At least 22 people killed and more than 30 wounded in attack outside Diwaniya governor’s house At least 21 people were killed when bombs exploded at a checkpoint outside a provincial governor’s house in central Iraq, the latest attack targeting a government building, local authorities said. One suicide bomber blew himself up and at least one car bomb exploded on Tuesday outside the Diwaniya governor’s house, 95 miles (150km) south of Baghdad, as guards changed shifts at the checkpoint. Most of the victims were bodyguards, officials said. “The initial death toll is 21 killed at a guard’s checkpoint,” Fadhel Mawat, a spokesman for the provincial council, said. Kareem Isghair, the head of the security committee of Diwaniya provincial council, said explosions targeted security personal as they were checking in for morning duty. A source at a hospital in Diwaniya said at least 22 people had been killed and more than 30 wounded in the attack. Bombings and killings in Iraq have fallen sharply since the height of sectarian violence in 2006-2007, but a hardcore Sunni Islamist insurgency linked to al-Qaida and rival Shia militias still carry out daily attacks. Violence has increasingly targeted local security forces and provincial government officials as US troops prepare to withdraw from the country by a planned year-end deadline more than eight years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. Diwaniya is a mainly Shia region and several of Iraq’s armed groups are active in the area. Gunmen and suicide bombers a week ago stormed a provincial council building in Baquba in central province of Diyala, killing at least eight people before Iraqi forces retook the building with the help of US troops. Iraq Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Activists condemn remarks as ‘scapegoating’ as 10,000 people remain unable to return to homes due to persistent fires The former Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been accused of “scapegoating” Mexicans over comments he made linking major wildfires in his home state of Arizona to illegal immigration. The issue ignited over the weekend when the US senator said there was “substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border”. Two other Arizona Republicans backed McCain, but immigration activists swiftly condemned his statement as typical of a “blame it on the Mexicans” mentality. Democratic politicians also waded in to rebuke McCain’s politicisation of the issue. “It’s his constant refrain for everything that ails mankind,” said Roberto Reveles, founder of Somos America, an Arizona-based immigrant rights group. “It just seems like we have an epidemic of ‘blame it all on the illegal aliens; blame it all on the Mexicans’. It’s amazing that the public doesn’t rebel against this type of scapegoating.” Republican senator Jon Kyl and house representative Paul Gosar defended McCain, claiming they had been told some fires in the southern part of the state are started by illegal immigrants. They did not specify to which fires they were referring, but framed the resulting debate as a distraction. “While Arizonans continue to face the enormous challenges related to these wildfires, it’s unfortunate that some are inserting their political agenda into this tragedy,” their statement said. This assertion raised the hackles of Arizona Democrat and house representative Raul Grijalva. “They served this, they pandered it,” he said. “And now [they] say that anybody who criticises that inappropriate, unsubstantiated claim somehow has a political agenda. This is a tragedy of huge proportions for Arizona. Those of us who criticise it are only reacting to what they started.” The debate raged as state authorities continued to assess the damage from a wildfire that burned in a heavily populated area near the Mexican border. About 10,000 people remain unable to return to their homes on the outskirts of Sierra Vista, about 15 miles (24km) north of the border, where on Sunday the so-called Monument fire swept off a mountain and destroyed 14 homes and four businesses. It has now destroyed 58 homes and burned through more than 40 sq miles (103 sq km) since it started a week ago. Along the border with New Mexico, the biggest blaze in Arizona has charred an area five times that size, but hasn’t done as much damage. Despite burning more than 800 sq miles since late May, the Wallow fire has destroyed just 32 homes and four rental cabins. A third major wildfire, the Horsehoe Two in the south-east of the state, is now 80% contained after charring more than 330 sq miles and destroying 23 structures. Officials say all three blazes are the result of human activity, but no no-one has yet been charged and no further details have been issued. US immigration Arizona United States Wildfires John McCain Mark Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Aeroplane crashed half a mile from the runway on flight between Moscow and northern city of Petrozavodsk At least forty-four people have been killed after a passenger jet crashed in north-west Russia, a government spokesman said. The plane, reportedly carrying 52 people, including nine crew, crashed half a mile from the runway outside the northern city of Petrozavodsk at about 11.40pm local time on Monday. News agencies reported that eight people who survived the crash were seriously injured and taken to hospital. There was no immediate explanation for the crash, but the Interfax news agency quoted the airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were “unfavourable weather conditions”. Russian news agencies said the plane, a Russian-made Tu-134 jet, crashed on its final approach to the airport in Petrozavodsk, landing a few hundred yards short of the runway. Petrozavodsk is in the in the province of Karelia, 640km (400 miles) north-west of Moscow. The plane, , the Emergencies Ministry said, carrying 52 people, nine of whom were crew, the news agencies said. News agencies reported that Russian Premier League football referee Vladimir Pettaya was among the victims, as well as one Swedish national. Russia Europe Plane crashes Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk
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Jon Stewart faced off against Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday, debating whether The Daily Show is a form of activism that is pushing a liberal agenda. It was a heated 25-minute interview, where at times Chris Wallace sounded like a shrink trying to figure out what makes Jon Stewart tick, while the Comedy
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US tycoon says golf course will open next year – but complex featuring luxury villas and five-star hotel postponed for now Donald Trump has been forced to postpone his plan to create the “world’s greatest” golf resort in Scotland, complete with five-star hotel and luxury villas, because of the global financial crisis. The billionaire property developer flew into Aberdeen on Monday on his latest luxury jet, a Boeing 757-200 fitted out with a master bedroom and five kitchens, to announce that his championship standard 18-hole golf course overlooking the North Sea would open for play in July next year. Before touring the first completed holes, Trump said he had spent £50m to £60m of his own money carving the “amazing” course from the vast dunes, and would start taking advance bookings in 10 days. He hoped that Sir Sean Connery, one of the earliest backers of the resort, would open it for him. “We have been inundated from New York and Scotland from people who want to come and play the course,” he said. “Thousands of people have been calling: ‘how can we play it?’” But the tycoon said that the full scheme, a £750m complex featuring a luxury hotel, Trump Boulevard, a golf academy, a second course and timeshare apartments, had been bunkered by the recession. Trump said “the world has crashed” since he first bought the Menie estate and dunes in 2005, provoking a long-running battle with local residents, councillors and environmental groups about his proposals, which has involved heavily altering the legally protected rare dunes. As Trump flew in, it emerged that a cinema in Aberdeen, the Belmont, had decided to give a new, highly-critical documentary investigating the tycoon’s conflicts with local residents, called You’ve Been Trumped, an extended run this weekend. This was due to “an amazing response” to a screening last Friday. Trump has denounced the film as “a fraud”. He also brushed aside continuing conflicts with his neighbours, particularly David and Moira Milne, owners of a former coastguard station overlooking the new course, and Michael Forbes, the salmon fisherman whose land Trump once described as “disgusting”. Milne has been sent warning letters from Trump’s lawyers threatening legal action in a dispute over boundary fences and demands to demolish a garage which Trump believes intrudes on his land. Trump’s local manager, Sarah Malone, claimed David Milne “has chosen to take an aggressive stance and if he moves his fence, there won’t be an issue. And if he doesn’t, we’re looking at all the options available to us”. Andy Wightman, a land rights expert who has investigated the conflict between the Milnes and Trump, said the Milnes had proper title to land complete with a Ordnance Survey map record, which was legally registered with the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. “If Trump has a problem with boundaries, it should be taken up with the Keeper,” Wightman said. “It is totally out of order for them to issue threats of legal action to demolish other people’s property. I am dismayed that a Scottish law firm has been persuaded to follow through and issue such threats to people who simply wish to live in peace.” Scotland Donald Trump Global recession Golf Sean Connery Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Lawrence O’Donnell read from some of former President Jimmy Carters’ latest op-ed at the New York Times, calling for an end to America’s “war on drugs.” Call Off the Global Drug War : The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders. These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.” These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries. This approach entailed an enormous expenditure of resources and the dependence on police and military forces to reduce the foreign cultivation of marijuana, coca and opium poppy and the production of cocaine and heroin. One result has been a terrible escalation in drug-related violence, corruption and gross violations of human rights in a growing number of Latin American countries. More at the link above so go there to read the rest and good for President Carter for speaking out on this matter.
Continue reading …MSNBC’s President Trumpets Lefty Identity: Our Network Is the ‘Place to Go for Progressives’
June 20, 2011 No Comment
In an interview with the AP , MSNBC President Phil Griffin bragged about life after Keith Olbermann, touting the cable channel as “really the place to go for progressives .” Griffin didn't bother denying the liberal bent of the network. He highlighted left-wing anchor Rachel Maddow, hyping, “She really has elevated the discussion and is in many ways the model that we want for cable news.” The MSNBC executive wouldn't discuss Keith Olbermann, who abruptly left the cable network in January. His new show will debut this week on Current TV. The Media Research Center has compiled a list of Olbermann's worst, most frothing examples of hard-left rage. See Countdown to Unhinged Rage for video of Olbermann slamming conservatives as “murderous,” violence-supporting Nazis. In the June 19 AP piece by David Bauder, Griffin identified his network's brand: “MSNBC has established a sensibility, a position, a platform…MSNBC stands for something and MSNBC is really the place to go for progressives and people who are looking for smart, thoughtful analysis.”
