On Saturday 9 July 2011 South Sudan celebrated its independence day. How did the current nation states emerge from colonisation? Paddy Allen Lucy Lamble Giulio Frigieri
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Unions warn of ‘strategic campaign’ of industrial action after leaked council document reveals plans to axe 1,200 jobs Union officials have warned council leaders across the UK that they face targeted strikes on key public services if they attempt to push through drastic cost cuts without adequate consultation, as a standoff between Britain’s two largest unions and a local authority enters its third month of industrial action. Hundreds of workers at Southampton city council – including parking wardens, bridge toll collectors and port health officers – embarked on a new week-long strike on Monday to protest against a pay cut of up to 5.5% imposed by the Conservative-led local authority on 4,600 staff. The joint action by local members of Unite and Unison has singled out the council’s revenue-generating services such as parking and road tolls, rather than staging mass walkouts. Strikes have been taking place since 23 May. A senior Unite official said the Southampton walkouts marked a “strategic campaign” by unions. Last month council-employed refuse collectors walked out in Southampton as the unions rotated industrial action. “The unions are looking at a strategic campaign where we are using selective action,” said Ian Woodland, a Unite regional officer. “It is not just bringing everyone out, which is the old-fashioned view, but bringing out key workers that will have an effect on the state nationally and locally. We have shown how it can be done locally.” He added: “We have picked sections of workers that have an effect. It will either affect the council’s income stream or it will cause people to complain and put pressure on the council.” Unite and Unison believe Southampton could be a harbinger for other local authorities and are determined to stop further compulsory changes. As in Southampton, Shropshire council has “fired” thousands of employees and re-hired them on less pay. Southampton city council has pushed through the pay cut by serving notice on its employees and replacing their contracts with new terms and conditions, including lower pay and cuts in petrol allowances for social workers. As of Monday’s deadline for accepting those contracts, about 97% of staff have switched to their new deals rather than face redundancy because the notice period on their previous contract has expired. Unison’s regional organiser, Andy Straker, said initial fears over the appetite for opposition to the changes – the strike ballots were only 51% and 56% in favour at Unite and Unison respectively – had been assuaged. “We have been surprised by how many groups are contacting us and want to go out [on strike].” On Monday morning Southampton’s port was hit by a walkout by health officers, who must certify food imports such as spices, rice and fish. Their week-long strike is expected to lead to delivery delays for food containers that would have been bound for supermarkets such as Iceland and Sainsbury’s. Ged Burden, 44, one of the officers on strike, said repeated walkouts could see companies switch their business to rival ports. “One of the joys of working in this part of the public sector is working with small businesses or entrepreneurs and making a real difference, because it can cost people money if you don’t do your job well. And that’s the downside for us today. It is hugely disappointing to jeopardise our relationship with them.” He added: “If the action carries on it could get to the point where businesses start to think ‘stuff Southampton, I will go to Felixstowe’.” Burden said council workers had to “take a stand” to show the council that they wanted a 21st-century public sector but “this is not the way to do it”. The Conservative leader of Southampton city council has warned there will be “some redundancies” over the next four years among the authority’s 4,600 staff because budgets are “very tight”. Speaking on BBC News, Royston Smith said the enforced pay cut would save up to 400 jobs this year and dismissed a Unite claim that 1,200 jobs would be at risk over the next four years, according to a leaked internal document. “I don’t know where that document came from,” he said. The authority has pitted its wiles against Unite and Unison in an attempt to keep services running this week. Eight “mega-bins” have been put in the town centre to prevent rubbish from overflowing and managers are taking over the roles of road toll collectors and parking wardens. However, a town hall spokesman admitted there had been some disruption. “Generally we have been able to put resources into running most of the services today. But there has been significant disruption across the city, particularly in regards to waste building up across Southampton.” Public sector cuts Local government Unite Trade unions Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …What Does The UK News of The World Scandal Mean For Rupert Murdoch In The US?
