Decision by IPCC to hold PC Simon Harwood’s disciplinary proceedings in open due to ‘exceptional public interest’ PC Simon Harwood, the police officer who inadvertently killed Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests, will be forced to explain his actions for the second time in public after a rare move to hold his disciplinary proceedings in the open. The Metropolitan police has been instructed by the national police watchdog to hold its gross misconduct hearing in public due to the “exceptional public interest” in the case. The jury in the inquest into Tomlinson’s death concluded on Tuesday that Harwood “unlawfully killed” the newspaper vendor, when he struck him with a baton and pushed him heavily to the ground in April 2009. Harwood spent three days answering questions at the inquest, in which he maintained his actions were proportionate and justified. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, is currently reviewing his decision last July not to bring criminal proceedings against Harwood, 43, a member of the Met’s Territorial Support Group. Harwood could now face prosecution for manslaughter, an imprisonable offence. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said the Met had not objected to its decision to hold the hearing in public. However the IPCC ruling went against the desires of Harwood and eleven other police witnesses, some of whom expressed concern over the impact that giving evidence in an open forum would have on their private lives. “Over the past weeks the evidence from our investigation has been heard, tested and challenged at the inquest,” said the IPCC commissioner for London, Deborah Glass. “The verdict speaks for itself. The conclusion of the inquest is an important stage in the process but it is not the final one, particularly as the inquest does not – indeed cannot – determine accountability, which is a matter of exceptional public concern in this case. I have therefore decided that due to the gravity and exceptional circumstances of this case, the misconduct proceedings should be heard in public.” The only other police officers disciplined at a public hearing were censured over their failure to respond to 999 calls for help from Colette Lynch, a 24-year-old woman who days later was killed by her ex-partner Percy Wright. Two Warwickshire police officers were disciplined for their failure to follow procedure when it emerged Lynch, her mother and her brother had called officers dozens of times to say Wright had been threatening her. In a statement, the Met said Harwood’s disciplinary hearing would take place “as soon as possible” but did not give a date or any other details. “The timing of the hearing is decided by the chair of the panel who must first consider the findings of the inquest and consult with all parties before setting a date.” The disciplinary panel, which will have the power to sack Harwood, will be chaired by Met Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens. The other members of the panel will be a senior police officer and a layperson. The disciplinary charges against Harwood include that he struck Tomlinson with a baton and pushed him to the ground, and that “such dangerous actions inadvertently caused or contributed” to his death. He is also accused of using force that was “not necessary, proportionate or reasonable in the circumstances”. Harwood is expected to contest the charges. He said after Tuesday’s verdict that video evidence presented a “very different picture” to the impression he had when he struck Tomlinson near the Bank of England. His lawyer Colin Reynolds said of his client: “In particular, he wishes that he had known then all that he now knows about Mr Tomlinson’s movements and fragile state of health. PC Harwood did not intend, or foresee at the time, that his push would cause Mr Tomlinson to fall over, let alone that it would result in any injury.” Ian Tomlinson Police Metropolitan police Independent Police Complaints Commission Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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Italian actress Sophia Loren has been honored, once again, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Loren spoke exclusively about her long career, her future and said she was moved by the occasion. (May 4)
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A panda and a peacock face off in one enclosure in China. The animals make full use of the space until one of them decides enough is enough. (May 4)
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Click here to view this media Is there any end to the lengths that these folks will go to justify torture? Particularly Bill O’Reilly, who was puffed up like a blowfish with poison tentacles over Alan Colmes’ assertion that Rumsfeld is correct about the fact that information leading to Osama bin Laden did not emerge from “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In fact, BillO was so bent he just about came over the table at Alan Colmes, who wasn’t putting up with the nonsense even for a second. This question of how the information was obtained — by torture or standard techniques — is important for a number of reasons, and not simply because torture apologists want us to believe it’s an effective way to extract information. It’s important because it reveals the priorities and motives within the Bush administration at different times. In 2003, their focus was on Iraq, not Bin Laden. In 2007, they were still focused on Iraq. In Bush’s own words, Osama bin Laden was just someone he didn’t think about very often. So watch Bill O’Reilly go after Alan Colmes in this segment. This is actually round two — round one was right at the top of the show where Colmes tries to get a word in edgewise while BillO claims Rumsfeld’s statements on torture are just wrong. Plain wrong. After Crowley goes through some fairly boring and benign apologetics, BillO comes after Colmes with his fangs out. The pretzel twists are remarkable. Just remarkable. And really, they’re twisting themselves into a terrible corner. From Alan’s blog post on the