Former Bosnian Serb general facing genocide charges appears in UN court following arrest last week 8.40am: If you want to watch the hearing and don’t have access to a TV channel showing it then the ICTY has a live video stream of this morning’s hearing, accessible on the front page of its website . 8.29am: One final bit of historic context before the hearing starts. Peter Beaumont has been hearing the stories of three people who suffered at the hands of Mladic’s forces. They’ll hopefully be giving their reactions after this morning’s court session. • Satko Mujagic, Omarska prisoner At the age of 20 Satko Mujagic, who now works for the Dutch government, was held prisoner in the notorious Omarska concentration camp. I lived in the town of Kozarec. It was overrun 12 days after it was attacked by heavy weapons. I was 20 at the time and I had just finished at high school. I was a civilian but I spent 200 days in the camps including a military one. The person I was more happy to see arrested was Radovan Karadzic. I was in Turkey then. I was really excited because he was the brains behind what happened. I made a kind of jump when Mladic was arrested. I mean, he was the one who was carrying out the murders. The key thing to remember is the meeting he attended on May 12th in Banja Luka when Karadzic presented his six point plan. Mladic took the floor. He said: “You realise that this would be regarded by the international community as genocide?” He wasn’t saying I don’t want to do this. He was saying – look. Just so you know. That’s the crucial thing for me. He knew three years before Srebrenica. He knew what he was doing. Many people are bitter that it took so long and about the support he still has in Republica Srpska (the Bosnian Serb entity). A new generation of young Serbs think he is a hero despite all the people that he he killed. • Sadik Ahmetovic, Srebernica survivor Sadik Ahmetovic, now Bosnia’s security minister, was born in Srebrenica later to be the site of the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war when troops commanded by Ratko Mladic massacred 8,000 men and boys in the UN protected enclave. Ahmetovic was one of those who managed to escape on 11 July 1995, eventually reaching safety in Tuzla. I’d graduated from university in Tuzla but I spent the war in Srebrenica working in the hospital there. I cannot forget that time. Before the war it was a place of between 5-7,000 people but during the war the refugees increased the population to 40,000. The conditions were unimaginable, not even close to being fit for human life. It was insanitary, people were starving and in the hospital we did not have anything like what we need to do our jobs. The situation got worse in June and July of 1995. We were under attack and on July 11th like many people in the town I made the decision to try to escape. Those next 10 days trying to reach Tuzla were like scenes from hell. Somehow I managed to survive but 8,000 others were not so lucky and were executed and buried in mass graves. “It’s well known that Ratko Mladic was the commander of the forces then and that the Tribunal has called what happened genocide. Seeing him arrested I feel a kind of satisfaction on one level knowing that for me and for the families of the victims he is finally facing justice. There will be a legal process and he will answer for the charges. But his arrest could have happened much earlier. Then there is the knowledge that institutions in Serbia and individuals helped him escape. Where my feelings are mixed is that for many of us, our emotions were murdered in the long period until his arrest. It was 16 years of waiting. Many mothers who lost children died before he could be brought to justice. But it is important now that this is happening. We need the truth as well as justice to help build more trust in the future and for reconciliation to take place. • Nihad Kresevljakovic, lived through the siege of Sarajevo Nihad Kresevljakovic lived through the siege of Sarajevo during which 10,000 residents were killed during a campaign of often indiscriminate shelling and sniping. He is now executive producer of Sarajevo’s MESS International Theatre Festival. There’s no doubt that this is a moment of huge significance but I don’t feel euphoric about it. I mean, the experience of living through the siege – being shelled by Serb cannons, being without communications or electricity – it felt like a fight for existence. People were being killed in the streets, and after the command of the Bosnian Serb forces was given to Mladic it became more aggressive. It’s too late for euphoria. Too many things have happened. When Karadzic was arrested there were people on the street. For me, as someone who spend tiome in Sarajevo during the siege, it was not just the shells from his forces being fired at the city, it was Mladic’s statements on television that I remember as well. He was a crazy man. What bothers me is the number of supporters that he has in the other entity [Republika Sprska]]. There is a new generation that has grown up that treats Ratko Mladic as a hero. He is talked about in the media there as a good soldier but he was not. He had no ethics. He was a criminal. But we should be very careful. Ratko Mladic is just the personification of a whole system. For himself, he looks ill and weak. It is good to see how slowly he walks and the difficulty with which he talks, because Mladic was a myth and this breaks the myth of him. But justice too cannot be satisfied until it Serb aggression is not only proven but Serbs also realise that they were the aggressors. Then we will be able to live as good neighbours. And when there is no longer a minority of Serbs who think people like Ratko Mladic are cool guys. 8.29am: Mladic has arrived at the court complex, the BBC is reporting. 