Democrats Call for Federal Investigation into WI Supreme Court Election as Recall Efforts There Continue
April 12, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Ed Schultz talked to Wisconsin state Sen. Chris Larson and The Nation’s John Nichols about the latest in Wisconsin. As Larson noted, he’s supporting his fellow Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin in asking Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the voting irregularities and the “surprise discovery of 14,000 votes” in the Supreme Court race in Waukesha County. Congresswoman asks U.S. Attorney General to investigate Waukesha vote reporting : Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is asking for a federal investigation into the surprise discovery of 14,000 votes in Waukesha County for the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Rep. Baldwin sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Friday night asking him to assign the Justice Department Integrity Section. It oversees the federal prosecution of election crimes. Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said “human error” resulted in the miscount there. The change gave incumbent Justice David Prosser a 7,500-vote edge over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said Saturday in an email that the department would review the letter. He declined further comment. In the letter, Baldwin says the mishap raises serious doubts as to the integrity of the state’s electoral process. And as they noted, their wingnut Governor Scott Walker went running to Newsmax to accuse the unions of trying to “steal” the election from Prosser and compared what happened to Al Franken’s narrow election win there. That’s rich, isn’t it? Meanwhile, Scott Walker is going to be called to testify before Rep. Darrell Issa’s committee next week. I’m sure we’ll get to watch a union bashing side show from the Republicans during that hearing. And as the recall efforts in Wisconsin are still moving along where it would be very nice to see this union busting Republican shown the door — Wis. Dems To File First Recall Petitions Against GOP State Sen. Dan Kapanke .
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Speculation is rife that high-trousered music guru Simon Cowell will quit as a judge on the UK X Factor – who can fill his shoes? We knew this day would eventually come. Ever since Simon Cowell – distraught at the prospect of sitting through another afternoon of hopeless singing dog acts – backed away from Britain’s Got Talent and replaced himself with David Hasselhoff, the writing has been firmly on the wall. And now it’s happened. If reports are to be believed, Simon Cowell will no longer be taking part in this year’s The X Factor. If true, this is a potentially devastating loss for The X Factor. To all intents and purposes, Simon Cowell is The X Factor. He invented it, he produced, he judged it, he co-wrote the theme tune. There’s a very good chance he rushed backstage during every single ad break and made plates of sandwiches for all the contestants. Cut The X Factor open and it bleeds Cowell. But, now that he’s decided that America is more important that little old Britain, thoughts must inevitably turn to his replacement. And that’s going to be a lot more difficult than it looks. The current The X Factor judges all have their pre-determined roles – Dannii Minogue says “pitchy” a lot, Cheryl Cole wears dresses made out of spoons and cries all the time, and Louis Walsh sits there talking away to himself – but Simon Cowell was the undisputed leader. If he said a contestant was bad, you listened. If he gave a contestant a creepy wink during their audition, you knew to keep an eye on them. If he smiled – well, if he smiled you’d instinctively cover your eyes to stop his gleaming teeth from setting your retinas on fire – but then you’d pay attention. So we should just be honest with ourselves. We will never truly be able to replace a man as overwhelmingly multifaceted as Cowell. The best we can ever expect to achieve is to simply replace elements of him. With than in mind, here are some leading contenders: The musical knowhow – When Cowell extracted himself from American Idol, his replacements were Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and Jennifer Lopez. Each knew a lot about performing hits – and, to some extent, appearing in dreadful films – but they lacked Cowell’s cold, hard business sense. If Cowell was also replaced by a pop star on The X Factor, the show would make itself vulnerable to all sorts of endless, dreary monologues about following your dreams and believing in yourself and all that nonsense, and it’d never produce another Leona Lewis again. What we really need is someone who knows how to make money. Contenders: Ashley Tabor, head of Global Radio and manager of The Wanted; Duncan Bannatyne from Dragon’s Den. The haughty demeanour – Remember what made Simon Cowell famous in the first place? It was his unstoppable cruelty during auditions. Nobody could reduce obese teenage