundamental questions’ about all aspects of victim support The family of Milly Dowler has attacked the justice system for their “truly horrifying” experience during the trial of the 13-year-old’s murderer, Levi Bellfield, saying that they had paid “too high a price” for his conviction. After their angry, emotional statements on the steps of the Old Bailey, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said the trial had raised “fundamental questions”, which would be examined during a Ministry of Justice review into all aspects of victim support. Surrey police apologised for failings made in the initial investigation when Milly was snatched by Bellfield nine years ago. Earlier the judge who sentenced “cruel and pitiless” Bellfield to life for her murder and kidnap dismissed the jury, which was still deliberating on allegations that Bellfield had tried to abduct another girl, Rachel Cowles, then 11, the day before Milly vanished. Jurors were discharged following what the defence said was an “avalanche” of prejudicial media reports after the Milly verdicts, and the charge was ordered to lie on file. There will be no retrial and the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, will consider whether newspaper and broadcast editors must face contempt of court prosecutions. Milly’s parents, Bob, 59, and Sally, 51, and her sister Gemma, 25, made highly charged statements outside the court on the eve of what would have been Milly’s 23rd birthday. Her father, who like her mother was subjected to brutal cross-examination by Bellfield’s defence, said: “We despair of a justice system that is so loaded in favour of the perpetrator of the crime. “We do not see this as true justice for Milly, merely a criminal conviction. My family has had to pay too high a price for this conviction.” Bellfield, 43, a former club doorman, from West Drayton, Middlesex, denied the abduction and murder of Milly, who vanished while walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on 21 March, 2002, just yards from where Bellfield was renting a flat. A jury took seven hours to convict him unanimously on Thursday. Surrey police have apologised to the Dowlers, and to Cowles, now 21, for missed opportunities early on in the police investigation which might have led to Bellfield being caught sooner. He went on to murder students Amelie Delagrange, 22, and Marsha McDonnell, 19, and he attempted to murder Kate Sheedy, 18, a convent school head girl. Bob Dowler said the trial had been “a truly mentally scarring experience on an unimaginable scale” and he and his wife both felt as if “we were on trial”. He condemned Bellfield, who refused to give evidence or appear in the dock for sentence, as “spineless and gutless” for hiding behind his defence QC and challenging the testimony of every witness. “Where is the fairness in a system which allows such behaviour?” he said. Starmer said of the Dowlers’ experience: “Those questions require answers and we will be contributing to the review by the Ministry of Justice into all aspects of victim support.” The Crown Prosecution Service said the adversarial nature of the trial system was “designed to test the evidence given by witnesses,” but it would consider the issues raised by the trial. The former home secretary David Blunkett said the case gave pause for thought. “Barristers have to ask themselves the question: are they merely the conduit, are they merely a paid cipher whose job is to do whatever hatchet job they can?” But Peter Lodder, QC, the chairman of the Bar, said: “This was an exceptional case. Whilst, naturally, our sympathy is with the family of the victim, we must be careful to recognise that the right of an accused person to defend himself is absolute.” Milly’s mother, a maths teacher at her daughter’s school in Weybridge, gave vent to her anger and disgust with Bellfield. “I hope whilst he is in prison he is treated with the same brutality he dealt out to his victims and that his life is a living hell.” She broke down after giving evidence, and physically collapsed after the verdict, and described the trial as an “awful experience,” that had violated the family’s privacy. “To actually see that man in court, a man capable of such a vile and inhuman crime, has been grotesque and distressing.” It was unfair, she added, the “length the system goes to protect his human rights” compared to what their family had endured. “For a mother to bury her child in any circumstances is truly agonising, but to bury your child when you know she died in such an appalling way is unutterably awful.” Milly’s sister, Gemma, said: “In my eyes, justice is ‘an eye for an eye’. You brutally murder someone then you pay the ultimate price … ‘a life for a life’. So in my eyes no real justice has been done. Seeing her parents cross-examined “was the worst day of my life”, worse, even than when she heard that Milly’s remains had been found. They had been put through “mental torture”. The way her sister was portrayed “as a depressed teenager has shocked me terribly”. Addressing the Dowler family as he passed sentence, Mr Justice Wilkie said he appreciated the trial process had been “excruciating for them by reason of the issues the defendant instructed his lawyers to raise in his defence”. “I understand that they feel let down by the trial process in that respect. Unfortunately given the nature of the defence it was unavoidable,” he added. Cowles, who sobbed in court as the jury was released, said she was “extremely hurt and angry that some of the media reporting of this case has now robbed me of the chance