Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 34, plead not guilty at the Old Bailey via videolink Two men appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday to deny the murder of Stephen Lawrence 18 years ago. Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 34, pleaded not guilty to the charge when they appeared in court via videolink from Belmarsh prison in south-east London. Lawrence was a black 18-year-old A-level student who was stabbed to death in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993. Dobson and Norris, both of south London, remain in custody. They are to face trial on 14 November. A pre-trial hearing will take place on 29 September. Lawrence’s mother Doreen, 58, was in court for Friday’s brief hearing. The judge, Mr Justice Treacy, appeared via a videolink from Birmingham crown court. Crime guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Markos Moulitsas, the founder and publisher of the Daily Kos, demonstrated that he can locate a vast right-wing conspiracy just like the rest of the Kosmonauts. Mark Halperin's suspension, for him, proved once again that Halperin is a right-wing fellow traveler with Joe Scarborough, who's the “real president” of MSNBC: I think it's wonderful that Halperin betrayed his full feelings about Obama on the air. It's tiresome seeing people pretend that he's some sort of neutral political arbitrer [sic], when he's engaged in a long-running jihad against the truth. Halperin, a real dick, was hired as MSNBC's “senior political analyst” at the behest of another dick, the network's real president Joe Scarborough. As I wrote after being blacklisted from that network: According to Nexis, since the premiere of Morning Joe on October 22, 2007, Mark Halperin, MSNBC's “senior political analyst,”
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Alleged hit man for drug cartel detained in connection with mass kidnap and murder of migrants Mexican soldiers have detained an alleged hitman who is suspected of kidnapping bus passengers, killing them and burying them in mass graves. Abraham Barrios Caporal, 26, was captured in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and had acknowledged working for the Zetas drug cartel, Mexico’s defence department said on Thursday. He was suspected of taking part in the killings of bus passengers and their burial at a ranch in San Fernando in the northern state of Tamaulipas. Barrios Caporal was arrested in Coatzacoalcos on Tuesday along with three other members of his cell, an army spokesman, Colonel Ricardo Trevilla, said. Authorities in Tamaulipas began uncovering bodies in mass graves early in April after reports that passengers were being pulled off buses at gunpoint. By early June, 193 bodies had been found in 26 graves. Officials say most were Mexican migrants heading to the US who were kidnapped from buses and killed by the Zetas drug cartel. Barrios Caporal told authorities that some of the passengers were kidnapped because they were suspected of being members of the rival Gulf cartel. Seventy-two Central and South American migrants were killed in San Fernando by the Zetas cartel last August. Barrios Caporal was suspected of involvement in those killings, the department said. Mexico’s brutal drug war has claimed more than 35,000 lives since President Felipe Calderón deployed thousands of federal security forces four years ago to fight traffickers. The offensive led to a splintering of the country’s cartels and increased gang fighting over territory. Mass graves have become an increasingly common discovery. On Thursday, gunmen opened fire during a football game in Acapulco, killing two people and wounding at least two children who were watching the match. The victims were city police officers who were playing in a match against Guerrero state government employees.. Factions of the Beltran Leyva cartel have been fighting for control of Acapulco since the December 2009 killing of the cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva. Mexico Drugs trade guardian.co.uk
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Simon Kelner has lost the editorship of The Independent. He is being replaced by Chris Blackhurst, currently the business editor of the London Evening Standard. Kelner will take the title of editor-in-chief, but will have no responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Indy and its stablemate, the Independent on Sunday. The decision to appoint Blackhurst, a former deputy editor of the Indy, was taken by Evgeny Lebedev, son of the Russian business tycoon, Alexander, who negotiated the acquisition of the titles last year. Evgeny emailed staff to announce the appointment ( full text here ). It brings to an end Kelner’s control of The Independent after 13 years. He was appointed as editor in 1998 by the then owner, Tony O’Reilly’s Irish company, Independent News & Media. At the time, Blackhurst was deputy editor to Rosie Boycott. Both of them then went on to run the Daily Express. Blackhurst, 51, has spent most of his journalistic career as a business journalist, though he started off in the law after graduating from Cambridge, (Trinity Hall). Following a stint as assistant editor of International Financial Law Review in the mid-1980s, he worked for a business magazine until becoming deputy editor of the Sunday Times’s Insight team in 1990. He went on to be business editor of the Sunday Express – lured to the paper by his Sunday Times colleague, Robin Morgan – before joining the Independent on Sunday as a business writer. Translated to The Independent, he spent time as a Westminster correspondent, returning to the Sindy as assistant editor. Then came the years as Boycott’s deputy, first at the Indy and then the Express. He left in the aftermath of the Richard Desmond takeover of Express Newspapers, spent a year back with the Indy before accepting an offer from the Standard’s then editor Veronica Wadley, to head up her paper’s business coverage. He has won several awards, most recently being named business journalist of the year in the London Press Club awards last month. Sources: Confidential The Independent Simon Kelner Evgeny Lebedev London Evening Standard Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Roy Greenslade guardian.co.uk