8.20am: I’ve just spoken to Robert outside the court building in The Hague. He talks through what’s likely to happen at today’s hearing and discusses meeting relatives of those killed at Srebrenica, who have come to the Netherlands to watch from the public gallery: There are six women survivors of Srebrenica here. Between them they’ve lost dozens of people, including their children and extended family members… One lady I spoke to explained how she’d begged Mladic face to face at the time of Srebrenica about her sick son, saying he was too sick to be taken away. He was taken away and she’s never found even a bone of his body, she’s said subsequently. 8.05am: Earlier this week Robert went to see the courtroom where Mladic will appear: The stage for Mladic’s first appearance on the international stage after 16 years on the run will be Court One of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in the Hague. It is the showcase court in an austere building dedicated to trying those suspected of crimes committed in the former Balkan state since 1992. The court room is divided lengthways into two with seating for 99 people in a public gallery on one side of a full height glass divide and the lawyers, suspects and judges on he other. I dropped into the gallery on Wednesday before Serge Brammertz, the court’s lead prosecutor, gave his press conference. No mobile phones are allowed, you need a pass and there is a bag and body scan before you can get in. I sat down with a smattering of others three or four yards away from Radovan Karadzic, the former president of the Bosnian Serb republic who is facing similar charges to Mladic, and watched a few minutes in the life of a trial that had already been running for 18 months. Karadzic, wearing a smart black suit, pressed white shirt and black shoes yawned and itched, possibly picked, his nose as he followed the prosecutor’s case against him. When documents were referred to he fiddled with a computer mouse and cross-checked on one of two flat computer screens in the desk in front of him. He looked like a businessman sitting through a not particularly interesting seminar, rather than a suspected genocidal war criminal. Just a yard behind him and to one side sat a female guard. Mladic is likely to sit in the same spot as Karadzic today, but this time the gallery will be packed. 8.03am: This is our story ahead of the hearing from today’s paper , by Robert Booth in The Hague, which also touches on claims by Mladic’s defence that the former general has been treated for cancer. 8.00am: About an hour from now, following 16 years on the run and eight days after he his arrest at a Serbian village, Ratko Mladic is, at long last, to face legal redress for his alleged key role in the Europe’s worst human rights atrocity since World War II. At 10am Dutch time (9am BST) the former general who led Bosnian Serb forces during the brutal 1992-1995 conflict which broke apart the former Yugoslavia is due to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia , the UN-established body which is already trying Radovan Karadzic , Mladic’s former political master. Why is this such an important moment? Those perhaps too young to recall the horrors of the conflict should begin with the Guardian’s July 1995 eyewitness reports of the Srebrenica massacre , during which forces allegedly under Mladic’s command massacred over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. Alternatively you could watch this BBC interview with Kemal Pervanic , among those treated appallingly in the Omarska concentration camp . Mladic will this morning be arraigned on 11 charges, among them genocide and crimes against humanity. Here is the full ICTY indictment against him from October 2002 (pdf file). Following his arrest, and an unsuccessful appeal against extradition, Mladic was flown to The Hague on Tuesday afternoon . Today will be his first opportunity to plead, and the expectation is the former general will deny the charges. “Whatever was done in Srebrenica, he has nothing to do with it. His orders were to evacuate the wounded, the women and the children and then the fighters,” Mladic’s son, Darko, said as his father fought extradition. It’s also clear that a number of people in Serbia still back their former military hero. As news of his arrest spread, thousands of people rallied in Belgrade to protest, fighting running battles with police . Ratko Mladic Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina United Nations Europe War crimes Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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The hackers, who call themselves LulzSec, said they pulled off what they described as an elementary attack to highlight Sony’s ‘disgraceful’ security Sony has been hit by a second massive data breach, hackers claim, another potential embarrassment for a company that is struggling to restore its image following the loss of millions of credit card numbers through its PlayStation Network. The hackers, who call themselves LulzSec, said they pulled off what they described as an elementary attack to highlight Sony’s “disgraceful” security. “Every bit of data we took wasn’t encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it’s just a matter of taking it,” LulzSec said in a statement. “They were asking for it.” Sony Pictures, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, said on Thursday it is aware of the LulzSec statement. “We are looking into these claims,” said Jim Kennedy, executive vice president of global communications for Sony Pictures Entertainment. The data which includes passwords, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, dates of