for justice for what happened in 2002″. The Dowlers said there had been times when the police investigation had left the family “in despair”. Detective chief inspector Maria Woodall said while it was “highly unlikely” that even a perfect initial investigation would have identified Bellfield, Surrey police acknowledged there was “poor initial response” to Rachel Cowles’s allegation of attempted kidnap the day before Milly went missing. The force also admitted that house-to-house inquiries following Milly’s disappearance “although extensive, were not exhaustive”, after it was revealed that they knocked 10 times on Bellfield’s rented flat without response, but did not follow it up. McDonnell’s uncle, Shane, said the family now wanted an inquiry into police handling of the Dowler case to see if lives could be saved. Milly Dowler UK criminal justice Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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While economic issues are likely to dominate, both he and David Cameron will be keen to discuss Libya Chinese premier Wen Jiabao arrives in the UK on Saturday night for the middle stretch of a five-day European visit that began in Hungary and concludes in Germany. The debt crisis will figure high on the agenda throughout. China has the world’s largest foreign exchange holdings and, while it does not disclose their composition, has said it has bought more in European bonds. “China is ready to continue to help European countries achieve a stable economic growth through co-operation with relevant countries,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in advance of the trip. China’s economic ascendancy will be underscored by Wen’s visit to Longbridge for the launch of the MG6 Magnette car; Shanghai Automotive owns the MG Rover plant. He will also visit Stratford-upon-Avon – because of his interest in Shakespeare – before going to London for talks with the prime minister and a speech at the Royal Society. While economic issues are likely to dominate, both he and David Cameron will be keen to discuss Libya and wider issues in the region. China has held talks with rebels and abstained from voting on UN Security Council resolution 1973, but complained about the air strikes as soon as they began. China’s decision to release the dissident artist Ai Weiwei on bail has taken one contentious case off the agenda, but the UK is still expected to raise human rights issues: the question will be whether it does so publicly or privately, and how strongly it does so. China David Cameron Economics Global economy Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Google confirms notification by US Federal Trade Commission of investigation into dominance of search ad market Google has been formally notified by the US Federal Trade Commission of a wide-ranging investigation into its dominance of the search advertising market, the company confirmed on Friday . The widely trailed investigation is the most significant in Google’s 12-year history, on a par with the lengthy Department of Justice probe into Microsoft, which led to tighter regulation and from which the technology giant’s image has never fully recovered. Google, which had revenues of $29bn (18.1bn) in 2010, was given notice on Thursday that the FTC will issue “civil investigative demands” – a civil law equivalent to subpoenas – compelling the search giant to share information about its business practices. One area of concern is whether or not Google’s search results rank its own websites and services above those of rivals, which could be seen as anti-competitive. Many critics claim Google automatically places its own websites, such as Google Finance and Google Maps, towards the top of the list in search results. In a blog published on Friday, Google search engineer Amit Singhal confirmed: “Yesterday, we received formal notification from the US Federal Trade Commission that it has begun a review of our business. We respect the FTC’s process and will be working with them.” Google’s share price has been falling since Wednesday as news of the inquiry leaked to the financial markets. At the time of publication, it had dropped $19 from Tuesday’s closing price of $493, to just under $475. Google is facing similar probes by the European Commission and the Texas attorney general, but previous FTC inquiries have focused on more peripheral matters such as a proposed partnership with search rival Yahoo! and its acquisition of advertising technology group DoubleClick. The new FTC inquiry will focus on the heart of Google’s search advertising business, which provides most of its revenue. The search engine has a near monopoly position. Despite the best efforts of Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing, Google accounts for two-thirds of searches in the US, and close to 90% in the UK. Google has always maintained that access to its rivals is a mouse click away and switching search engines costs nothing. It counters arguments from some quarters that it should be regulated like a utility, and says competition comes from across the internet. “Using Google is a choice,” writes Singhal, “and there are lots of other choices available to you for getting information: other general-interest search engines, specialised search engines, direct navigation websites, mobile applications, social networks and more.” Google Internet Search engines United States Digital media Advertising Juliette Garside guardian.co.uk