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New study also shows that average time between conviction and execution is over 25 years – double the US national average The full burden of the death penalty in California has been laid bare by new research that calculates that each of the 13 prisoners executed in the state over the past three decades has cost more than $300m (£185m). The study, by two senior legal figures, includes costs incurred at both state and federal level in keeping 714 death row inmates incarcerated as well as steering them through the tortuous judicial process all the way to the death chamber. The average length of time between conviction and execution in California now stands at more than a quarter of a century – double the national average. The report’s authors, a senior judge, Arthur Alarcon, and a professor at Loyola law school, Paula Mitchell, do not make any judgement for or against the death penalty. They simply ask whether the system makes sense and whether Californian voters are getting what they wanted. The answer is a resounding no, according to the authors. Since 1978 California and the US government have together spent some $4bn on the state’s death row, yet only 13 prisoners have been executed – an average of $308m for each one. The study, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, warns that the total figure will rise to about $9bn by 2030. Under California’s peculiar penchant for referendums, the death penalty can only be reformed or revoked by voters themselves. Since 1978 voters have consistently opted to widen the capital punishment net so that the state now has the most sweeping laws in the country, with some 39 eligible crimes. Yet in practice, the legal process has become so cumbersome, and the dearth of expert death penalty lawyers so extreme, that executions happen rarely if at all. Since 2006 there have been no executions as the state’s use of lethal injections has been mired in legal challenges. “We really want voters to wake up and realise this is a horrible waste of money. If they are going to insist on keeping the death penalty they are going to have to spend even more money to fix it,” said Mitchell. The alternative to capital punishment – sentencing the most serious crimes to life in prison with no chance of parole – would by comparison be much cheaper. The authors calculate that every year California spends almost $200m more than it would were all death row inmates transferred on to life without parole. Capital punishment is rife with hidden costs. The extra security involved in death row adds about $100,000 a year per prisoner, the initial trial costs more than $1m on top of that of a life-without-parole case and each appeal costs $300,000 in lawyers’ fees. The argument that California is pouring money down a death penalty drain is particularly poignant. The state has been reeling from a budget shortfall of $25bn. Capital punishment California United States Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister – billed coyly as a ‘senior cabinet minister’ – addresses summit and talks to News Corp staff in Wapping David Cameron visited Rupert Murdoch’s Wapping headquarters in London on Monday night to address a closed-doors conference, just days before his government is expected to give regulatory approval to the controversial £8bn takeover of BSkyB by the media mogul’s News Corporation. Cameron gave an early-evening keynote speech to a “CEO summit” organised by the Times – although the event programme published on the newspaper’s website coyly described him as an unnamed “senior cabinet minister”. The programme indicated Cameron would also be taking questions from those present – a mixture of senior business executives and News Corp and Times staff. But the prime minister did not attend the summit dinner immediately after his talk, avoiding more informal contact with Murdoch and senior executives. Outside journalists were not invited to the Times summit, which runs on into Tuesday with an early-morning speech from Ed Miliband to provide political balance, followed by a mid-morning interview with Rupert Murdoch conducted by News Corp employee James Harding, editor of the Times. Murdoch will be discussing “the next digital revolution”. A ministerial decision on whether to approve News Corporation’s bid for BSkyB has been expected for several days and could come this week. The decision is taken by Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, who acts in isolation. Hunt has previously indicated he is minded to approve the merger on condition that News Corporation agrees to spin off Sky News and restrict its shareholding in the channel to 39.1%. A string of media organisations, including the parent company of the Guardian, have opposed the proposed Murdoch merger, arguing it would stifle media plurality by bringing together the largest newspaper group, Sun and Times owner News International with a 37% share of all copies sold in the UK, and the largest broadcaster, BSkyB. Last year the fast-growing Sky had a turnover of £5.9bn, taking it comfortably ahead of the BBC. Last Thursday Cameron turned up at Murdoch’s annual summer party in Kensington Gardens, London – an event also attended by Ed Miliband but not by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg or by Hunt. Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, said: “This will be the second time in a week that David Cameron will have moved around his schedule to be with Rupert Murdoch, at a time when the announcement of the Sky decision is imminent. I hope the two facts are not related. “There is now a cross-party resolution asking for a public inquiry into the News of the World phone hacking affair. I also hope that the prime minister will have the courage to address the hacking issue with Mr Murdoch directly.” The delay in publishing a final approval for the takeover is due to intense negotiations on points of detail of the Sky News spin-off agreement between News Corporation and regulators Ofcom and the OFT, who are both advising Jeremy Hunt. Regulatory sources say they want to structure the legal agreement “so it cannot be got around” – an attempt to head off a perception that Rupert Murdoch has been successfully able to work around previous legal agreements he has signed designed to secure the editor’s independence at the point when The Times was acquired in 1981 and when the Wall Street Journal was bought in 2007. In both cases the agreements were designed to prevent the editor of both newspapers from easily being removed, but in practice editors at each title have come and gone largely at the behest of the owner. Hunt is expected to announce that the deal will go through shortly after he receives final reports from Ofcom and the OFT, but these have yet to reach his desk. The long delay has frustrated Murdoch’s News Corp, which is keen to conclude the transaction at a time when BSkyB’s share price has been rising due to its strong financial performance. News Corp’s original proposal was made at 700p a share a year ago, but Sky’s share price was 830p yesterday. A final bid is thought likely to succeed at around 875p – costing News Corp about £1.8bn more than the original £7.5bn proposal. News Corporation Media business News International Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Rupert Murdoch David Cameron BSkyB BSkyB Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
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