girls from Huddersfield to tears quite as effectively as him. He’s softened a little in recent years, so his resignation would be a perfect opportunity to bring in someone as uncompromisingly rude as he used to be. Contenders: Jerry Sadowitz; Bill Sikes from the novel Oliver Twist. The terrible, terrible hair – Despite the importance of his business acumen and his attitude, the thing that most The X Factor viewers will miss about Simon Cowell is his haircut. It’s hard to overstate the importance of that weird, wiry, flattened-down broom of a haircut. It kept Cowell human. It typified the whole ethos of The X Factor. People looked at that haircut and thought “If Simon Cowell can become rich and successful despite having the single most confusing hairstyle in all of recorded history, then so can I. So can I.” Therefore, a total misunderstanding of what makes a haircut look nice should be chief among the requirements when it comes to finding a replacement. Contenders: Donald Trump; a matted piece of six-week-old roadkill. The X Factor Entertainment Television Simon Cowell ITV Television industry Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk
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IPPR says research shows influence of BNP would not be enhanced under the alternative vote system A move to the alternative vote system would not hand undue influence to the BNP, according to research done by the IPPR looking at results in all constituencies if the last election had been run under AV. Researchers at the thinktank have run a series of tests on two different facets of the claim by those who oppose the move to AV that the BNP would be able to “pick a winner”. The IPPR looks at whether there could be a mass transfer of BNP supporters’ votes pushing one candidate over the 50% threshold, and that BNP voters’ second preferences could overturn a favourite and help someone placed second or even third to come first. The research comes as both the no and yes campaigns prepare to mark the four-week countdown to the AV referendum. The no campaign has aired concerns that a change in the voting system would boost minority parties, with their campaign director, Matthew Elliott, saying recently AV would “[give] BNP supporters more power at the ballot box”. In an AV system, voters rank candidates instead of voting only for their chosen one. If no one candidate has secured 50% of the vote immediately, the candidate who has received fewest first preference votes is eliminated and the second preferences of their voters are redistributed to other candidates. The no campaign fears the second preferences of those eliminated – likely to be those who back minority parties – could go on to have profound effects further down the reallocation process. They have published a list of 35 seats in which the BNP’s share of the vote was greater than the winner’s margin of victory. Now researchers have looked at this assertion in two ways. They show there to be 56 seats where the share of the BNP vote exceeds the gap between the first-placed candidate and the 50% threshold they need to cross and where, if all BNP supporters transferred their second preferences as a bloc, could help the lead candidate win. They then show that the 2010 British election survey – which asked 13,356 people to take part in a mock election run under their AV system – found the number of seats where the second preference of those voting BNP push a winning candidate over the 50% threshold fell to 25. However, the IPPR researchers show that in all 25 seats the second preferences of the BNP are not “decisive” and the second preferences of others just as critical. They show that in the 25, the first-placed candidate is within “spitting distance” of the finishing line and the average gap between the first and second placed candidate is 24.52%, which they say is “larger than the share of the vote of any third-placed candidate whose votes would be needed to change the result”. “In other words there is no chance that BNP second preference votes could alter the outcome in any of these seats. In all of them the winner on first preferences will be the winner once votes have been reallocated in subsequent rounds irrespective of the role played by BNP votes.” The IPPR researchers also dissect the idea that BNP voters could change the balance of power in constituencies by pushing a second or third place candidate into first place and over the 50% threshold on the back of its transferred votes. Results from the 2010 election show that there is not one constituency where the BNP vote share is larger than the margin between 50% and that received by the runner-up. Their researchers say: “Given the marginality and distance from 50% for both the first and second placed candidates it is true that BNP supporters’ second or third preferences will be counted in the 35 seats listed by the ‘No to AV’ campaign. “However, the BNP vote is still very small in each of these seats, averaging a vote share of just 4.5% – yet the average distance from 50% for