Germans warned against eating raw lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes as cause of outbreak centred on Hamburg remains a mystery The mysterious German E coli outbreak that has killed 16 people shows no sight of abating, with 365 new cases confirmed on Wednesday. The source of the outbreak remains unknown, though the majority of those affected either live in Germany – particularly in or around the northern city of Hamburg – or have travelled there recently. The German disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), reported 365 new E coli cases today, a quarter of them involving the hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious complication resulting from E coli infection that affects the blood and kidneys. European Union officials said three cases had also been reported in the US, adding that most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country. On Tuesday, a Swedish woman became the first person to die outside Germany after returning from a trip there. On Wednesday, the northern state of Mecklenburg Western Pomerania issued a plea for blood donations in case the number of victims continues to rise. German authorities initially identified cucumbers imported from Spain as the likely source of the outbreak but they admitted on Tuesday that further tests on the cucumbers showedthat, while contaminated, they did not carry the bacterium strain responsible for the deaths. They have still not identified the cause, but raw lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers remain prime suspects, with authorities recommending that consumers in northern Germany avoid all three. Spain said it was considering legal action after the false alarm. “We do not rule out taking action against authorities which have cast doubt on the quality of our produce, so action may be taken against the authorities, in this case, of Hamburg,” the deputy prime minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, told Cadena Ser radio. Spanish farmers say lost sales resulting from the crisis are costing them €200m (£176m) a week, and could cost 70,000 jobs in a country that already has the EU’s highest unemployment rate. Several European countrieshave reportedly blocked entry of Spanish cucumbers, but EU health commissioner John Dalli said the commission had received no official confirmation of any import bans. Russia’s consumer protection watchdog repeated a threat to outlaw all vegetable imports from the EU, having already banned raw vegetable imports from Germany and Spain. “Despite repeated requests, Russia’s consumer protection watchdog has not received information from the European Union about the source of the infection, about dangerous produce or about measures being taken to localise and combat the outbreak,” it said in a statement on Tuesday. French government spokesman François Baroin said the country had taken the precaution of setting up a crisis unit to deal with a possible outbreak in the country, with health officials across France on alert for signs of new cases. E coli Germany Food Food & drink industry Spain Farming Europe Agriculture European Union Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It’s going to be a sweaty summer in Japanese government offices: The country is facing power shortages caused by the nuclear crisis, but many bureaucrats are balking at suggestions that they dress down for the summer to cut the need for air conditioning. The government’s “Super Cool Biz” campaign suggests…
Continue reading …A Texas man allegedly scammed out of a lottery jackpot by a convenience store clerk is taking the state lottery commission to court. Navy veteran Willis Willis, 69, says clerk Pankaj Joshi told him his ticket was not a winner, then kept it for himself, cashed it in for $1…
Continue reading …Police are seeking an unholy duo who robbed a suburban Chicago bank dressed as nuns. In a scene straight out of the Ben Affleck heist movie The Town , the handgun-wielding pair jumped the counter and ordered staffers to fill a duffel bag with cash, reports the New York Daily News…
Continue reading …The co-founder of the hugely popular hip-hop and skateboarding clothing brand LRG has been found dead in his Laguna Beach home. Jonas Bevacqua was 34. There was no obvious cause of death, and an autopsy will be conducted, AP reports. LRG, which the designer founded when he was barely out…
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Environmental agency grants license to begin building on the Amazon dam, which will be the third biggest in world Brazil’s environment agency gave its definitive approval on Wednesday for construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, a controversial $17bn (£10bn) project in the Amazon that has drawn criticism from native Indians and conservationists . The regulator, Ibama, issued licenses to the consortium in charge of Belo Monte to build the massive dam on the Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazon. The government has said the 11,200-megawatt project, due to start producing electricity in 2015, is crucial to provide power to Brazil’s fast-growing economy. It will be the world’s third biggest hydroelectric dam after China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. In January, Ibama had issued a preliminary license allowing the construction site to be set up. Since then the project has been halted and resumed several times owing to court injunctions