birth was posted to the LulzSec website and appeared to be at least partially genuine. The Associated Press called a number listed by LulzSec as belonging to 84-year-old Mary Tanning, a resident of Minnesota. Tanning picked up the phone, and confirmed the rest of the details listed by LulzSec including her password, which she said she was changing. “I don’t panic,” she told the AP, explaining that she was very seldom online and wasn’t wealthy. “There’s nothing that they can pick out of me,” she joked. Several other people contacted by the AP confirmed that their passwords had been published online. Many were angry and distressed. “If this is so, I’m very upset,” said Elizabeth Smith, from Tucson, Arizona. “I’m very disappointed that Sony would not protect things like that.” Like several others contacted , Smith said she often entered online sweepstakes including ones she described as being affiliated with Sony. Neither she nor anyone else reached over the phone said they’d heard from the company about the apparent breach. Sony Corporation is already is facing questions over why it did not inform consumers more quickly after a massive cyber-attack in April targeted credit card information through its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment network, compromising more than 100 million user accounts. At the time, experts warned the attack emboldened hackers and made them more willing to pursue sensitive information. It is unclear who the members of LulzSec are, or where they’re based. The group didn’t immediately reply to emails sent to their website’s administrative and technical accounts or to a Twitter message posted to the Web late Thursday. The group’s website – which has a pared-down, 1990s look – was only registered on Wednesday, according to an Internet records search. The site’s registrant is listed as being based in the Bahamas. LulzSec recently claimed responsibility for hacking the website of the PBS television network to post a fake story in protest of a recent “Frontline” investigative news program on WikiLeaks. For the past two days, the group has been mocking Sony via Twitter and alluding to a hacking operation. Posts on the microblogging site through an account linked to the group at times chastise “silly Sony” and “You Sony morons,” saying “everything we have will be published in multiple ways to ensure maximum embarrassment and exposure for (Sony) and their security flaws.” Sony Hacking Internet Computing guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …After drawing national attention for a helicopter ride to his son’s baseball game, New Jersey’s Chris Christie will reimburse the state for that trip and a second similar one, the Star-Ledger reports. But he still thinks the whole mess is “political theater” dredged up by the media. The bills: Christie…
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UK-based bookmaker Betfred has been chosen to buy the Tote after an auction process that began in November, according to reports The Government has chosen British-based bookmaker Betfred to buy the Tote following a six-month auction process, according to reports. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to declare Betfred the provisional winner of the race to acquire the horseracing business, the BBC said. The deal is yet to be formally completed and a contract is yet to be signed, but technicalities are expected to be sorted out by the end of the day. It is not known the exact fee Betfred is paying, but it is expected to be in the region of £200 million. Half the money will go to the racing industry and racing charities, and the majority of the rest will go to the Government. A shortlist of bidders was drawn up after the Government received 18 takeover proposals for the State-owned betting group. The racing industry is understood to have preferred a rival bid from Sport Investments Partners (SIP), a consortium led by British Airways chairman Martin Broughton. The Tote, which was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1928, has now been lined up for sale for 10 years. The Coalition fired the starting gun on the latest attempt to offload it into private hands during June’s Budget, with the auction process beginning in November. Sport betting Horse racing guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Mark it down on the chalkboard: Glenn Beck’s final day on Fox will be June 30, reports Mediaite . A gleeful Media Matters notes that Beck’s ratings in May were among his worst ever. Business Insider , meanwhile, suggests five possible replacements, including Megan Kelly and SE Cupp . Beck, of course, will…
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Military experts say unidentified devices found in West Bank may have contained outlawed white phosphorus The Israeli army has been accused of leaving dangerous munitions near Palestinian homes after two boys were seriously burnt when they picked up a mysterious silver canister which exuded toxic white fumes. A second canister, discovered nearby less than a week later, was destroyed by the army in a controlled explosion The army does not deny leaving the devices, but would not identify them and suggested they were left over after training exercises. But the area where they were found does not feature on an army map of designated training areas and the canisters appeared new and unweathered. Eid Da’ajani, 15, found the canister on 20 February, around 100 metres from his home in the village of Buweib, south of Hebron. The device, around 20cm (7.9 ins) long and 5cm in diameter, was lying in a scrubland where the boys were watching the family’s goats. Eid showed it to his cousin, Mohammed, also 15, who said that it might be a bomb, but Eid picked at the tube’s