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Chicago court rules fallen press baron, 66, must serve another year in jail on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice Conrad Black will return to prison, a judge has ruled, after the fallen press baron lost his appeal on a fraud conviction. His wife, journalist Barbara Amiel, collapsed in court as the verdict was read. Black, 66, was convicted by a Chicago court in 2007 of defrauding investors in his media company Hollinger International and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail, and served over two years at the Coleman Federal Correctional prison in Florida. Judge Amy St Eve, who originally sentenced Black, said she had been impressed by letters sent on behalf of Black by his fellow inmates. But she ruled that he must serve 42 months, meaning Black, who was made a life peer in Britain in 2001, will serve another year in jail. As St Eve made her ruling in Chicago, Amiel collapsed, and had to be escorted out of the court. Black, whose international newspaper empire included the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post, was freed on bail a year ago to pursue a partially successful appeal following a change in US law. Two of Black’s fraud convictions were thrown out last year, but the court upheld one conviction for fraud and one for obstruction of justice. Black arrived in court accompanied by Amiel, who looked pale and thin. His lawyer, Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, said the prosecution was being “vindictive” in attempting to get Black sent back to jail. Before his re-sentencing, Black quoted Rudyard Kipling’s If, and expressed gratitude for his “army” of supporters across the US, Canada and the UK. He said he regretted trusting his former business partner David Radler, who testified against him, and wished he had taken more seriously the corporate governance “zealots” who had pursued him. “I believe that life is a privilege and that almost all challenges are in part an opportunity,” Black told the judge. Black’s lawyers acknowledged that their client had not shown remorse for his crimes, but said had been a model prisoner. Black tutored fellow inmates in the general educational development (GED) and all his pupils passed, Black’s lawyers told the court. He also gave them advice on job interviews and got a standing ovation after giving a speech at the prison’s African-American history day. They dismissed claims that Black has lorded it over his fellow prisoners as a “fabrication.” According to sworn affidavits filed in court earlier this month, the peer treated fellow prisoners “like servants.” Staff at the Coleman prison claimed Black demanded special treatment, wished to be called Lord Black, got prisoners to mop his floor and was a poor tutor to his fellow inmates. In court his lawyers said the charges were not true and that fellow prisoners had organised a letter-writing campaign on his behalf. They said Black had spent his time in a three-man cell, never had servants, and was never called Lord or even Mr Black. Lawyers told St Eve that Black had high blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat. The prosecution said Black’s team were making an “overblown” case for their client’s behaviour, and that he remained convicted of fraud. But St Eve said she was impressed by the letters in support of Black. “You have been sentenced in other ways,” she said. “I am not concerned I will see you in court again, Mr Black,” she said. Black predicted earlier this week that he might return to jail. “If I am sent back, it will not be for very long,” Black wrote this week in an e-mail to the Toronto Globe and Mail. Conrad Black United States Canada Newspapers & magazines Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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Milly Dowler killer who hated women with blond hair may be to blame for 20 unsolved attacks say police Levi Bellfield refused to leave his prison cell to hear Mr Justice Wilkie sentence him to life without parole and condemn him as a “cruel and pitiless killer”. His refusal marked him out as a man who lacked the “courage to come into court to face his victims and receive his sentence”, said Wilkie, who told the Old Bailey that the former club doorman would never leave prison. He had robbed Milly Dowler, 13, “of her promising life” and taken her from her family and friends. “He treated her in death with total disrespect, depositing her naked body without even a semblance of a burial, in a wood, far away from her home, vulnerable to all the forces of nature thereby, as he clearly intended, causing her family the appalling anguish for many months of not knowing what had become of her.” Milly had become his victim “for no reason other than she was in the wrong place at the wrong time … a target of the unreasoning hatred which seem to have driven him”, said the judge. The “unreasoning hatred” evident from Bellfield’s previous convictions appeared to be directed at women, and young blonde women in particular. His explosive and random attacks on lone women at night earned him the nickname the “bus stop stalker” and made him one of the UK’s most dangerous serial killers. It also earned him a whole life sentence in 2008, when he was convicted of the murders of Amelie Delagrange, 22, Marsha McDonnell, 19, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18. It is thought Bellfield is the first person to have received two whole life sentences. But, what the jury were never told was that he also harboured an unhealthy obsession with young schoolgirls and school uniforms. While under police surveillance, before his arrest for the Delagrange