timeline : Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was reportedly waterboarded 183 times, but that took place years before he was at Gitmo, and did not produce information leading to bin Laden’s demise. By the time the name of the courier’s name, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, was learned, it was 2007, and that was years after waterboarding and rendering to black sites had stopped . [A] administration official told reporters on Sunday that “for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.” It took until “four years ago” — 2007, then — for intelligence officials to learn al-Kuwaiti’s real name. By then, President Bush had ceased waterboarding and shuttered the black sites, moving the detainees within them, including Mohammed and al-Libbi, to Guantanamo Bay. In a Monday interview, Donald Rumsfeld said “normal” interrogation techniques were used at Gitmo on those detainees. If this timeline is correct — and there may be a lot of adjustment to it in the days and years to come — then that means waterboarding and other abusive techniques failed to get the name out of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi. A New York Times account has both men claiming not to know even the courier’s nom de guerre, which actually may have counted as a kind of confirmation by omission in this case. That says something about the limits of brute force in interrogation. In order to believe Peter King, one must believe that the Bush administration extracted the information from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in 2003 or so, when the waterboarding program was at its peak and then sat on it. Not only did they sit on it, but they shuttered the special group tasked with tracking Bin Laden’s whereabouts in 2007. So if one wants to go with Peter King and Bill O’Reilly, the Bush administration extracted information via torture and then sat on it, didn’t act, and didn’t follow through. Or, if one wants to believe Donald Rumsfeld, no information relevant to Bin Laden’s whereabouts was extracted until 2007, when it was done under accepted interrogation techniques, since the waterboarding programs were shut down by then. Transcript follows (There was a *lot* of crosstalk, so inaccuracies are possible): COLMES: Actually, it was false information they got through waterboarding. It was actually when they ran the names by this guy that he never heard of them — BILLO: Source that. COLMES: Source that? BILLO: Yes COLMES: New York Times story yesterday. They did not get — So in other words, we’re going to just discount it because you don’t like the New York Times. BILLO: So let’s go right to Attorney General Holder, who was asked this question based upon what The Factor reported last night. This morning, go. [video clip] HOLDER: There was a mosaic of sources that led to the identification of the people who led to– SENATOR (off-camera) I understand that, but were any pieces of that mosaic as the result of enhanced interrogation techniques? HOLDER: I do not know. [end clip] BILLO: Okay, so he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know, because then he’d have to say — COLMES: And you don’t believe the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. You don’t believe him. BILLO: I don’t. COLMES: Why not? BILLO: Because I have not questioned him. Breaking in here to say that this made me laugh hard and long, and not just because we’re talking about interrogation techniques. But imagine Bill O’Reilly making the claim with a straight face that Donald Rumsfeld isn’t truthful because he hasn’t questioned him personally. Would that be the same O’Reilly that eats out of Rumsfeld’s hand ? Or the Bill O’Reilly who tried to shred Scott McClellan with lies in order to bolster the Bush administration (including Rumsfeld?). Or perhaps the Bill O’Reilly who, when he had the opportunity in 2004 , threw softballs at Rumsfeld rather than dig at the truth of the Iraq travesty? Back to the action, which turned fairly hot and nasty fast: BILLO: If Rumsfeld wants to come on tomorrow night and sit there, I will question him. And when he says something, I will decide whether to believe it or not. I’m not going to take a second-rate secondary source on Rumsfeld. COLMES: Secondary source? Why would he be a secondary source? BILLO: Because he didn’t answer my direct questions. COLMES: Only if he talks to you is he a secondary source. BILLO: He didn’t talk to you either. You’re taking it from a secondary source. COLMES: So if anybody tells you something it’s okay, totally believable. BILLO: No, I’m checking it out. I checked King out, which King says is true. I’m not going to take a Rumsfeld from a secondary source from somebody like you (points at Colmes). [crosstalk] COLMES: Well you know that’s what Rumsfeld said. You know, this is an attempt on the part of people who want to burnish the reputation of a president who was a terrible president, had a terrible foreign policy — BILLO: It doesn’t have anything to do with him. It has — COLMES: — buttress up the Bush administration. That’s what you’re about. BILLO: Try to step out of your ideology — COLMES: This is not ideology. This is not ideology. BILLO: Of course it is. Your whole life is about ideology. COLMES: Oh come on, stop that. BILLO: This is about being Americans. That’s what it’s about. COLMES: It’s about trying to make Bush look good. You’ve got — BILLO: (Editorial comment: He is now shouting and snarling) I could care less about making Bush look good. This is about protecting people and you couldn’t care less about that because you’re an ideological zealot . COLMES: Bill, don’t call me that. Don’t say that to me. BILLO: It’s true. COLMES: It’s not true that I don’t care about it. This is absolutely an attempt to make Bush look good to try to justify — BILLO: That’s an insane statement and you’ve made a lot of them. COLMES: It’s another attempt to justify a terrible president with terrible foreign policy. Gotta hand it to Colmes. He managed to get his licks in and actually be heard while O’Reilly was blowing smoke, steam, and a steady stream of BS.