the winning candidate is 11.3% and 14.2% for the runner-up. Even if we assume all BNP preferences go to a single candidate (which they wouldn’t) they would still require more than twice the number of BNP supporters to win under AV. BNP voters cannot therefore single-handedly change a result.” The IPPR details some high profile cases: Barking The IPPR says: The constituency [in] which the BNP has its highest proportion in vote share, it is a clear safe seat for Labour achieving over 50% of all votes and very unlikely requiring the need for 2nd preferences. All additional party votes summed – including the Liberal Democrats – would not be enough to elect the Conservative runner-up. Morley and Outwood IPPR says: “The BNP additional vote preferences would be counted but as the race is highly marginal – both winner and runner-up maintaining votes shares in the mid-30s – the race will be decided by the 16.76% Liberal Democrat supporters whose second preferences are more likely to go to Labour than the Conservatives.” Burnley IPPR says: “The race is between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The BNP additional vote preferences will likely be counted but the 16.61% of Conservative voters will be the decisive group who strongly favour the Liberal Democrats over Labour thus, likely retaining the seat in Liberal Democrat hands”. The no campaign will maintain that BNP voters will still have undue influence in any AV election compared to those who vote for one of the three main parties. Recent research by them showed that if the 2010 general election had been run under AV, in 70% of seats those who backed the three main parties would have been unlikely to get a second vote. Launching that research, Matthew Elliott said that in some constituencies supporters of the BNP would have had their preferences counted six times before a winner was declared. Alternative vote Electoral reform AV referendum BNP Elections 2011 Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Two east London men found guilty of killing innocent schoolgirl in pizza shop revenge attack that went wrong Two members of an east London gang are facing life sentences for killing an innocent 16-year-old girl in a revenge hit that went wrong. Agnes Sina-Inakoju died when she was shot in the neck in April 2010 by Leon Dunkley as she bought pizza. Dunkley, 22, a senior member of the London Fields gang, fired a submachine gun through the window of the takeaway in a “callous and cold-blooded” attack. He and fellow gang member Mohammed Smoured, 21, cycled up to the Hoxton Chicken and Pizza Shop. Dunkley fired into the shop without looking who he was aiming at and hit Sina-Inakoju, a “popular and successful” schoolgirl who hoped to go to Oxford University. The shooting, which was captured on CCTV, was the culmination of a violent and escalating feud between gangs from Hackney. Simon Denison QC, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey: “Her future was taken away from her in an instant.” Police investigating the murder uncovered an arsenal of weapons held by teenagers who had been intimidated into storing them by senior members of the London Fields gang. The shooting took place after one member was beaten up by the rival Hoxton Boys gang. Dunkley believed members of the rival gang would be at the takeaway shop when he opened fire. The court heard that after the shooting Smoured told a friend: “It’s funny, the way she dropped.” Dunkley and lookout Smoured, both of Hackney, were each convicted of murder by a 10-1 majority and will be sentenced later on Tuesday. Two youths, aged 16 and 17, were convicted of firearms offences for holding weapons and will be sentenced at a later date. Six London Fields gang members were jailed for life in 2009 for the murder of 14-year-old schoolboy Shaquille Smith, who was stabbed on a park bench. Crime Gun crime London guardian.co.uk
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Director Simcha Jacobovici’s film, The Nails of the Cross, claims nails used to crucify Christ have been found in Jerusalem tomb From the Turin Shroud to the “Jesus towel” , which will arrive at the British museum in June, there are dozens of artefacts claimed to have been part of the Biblical story of Christ. Now a new film suggests that the nails used to crucify Jesus have been found in a Jerusalem tomb . Canadian-Israeli director Simcha Jacobovici’s The Nails of the Cross is the veteran investigator’s second film claiming to have discovered artefacts linked to Christ. He also directed 2007′s The Lost Tomb of Jesus. But experts have poured scorn on the latest findings, suggesting that the film is little more than a publicity stunt. However, this time around, Jacobovici says he has historical and archaeological context for his claims. “What we are bringing to the world is the best archaeological argument ever made that two of the nails from the crucifixion of Jesus have been found,” he told Reuters. “Do I know 100% yes, these are them? I don’t.” The Nails of the Cross suggests the