murder in 2004, he approached and made “highly sexually provocative” comments to two girls, cousins aged 14 and 16, at a bus stop. This was judged too prejudicial for the jury to hear. Three former girlfriends – he has fathered 11 children with five women, some of them pregnant at the same time – told police he would ask them to dress up in school uniform, which they declined. He would think nothing of driving around in his van, leering at girls in school uniforms and shouting abuse after them, said one former partner. “It’s an attraction which obviously has particular resonance when you consider the offences relating to Amanda [Milly] Dowler,” prosecutor Brian Altman said at a pre-trial hearing. Detectives believe he may have been responsible for around 20 attacks on women which were never solved, including rape. Bellfield particularly hated blondes. Acquaintances spoke of his loathing of women who dyed their hair blond, calling them “impure” and “sluts” who “deserved to be messed around with”. One girlfriend found a magazine in which all the faces of the blond women were scratched out with a knife. Bellfield told her he used to go into alleyways, wait for blond women to walk past, and feel the urge to “hurt then, stab them”. Despite lacking obvious physical charm, he thought himself a “ladies’ man”, with the gift of the gab. His job as a club doorman offered him plenty of opportunities to pick up girls, and ply them with drink and drugs before sexually abusing them. Inside his van there was a mattress, blankets and baseball bat, according to one former employee, who called Bellfield “an animal” and a “caveman”. Bellfield is said to have offered his friend the opportunity to buy sex with his then girlfriend, just 16, as well as her 14-year-old sister. The offer was refused. Born in Isleworth, west London, one of three boys and a girl. His father, a motor mechanic, died when he was eight. He was very close to his mother, described as a “strong-willed matriach”, and visited her regularly, including in the hours after he killed Milly. Perhaps his violent obsession with blondes had its roots in an incident at the age of 12, when his blonde girlfriend Patsy Morris, 14, was found strangled on Hounslow Heath. Nothing suggests he was responsible. There were convictions for burglary stretching back to when he was 13, and for possessing an offensive weapon in public. He had wild mood swings, took drugs, and admitted he was clinically depressed.. He was keen to brag to schoolfriends on the Friends Reunited website where he described himself as a “bit flash”, and asked for “any single girls out there to email me”. Milly Dowler Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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At least eight killed by security forces as Syrians across the country dismiss President Bashar-al-Assad’s reforms At least eight people were killed as Damascus its biggest day of anti-regime protests when Syrians turned out en masse to dismiss reforms offered by President Bashar al-Assad as too little and too late. Tear gas and live bullets were fired at demonstrators leaving Friday prayers in several areas of the capital and elsewhere, but Syrian state TV blamed unidentified gunmen for some deaths. Activists reported a total of 12 people killed, including three civilians and a policeman in Barzeh, in north Damascus, and four in the south. There were also protests in the central city of Homs and, more unusually, in Aleppo, Syria’s second city, which has been largely peaceful so far. State media also reported a large shipment of weapons had been seized in Latakia, allegedly destined for “armed groups” in northern Syria. The government announced it was calling off its military operation in the villages around Jisr al-Shughour and the Turkish border – possibly in response to mounting pressure from Ankara. Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said he had conveyed Turkey’s “concerns and thoughts” about the operation to his Syrian counterpart. The US and Britain had both warned of the risk of escalation if Syria did not halt its deployment. The scale and geographical spread of the latest protests – dubbed “the Friday of the end of legitimacy” — appeared to underline Assad’s failure to dampen opposition fervour. In an address on Monday, he spoke of dialogue and reform, but democracy activists dismissed his offers as cosmetic or insufficient. Opposition leaders in Damascus were reported to be planning a public meeting on Monday to discuss future strategy. On the 15th Friday on which Syrians have taken to the streets, many are looking for the trigger for what they see as the inevitable downfall of the regime — either the economy collapsing or heavier outside pressure led by Turkey. Opposition figures and independent analysts see Ramadan — which starts on 1 August — as the deadline for ramping up action, since daily attendance at the mosque will make mass protests more likely. In a belated attempt to regain the initiative and win some credibility the Syrian government has allowed a number of foreign journalists to enter Damascus, although they are escorted by official minders and unable to move freely. The government has said 500 members of the security forces have died since protests erupted in mid-March. Activists say more than 1,400 civilians have been killed and about 10,000 detained. Nidaa Hassan is the pseudonym of a journalist in Damascus Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Ian Black Nidaa Hassan guardian.co.uk
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