Continue reading …Any terror plans that al-Qaeda and its affiliates may have had in the pipeline are likely to be sped up in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, counter-terrorism officials warn. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second-in-command, is expected to launch a strike to prove that al-Qaeda is still a force…
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Given the sheer quantity of marketing muscle that Casio put behind the Tryx , you’d think the company was gearing up to rival Nikon and Canon in the DSLR space. Instead, out popped the outre device you see above. Without qualification, this is one of the strangest, most bizarrely designed cameras we’ve ever seen, featuring a pop-out display and a grand total of two buttons for operation. At 4.8- x 2.3- x 0.6-inches, it’s certainly one of the slimmest, easy-to-carry point-and-shoots on the market, but is the absence of an optical zoom and a removable battery enough to tank an otherwise radical idea? Head on past the break for our two pennies. Gallery: Casio Tryx (EX-TR100) hands-on Continue reading Casio Tryx (EX-TR100) review Casio Tryx (EX-TR100) review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The talk radio jocks have forgiven President Obama for his birth certificate, but they want to see Bin Laden’s death certificate It’s been a difficult week for patriotic Americans, some of whom remain torn between love of country and loathing for the man who leads it. Rush Limbaugh Rush Limbaugh surprised many of his critics by opening his radio show this week ( listen to clip ) offering unequivocal congratulations to President Obama for having actually done something extremely effective for a change by having had the good sense to have continued former President Bush’s antiterrorism policies – such as keeping “Club Gitmo” open, and more importantly, for making President Bush’s unfulfilled quest to capture and kill Osama bin Laden a top priority. Limbaugh also couldn’t help but admire the president for rejecting the military’s suggestion of bombing the Bin Laden compound in favour of a commando raid, even though the latter was the riskier choice. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb, like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the special forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using Seal Team 6 or any of the special forces. Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama singlehandedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death. The precision with which the Navy Seals carried out the operation was very heartening to Limbaugh whose personal happiness seems to be closely tied to his country’s military might, but he did have some concerns about the quick burial at sea and whether or not the DNA evidence was conclusive. It’s a very uplifting thing to realise that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night, I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don’t know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the programme with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we’ve got it already, the proof positive it was Osama bin Laden. It’s a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military. Limbaugh’s admiration for the armed forces is obviously genuine, but while not wanting to rain on their parade (let alone the commander-in-chief’s), diligent journalist that he is, he couldn’t help but raise another issue that has been floated in some mainstream media outlets and especially by Hillary Clinton’s news channel of choice, al-Jazeera, that Osama bin Laden is not the commander of al-Qaida anymore and that he has long since ceased to have much importance. He also felt compelled to draw attention to the stacks of newspaper articles that have suggested that Osama bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora and so has been dead for years, although Limbaugh doesn’t necessarily subscribe to this theory himself. Anyway, the bottom line is that, one way or another, it would appear that Osama bin Laden is probably dead now and even if President Obama and his administration had some hand in that, it’s still a great day for America. Laura Ingraham Laura Ingraham was positively furious ( listen to clip ) about all the furore surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden – not just because she feels a ridiculous amount of praise is being lavished on President Obama simply because he managed to carry out in just over two years what his predecessor George W Bush failed to carry out in eight, but because she feels that even if Bush had achieved his goal of capturing and killing public enemy No 1 during his administration, the media would still not have given him credit for it. What would they have said if it had been President Bush to announce the killing of Osama bin Laden? Would it have been – “Well, this was his moment, the strength that he demonstrated, the resolve, the steely resolve. This is a game-changer for George W Bush?” Well, I can confidently state none of this would have been said, had it been Bush making that speech last night! Ingraham believes that if it had been George Bush who had pulled off the successful raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan after months of careful intelligence work, the media would have played down the achievement and focused instead on the other news that has now been knocked off the front pages, such as the muddled policy in Libya, Iran’s nuclear aspirations and the high unemployment and gas prices back home. She was also