July 11, 2011 No CommentWith the final edition of News Of The World bidding farewell to UK readers, juicy secrets about the company were promised on twitter by an “ex-NOTW writer(s)”. Unfortunately, forces have appeared to silence the ex-journo : The @ExNOTWjourno account, which had been threatening to release damning new information about News International, had all but three tweets deleted just after 10am and all of its 20,000 followers were dropped. Another account, @NOTWjourno, fell silent earlier this morning and more than 50 tweets were deleted, including a message posted late last night which read: “FOLLOW FOR THE INSIDE STORY! -ALL COMES OUT AT 00:00 #NOTW.” The earliest tweets on that Twitter feed now talk about the account being abandoned. The account holder is now systematically blocking new followers. Unless an account is hacked, the only person that can delete Tweets or block followers is the person who holds that Twitter account. Just before the @ExNOTWjourno account went quiet the account holder told Telegraph.co.uk “they are attacking me from all sides”. Hmmm….curious, that. But never fear, Rupert Murdoch has hopped the pond to do damage control. Politicians have been notoriously afraid of the power of the poison pen of Murdoch’s empire, but that may be changing : In the House of Commons, a parade of lawmakers took turns at the microphone to thunder their disapproval of Murdoch, and the way they feel he has debased public life here through media properties that purvey sex scandals and celebrity tittle-tattle, and stoke fear of violent crime. But there were moments of self-criticism as well, from members of Parliament who acknowledged having been too craven to speak out against Murdoch and against abuses at his newspapers. Even David Cameron, the prime minister, now ruefully admits to being hesitant to take Murdoch on. Bryant, the Labor MP, said in a telephone interview that Murdoch had successfully cowed lawmakers to the benefit of his business empire. “He’s used his newspapers to make people frightened of attacking his media interests, and he has favored some people in all sorts of different ways, in particular political parties, and that has kept his financial interests very secure,” Bryant said. “I’m not exempting anybody. I’m not exempting myself, to be honest,” he said. “None of us has shot the legs off from under him.” Murdoch’s latest commercial gambit has been to take control of BSkyB, Britain’s biggest satellite broadcaster, a bid that is now sure to be delayed because of the phone-hacking scandal. The debacle has frightened investors of both BSkyB and News Corp., which lost billions of dollars on the stock market by the end of last week. (In the U.S., News Corp. owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, among other properties.) But as he faces the music in the UK, the question yet to be asked is how do we know these same egregious and irresponsible practices were not being done here in the US? Keep in mind that the Executive Editor of NOTW at the time all this started was Les Hinton. Where is Les Hinton now? He was promoted out of that position and now is the CEO of the Dow Jones with editorial influence on the Wall Street Journal . Under Hinton’s leadership, the initial NOTW investigation was basically whitewashed and swept under the rug, with some of his statements to the investigating subcommittee looking very “misleading”. That alone merits some scrutiny here in the US . After his assurances to the parliamentary committee in 2007, Hinton answered further questions in September 2009. Speaking over a video link from New York, the Murdoch lieutenant again sought to convince the members of parliament that all was now right at the British tabloid newspaper. “There was never any evidence delivered to me that suggested that the conduct of (the single reporter) Clive Goodman spread beyond him … We went, I promise you, to extraordinary lengths within the News of the World,” he said. Though there were times during the hearing when Hinton’s certainty appeared to be cracking — he used the phrases “I do not recall” or “I do not know” or variations on them at least 55 times — his faith in the newspaper’s internal checks seemed resolute. Asked whether he should have pushed his editors on “the extent of the inquiry and more details about what had actually been looked into,” he replied that he “was happy when I gave evidence to you all two and a half years ago that the answers I gave were sincere and that the efforts made to discover any other wrongdoing had been conscientious and thorough, and I think people worked very hard in very difficult circumstances to both investigate what might have happened and to make sure that it did not happen again.” Those answers could come back to haunt him. And well they should. We’ve seen many irregularities in the way News Corp. does business here in the US, from Roger Ailes using News Corps bodyguards to follow employees of small town publications he personally owned to the stockholder lawsuit over the purchase of Rupert’s daughter Elisabeth’s production company and her elevation to the board . Whose to say that in their over-arching editorial focus on promoting Republican policies and politicians that they haven’t crossed from lack of journalistic integrity straight into criminality ? This is anything but an isolated incident. News of the World spent years invading peoples’ privacy: it was how they did business. The younger Murdoch personally approved an enormous settlement related to phone hacking, and alleged abuses are still being uncovered. The most recent of those include the families of the victims of the terrorist bombings of the London Underground, who have come forward to say their phone messages were hacked too. Despite charges that Brooks knew about the hacking, Murdoch has stated unequivocally that she will remain in leadership. Brooks says it is “inconceivable” that she knew of Milly Dowler’s phone hacking, but it strains credibility that executives could be blind to the fact that the paper was invading people’s privacy for years. At best, it’s an inexcusable lack of oversight; at worst, it’s a conspiracy to spy on private citizens to sell papers. Either way, it requires action and accountability from the top, and Murdoch’s continued support of his long-time lieutenant is one more indication that he puts his personal and political agenda above good business and the common good. Which brings us back to the United States, where Murdoch’s News Corp. owns Fox News , the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal . When asked point-blank this spring whether his company was hacking people’s phone messages here, Murdoch flatly refused to answer. US shareholders are suing News Corp. for nepotism over the purchase of Murdoch’s daughter’s company at a highly inflated price and her subsequent promotion to the News Corp. board. One of the largest News Corp. holdings, Fox News, routinely peddles misinformation about climate change, uses racially charged rhetoric and openly promotes Republican positions and candidates, all while pretending to present “fair and balanced” news. Fox News’s Washington managing editor Bill Sammon was even found pushing his staff to tie President Obama to socialism on air, even as he admitted the claim was “rather far-fetched.” And advertisers wary of sponsoring dubious content have been fleeing Fox News here just as they are fleeing News of the World in Britain due to indecent, if not illegal, activity. UPDATE: It didn’t take long for it to carry over to this side of the Atlantic : Mr Murdoch arrived in London yesterday, wearing a Panama hat and clutching a final copy of the News of the World, in a bid to save his crumbling organisation after the phone-hacking scandal saw the 168-year-old paper axed. But he flew straight into another storm as it was claimed 9/11 victims may have had their mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters. And there was more bad news when it was revealed nine reporters allegedly at the centre of the phone scandal and claims of police corruption could face jail, along with three officers. After he spent time at News International’s Wapping HQ in East London, 80-year-old Mr Murdoch held crisis talks with Mrs Brooks, 43 – who denies any knowledge of the Milly phone tapping – at his home in Mayfair. The pair chatted behind closed doors as a former New York cop made the 9/11 hacking claim. He alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead. Now working as a private investigator, the ex-officer claimed reporters wanted the victim’s phone numbers and details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the atrocity. A source said: ‘This investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims’ private phone data. He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their relatives.