artefacts were found in the grave of Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who according to the New Testament sent Jesus to his death after handing him over to the Romans. They disappeared centuries ago but were later tracked by Jacobovici to the Tel Aviv laboratory of an anthropologist who is an expert on ancient bones. “If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion,” said the director. “And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus’s crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails.” The Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the excavation of the tomb – it has since been resealed – cast doubt upon suggestions that the grave was definitively the burial place of Caiaphas, and said nails are commonly found in such locations. “There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its centre,” said a spokesman. “But the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research.” Documentary Religion Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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I travelled the length and breadth of the capital in preparation for this Sunday’s London Marathon • Read all Dave Hill’s blogposts charting his training here I have a fistful of reasons for entering Sunday’s London Marathon . They include being in the grip of a combined death wish and mid-life crisis, though I never, ever mention that in public. Another reason is a sense of duty: how can any self-respecting London blogger and commentator be worthy of the description without having taken part in the capital’s greatest sporting and mass participation event? Then there’s a campaigning itch to scratch: I’ve written a lot about the capital’s deepening and deeply troubling housing crisis of late, so it seems fitting to be raising money for the distinguished national housing charity Shelter . And preparing for the marathon provided me too with a pretext for doing something I might otherwise never have got round to – travelling the mighty length and breadth of Greater London on foot. The experience of Running London – and, in parts, walking it with an open A-Z and a slight limp – has been partly what the Victorians might have called an improving experience , partly a lot of fun and never less than a journey of enlightenment. I embarked on the endeavour upon leaving the gentlemen’s toilet of a shopping mall in Uxbridge last August and have never looked back, except to ensure that I wasn’t being followed by sheep or vigilantes in the wilds of Barnet and when seeking to confirm my strong suspicion that I’d just jogged past one of the metropolis’s finest poets under a railway bridge in Herne Hill . I have passed through all 32 of London’s boroughs and the City . I completed the physical part of the task when I arrived in Upminster last Wednesday. The writing part will be all over by Thursday. From Uxbridge in the far west to Upminster in the far east. It has a certain U-ish symmetry, don’t you think? Yet my route was often barely planned, a failing I shall dignify by stressing the benefits that can accrue from acts of spontaneity, such as chancing upon the suburban sewage works that emit the legendary ” Mogden pong ” and accidentally falling off the edge of urban civilisation into the seething badlands others know as “Surrey”. The beauty of travelling by foot, even at anything up to a practically silky seven miles per hour – no, really – is that you devote more curious attention to what’s in front of your nose, such as a junction in Tooting that bears the curiously US Deep Southern name of Amen Corner and those streets in Bayswater named after Russian cities. Why are these things so? No one has yet explained the Amen Corner to me, though a reader called BalticPro explained Moscow Road and St Petersburgh Place in a learned comment here . In a place as vast and varied as London you stumble endlessly upon evidence of the city’s endless, restless state of change – the discordancies of Docklands, the bared layers of the past next to the trunk road into Bexley – but also pockets of seemingly sealed institutions such as a noted school in Harrow-on-the-Hill. You find Chislehurst’s celebrated “caves” and tranquil river walks right next to the roaring North Circular Road. You stumble over traces of popular culture history everywhere: the Wandsworth roundabout where part of A Clockwork Orange was filmed; the non-existent part of Cheam where Tony Hancock never lived; the Hounslow pub where Jimi Hendrix, reputedly, played his first London gig straight after stepping off a plane. I re-found all sorts of personal memories, strewn liberally from Ladbroke Grove to Crystal Palace to Upper Street . Perhaps it is because I migrated to the big, bad city that I’ve never lost my sense of wonder about living here. I’m not sure how motivating that sentiment will be if and when I get beyond the 20-mile mark on Sunday , with Canary Wharf looming to my left and the finish line on the Mall seeming a long lifetime away. I hope I can reach it without