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Work and pensions secretary will use speech to thinktank in Spain to say of school-leavers: ‘We need businesses to give them a chance’ The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, will appeal to businesses to recruit young and unemployed British people ahead of “labour from abroad”. Duncan Smith will use a speech to a thinktank in Spain to say of school-leavers: “We need businesses to give them a chance”, and appeal for industry to assist the government in giving Britons jobs. While stressing that immigration plays a vital role in British society, he will argue that many immigrants end up doing jobs that could easily be done by British citizens. Official figures unearthed by the Labour MP Frank Field show that 87% of the 400,000 jobs created over the first year of the coalition government went to workers from abroad. “We have to ensure that our immigration system works in the interests of Britain, enabling us to make a realistic promise to our young school-leavers,” he will say in his speech to the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies thinktank in Madrid. “It is part of our contract with the British people.” Extracts released in advance show Duncan Smith will insist that the government is “reforming welfare to make work pay, and to help people back to work … and we are toughening sanctions against those who refuse to take jobs when they are available”. He will add: “But we also need an immigration system that gives the unemployed a level playing field. “If we do not get this right, then we risk leaving more British citizens out of work, and the most vulnerable group, who will be the most affected, are young people.” Gordon Brown was criticised after his 2007 pledge to provide “British jobs for British workers” was followed by figures which showed that around 80% of jobs created during Labour’s time in power went to migrants. Duncan Smith will say that controlling immigration is “critical” to avoid “losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness”, but will appeal for help in ensuring that British citizens are awarded jobs. “Government cannot do it all,” he will say. “As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad. “If government and business pull together on this, I believe we can finally start to give our young people a chance. A chance to experience the benefits of work that so many of the rest of us take for granted. A chance to become productive members of our society. And a chance of a better future.” Iain Duncan Smith Liberal-Conservative coalition Unemployment Young people Immigration and asylum Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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• Summer sale gets off to strong start • Childrenswear up 42% • Waitrose sales up 8% • Poll: will you be splurging in the summer sales? John Lewis’s summer sale got off to a flying start last week, providing evidence that it’s not all doom and gloom on the high street . Boosted by the mini heatwave, the department store enjoyed 20% sales growth (18.2% excluding VAT) in the week to 25 June compared with the same week last year. “Starting online on Wednesday night and on Thursday in our shops has clearly paid dividends, with us trading up 14% compared to the first four days of clearance last year,” said Peter Ruis, buying & brand director at John Lewis. Freddie George, retail analyst at Seymour Pierce, said: “It was an outstanding week for the department stores … indicating that consumers are still spending despite the difficult economic outlook and predictably are buying into the sales and discounts.” He noted that the company benefited from having two extra days of the sale, which started on Thursday (last year Saturday) and relatively easy comparatives with the previous year, which was impacted by the World Cup (England played Slovenia on the Wednesday and the second round started on the Saturday) and very hot weather. Fashion sales climbed 22.6%, boosted by a strong performance in childrenswear (up 42%) and 22% growth in accessories and beauty; electricals were 17.6% ahead, with IT up 58%, led by Special Buy laptops, while homewares advanced 20.5%. All John Lewis stores were in positive territory – the stand-outs were Brent Cross (up 15%), Southampton (up 18%) and Kingston (up 11%). Johnlewis.com was also strong – sales were 46% higher, with fashion leaping 80%. At Waitrose, sales climbed 8%, in line with recent trends. George said: “These figures will provide some relief to a sector that has been significantly impacted by the economic headwinds. However, we remain cautious on the outlook and think it likely that, as in April, consumers have brought forward their spending taking the advantage of the sales. We also think it likely that discounts have not been as deep as in previous years as the retailers have been