unimpressed by the decision to bury the world’s most dangerous terrorist’s body at sea within 24 hours of his death, because now we can never be absolutely sure if the Navy Seals actually got the right guy. And Ingraham is certainly not ready to take the president’s word on this. Where’s the picture? Is there anybody else out there wanting to see the picture of Bin Laden’s head? I do! I want the picture, I want the bullet hole. I want all of it. That doesn’t make me some kind of ghoul. I just want to see it. I want to see the photo. I want to know that the DNA matched. Why are we announcing this before the DNA match was done? Does anyone get that? That all seems just … do the DNA match and then just tell us we got the right guy. Ingraham might feel reassured if she was personally allowed to examine the photographic and DNA evidence, but as we saw with the birther issue, actual evidence can fail to convince the truly sceptical and as we all know, DNA samples and photographs can easily be doctored. Michael Savage Michael Savage was extraordinarily forthcoming this week ( listen to clip ) in his praise for the president who he has so often referred to as the most dangerous man in the country for having finally managed to kill the most dangerous man in the world. “Now some will ask, and I am not one of them, where is Osama’s death certificate, but we should take a collective deep breath and celebrate the US Navy Seals and tip our hat to the Obama administration for a job well done. He did something that Bush didn’t do, that Bush wanted to do that he said he would do and we have to give him credit for that and I’m very happy today frankly that the Hitler of our time is dead.” Savage went on to warn Republicans that they would be fools to have a go at Obama now because he managed to do, in a very effective way, what their lot failed miserably to do. Savage did have a few questions about the timing of the death announcement, however, and had his own theory, which he admitted was a little off the wall, that it might have been to distract attention from the royal wedding, to which the Obamas were not invited. He was also a little perturbed about the deference showed to Muslim tradition by burying the body within 24 hours. The man was an arch terrorist who has been hunting down Americans for 20 years. What does that have to do with Islam? Why should we respect his religious beliefs? I mean, there’s some who’ve argued he should have been chopped up and fed to pigs and the video released to the world! Anyway, aside from the burial issue and a few other minor gripes about the photograph being withheld and so forth, Savage insisted that it is a time to celebrate, not speculate, and even went so far as to admonish callers who were unable to overcome their hatred of the president long enough to simply acknowledge this one-off achievement. Now, that’s a true patriot. Osama bin Laden US television Talk radio Republicans George Bush Barack Obama US military US foreign policy Sadhbh Walshe guardian.co.uk
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Up to 9,000 homes to be powered with energy produced by burning waste matter from the whisky-making process It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries. Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production. Vast amounts of “draff”, the spent grains used in the distilling process, and pot ale, a residue from the copper stills, are produced by the whisky industry each year and are usually transported off-site. The Rothes project , a joint venture between Helius Energy and the Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) will burn the draff with woodchips to generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 homes. It will be supplied by Aalborg Energie Technick , a danish engineering company. The pot ale will be made into a concentrated organic fertiliser and an animal feed for use by local farmers. Environmentalists have expressed concern that some of the wood used in the process may not be locally sourced, but say the 7.2MW project – the equivalent output of two large wind turbines – is a good scale and a valuable addition to Scotland’s renewables industry. Green energy has been a key issue in the run-up to Thursday’s Holyrood elections. The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, has pledged to produce 100% of Scotland’s electricity through renewable energy by 2020 , a claim dismissed as “fantasy” by Labour. The £50m Rothes project is the latest bioenergy venture from the Scotch whisky industry, but it is believed to be the first to provide electricity for public use. A bioenergy plant at Scotland’s largest distillery in Fife is close to completion. The project by Diageo will provide 98% of the thermal steam and 80% of the electrical power used at the Cameronbridge distillery. And last year, scientists at Napier University announced they had developed a method of producing biofuel from the by-products of the whisky distilling process which could power cars and even aircraft. The new fuel, they said, could be available at petrol pumps within a few years. Of Scotland’s 100 whisky distilleries, 50 are based in Speyside, and Frank Burns, general manager of CoRD, said it was an ideal location for the new bioenergy plant which will be built on an existing industrial site. “It is very well supported in the local community. Up here in Rothes and in Speyside in general we have a lot of strong links,” he said. “We had zero objections at the planning stage and we have done a lot of work within the community on the progress