walking, crawling or lying down, but should perhaps remind myself that for we amateurs it’s the taking part that’s meant to count. Last year’s London Marathon, the first sponsored by Virgin, was completed by more than 36,000 people – a record for the event and a gigantic increase from the 6,000 who completed the inaugural run in 1981. The elite race is now established in the international athletics calendar . The rest of it is a London and national institution, whose surpluses have this year supported £5.3m-worth of sports facilities across the capital and whose participants have raised some £500m for hundreds of charities since it began. Shelter asks its sponsor runners to raise a minimum of £1,600. I’ve managed to reach that figure quite comfortably, thanks very largely to the generosity of readers of my blog , subscribers to my weekly newsletter and people who follow me on Twitter . Pledges and donations now total nearly £2,600. If you’d like to help push that beyond the £3,000 mark, please visit my Virgin Money giving page . Many thanks. • Read all Dave Hill’s blogposts charting his run through every London borough here London Marathon London Running Dave Hill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …I travelled the length and breadth of the capital in preparation for this Sunday’s London Marathon • Read all Dave Hill’s blogposts charting his training here I have a fistful of reasons for entering Sunday’s London Marathon . They include being in the grip of a combined death wish and mid-life crisis, though I never, ever mention that in public. Another reason is a sense of duty: how can any self-respecting London blogger and commentator be worthy of the description without having taken part in the capital’s greatest sporting and mass participation event? Then there’s a campaigning itch to scratch: I’ve written a lot about the capital’s deepening and deeply troubling housing crisis of late, so it seems fitting to be raising money for the distinguished national housing charity Shelter . And preparing for the marathon provided me too with a pretext for doing something I might otherwise never have got round to – travelling the mighty length and breadth of Greater London on foot. The experience of Running London – and, in parts, walking it with an open A-Z and a slight limp – has been partly what the Victorians might have called an improving experience , partly a lot of fun and never less than a journey of enlightenment. I embarked on the endeavour upon leaving the gentlemen’s toilet of a shopping mall in Uxbridge last August and have never looked back, except to ensure that I wasn’t being followed by sheep or vigilantes in the wilds of Barnet and when seeking to confirm my strong suspicion that I’d just jogged past one of the metropolis’s finest poets under a railway bridge in Herne Hill . I have passed through all 32 of London’s boroughs and the City . I completed the physical part of the task when I arrived in Upminster last Wednesday. The writing part will be all over by Thursday. From Uxbridge in the far west to Upminster in the far east. It has a certain U-ish symmetry, don’t you think? Yet my route was often barely planned, a failing I shall dignify by stressing the benefits that can accrue from acts of spontaneity, such as chancing upon the suburban sewage works that emit the legendary ” Mogden pong ” and accidentally falling off the edge of urban civilisation into the seething badlands others know as “Surrey”. The beauty of travelling by foot, even at anything up to a practically silky seven miles per hour – no, really – is that you devote more curious attention to what’s in front of your nose, such as a junction in Tooting that bears the curiously US Deep Southern name of Amen Corner and those streets in Bayswater named after Russian cities. Why are these things so? No one has yet explained the Amen Corner to me, though a reader called BalticPro explained Moscow Road and St Petersburgh Place in a learned comment here . In a place as vast and varied as London you stumble endlessly upon evidence of the city’s endless, restless state of change – the discordancies of Docklands, the bared layers of the past next to the trunk road into Bexley – but also pockets of seemingly sealed institutions such as a noted school in Harrow-on-the-Hill. You find Chislehurst’s celebrated “caves” and tranquil river walks right next to the roaring North Circular Road. You stumble over traces of popular culture history everywhere: the Wandsworth roundabout where part of A Clockwork Orange was filmed; the non-existent part of Cheam where Tony Hancock never lived; the Hounslow pub where Jimi Hendrix, reputedly, played his first London gig straight after stepping off a plane. I re-found all sorts of personal memories, strewn liberally from Ladbroke Grove to Crystal Palace to Upper Street . Perhaps it is because I migrated to the big, bad city that I’ve never lost my sense of wonder about living here. I’m not sure how motivating that sentiment will be if and when I get beyond