foil-like covering, causing it to emit dense white fumes. The boys ran away but the gas clung to them and burnt their clothes, melting their shoes and burning their skin. “The moment the smoke came. I dropped it, but the smoke followed us. When we escaped that’s when the pain started, ” said Eid. Military experts consulted by the Guardian said the effect of the smoke was similar to that caused by white phosphorous but could not speculate on the nature of the devices from photographs alone. One suggested that it could be chaff – projectiles fired from an aircraft to decoy enemy missiles – which had not ignited. The use of white phosphorous in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva conventions yet it is often used by armies for marking and creating smoke screens. Israel used white phosphorous in civilian areas during the Gaza war in 2008-2009 but stopped after international criticism. Khalid Da’ajani, the boys’ grandfather said that 10 people in the area had been killed by discarded army bombs. “We knew it was the army [which left the cannister] but we had never seen anything like this. The burns seemed to spread along their bodies and all we could do was pour water on them which didn’t seem to help,” he said. Both boys were taken to the local hospital in Yatta, but when contacted by Eid’s father the Israeli army showed little interest until told that there had been an explosion. Soldiers then questioned the boys and doctors eventually gave them an intravenous transfusion which eased their pain. The family’s request to receive treatment in an Israeli hospital was denied, but two days later, the boys were taken to hospital in Hebron where a team of visiting Italian doctors spent three hours cleaning their wounds. The hospital report states that boys suffered first to second degree burns to their faces, hands, ankles and legs due to “the explosion of a foreign body”. They were then referred to a burns unit in Nablus, around 60 miles from their home, rather than to an Israeli hospital less than half the distance away. But last week, Lo’ai, Mohammed’s younger brother discovered an identical canister not far from where the first was found. He ran away and his family contacted the army. After inspecting the device, troops piled rocks and explosives around it before blowing it up. In a statement, a spokesman for the Israeli army said: “The area under discussion served in the past as a training field and is no longer in use. The young men were treated on site by a military medical team. Because their injuries were light, they did not require evacuation to an Israeli hospital, and they were evacuated by the Red Crescent.” Almost two weeks after the event the boys have stopped vomiting and suffering from headaches. Large parts of their skin remain bleached white and blistered. Both seem to be recovering but still find it hard to walk. A spokesman for Physicians for Human Rights and Israeli non-governmental organisation said that the incident represented a violation of the Palestinians’ right to the health by the Israeli army. “Leaving bombs unattended on the lands of Palestinians where children and others spend most of their time is a violation of human rights. Worse, is the fact that the army denied these children a better treatment in Israeli hospitals despite the fact that they admitted it was a bomb they had left in the field,” the spokesman said. Physicians for Human Rights have said that they have written to ask the army for answers about the incident and will take legal action with the family if the army does not explain how two of these dangerous devices appeared in village lands that are regularly frequented by children, adults and animals. Israel Middle East Palestinian territories White phosphorus Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
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Three-year-old Chicago firm seeks backing for expansion after attracting 83m subscribers Online discount coupon service Groupon has confirmed plans to go public, announcing its intention to raise an estimated $750m (£460m) on the US stock markets and become the latest, and largest, social media firm so far to feed an investor frenzy for new technology companies. Groupon, a three-year-old Chicago-based start-up, is by some measures the fastest growing firm in history. It notched up revenue of $94m in 2008, its first year of business. In the first quarter of 2011, revenues were $644.7m, according to information filed with US regulators. The company sells coupons offering discounts, taking a cut in any money the business makes. It now has 83m subscribers across 43 countries. In a letter to potential investors, Groupon’s co-founder and chief executive, Andrew Mason, warned future growth could come at the expense of profit. Last year, the company lost $450m, compared with $6.9m in 2009 and $2.2m in 2008. “In the past, we’ve made investments in growth that turned a healthy, forecasted quarterly profit into a sizeable loss,” said Mason. “When we see opportunities to invest in long-term growth, I expect that we will pursue them regardless of certain short-term consequences.” The company warned it had lost money since its inception and it expected operating expenses to grow for some time. “We cannot be certain that we will be able to attain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis,” the filing said. But mounting losses have so far failed to put off investors. The value of Groupon and other social media sites including Facebook and gaming company Zynga have soared as investors have clamoured to get in on the action. Groupon rejected a $6bn bid from Google last December and went on to raise $1bn from institutional investors. Analysts have recently pegged the