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After nearly four months of a costly military intervention in Libya to oust leader Muammar Gaddafi, little progress has been made in assuring the quick exit President Barack Obama promised in March. With no end to the conflict in sight, either, Obama's NATO coalition looks like it could fall apart before Gaddafi's regime does. Let us know what you think of the US involvement in Libya in the comments. Many of the countries supporting the efforts in Libya are debt-stricken, and NATO leaders are beginning to realize that fighting at its current level cannot be sustained for much longer. One of the major backers of the NATO coalition is France, but French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet echoed the impatience with the lack of progress in Libya on Sunday, when he called for a peaceful resolution between rebels and Gaddafi's government instead of waiting for Gaddafi's defeat. Rebel forces have previously refused to have any such discussions before Gaddafi was out of power, and Gaddafi himself says he is not going to budge and negotiate the possibility of stepping down. Longuet is the first major NATO power to challenge the rebel forces' view. The State Department responded that NATO forces must keep working to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule, pledging continued support from the US. Without any results from NATO efforts in Libya, despite NATO countries funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into the effort, the split between two of the leading member countries of the NATO coalition reflects the strain of the alliance. This Friday, the coalition will gather in Istanbul to discuss the next steps. What do you think about the continued military action in Libya? Do you think the US should stay in until Gaddafi's out, or do you think US support of Libya is beyond our responsibility?
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Prime minister unveils white paper that promises to roll back the boundaries of the state and allow private providers to deliver more public services David Cameron has unveiled plans to shake up the “old fashioned” delivery of public services by ending the state’s “monopoly” over provision and paving a wider path for private companies, charities and mutuals to play a part. The prime minister promised to “release the grip of state control and [put] power in people’s hands” as he unveiled his long-awaited pubic service reform white paper and claimed that the current delivery of public services is “failing on fairness”. In a speech in east London, Cameron said that while public services were centralised “with all the right intentions”, the impact had been “incredibly damaging” to users of services. This was because the “old fashioned top-down take-what-you’re-given culture… is just not working for a lot of people”. Under the plans, communities will be allowed to set up neighbourhood councils to commission services on a hyper-local level, individuals will get more personal budgets to buy their own services and the use of payment by results will be expanded to encourage markets to develop across the public sector. Cameron cited as an example his own past experiences trying to get the right wheelchair for his late disabled son, Ivan, before adding that he was still hearing too many stories from others that the right wheelchair only arrives once the child has almost outgrown it. As another example, the prime minister seized on children who qualify for free school meals who are “half as likely” to get five good GCSEs as their better off peers. “The last time they counted, just 40 people who had had free school meals were going to Oxbridge – out of 80,000,” said Cameron. “We’ve got a welfare state that doesn’t deliver welfare, that doesn’t get people back into work but traps them in poverty instead. “So let me tell you what our change looks like. It’s about ending the old big government, top-down way of running public services … releasing the grip of state control and putting power in people’s hands. The old dogma that said Whitehall knows best – it’s gone. There will be more freedom, more choice and more local control. Ours is a vision of open public services.” Cameron first laid out his plans to roll back the boundaries of the state to allow private providers to deliver more public services in February , but it is widely understood that the plans contained in the white paper have since been downgraded due to an internal battle with the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems have sought to ensure that any outsourcing and market-driven reforms maintain a strong degree of accountability, prompting a Downing Street source to describe the resulting document as “more greenish than white”. Cameron made clear he intended to see the changes through. “I know there are those who thought we might be pulling back or losing heart for the task ahead. So let me assure you of this: we are as committed to modernising our public services as we have ever been. I’m not going to make the mistakes of my predecessors … blocking reform, wasting opportunities and wasting time. This is a job that urgently needs to be done, and we are determined to see it through.” Confidential documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that ministers have been privately advised to allow schools and hospitals to fail if the government is to succeed in its overhaul of public services . They reveal research by civil servants warning that markets are susceptible to “failure” and costs could in fact rise unless a true market is created by allowing public services to collapse if they are unsuccessful. It opens up the potential for schools, hospitals, social care systems and nurseries to fold without the government stepping in to prop them up – a revelation described as “appalling” by Labour. The documents obtained by the Guardian were prepared by civil servants as part of an internal government review into the consequences for democratic accountability of the coalition’s localism, big society and outsourcing reforms that are integral to today’s white paper. Public services policy Public finance David Cameron Public sector careers Polly Curtis Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Prime minister unveils white paper that promises to roll back the boundaries of the state and allow private providers to deliver more public services David Cameron has unveiled plans to shake up the “old fashioned” delivery of public services by ending the state’s “monopoly” over provision and paving a wider path for private companies, charities and mutuals to play a part. The prime minister promised to “release the grip of state control and [put] power in people’s hands” as he unveiled his long-awaited pubic service reform white paper and claimed that the current delivery of public services is “failing on fairness”. In a speech in east London, Cameron said that while public services were centralised “with all the right intentions”, the impact had been “incredibly damaging” to users of services. This was because the “old fashioned top-down take-what-you’re-given culture… is just not working for a lot of people”. Under the plans, communities will