the 20-mile mark on Sunday , with Canary Wharf looming to my left and the finish line on the Mall seeming a long lifetime away. I hope I can reach it without walking, crawling or lying down, but should perhaps remind myself that for we amateurs it’s the taking part that’s meant to count. Last year’s London Marathon, the first sponsored by Virgin, was completed by more than 36,000 people – a record for the event and a gigantic increase from the 6,000 who completed the inaugural run in 1981. The elite race is now established in the international athletics calendar . The rest of it is a London and national institution, whose surpluses have this year supported £5.3m-worth of sports facilities across the capital and whose participants have raised some £500m for hundreds of charities since it began. Shelter asks its sponsor runners to raise a minimum of £1,600. I’ve managed to reach that figure quite comfortably, thanks very largely to the generosity of readers of my blog , subscribers to my weekly newsletter and people who follow me on Twitter . Pledges and donations now total nearly £2,600. If you’d like to help push that beyond the £3,000 mark, please visit my Virgin Money giving page . Many thanks. • Read all Dave Hill’s blogposts charting his run through every London borough here London Marathon London Running Dave Hill guardian.co.uk
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Key defector expected to go to Libya conference in Qatar after being questioned over Lockerbie bombing Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain, is being allowed to leave the country after being questioned by Scottish police about his role in the Lockerbie affair, the Guardian can reveal. Koussa is expected in the Qatari capital of Doha on Wednesday where an international conference on the future of Libya is being held with representatives from the Benghazi-based opposition. Koussa is said to be seeking to establish whether he has a role to play in the rebel movement along with other senior defectors from the Gaddafi regime – perhaps by brokering a deal between Tripoli and Benghazi. It is believed he has links with some fo the leading rebel figures including Mahmoud Jibril the opposition leader. It is understood Koussa spent a week being debriefed by officials from MI6 at a safe house before being allowed to go free. He was questioned by Dumfries and Galloway police about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in which 270 people died, though was he was not a suspect. William Hague, the foreign secretary, had insisted that Koussa would not be given immunity from prosecution. He was helped to defect by MI6 after leaving Tripoli for Tunisia on what was initially described as a private visit. It is expected that he will return to the UK in the next few days after the trip to the Middle East. The hope in Whitehall is that Koussa’s lenient treatment by the UK authorities will send a positive signal to other would-be Libyan defectors as part of a broader strategy of eroding Muammar Gaddafi’s position. On Monday Koussa made his first public statement since leaving Libya 12 days ago. “I ask everybody to avoid taking Libya into civil war,” he told the BBC. “This would lead to so much blood and Libya would be a new Somalia. More than that, we refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and settlement.” Speaking in Arabic, Koussa made no reference in his statement to questions about his past and any knowledge or involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. It is understood he has a lawyer representing him. Koussa’s links to the UK go back to the period when he was deputy foreign mister in the mid 1990s and was involved in talks that revealed past support by the Gaddafi regime for the IRA. He was head of Libya’s foreign intelligence service in the 1990s – after the Lockerbie bombing. He was involved in still inconclusive talks about the murder of Constable Yvonne Fletcher in 1984. In 2003 he played a pivotal role in talks about surrendering Libya’s programme for weapons of mass destruction – the decision which paved the way for Gaddafi’s temporary rehabilitation with the west. In 2009 he took part in negotiations over the controversial return home of the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi. In the early 1980s when he headed the London embassy, Koussa was thrown out of the UK after announcing plans to kill anti-Gaddafi dissidents. Moussa Koussa Libya Foreign policy MI6 Lockerbie plane bombing Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Global terrorism UK security and terrorism Scotland Air transport Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Lu Qing’s summons to Beijing office suggests authorities may seek to bring tax-related charges against detained artist Chinese tax officials have summoned the wife of detained artist Ai Weiwei for questioning, bolstering the theory that authorities may seek to bring tax-related charges against him. Lu Qing spent about an hour at the tax office in Beijing. She was asked to take