Thousands of protesters have gathered in Madrid and dozens of other Spanish cities to protest over cuts Police and tens of thousands of young protesters camped out in dozens of Spanish cities are set to clash after the country’s electoral authorities effectively ordered the government to dissolve the protests. The committee declared that the protests contravened Spain’s election laws, which ban campaigning the day before a vote. Municipal and regional government elections are to be held on Sunday amid a climate of growing anger over government austerity, spending cuts and 21% unemployment. “They [the protests] are against electoral legislation… and cannot happen,” the committee ruled. More than 10,000 people gathered in support of the protesters camped out at a makeshift tent city in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square in the early hours of Friday morning, greeting with boos and whistles the decision that they must leave. The peaceful protesters, who called another of their four or five hour open assemblies on Friday to debate the issue, looked unlikely to shift after thousands settled down to spend a fifth night in the Puerta del Sol. “On Saturday May 21 we will continue with the exercise of collective reflection between all those attending the spontaneous meetings to have emerged in recent days,” a statement from the Madrid protesters said this morning. “This is the most people we have had so far,” said Jero, one of the spokesmen who have become part of the increasingly sophisticated infrastructure of an otherwise chaotic protest movement with disparate demands and united only by mistrust of the country’s political elites. Similar protests were being held in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya and 60 cities across the country. As right-wing commentators accused the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s socialist government of allowing ‘extremists’ to take over the streets, the government this week faced a serious dilemma. It had previously indicated that, having moved protesters out of the Puerta del Sol earlier this week, it was unlikely to act against them again – but that was before the electoral commission banned the protests. “We have to listen and be sensitive, because there are reasons why they are expressing their unhappiness and their criticism,” Zapatero said on Thursday. Spain Europe Protest Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
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Judicial committee report says superinjunctions must face ‘open justice’ principle and only be granted when strictly necessary Superinjunctions should only be granted in “very limited circumstances” and normally for short periods of time, according to an influential judicial committee studying privacy orders. In a report that repeatedly stresses the importance of “open justice”, the study headed by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, proposes giving the media advance notice of applications for gagging orders. Dismissing allegations that judges have been creating laws beyond the authority of parliament, the committee on superinjunctions nonetheless states that “there was justifiable concern [last year]… that superinjunctions were being applied for and granted far too readily”. The study will be scrutinised carefully by ministers who have sent out mixed signals about whether they believe a privacy law needs to be introduced to provide clearer guidance for judges. While no one knows the precise number of privacy injunctions in circulation, the committee says it is only aware of two genuine superinjunctions — those whose existence cannot even be revealed — having been granted since January 2010. One was set aside on appeal and the other was in force for only seven days. “The principle of open justice is a fundamental constitutional principle,” the report states, “although it is not an absolute principle. It applies to interim injunction applications as it does to trials. “… As they incorporate derogations from the principle of open justice, superinjunctions and anonymised injunctions can only be granted when they are strictly necessary. They cannot be granted so as to become in practice permanent.” The report sets out draft guidance on how applications should be processed in future, allowing third parties, including the media, to take part in or lodge objections to privacy proceedings. It is hoped the presence of other parties in such complex cases will provide reassurance that the cause of justice is being served and that the law is not being exploited by the wealthy to close down debate about matters of public interest. It is acknowledged that new legal procedures will be required to ensure that those who attend such hearings do not divulge details until they are reportable. “… It will be a very rare case where advance notice of such applications to media organisations, which are likely to be affected by any order, can justifiably be withheld.” Lord Neuberger, who is the head of the civil judiciary, said: “Our starting point was the maintenance of the fundamental principles of open justice and freedom of speech. Where privacy and confidentiality are involved, a degree of secrecy is often necessary to do justice. “However where secrecy is ordered it should only be to the extent strictly necessary to achieve the interests of justice. And where it is ordered, the facts of the case and the reason for the secrecy should be explained, as far as possible, in an openly available judgment.” In a clear rebuff to politicians who have accused judges of inventing novel legal precedents without reference to parliament, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, welcomed the report and observed: “Contrary to some commentary, unelected judges in this country did not create privacy rights. They were created by parliament [through enactment of the 1998 Human Rights Act]. “Now that they have been created, judges cannot ignore or dispense with them: they must apply the law relating to privacy matters as created by parliament — including those relating to the enforcement of privacy rights by injunctive relief, balancing them with the rights … of freedom of expression. “The relationship between parliament and the courts has, for generations, been predicated on mutual understanding and respect. Judges have never asserted, and they are not now asserting, any authority or jurisdiction over parliamentary proceedings or debate, which are exclusively matters for parliament.” Superinjunctions David Neuberger Privacy Privacy & the