obtained by environmentalists and native Indians opposing the dam. Norte Energia, the consortium that won the auction to build and operate Belo Monte, is made up of state-run utility holding company Eletrobras ELET6.SA, Brazil’s second-largest pension fund Petros and local construction companies. Originally conceived 30 years ago, progress on Belo Monte has been slowed over the years by protests, including an incident in 2009 in which Kayapo Indians armed with clubs and machetes attacked a state electricity official. Critics from singer Sting to Hollywood director James Cameron and environmental group Greenpeace have said the dam will damage the environment and harm thousands of people living in the region. The 3.75-mile dam will displace 30,000 river dwellers, partially dry up a 62-mile stretch of the Xingu river, and flood large areas of forest and grass land. Wave, tidal and hydropower Energy Renewable energy Rivers Amazon rainforest Forests Deforestation guardian.co.uk
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Head of Crown Prosecution Service says he would like to see TV cameras allowed in court rooms ‘in principal’ The head of the Crown Prosecution Service has said he would like to see TV cameras allowed into court rooms “in principal” and that the idea could be implemented quickly if it was approved by the government. Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, added that allowing cameras into the courts would improve the public’s perception of the judicial system. “I would be in favour [of cameras] in criminal courts,” he told BBC Radio 4′s The Media Show on Wednesday. “In principal I would be in favour [of cameras in court] in both sets of proceedings [criminal and civil].” He claimed that the majority of solicitors now favoured such a move in the belief that opening up the court system to greater public scrutiny would restore faith in the way they operate. Starmer said: “The principal of open justice has been there for a very long time.” Broadcasters have been lobbying for some time to be allowed to film court proceedings, with Sky News particularly vocal on the subject . Sky News wants to film parts of court hearings initially, such as judges’ verdicts, but is open about the fact it would like full access eventually. Starmer added that witness intimidation was a potential problem, but said measures could be put in place to guard against this and to protect “vulnerable” people including children and those with mental health issues. “The judge can exercise that control” he said. “If there are vulnerable people that’s a good reason not to have cameras… If limited parts [of proceedings] have to be excluded from the cameras then so be it.” Starmer added that fears cameras would lead to court hearings becoming sensationalised were misplaced and that the OJ Simpson trial in the US, which ended in the former football stars’ acquittal and is often cited as a reason not to let cameras in, was now an out-of-date example to draw on. “OJ is always given as the example of sensationalism, but a lot of lessons have been learned since then,” he said. “After all, in a big case the court is always packed anyway, [and there are] cameras outside… There are plenty of examples other than OJ to show this builds confidence [in the system].” Starmer added: “If there is a decision in principal that this should happen, it should happen fairly quickly.” The former Labour Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine approved the use of cameras in the court of appeal in 2004 as part of a pilot scheme, but the coverage was never shown. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook Television industry Keir Starmer TV news James Robinson guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If you believe Sarah Palin’s One Nation bus tour is something other than a prelude to a White House run, Jon Stewart has a bridge in Brooklyn he’d like to sell you. The Daily Show host, returning from hiatus, mocks the media’s response to the Palin tour. Perhaps the real…
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Owner able to gather information including pictures, Facebook account and work details leading to suspect’s eventual arrest An alleged laptop thief has been arrested after his victim used a secret application on the computer to track its whereabouts and take photographs of the perpetrator. Joshua Kaufman’s MacBook was stolen from his apartment in Oakland, California, on 21 March, but when he reported the crime to the police it was deemed a low priority – so he turned to Twitter and Tumblr to get it back. “I reported the crime to the police and even told them where it was, but they couldn’t help me due to lack of resources,” Kaufman said. Rather than give up the laptop as lost the designer had a trick up his sleeve. Kaufman had downloaded an application to his computer that tracked the machine’s location and took pictures from its inbuilt camera – unbeknown to the thief. “I’m using the awesome app, Hidden, to capture these photos of this guy who has my MacBook,” Kaufman wrote. He told the New York Daily News he had returned to his apartment on a Monday night in March to find the laptop, a Kindle and some jewellery missing. Kaufman called the police, but the case was filed as low priority. However, using Hidden he was soon garnering information about the laptop’s new owner, including pictures, his Facebook account, his place of work and business