documents with her, but was unable to do so as they had already been confiscated by police, according to Radio Television Hong Kong. Officials have said that Ai is under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes , but police have yet to inform the family that they are detaining him. He has not been seen since the morning of 3 April, when officials stopped him at Beijing airport . Relatives and supporters say the allegations are a pretext for detaining him because of his political and social campaigning. Economic cases have been brought against several activists in the past. “The police officer who led the searches of his workshop was from state security. That says a lot,” his sister Gao Ge told Reuters. “If this is just an ordinary investigation, why haven’t we heard from Ai Weiwei?” Supporters of the artist said another of his collaborators, architect and designer Liu Zhenggang, had been missing since police took him away at 11pm on Saturday. The Guardian has been unable to verify the claim independently. No one has been able to contact Ai’s friend Wen Tao, 38, since he was reportedly detained on the same day as the artist. On Monday assistants from the studio said Ai’s accountant and driver, Ms Hu and Zhang Jingsong – also known as Xiao Pang – had gone missing . The artist’s detention has sparked an international outcry. The Chinese government said on Tuesday it was unhappy with overseas support for him. “The Chinese people also feel baffled – why do some people in some countries treat a crime suspect as a hero?” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing. “The Chinese people are unhappy about this. No matter what influence they have had, they will be punished according to the law.” Ai Weiwei China Human rights Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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• Former Home Office pathologist Freddy Patel giving evidence • Inquest has heard that cause of death will be ‘controversial’ • Ian Tomlinson died at the G20 protests in London in 2009 • Follow live coverage throughout the day 10.58am: Hewitt: “Did you have any evidence before you to suggest that Ian Tomlinson had suffered an injury as a result of an assault or crush injuries or anything of that sort?” Patel: “No, I didn’t have any direct evidence. But because it was a Section 19 [routine postmortem], it was upgraded to a Section 20 [suspicious death case] – now you can have a Section 20 without involvement of the police and so I feel that I may have queried why are the police attending and [I] would have been informed by the coroner’s officers that they would like to rule out whether [Tomlinson] had suffered any injuries as a result of an assault and there was a big crowd there, whether he suggested any crush injuries related to the protesters in the public disorder.” 10.55am: Freddy Patel has just revealed police gave him additional information moments before he conducted the postmortem. Patel took contemporaneous notes in a 21-page booklet. The jury now has this, and Hewitt is talking through what he wrote while conducting the examination. The postmortem took place at 5pm. Detective Superintendant Tony Crampton, the City of London police officer leading the inquiry, was present along with three other police officers. The police gave him additional information (to that included in the fax) before he began examining the body. The additional information was that [Tomlinson] was found collapsed outdoors on the pavement but there were no police officers nearby – when I say nearby I mean in the immediate vicinity of the body. There was a lot of broken glass bottles and a lot of protesters were using sticks and there were a lot of sticks around the body where it was found. That was the information I was given before we went into the mortuary. Important: I should note that none of the footage or photographs shown to the jury so far have shown protesters “using sticks” or sticks in the immediate vicinity of the body after collapse. The jury saw one photograph showing an unbroken bottle although bystanders heard other bottles breaking nearby. 10.34am: To assist his examination, Patel received information from the coroner’s office via fax. It included basic biographical details, and stated Tomlinson had collapsed two days earlier on Cornhill. The pathologist was told bystanders saw Tomlinson “went blue” and police, “who were nearby, due to the demonstration”, administered first aid. The fax gave details of Tomlinson’s medical problems and stated he was an alcoholic who had been a “rough sleeper in the city of the last 20 years” who had recently secured accommodation at a hostel. 