of the project.” Waste products from around 16 of the area’s 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse. None will come from further than 25 miles away. Burns acknowledged, however, that some of the wood for the process may not be locally sourced. “Some of it will be local and some of it will be shipped in,” he said. “It is down to the supplier. They may source it locally.” Most of the fuel, he added, will be comprised of the draff. Sam Gardner, climate policy officer for WWF Scotland, said: “From the information we have, the project looks to be a very welcome addition to Scotland’s renewable industry. It is using waste products from our whisky industry which is eminently sensible thing to do, and is producing heat both for whisky production and for the local community. We would want to see assurances, however, that the biomass was sustainably sourced.” Biofuels Energy Renewable energy Whisky Food & drink Scotland Food & drink industry Kirsty Scott guardian.co.uk
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Like TV and DVD before, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox’s online releases can’t compete with the movie-going experience The news that two of Hollywood’s major studios, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox, are planning to make new movies available online only two months after release is being heralded as a harbinger of doom for cinema. We’ve been through this scaremongering before, with the rise of television, video, DVD, on-demand rental companies such as Netflix and Lovefilm, as well as video iPods. Like the hounded heroine of a stalk’n’slash horror, cinema has throughout its history faced attempts on its life, and moments at which its number seemed to be well and truly up. Let’s get something straight: nothing can compete with cinema, and nothing ever will. Audience numbers and box-office takings will always fluctuate. But suggesting that downloading can ever provide an alternative to cinema is like saying that fast-food chains will kill off restaurants. The experiences are not comparable. It may take people a while to realise that – they may dip a toe in the studios’ on-demand scheme – but they will soon come to miss the largeness, the inclusivity and the sense of occasion that comes from going to the cinema. When you watch a film on a television or a laptop or, God forbid, an iPod, you haven’t seen it as it was intended. Sometimes it’s the only option available, especially with old or obscure movies now that the repertory scene is in permanent decline and the double bill has all but died out. But the idea that audiences for blockbusters are going to spurn the excitement of experiencing at maximum size, say, the latest Pirates of the Caribbean release, or whatever floats your schooner, is ridiculous. Most will know almost without realising it that there is no alternative to the communal, immersive alchemy of cinema-going. Nothing trumps it. None of which should suggest that cinemas themselves can afford to be complacent or exploitative. While cinema is a social experience, the chains owe it to the ticket-buying public to be more vigilant about those disruptive audience members for whom cinemas are merely alternative venues for mobile phone conversations. And pricing remains an issue. I haven’t given any of my custom to the Vue cinema chain for a year now, since it charged me £21 for myself and my 10-year-old daughter to see How to Train Your Dragon at 11am on a Sunday morning several months into the film’s release (we had even brought our own 3D glasses). There are similar complaints in the US. Joe Flint wrote on the subject on the LA Times website last year. His beef was with the pricing structure at Hollywood’s otherwise wonderful Arclight cinema, a classy venue that knocks any Vue into a cocked popcorn tub. Extortionate pricing, Flint says, “gives people just one more reason to stay home. At a time when theatre operators are worried about movies popping up sooner on DVD and video-on-demand and thereby undercutting ticket sales, making it costlier to go out to the local multiplex seems ill advised.” I think Flint is right up to a point – floating voters could be swayed if pricing continues to veer toward the prohibitive. But the shrinking of the window between cinema and on-demand release dates is a consequence of an entire society’s tendency towards instant gratification, rather than a knife in the back of one particular cultural experience. Besides, it isn’t just the integrity and authenticity of the films that we would lose in defecting to on-demand; it’s the memories that are bound up with them. When I think of my most cherished cinema-going experiences, they rarely revolve around favourite films so much as favourite audiences or atmospheres: the spontaneous wave of applause and cheering that broke out in a cinema in 1981 following the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in which a tricksy swordfighter is dispatched with an off-the-cuff bullet; the police chasing a suspect through the auditorium where I was watching Wes Craven’s New Nightmare; the metronomic snap of seats that announced one walkout after another during The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover or David Cronenberg’s Crash, and seemed only to intensify the pleasure for those of us who stayed the course. Movie memories are made of this. They don’t tend to begin with the words: “Remember the time we downloaded that film …” Film industry Digital media Ryan Gilbey guardian.co.uk
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