focused on preserving margins.” Debenhams has also done a roaring trade in its beauty hall and put it down the “lipstick effect” in recessionary times – women cheering themselves up with a new lipstick or bottle of perfume rather than splurging on expensive designer items. Howard Archer, chief UK & European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “It is highly likely that once the clearance sale is over, or the best of the bargains are gone, consumers will quickly put their hands back in their pockets.” John Lewis Retail industry Consumer spending Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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Scottish Labour party candidate Iain McKenzie wins 53% of vote despite well-resourced campaigning effort by SNP The Scottish Labour party has welcomed its “stunning” victory in the Inverclyde byelection after it held the seat by an unexpectedly convincing margin, claiming it was a triumph. Labour won the contest with a majority of 5,838, far higher than many of its MSPs and MPs had expected following an intense and heavily resourced campaign by the Scottish National party (SNP), which included repeated visits to the seat by the first minister, Alex Salmond. Iain McKenzie, the local council leader, was elected with 53% of the vote, a similar margin won at the general election by his predecessor, David Cairns, a former Labour minister whose sudden death in May prompted the byelection. The SNP’s share of the vote nearly doubled, surging to 33%, after the Liberal Democrats’ vote collapsed by more than 10 points to 2.2%, losing the party its deposit. In a result which is likely to depress the Lib Dems further after their rout at the Holyrood election, its candidate, Sophie Bridger, attracted just 627 votes. The Tories’ vote also fell by two points, to less than 10%. It was the first test for Labour and its UK leader, Ed Miliband, since the party was humiliated by the SNP’s landslide victory in the Scottish parliament elections on 5 May. Boosted by sunny weather, the turnout was higher than many had predicted, at 45%. Ann McKechin, the shadow secretary of state for Scotland, said the result was a significant blow for the SNP and Salmond, the party’s leader. The day before polling, the first minister had hoped for a victory of “earthquake proportions” in the seat, west of Glasgow. “Just 56 days since losing the Holyrood election, Labour has shown we are able to win back the trust of the electorate in Scotland,” McKechin said. “This is a real setback to the SNP and a personal humiliation for Alex Salmond, who campaigned here no fewer than seven times and told his party members he would win before a single vote had been cast. “I think voters were turned off by the SNP’s arrogant and negative campaign and responded to Labour’s positive vision for our future.” The SNP’s optimism about winning the seat, repeating its shock byelection victory in Glasgow East in 2008, had increased in the later stages of the campaign after its candidate, Anne McLaughlin, attracted significant levels of support on the doorstep. Kenny Gibson, the SNP’s campaign manager, said the party had still achieved a swing of 9% and cut Labour’s majority by more than half in just three weeks. This was a larger swing than it achieved in the equivalent seat in the Holyrood elections in May, he said. “The SNP campaign and the popularity of Anne McLaughlin cut Labour’s majority and puts Labour on notice that they can no longer take voters here for granted,” he said. “There will be real questions for Labour’s leadership after letting such a safe seat come so close to defeat.” Labour’s hopes of holding the seat had been buoyed up by indications that it had done significantly well in the postal votes cast in the first days of the campaign. About 12,000 residents had postal votes, which were sent out several days before the SNP had been able to post its free election address to all voters, party officials said. Scottish politics Labour Scottish National Party (SNP) Liberal Democrats Conservatives Scotland Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tells the nation he has had surgery to remove a cancerous tumour, in his first television address since flying to Cuba for treatment Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, has finally returned to the public eye, admitting in a nationwide address that doctors had diagnosed him with cancer, following furious speculation about the true state of his health. In his first live appearance since undergoing emergency pelvic surgery in Cuba on 10 June, Chavez said doctors had removed “cancerous cells” from his body. “This [is] the new battle that life has placed before us,” he said. Flanked by a Venezuelan flag and a portrait of Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator, Chavez said he had committed a “fundamental mistake” in not taking better care of his own health. “I neglected my health and I was reluctant to have medical check ups. It was a fundamental mistake for a revolutionary,” he said, directing his speech “to the Venezuelan people and the international public opinion”. Chavez slipped off the radar at the start of June when he embarked on a tour of South America and subsequently underwent emergency pelvic surgery in Cuba. In his Thursday night address, broadcast on national television, an unusually reserved looking Chavez who read rather than improvised his speech, said Cuban doctors had detected “a strange formation in the pelvic region” following the first round of surgery. During a second operation they found “cancerous