10.28am: Alison Hewitt , counsel for the inquest, is questioning Patel. He said that the postmortem examination on Tomlinson’s body took place on Friday 3 April – two days after his death. He explained it would have occurred the previous day, but there was a delay. If I remember correctly the postmortem was done on the Friday. On the Thursday morning I received a call from the mortuary – there was a body and the coroner would like a postmortem … As far as I remember it was going to be a routine postmortem examination, or Section 19. I got to the mortuary on the Thursday, and one of the police officers who had come to do identification was also present. Then I was informed by the coroner’s officer that due to some legal arguments or whatever, the postmortem couldn’t go ahead that day. Patel said that by the time he did get round to doing the postmortem, he was told it had been “upgraded” to a “Section 20″ (forensic examination in a suspicious death case). 10.17am: Dr Freddy Patel has taken the stand. He is wearing a stripey red tie and is resting his hands on a file of papers he has taken with him. He listed his qualifications, and said that in April 2009, at the time of his examination of Tomlinson’s body, he was on the Home Office list of accredited forensic pathologists. Patel has explained the different between a “Section 19″ (routine) postmortem, and a “Section 20″ (forensic) case, which takes place in suspicious death cases. 10.12am: The jury has entered – we’re about to start. 10.09am: Quick reminder: it has been widely reported that Dr Freddy Patel has twice been suspended by the General Medical Council (GMC) in recent months. A fortnight ago, he was suspended for four months over his botched postmortem which led to a delayed murder investigation into a serial killer. The case concerned his 2002 examination of the body of Sally White – the first victim of “Camden Ripper” Anthony Hardy. He found she had died of natural causes (a heart attack) despite blood staining her clothing, bedding and a wall at Hardy’s flat. The GMC also found Dr Patel had falsified his CV. The earlier suspension, in September last year, concerned professional failings in three other postmortem examinations . 9.58am: We are entering the third week of the inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson. Today, Dr Freddy Patel, the pathologist who controversially concluded the newspaper seller died of a heart attack caused by coronary heart disease, takes the stand. The inquest is entering a new phase: medical evidence. So far the jury of 11 has mainly heard evidence about the circumstances surrounding Tomlinson’s death at the G20 protests. The focus has been his encounter with Metropolitan police officer Simon Harwood, who has accepted the father of nine posed no threat to him when he struck with a baton and pushed him to the ground. Here is a quick recap of the nine days we’ve had so far: Day 1: The Tomlinson inquest opened with detailed footage showing the newspaper seller’s last moments alive . The judge told jurors to anticipate “controversy” over divergent medical opinions and stressed that Harwood was not “on trial”. Day 2: The jury heard how Harwood was a van driver in the Met’s territorial support group (TSG) who strayed from his post without the knowledge of his supervisor. He had several confrontations with protesters and bystanders in the minutes leading up to his encounter with Tomlinson. Day 3: A New York investment fund manager said he believed Harwood was trying to make an example of Tomlinson when he pushed him to the ground. Chris La Jaunie, who shot crucial video footage of the incident, told jurors the newspaper seller was not being confrontational . Day 4: A police officer who witnessed Harwood pushing Tomlinson said she had been “shocked by the forcefulness” of the shove . She said she did not believe the newspaper seller posed a threat. Day 5: In the opening day of his evidence, Harwood said he “feared for his life” in the minutes leading up to his encounter with Tomlinson. The newspaper vendor’s relatives left the courtroom in tears when Harwood announced he wanted to “help the family at this difficult time”. Day 6: Harwood told the jury he was “amazed” when Tomlinson fell to the ground and was accused of lying under oath. He conceded the father of nine posed no threat to him and offered a partial apology “if it is the case” his actions led to Tomlinson’s death . Day 7: In his final day of evidence, the police officer said he believed Tomlinson had been “almost inviting a physical confrontation” . He also said he believed his training allowed him to baton a person who posed no threat. Harwood eventually appeared to retract much of his earlier testimony. Day 8: A City worker who saw Tomlinson collapse less than three minutes after his encounter with Harwood said he heard him tell a bystander: “The fuckers got me.” A medical student who went to Tomlinson’s aid told how she was pushed out of the way by police. Day 9: Paramedics and doctors gave evidence about the failed attempts to resuscitate Tomlinson in the hour following his collapse. Amid divergent accounts, one ambulance worker said his initial assessment was that the father of nine could have been dying of internal bleeding. Ian Tomlinson Police London Protest G20 Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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