company’s value at $25bn. The share sale looks set to create a new set of dotcom millionaire and billionaires as Groupon’s investors and early employees see their shareholdings turn into paper fortunes. Groupon’s largest shareholder, Eric Lefkofsky, a co-founder and board member, owns 64.1m shares, 21.6% of the company’s Class A common stock. Mason controls 7.7% of the company. The Groupon filing follows the sale of LinkedIn, the business network. It went public on 19 May at $45 a share and its stock soared to more than $100 on the first day of trading. , LinkedIn shares traded around $79, giving it a market capitalisation of about $7.5bn. Facebook, the biggest social networking site is expected to go public next year and has seen its valuations soar from $60bn to $100bn in less than a year. Groupon Digital media E-commerce Internet Daily deals United States IPOs Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oxfordshire cuts test ‘big society’ as librarians are replaced with volunteers
June 2, 2011 No Comment
Professional staff also to be removed from libraries in David Cameron and culture minister Ed Vaizey’s constituencies David Cameron’s faith in the “big society” is to be put to the test after Oxfordshire county council announced that professional staff are to be removed from six libraries in his Witney constituency, leaving them to be staffed by volunteers. The culture minister Ed Vaizey will also see two libraries in his neighbouring constituency of Wantage stripped of staff by the Conservative-controlled county council, leaving a mix of volunteers and professional staff to run them. The council has decided to keep only 22 of the constituency’s 43 libraries fully staffed, but had planned to close 20. Cameron will be relieved that libraries are to be kept open in Banbury, Chipping Norton and Witney within his constituency. Oxfordshire council insists it did not make its decisions on the basis of political lobbying by prominent local MPs, but according to where people live, work, shop and study. There will be a four-month consultation on the libraries plan, with no changes until the start of the next financial year in April. The initial plan to close libraries outright led to a wave of protests including some involving authors such as Philip Pullman, Colin Dexter and Mark Haddon. The shadow libraries minister Gloria De Piero said: “Volunteers have a role to play in libraries, but I would be amazed if you could run libraries by volunteers alone. It is a professional job. “I have asked Vaizey whether he has any plans to run the House of Commons library through volunteers, and he has not replied so I presume he realises he does not.” She claimed there were signs of another wave of closures following the local elections. Oxfordshire council leader Keith Mitchell insisted he would have to find savings elsewhere, admitting libraries seem to be the one thing that people value above youth services, roads, social care and vulnerable children. “It’s a peculiarly British thing, because most of them haven’t been near a library in years. Like the pub and church in their village or town, they don’t want to see them go. “It will mean a bit less money for highways or adult social care, but realistically we can’t go around stopping other cuts from happening, because the country is broke.” He told the Oxford Times : “Personally, I’m disappointed people do not rate social care – old people with dementia and young disabled kids – a bit more highly, but they don’t, most likely because they have no experience of that, but they walk past their library on the high street most weeks.” The website Public Libraries News claims that of 4,517 libraries across the UK, 460 (391 in buildings and 69 mobile) are under threat. Councils are required by law to provide a “comprehensive and efficient” service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. Communities David Cameron Ed Vaizey Conservatives Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Government report into sexualisation of childhood set to propose tougher regulations on retail, advertising and video industry Tighter regulations on sexualised music videos and a single portal for parents to complain about products that are inappropriate for children are to be proposed by a government report into the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood. The chief theme of the report will be the empowerment of parents to complain about inappropriate material, including advertising, partly by offering an easier way through the current confusing fog of regulatory bodies. The report has been commissioned by David Cameron from Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Mothers’ Union and a long term critic of premature sexualisation, and it is due to be published on Monday. Bailey is likely to give the retail, advertising and video industry 18 months to improve their act voluntarily or face tougher government regulation. He is also expected to demand some regulatory bodies such as Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority do more to ensure they seek the views of parents on what is acceptable to show to children. Bailey The report is also set to criticise the growth of peer to peer marketing, where companies hire teenagers to sell or promote products in school. Bailey has been armed with devastating research findings showing parents are very worried at what they see as the premature sexualisation of children by industries, including some high-street retailers eager to tap a profitable market, and as a result make children more sensitive about their appearance. Next, FCUK and Top Shop have all produced adult styling in mini sizes. Cameron has already urged Bailey in public to come up with tough