be allowed to set up neighbourhood councils to commission services on a hyper-local level, individuals will get more personal budgets to buy their own services and the use of payment by results will be expanded to encourage markets to develop across the public sector. Cameron cited as an example his own past experiences trying to get the right wheelchair for his late disabled son, Ivan, before adding that he was still hearing too many stories from others that the right wheelchair only arrives once the child has almost outgrown it. As another example, the prime minister seized on children who qualify for free school meals who are “half as likely” to get five good GCSEs as their better off peers. “The last time they counted, just 40 people who had had free school meals were going to Oxbridge – out of 80,000,” said Cameron. “We’ve got a welfare state that doesn’t deliver welfare, that doesn’t get people back into work but traps them in poverty instead. “So let me tell you what our change looks like. It’s about ending the old big government, top-down way of running public services … releasing the grip of state control and putting power in people’s hands. The old dogma that said Whitehall knows best – it’s gone. There will be more freedom, more choice and more local control. Ours is a vision of open public services.” Cameron first laid out his plans to roll back the boundaries of the state to allow private providers to deliver more public services in February , but it is widely understood that the plans contained in the white paper have since been downgraded due to an internal battle with the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems have sought to ensure that any outsourcing and market-driven reforms maintain a strong degree of accountability, prompting a Downing Street source to describe the resulting document as “more greenish than white”. Cameron made clear he intended to see the changes through. “I know there are those who thought we might be pulling back or losing heart for the task ahead. So let me assure you of this: we are as committed to modernising our public services as we have ever been. I’m not going to make the mistakes of my predecessors … blocking reform, wasting opportunities and wasting time. This is a job that urgently needs to be done, and we are determined to see it through.” Confidential documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that ministers have been privately advised to allow schools and hospitals to fail if the government is to succeed in its overhaul of public services . They reveal research by civil servants warning that markets are susceptible to “failure” and costs could in fact rise unless a true market is created by allowing public services to collapse if they are unsuccessful. It opens up the potential for schools, hospitals, social care systems and nurseries to fold without the government stepping in to prop them up – a revelation described as “appalling” by Labour. The documents obtained by the Guardian were prepared by civil servants as part of an internal government review into the consequences for democratic accountability of the coalition’s localism, big society and outsourcing reforms that are integral to today’s white paper. Public services policy Public finance David Cameron Public sector careers Polly Curtis Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister’s bank account and legal file and his family’s medical records Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family’s medical records. There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it has not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown. Separately, Brown’s tax paperwork was taken from his accountant’s office apparently by hacking into the firm’s computer. This was passed to another newspaper. Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister. Some of the activity clearly was illegal. Other incidents breached his privacy but not the law. An investigation by the Guardian has found that: • Scotland Yard has discovered references to both Brown and his wife, Sarah, in paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who specialised in phone hacking for the News of the World; • Abbey National bank found suggestion that a “blagger” acting for the Sunday Times on six occasions posed as Brown and gained details from his account; • Brown’s London lawyers, Allen & Overy, were tricked into handing over details from his file by a conman working for the Sunday Times; • Details from his infant son’s medical records were obtained by the Sun, who published a story about the child’s serious illness. Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe. The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International. Scotland Yard recently wrote separately to Brown and to his wife to tell them that their details had been found in evidence collected by Operation Weeting, the special inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. It is believed that this refers to handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, which were seized by police in August 2006 and never previously investigated. Brown last year asked Scotland Yard if there was evidence that he had been targeted by the private investigator and was told there was none. Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe that Brown’s personal bank account was accessed on several occasions when he was chancellor of the exchequer. An internal inquiry by Abbey National’s fraud department found that during January 2000, somebody acting on behalf of the Sunday Times contacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account. Abbey National’s senior lawyer sent a summary of their findings to the editor of the Sunday Times, John Witherow, concluding: “On the basis of these facts and inquiries, I am drawn to the conclusion that someone from the Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Mr Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception.” Abbey National were not able to identify the bogus caller who tricked their staff. It is a matter of public record that a Sunday Times reporter frequently used the services of a former actor, John Ford, who specialised in “blagging” confidential data from banks, phone companies and the Inland Revenue (now HM Revenue & Customs). Also in January 2000, one of the paper’s reporters used a conman named Barry Beardall, who was subsequently jailed for fraud, to trick staff at Brown’s solicitors, Allen & Overy, into handing over details from his personal file. A tape made by Beardall at the time reveals that he claimed to be an accountant from the “Dealson group of companies” and that they were interested in buying Brown’s flat. Beardall also practised trickery in an attempt to provide Sunday Times stories about Blair, the then prime minister, and Labour’s candidate for the mayor of London, Frank Dobson. Confidential health records for Brown’s family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis. This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it was in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story. Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on 28 December 2001, a small group of specialist doctors and nurses was aware that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was dying. By some means which has not been discovered, this highly sensitive information was obtained by news organisations, who published it over the weekend before Jennifer died, on Monday 6 January 2002. In 2003, Devon and Cornwall police discovered that one of their junior officers was providing information from the police national computer to a network of private investigators. The Guardian has established that one of these investigators, Glen Lawson of Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, used this contact to commission a search of police records for information about Brown on 16 November 2000. Lawson also commissioned searches related to two other Labour MPs – Nick Brown and Martin Salter. Lawson made these searches on behalf of journalists, a previously unreported court hearing was told. Transcripts obtained by the Guardian show that the search on Martin Salter was made at a time when the News of the World, then edited by Brooks, was attacking him for refusing to support the paper’s notorious “Sarah’s law” campaign to name paedophiles. Lawson currently refuses to name the journalists who commissioned him. An attempt to prosecute this network was blocked by a West Country judge, Paul Darlow, who shocked police by ruling that it would be a misuse of public money to pursue the case. However, Devon and Cornwall police contacted the office of the then chancellor to warn him that he had been a victim, as they also did with his two Labour colleagues. Brown’s tax paperwork was obtained from the offices of his accountants, Auerbach Hope, in late 1998. The first sign that the records had been taken came when a journalist from the now defunct Sunday Business called the accountants to say that they had been passed a copy of the records, including a schedule of Brown’s income for the most recent year. The journalist acknowledged that the paperwork showed no sign of any kind of wrongdoing on Brown’s part but wanted to do a story about the fact that it had been stolen. Police came and found no sign of any break-in. The originals of the documents were still in Brown’s file, which ruled out the possibility that they had been taken from the firm’s dustbins. Auerbach Hope discounted theft by an insider on the grounds that they would have stolen paperwork which showed wrongdoing and thus had greater media value. They concluded that the most likely explanation was that somebody had hacked into their computer systems, specifically targeting Gordon Brown. Senior Labour figures also strongly suspect that a news organisation broke the law to obtain the emails that led to the resignation in April 2009 of Brown’s close aide Damian McBride. The emails, which disclosed a scheme to smear Tory MPs, had been exchanged between McBride and a Labour party activist, Derek Draper. The Labour figures believe that the emails were hacked from Draper’s computer and that their contents were then sent to the political blogger Guido Fawkes, whose stories were then followed by Fleet Street. Phone hacking Gordon Brown The Sun Sunday Times News International Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Nick Davies David Leigh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister’s bank account and legal file and his family’s medical records Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family’s medical records. There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it has not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown. Separately, Brown’s tax paperwork was taken from his accountant’s office apparently by hacking into the firm’s computer. This was passed to another newspaper. Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister. Some of the activity clearly was illegal. Other incidents breached his privacy but not the law. An investigation by the Guardian has found that: • Scotland Yard has discovered references to both Brown and his wife, Sarah, in paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who specialised in phone hacking for the News of the World; • Abbey National bank found suggestion that a “blagger” acting for the Sunday Times on six occasions posed as Brown and gained details from his account; • Brown’s London lawyers, Allen & Overy, were tricked into handing over details from his file by a conman working for the Sunday Times; • Details from his infant son’s medical records were obtained by the Sun, who published a story about the child’s serious illness. Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe. The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International. Scotland Yard recently wrote separately to Brown and to his wife to tell them that their details had been found in evidence collected by Operation Weeting, the special inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. It is believed that this refers to handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, which were seized by police in August 2006 and never previously investigated. Brown last year asked Scotland Yard if there was evidence that he had been targeted by the private investigator and was told there was none. Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe that Brown’s personal bank account was accessed on several occasions when he was chancellor of the exchequer. An internal inquiry by Abbey National’s fraud department found that during January 2000, somebody acting on behalf of the Sunday Times contacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account. Abbey National’s senior lawyer sent a summary of their findings to the editor of the Sunday Times, John Witherow, concluding: “On the basis of these facts and inquiries, I am drawn to the conclusion that someone from the Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Mr Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception.” Abbey National were not able to identify the bogus caller who tricked their staff. It is a matter of public record that a Sunday Times reporter frequently used the services of a former actor, John Ford, who specialised in “blagging” confidential data from banks, phone companies and the Inland Revenue (now HM Revenue & Customs). Also in January 2000, one of the paper’s reporters used a conman named Barry Beardall, who was subsequently jailed for fraud, to trick staff at Brown’s solicitors, Allen & Overy, into handing over details from his personal file. A tape made by Beardall at the time reveals that he claimed to be an accountant from the “Dealson group of companies” and that they were interested in buying Brown’s flat. Beardall also practised trickery in an attempt to provide Sunday Times stories about Blair, the then prime minister, and Labour’s candidate for the mayor of London, Frank Dobson. Confidential health records for Brown’s family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis. This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it was in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story. Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on 28 December 2001, a small group of specialist doctors and nurses was aware that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was dying. By some means which has not been discovered, this highly sensitive information was obtained by news organisations, who published it over the weekend before Jennifer died, on Monday 6 January 2002. In 2003, Devon and Cornwall police discovered that one of their junior officers was providing information from the police national computer to a network of private investigators. The Guardian has established that one of these investigators, Glen Lawson of Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, used this contact to commission a search of police records for information about Brown on 16 November 2000. Lawson also commissioned searches related to two other Labour MPs – Nick Brown and Martin Salter. Lawson made these searches on behalf of journalists, a previously unreported court hearing was told. Transcripts obtained by the Guardian show that the search on Martin Salter was made at a time when the News of the World, then edited by Brooks, was attacking him for refusing to support the paper’s notorious “Sarah’s law” campaign to name paedophiles. Lawson currently refuses to name the journalists who commissioned him. An attempt to prosecute this network was blocked by a West Country judge, Paul Darlow, who shocked police by ruling that it would be a misuse of public money to pursue the case. However, Devon and Cornwall police contacted the office of the then chancellor to warn him that he had been a victim, as they also did with his two Labour colleagues. Brown’s tax paperwork was obtained from the offices of his accountants, Auerbach Hope, in late 1998. The first sign that the records had been taken came when a journalist from the now defunct Sunday Business called the accountants to say that they had been passed a copy of the records, including a schedule of Brown’s income for the most recent year. The journalist acknowledged that the paperwork showed no sign of any kind of wrongdoing on Brown’s part but wanted to do a story about the fact that it had been stolen. Police came and found no sign of any break-in. The originals of the documents were still in Brown’s file, which ruled out the possibility that they had been taken from the firm’s dustbins. Auerbach Hope discounted theft by an insider on the grounds that they would have stolen paperwork which showed wrongdoing and thus had greater media value. They concluded that the most likely explanation was that somebody had hacked into their computer systems, specifically targeting Gordon Brown. Senior Labour figures also strongly suspect that a news organisation broke the law to obtain the emails that led to the resignation in April 2009 of Brown’s close aide Damian McBride. The emails, which disclosed a scheme to smear Tory MPs, had been exchanged between McBride and a Labour party activist, Derek Draper. The Labour figures believe that the emails were hacked from Draper’s computer and that their contents were then sent to the political blogger Guido Fawkes, whose stories were then followed by Fleet Street. Phone hacking Gordon Brown The Sun Sunday Times News International Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Nick Davies David Leigh guardian.co.uk
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• Assad supporters storm French and US embassies in Syria • Egypt’s interim government fails to quell public anger • US envoy tells Yemen’s President Saleh to stand down 3.24pm: Pro-regime supporters smashed windows at the US Embassy, scrawled graffiti on the walls and raised a Syrian flag , witnesses told AP reports. French Embassy security guards fired in the air to hold back supporters of Assad’s regime who were also protesting the French ambassador’s visit to Hama. One witness said three protesters were injured when guards beat them with clubs. The witness asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. There was no immediate word on casualties at the American Embassy demonstration. Hiam al-Hassan, a witness, said about 300 people had gathered outside the French Embassy while hundreds others were at the American diplomatic compound. “Syrians demonstrated peacefully in front of the French embassy but they were faced with bullets,” said al-Hassan. The US state department is to have stern words with Syrian diplomats, according to Reuters: “We are calling in the Syrian charge (d’affaires) to complain,” said a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We feel they failed (in their responsibility to protect U.S. diplomats). We are going to condemn their slow response.” 3.05pm: The break-ins at the US and French embassies in the Syrian capital Damascus now appear to be over. Reuters reports: Unidentified people tried to break into France’s embassy in Syria on Monday but failed, the French Foreign Ministry said. The incident “is now finished,” spokesman Bernard Valero said in response to a query. He could not immediately give more details. This photograph of the incident at the US embassy (left) appears on a pro-Assad Facebook group. 2.51pm: More on the embassy raids from Reuters: French embassy guards in Damascus fired live ammunition to disperse loyalists to President Bashar al-Assad who tried to break into the compound on Monday and are still surrounding it, diplomats in the Syrian capital said. A similar crowd broke into the U.S. embassy but later left, they added. A US embassy official said the response of the Syrian authorities was “slow and insufficient”. 2.33pm: There is a photograph of pro-regime supporters scaling the US embassy fence in Damascus on the the Arabic website, Day Press News (via @LeShaque ). And over at the French embassy there’s been clashes between the security guards and pro-regime supporters, Reuters reports. President Assad loyalists try to break into French embassy compound in Damascus, confrontation erupts with embassy guards – Diplomats. The French ambassador to Syria accompanied Ford on his “solidarity” trip to Hama. The BBC claims security guards fired into the air at the French embassy . 2.19pm: Reuters news flash: President Bashar al-Assad loyalists break into U.S. embassy compound in Damascus-Diplomats in Syrian capital Yesterday, the US ambassador Robert Ford accused the Syrian authorities of failing to prevent a demonstration outside the embassy at the weekend. How ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere. Ford’s visit to Hama appears to be backfiring. On Friday an official said he left the demonstration “so as not to be a distraction during the weekly demonstrations” . But his motorcade was mobbed by protesters before he had a chance to leave. 