email address. Upon returning to the police, Kaufman was told they did not have the manpower to pursue the alleged thief. It was then that he decided to spread news of the theft himself, starting a Tumblr account called This Guy Has My MacBook . Kaufman promptly began uploading some of the pictures and other information that Hidden had relayed back. Readers – tens of thousands have shared the blog on Twitter and Facebook – were able to see pictures of the suspect asleep on a settee in front of the computer, lying in bed topless in front of the computer and, less conventionally, driving in front of the computer. NY Daily News reported that Oakland police finally decided to investigate when media outlets began contacting officers for comment after the saga had become an internet sensation. A mission to rescue the laptop – and perhaps to save some face – was scrambled on Tuesday night and the man in the photographs was soon detained, much to the computer owner’s delight. “ARRESTED! An Oakland police officer just called me to let me know that they arrested the guy in my photos! BOOYA!” Kaufman tweeted . “The police used my evidence (email which pointed to a cab service) that he was a driver and tricked him into picking them up. Nice work OPD!” he added . Hiddenapp.com pledges that the app will “locate your stolen computer anywhere on the planet, collect photos of the thief and screen shots of the computer in use”. It is not the first example of similar software being used to track stolen laptops. However, on Wednesday some Twitter users were sceptical as to whether there may be something more to the affair. “It seems like a pr-stunt for the app Hidden,” @Chalottn posted , while @Usman C wrote : “What i don’t understand is y this thief would sleep and drive w the screen open (pics w cam). Looks like PR-stunt to me.” Hidden, which is based in Watford, Hertfordshire, has denied it is a marketing ploy, telling one sceptic : “It’s a complete surprise to us too, no dodgy marketing here.” Last month Sean Power , an author and consultant based in New York, used Prey software to track down his MacBook , tracing it to a bar in the city while he was in his native Canada. Power posted maps of the laptop’s location and pictures of the rogue user to Twitter, inadvertently scrambling a team of followers to the bar and eventually managing to retrieve the computer. In January Erick Lounsbury used Orbicule to track his laptop to Southern California after it was stolen from his home in Bremerton, Washington state. “People need to know that you’ve gotta take care of your own stuff, because no one else is going to,” Lounsbury told the Kitsap Sun after being reunited with his machine. “You’ve gotta do your part.” Computing Apple Facebook Software Internet Twitter United States Blogging Social networking Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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Paper argues ‘sunlight should be shed’ on former RBS chief’s conduct before bailout of bank The Sun has applied to partially lift the gagging order obtained by former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, arguing that “sunlight should be shed” on the crisis that left the bank majority-owned by UK taxpayers. Goodwin was granted a wide-ranging privacy injunction earlier this year preventing reporting of the details of his alleged extra-marital affair with a female colleague. Lawyers acting for News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that publishes the Sun, appealed to the high court in London on Wednesday to relax the injunction so as to allow reporting of the details of the RBS job held by the woman involved, as well as the duration of the alleged affair. Mr Justice Tugendhat reserved judgment. Richard Spearman QC, acting on behalf of News Group, told the court the public has a right to know “what – if any – part this affair may or may not have played in the collapse of the bank” and “leading to [the public] having to put up money for this bank”. He added: “It is plainly a matter of real genuine public interest. Sunlight should be shed on dark corners of this case.” Spearman said that the paper had “no wish” to publish “salacious or intimate sexual details” about the alleged affair, but just “work-related details”. He added that the paper was not necessarily intending to name the woman involved. However, Hugh Tomlinson QC, acting for Goodwin and the woman involved, argued that if the injunction was partially lifted for a second time, the woman would be “subject to large numbers of journalists camped outside her house” and would suffer “very serious levels of intrusion into her life”. The gagging order was partially lifted by Tugendhat last month , with the injunction varied to allow publication of Goodwin’s name, but not details of the alleged relationship and the name of the woman said to be involved. “There is no cogent reason of any kind why the identification of this woman would advance any public interest debate,” he said. “It is not good enough to say that there are all kind of questions to be asked [about RBS], therefore we should be able to invade the woman’s private life. [The Sun] doesn’t need to identify this person to ask these questions.” The government owns 83% of RBS after being forced to bail out the bank when its share price slumped following losses incurred in the 2007-08 financial crash. •
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