findings. Critics will complain that the government is trying to recreate a Victorian image of childhood that takes no account of how the digital age has transformed childhood irrevocably. Ofcom has been criticised for being out of touch over sanctioning the use of sexualsied images on X Factor. The review has already led bodies such as the ASA and the BPI, responsible for the music industry, to make pre-emptive efforts to show they are aware of the criticism of the way they currently operate. The ASA has promised to set up an advisory body, as well as regulate advertising on company websites. The music industry is expected to be told to put some kind of advisory age rating such as films have on music videos. Earlier this week the pop star Rihanna was unrepentant for filming a music video in which she shoots someone who raped her. She has faced massive criticism from parent groups in America . Critics are likely to argue that in practice these music videos go out on TV and parents will unable to stand over their children and prevent them watiching them. | Latest figures sent to the Bailey review suggest that half of children have access to TV via their computers in their own bedroom. Senior figures associated with the review have been struck by the complacency of some industry bodies. Senior figures at the British Retail Consortum said last month that the retail industry had not changed what it sold to children, but parental conventions of what is acceptable have changed. Bailey is likely to be asked by government to follow through his report to ensure his recommendations are implemented. Ministers are aware that the previous government published three reports into sexualisation of children in various aspects, but little happened. There have been three separate reviews Professor Tanya Byron, Dr Linda Papadopoulos, and Professor David Buckingham, all commissioned by the department of education. But Helen Goodman, the shadow justice minister, said: “The voluntary approach has been tried and failed. We must have tougher regulations across the media, including social media.” Pester power is the pollution of modern advertising and we should follow the polluter pays principle. This advertising leads to most conflict in families living in poverty and is a just a pressure that mums do not need.” Findings from a survey conducted for the Bailey review show that: • Two-thirds of parents had come across clothes, toys, games, music videos or other products that they thought were inappropriate for the age group they were aimed at. • 40% of parents said they had seen things in public places (shop window displays, advertising hoardings) that they felt were inappropriate for children to see because of their sexual content. • 41% of parents said they had seen programmes or adverts on TV before 9pm that they felt were unsuitable or inappropriate for children due to their sexual content. Of those parents who had felt the need to complain about these issues but hadn’t, over 60% said that they had not done so either because they didn’t think anything would be done or they didn’t know who to complain to. Around half of parents felt that celebrity culture, adult style clothes and music videos are encouraging children to act older than they are. Bailey has previously said: “For us to let children be children, we need to let parents be parents. That means giving parents the support and encouragement they need to help their children understand and resist the harms they face. “But it also means putting brakes on ever greater commercialisation and sexualisation facing children in modern society. Only then can we look to create a truly family friendly society that protects children.” Children Music industry Advertising Retail industry Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Video: Bashir’s Non-Response Response After Scolding Palin’s ‘Illegal’ Bus Tour
June 2, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters reported first , MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir insisted on his May 31 program that Sarah Palin's Northeast bus tour amounted to a “breach in federal law.” After a number of sites linked to the original NewsBusters piece, Bashir responded today to the “abusive messages” he's allegedly endured in the fallout of his controversial remarks, although he avoided addressing his bizarre claim that the former Alaska governor violated federal law by flying the American flag on her tour bus. [Video embedded after the page break.] “And judging by the number of abusive messages to myself and my family online and on my office voicemail, there's been quite the reaction to my comment regarding Sarah Palin and the real purpose of her bus tour,” complained Bashir. The British-born Bashir went on to flash his green card to prove to his alleged detractors that he is indeed a legal resident: “For the avoidance of any doubt, I want to assure you that I am a legal, permanent resident of the United States. This is my green card.” While the former ABC Nightline anchor doubled down on his contention that Palin is only interested in making money, he explicitly refused to address his most egregious comment. On Tuesday, Bashir questioned Palin's patriotism and suggested she's a criminal: “In fact, the whole thing could be in breach of a federal law because the United States Flag Code establishes important rules for the use and display of the stars and stripes, the flag of the United States.” But on Thursday, Bashir pretended to have never uttered such offensive bile, even though it was those comments that were the most controversial. Still waiting for you to “Clear the Air,” Martin. –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
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