1.46pm: Egypt’s interim government is struggling to contain anger at the slow pace of change, as protests continue in Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria and activists call for a million-person march tomorrow, writes Egyptian journalist Sara Elkamel. Headlines in the Egyptian press portray the public’s dissatisfaction with prime minister Essam Sharaf’s recent concessions. Sharaf has promised a cabinet re-shuffle in response to massive protests last Friday. But activists have rejected the offer as a feeble gesture that does not match their demands. Thousands of protesters continue to hold sit-ins, determined to see immediate reforms. According to the daily newspaper al-Ahram, Tahrir sqaure, more protests are expected tomorrow. The demands of groups leading the protests include the public trail of ousted president Mubarak and his family, along with the remnants of his party, and the police involved in the killing of protesters during the uprising. They also want the repeal of anti-strike and anti-demonstration laws, as well as a new state budget that does more to help the poor. Thousands of protesters have remained in Tahrir Square for a fourth consecutive day. And despite army efforts to disperse protests in Suez, demonstrators gathered near the Suez canal, calling for freedom and dignity and the public trail of Mubarak. Meanwhile, in Alexandria a rally blocked the Corniche Road . A tweet from activist R.Saro sums up the mood: “#Egypt is not back to Square one– Its back to #tahrir” . Elkamel is working for the Guardian this week. 1.26pm: Syrian activists claim that while the “dialogue” meeting has been taking place in Damascus, the security forces killed two people in a raid on the country’s third city of Homs. Activists have circulated video of the funeral of Afnan Khalid, who it said was killed in the city on Sunday. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs , activists told AP. In Homs, an activist in the city told The Associated Press clashes occurred after security forces killed on Sunday the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5 am 9 (local time). Street lights were turned off then troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns atop Russian-made armoured personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. Activists have also uploaded video of a Red Crescent ambulance riddled with bullet holes . They claim the vehicle was shot at in Homs. The Red Crescent has yet to respond to the footage. Sara Elkamel, provides this translation of the commentary on the video. “These are Bashar al-Assad’s reforms…Even the Red Cross ambulances could not escape them…do you see the bullets on the ambulances? Here are Bashar al-Assad’s reforms…” _ 12.06pm: US envoy John Brennan has now travelled to Yemen to continue to push for a transfer of power, AP reports. Yesterday Brennan was in the Saudi capital Riyadh for talks with President Saleh who continues to refuse to stand down, despite months of protests against his regime. Today Brennan is meeting Yemen’s caretaker president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in Sana’a to try to revive a Gulf Co-operation Council broker deal that involves Saleh’s resignation. 12.00pm: Diplomatic relations between France and Syria are tense after a troubled weekend, writes Angelique Chrisafis in Paris. The French foreign office summoned Syria’s ambassador to France on Sunday night to express its outrage over violent protests outside the French embassy in Damascus over the weekend. Demonstrators at the embassy and the French consulate in Aleppo had burned French flags, lobbed stones into the compound and destroyed cars in what France called “unspeakable acts” while the Syrian authorities stood by. The violence came after the French ambassador to Damascus, Eric Chevallier, and his US counterpart, Robert Ford, visited the northern city of Hama in a show of solidarity for protesters on Friday. The Syrian government objected to the ambassadors’ visits, calling them “blatant” interference in Syrian internal affairs. 11.13am: Yemen state TV has carried footage of President Saleh meeting US envoy John Brennan in Saudi Arabia. In the clip Saleh’s hands are covered in surgical gloves , and he still appeared to be ailing from the attack on his compound last month. _ The White House said Brennan urged Saleh to sign a Gulf Co-operation Council deal that would see him stand down in return for immunity from prosecution. Yemeni activist NoonArabia makes the obvious sick joke : With these hands #Saleh is unlikely to sign a #GCC initiative plan. Sorry #US #KSA he’ll just have to leave #Yemen asap! twitpic.com/5ob4pz The Yemen state news agency, Saba, indicated that Saleh again refused to agree to the GCC deal. It said Saleh pointed out that the “peaceful transfer of power in Yemen must be within the framework of democracy and the constitution” . 10.43am: UAE journalist and blogger Sultan al-Qassemi is hopeful of change from the new generation of Saudi leaders, but he says change needs to be gradual. When we mentioned on the blog on Friday that Qassemi would be coming to the Guardian offices, below the line littleriver asked us to challenge him on his assertion that Saudi Arabia is on the “cusp of major change “. I put that and some of littleriver’s other points to Qassemi in an Audioboo interview on Friday . He said: “Before 2020 you will see a shift to the third generation of Saudi leadership. Many of them have studied abroad … the current generation has not gone to university [or] interacted with the outside world.” He said Saudis educated aboard, won’t take to the streets, but will slowly take over the running of the country. “They will slowly recruit people who are like minded and that’s how I see change happening,” he said. Qassemi added that change in Saudi Arabia needed to be slow and manageable. He is more forthright about continuing protests in Egypt, which he describes as “a good sign”. “The [Egyptian] army should be kept on track. The army should not forget that it is the people who will rule Egypt and not them.” _ 10.13am: The Syrian state news agency, Sana, has acknowledged criticism of the regime at the “dialogue” meeting with some opposition figures. In an interesting write-up of the opening day of the talks, it rattles through a number of serious challenges to the government made at the talks. But it does not go into details and has few direct quotes. Here is a flavour of the tone of the report: Participants called for ending the ‘police state’ and working for a democratic civil state which enjoys party and political multilateralism and media freedoms … They urged for an immediate halt to violence and random arrests, lifting the ‘blockade’ on cities and setting up civil committees to organize visits to these cities and review the demands of their residents. 9.31am: Welcome to Middle East Live. There’s lots to catch up on after another busy weekend in the region. Syria remains the key place to watch as opposition activists boycott a second day of “dialogue” with the ruling Ba’ath party amid a continuing crackdown. Meanwhile, in Egypt more protests are planned as the interim government fails to quell growing frustration at the pace of change and lack of accountability for members of the old regime and its security forces. And on a trip to Saudi Arabia, the US envoy John Brennan has told Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh to stand down. Here’s a run down in more detail. Syria • Activist and opposition leaders in Syria are boycotting a second day of a “national dialogue” conference on reform with the ruling Ba’ath party. • The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, which says it has a list of the names of 1,963 people killed in the uprising so far, repeated its opposition to the talks, claiming the exercise was “nothing but a cover-up for violence committed against Syrian citizens”. • Opposition figures who have attended