cells”, he said, without specifying which kind of cancer had been detected. Normally a media animal, Chavez had all but disappeared since being admitted to hospital in Havana earlier this month, virtually abandoning his Twitter account and appearing only in the occasional photograph or video. His extended absence has sent Venezuela’s rumour-mill into over drive. Allies had continued to insist that the Venezuelan president would shortly return to Caracas, but rumours that Chavez was suffering from prostate cancer or had slipped into a coma spread like wild fire. In Brazil, gossip columnists suggested Chavez was also suffering from lung complaints after starting smoking again. “I have also been aware of a certain degree of concern and uncertainty that has… [affected] the Venezuelan nation on top of the attempts at manipulation by some sectors of society that are well known to all. Those feelings are inevitable and are part of human nature,” he said. But the Venezuelan leader gave no hint as to when he might return home, closing his speech with the words: “Hasta el retorno” or “Until my return. “We have full confidence that he will be victorious in his battle, as in all his battles,” Elias Jaua, Venezuela’s vice-president, told state television immediately after Chavez’s speech. “We are the sons and daughters of Bolivar. There is no time for sadness; only for courage to face the recovery period. We need to be united. We call on you to unite.” Venezuela’s usually outspoken president had been tipped for a triumphant homecoming on 5 July, when his country celebrates 200 years of independence from Spain. But on Wednesday authorities in Caracas announced he had cancelled a summit of Latin American leaders that would have coincided with the independence celebrations. With a 2012 election on the horizon, analysts are divided on the impact Chavez’s absence could have on the presidential race. Most agree, however, that his sudden withdrawal from frontline politics has underlined a lack of leadership alternatives. “The absence reveals even more clearly how dependent on the president the top leadership of the ruling party has become,” said Javier Corrales, a political scientist and Venezuela expert, from Amherst College in Massachusetts. “The notion of a chavismo without Chavez… seems to be inconceivable for chavistas.” Venezuela Hugo Chávez Cuba Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …On PBS, CNN’s Toobin Insists We’ll Have ‘Gay Marriage’ In 50 States Within 10 Years, Slams Obama for Cowardice
June 30, 2011 No Comment
On Monday, PBS talk show host Charlie Rose decided to discuss the passage of a “gay marriage” law in New York with two New York Times reporters and a writer for The New Yorker — not exactly a divided or diverse panel. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (also with The New Yorker) predicted to Rose that we're less then ten years out from the Supreme Court proclaiming “gay marriage” must be recognized in all 50 states: The question I have is, when will the Supreme Court arrest the issue, because I don't think they are in any rush to do it. I think at the end of the day they will say that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. You can`t have one kind of marriage for straight people and one kind of non-marriage for gay people. But I don't think they are in any rush to do that and I think it will maybe be five years or maybe be ten years, and at that point the whole country will have it. As with Roe v. Wade, he said, states would not be allowed to ban it. New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore felt Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done something “gigantic” for liberals here: This is a guy who spent post of the last six months cutting spending, cutting budgets, avoiding tax hikes, displeasing the base of his own party, but pleasing from the poll numbers, the vast majority of New Yorkers who have watched Albany overspend in their minds. And so for a guy who had not really demonstrated his credentials with some liberal, this is a gigantic thing for him. He could, I am not being trite here, but he could fire half a state workforce now and he would not have a ton of blowback from the base of his party because this is such a huge thing for everybody and a huge victory for him and gives him enormous capital on the left to allow him to be a fiscal conservative in a state that hasn`t always been. Then this one-sided conversation turned to gay New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney expressing patience with the “evolution” of Obama on “gay marriage,” but Toobin found Obama's failure to go left disgusting: ROSE: What about the gay community and their attitude about Barack Obama? ADAM NAGOURNEY: I mean, I think the big — I mean, to me, that is a big question here, I think you saw, I thought you saw Barack Obama — I mean if I am reading the stories right I thought you saw Barack Obama, quote- unquote, “evolve.” And I am one of those people who believe based on some knowledge, as much as you can know I do think he probably never did have a problem with gay marriage and changed his position when he wanted to run for president and Senate and that`s the way the world works when I saw those stories about him evolving I saw him go in a direction I thought he would go. TOOBIN: Can we be a little bit cynical? I just think, you know, frankly, Obama's position is pretty appalling here, I mean, you know, all of us sitting around saying, well he obviously believes in same sex marriage. Well, if he believes in same sex marriage say it!
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The case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is in doubt following reports of major holes in the credibility of the woman who alleges the former head of the IMF attacked her in May The prosecution case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the leading international diplomat who has suffered a spectacular fall of grace having been accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, is close to collapse, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reports that significant problems have emerged with the case against the former head of the International Monetary Fund that could see the conditions of his house arrest in New York being relaxed with immediate effect. Based on interviews with two unnamed law enforcement officers, it says that “major holes” in the case will be admitted to a federal criminal court in Manhattan as early as Friday. At the centre of the dramatic turn in the case, the New York Times reports, is lack of confidence on the prosecution side in the witness’s testimony about what happened to her in Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan on May 14. She alleged that he sexually assaulted her, and on the back of her account a major case was mounted by the New York district attorney. Lawyers in the defence team for Strauss-Kahn have suggested that they had evidence calling into question the veracity of the housekeeper’s account, but until now the nature of the doubts have not been revealed. The sexual nature of the encounter between the French politician and the maid has never been questioned by either side. But the New York Times report now suggests that police and prosecuting lawyers have concluded that the 32-year-old Guinean immigrant has lied repeatedly about the case. The newspaper says that police tape recorded a telephone conversation between the woman and a man in prison made on the day of the alleged rape in which the woman talked about the possible financial benefits that could come to her as a result of pursuing charges against Strauss-Kahn. The investigation has also found deposits made into her bank account totalling $100,000 over the last two years some of which came from the man, a convicted drug dealer. The startling development in the case is likely to raise numerous questions about what has happened to Strauss-Kahn and his future. He had been due to stand down from the post of managing director of the IMF, one of the most important roles in world finance, and the job has just been filled by the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde. But he was also, until his arrest in New York, a leading contender for the French presidency. His incendiary demise left a gaping hole in domestic French politics. The development will also play to the scepticism of the French public. When the allegations of a rape first surfaced, polls showed that 60% of French voters thought it was a political conspiracy against him. The news comes after weeks of speculation in which some legal experts had said the woman’s case has started to look shakey in recent weeks. Her original lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, and renowned civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, are no longer working with the woman and have declined to comment about the background to the decisons. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsweek earlier this month that he believed the woman’s lawyers were working with Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers and looking to broker a deal. Dershowitz said: “Clearly the defendant wants to avoid trial and wants to see if he can work out a deal that’s acceptable to him. And my sense is that the victim would like a big payday. Why does she want to make a deal now? Why not wait until the conviction, and then sue? [Because] the defendant doesn’t have much money. All the money is his wife’s money. And if you win a suit-let’s assume she wins a $10 million judgment against him. She’s not going to collect it. He’ll go bankrupt. Whereas if she settles the case, the wife pays up. So the difference is between getting, say, a million right now from the wife, or $10 million from the husband which the lawyer has to spend the rest of his life chasing.” Making any such deal would threaten charges of obstruction of justice. The woman has no power to stop the criminal case being brought by New York district attorney Cyrus Vance and could be compelled to testify even if she decided no to co-operate, said Stuart Slotnick, a white collar crime expert with New York’s Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. United States Dominique Strauss-Kahn France Europe IMF New York Ed Pilkington Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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