the talks have been allowed to make sweeping criticisms of the regime on state TV , the LA Times reports. It quotes comments made by Tayyeb Tizini, a professor of philosophy at Damascus University, who told a news conference: We should dismantle the security state that dominates the whole society. Now we are suffering the consequences of the police state. The police state will destroy every aspect of society as it keeps tabs on every Syrian citizen. And conference participant and parliament member Mohammed Habash said: A part of what is going on is a result of foreign intervention, but 80% of it is a result of internal congestion that comes as a result of oppression and the practices of the security apparatus. • A campaign has been set up to free the Syrian blogger and activist Anas Maarawi, who was arrested earlier this month in Damascus . • Human Rights Watch has gathered more evidence that the army has ordered to shoot protesters and shoot soldiers who refuse to do so , from those who defected from the military. One soldier, who defected after being deployed to Deraa, said: We received orders to kill protesters. Some military refused the orders and were shot with a handgun. Two were killed in front of me. Defectors also said they were banned from watching television in private to avoid any of them watching TV channels that aired anti-government information. • There are conflicting reports about whether an activist in central Damascus was killed after being shot in Friday’s protests. The Guardian quotes activists saying that 25-year-old Mohamed Dakdak died after being shot in the head , making him the first casualty of the uprising in the centre of the capital. But Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid reported that an Ahmad Dakdak is still alive but in critical condition after twice undergoing surgery . • The US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford has condemned a pro-regime protests outside the US embassy after his visit to Friday protests in Hama provoked anger from the regime . Writing on the Damascus’s embassy Facebook page , Ford said: On July 9 a “mnhebak” group threw rocks at our embassy, causing some damage. They resorted to violence, unlike the people in Hama, who have stayed peaceful. Go look at the Ba’ath or police headquarters in Hama – no damage that I saw … And how ironic that the Syrian government lets an anti-US demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere. The people in Hama have been demonstrating peacefully for weeks … And I saw no signs of armed gangs anywhere – not at any of the civilian street barricades we passed. Egypt • Activists in Egypt have vowed to continued protests about the slow pace of change and lack of accountability for police violence. Egypt’s interim leader, Essam Sharaf, promised to to meet demands of the protesters who came out in force on Friday. But his speech failed to convince, as demonstrations broke out in Cairo yesterday and more demonstrations are planned for tomorrow. • The Egyptian army clashed with protesters in Suez on Sunday, the Washington Post reports. • The latest Arabist podcast discusses the increasingly fractured Egyptian opposition and shouting matches between Islamist and secularists in Tahrir Square on Friday. Yemen US counter terrorism chief John Brennan has urged Yemen’s President Saleh to step down and not return to Sana’a , the New York Times reports. In a written statement on Sunday, the White House said Brennan “called on President Saleh to fulfil expeditiously his pledge to sign” an agreement brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council, which would lead to a transition ending his 33 years in office and grant the president immunity. Libya France has urged Libyan rebels to enter negotiations with Gaddafi’s regime , in a sign of Nato’s growing impatience with the conflict. Reuters quoted the French defence minister, Gerard Longuet, as saying: We have asked them to speak to each other. The position of the TNC (rebel Transitional National Council) is very far from other positions. Now, there will be a need to sit around a table. Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Syria Bashar Al-Assad Egypt Yemen Libya Nato Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk
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Palace confirms police recently approached couple to warn them they were likely targets of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire Police have warned Buckingham Palace that they have found evidence that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall may have had their voicemail hacked by the News of the World. The heir to the throne and his wife are among at least 10 members of the royal household who have now been warned they were targeted for hacking, according to police records obtained by the Guardian. Only five had previously been identified. A palace source on Monday confirmed to the Guardian that the prince and the duchess had been approached by police recently to be warned that they had been identified as likely targets of the News of the World’s specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire. The revelation comes as the BBC disclosed that the emails which News International handed to Scotland Yard in June include evidence that the paper had paid bribes to a royal protection officer in order to obtain private phone numbers for the royal household. It is believed that personal phone details for Prince Charles and Camilla have been found among the 11,000 pages of handwritten notes that were kept by Mulcaire and which were seized by the original Scotland Yard inquiry in August 2006. The palace source said: “The question that has to be answered is: if somebody had access to this evidence back then, why didn’t they do something about it?” Previous statements by police have identified only five royal victims – Prince William, Prince Harry and three members of staff who were named in the trial of the News of the World’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, in January 2007. In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Guardian, Scotland Yard have now revealed that they warned a total of10 royal victims. Eight were warned at the time of the original police inquiry in 2006. Two others were warned only after the Guardian revived the story in July 2009. It is not clear whether the prince and duchess are among the 10 victims to which their records referred. The palace source suggested that they had been warned only recently. The remaining unidentified victims are thought to be members of the royal family, not staff. The prosecution strategy at the time of the trial was to name staff but not family. Paperwork held by the Crown Prosecution Service reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to “ringfence” the evidence they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family. Scotland Yard took more than 14 months to provide the information, which was originally requested under the Freedom of Information Act in April 2010. Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Prince Charles Camilla Parker Bowles News of the World Nick Davies guardian.co.uk
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