media Media law Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Flight carrying 308 passengers to London returns to Bangkok after increased vibration and high temperatures in engine A Qantas flight to London was forced to return to Bangkok after one of its engines began experiencing trouble shortly after takeoff, the airline said. The Australian carrier said there was “an increase in vibration and high temperatures” in one of the plane’s four engines on Friday. The pilots shut the engine down and landed the Boeing 747-400, which was carrying 308 passengers, soon after. “We believe the cause is similar to events that other airlines are experiencing and is subject to an increased monitoring programme from the manufacturer Rolls-Royce,” the airline said in a statement. A Qantas spokesman declined to specify which airlines had faced similar problems with the engines. Rolls-Royce came under increased scrutiny after one of its Trent 900 engines on a Qantas A380 disintegrated after takeoff from Singapore in November. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s interim report on the A380 incident said a manufacturing defect in an oil pipe deep within one of the engines led to an oil leak, which sparked a fire. The fire caused one of the engine’s giant turbine discs to disintegrate, sending pieces of it shooting through the plane’s wing. On Monday, a Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engine caught fire on a Cathay Pacific flight bound for Jakarta, Indonesia, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Singapore. Cathay Pacific and Rolls-Royce are investigating the incident. Qantas’s Boeing 747 aircraft use Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. Rolls-Royce Airline industry Thailand Australia guardian.co.uk
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Embattled retailer sells its 314 store book chain to fund controlled by Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut HMV has sold its Waterstone’s book chain to a fund controlled by Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut for £53m. Last week HMV alerted the market to interest in Waterstone’s from multiple bidders although it emerged that Mamut, who counts Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich among his friends, was considered to be the front runner . Mamut, who already owns San Francisco-based social networking site LiveJournal, already holds a 6.7% stake in HMV. Mamut has bought the business for cash through A&NN Capital Fund Management, a company controlled by a trust in which Mamut has an interest. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of June. HMV Group, which issued its third profit warning in April this year, put the 314-strong Waterstone’s chain up for sale in March. The company said on Friday that the sale represents an “important step towards strengthening the capital structure of the remaining HMV Group”. HMV said that it needs to reduce its borrowing requirements in the short term to “achieve a satisfactory refinancing” and “has concluded that the most timely and effective way to achieve this is through the disposal of Waterstone’s”. “We expect this deal to enable the Group to achieve a reduction in the group’s borrowing requirements, and, in turn, focus on plans for transforming the HMV Group into a broad-based entertainment business,” said Simon Fox, the chief executive of HMV Group. The proceeds of the sale – which will see £40m paid on completion in June and £13m in October – will be largely used to reduce HMV’s borrowing requirements. “We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement to acquire Waterstone’s and its great heritage,” said Mamut. “I believe that our investment and strategy will secure a dynamic future for the UK’s largest bookshop chain and I look forward to working with its booksellers in building on the principle of excellent bookselling, which is at the very heart of the business.” HMV said that the sale is conditional on shareholder approval and also from the pension trustee, the pensions regulator as well as HMV’s banks “including a renegotiation of the group’s lending facilities”. “Any such transaction would likely be subject to, amongst other things, shareholder, lending bank and pension trustee approval,” the company said. “There can be no certainty that any transaction will be concluded and a further announcement will be made as and when appropriate.” HMV Group reported that total group sales continued to slide down 15.2% year-on-year in the 17 weeks to the of April. Within this HMV UK & Ireland saw sales fall 18.8% with international operations, in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore, down 6.7%. Waterstone’s reported a sales fall of 11.3%. The company said in the 53 weeks to the end of April group profits before tax and exceptional items would be about £28.5m. Year end net debt is expected to be £170m. Media business HMV Retail industry Waterstone’s Booksellers Music industry Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
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Documents reveal how defence intelligence staff fought against Labour government using Iraq dossier to make a case for war Newly released documents reveal the full extent to which defence intelligence experts fought – with limited success – to prevent the Labour government exaggerating the September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The disclosure follows the revelation last week that a senior defence intelligence officer told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq conflict that, contrary to the evidence of former government communications chief Alastair Campbell, the dossier was intended to make a case for war and intelligence had been exaggerated to make this case. The new documents support these claims and longstanding allegations that the dossier was hardened up against the wishes of the intelligence community. The disclosure consists of more than 150 pages of communications from the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) during the process of drafting the dossier. In addition, the Cabinet Office, which produced the dossier, has disclosed a further batch of documents from the DIS and others offering comments during the final stages of drafting. The documents include an email from John Williams, the Foreign Office press secretary at the time, describing a revised draft dossier as persuasive and convincing but suggesting that it should “carry the argument” more vigorously. The papers also reveal an ongoing battle over Iraq’s supposed nuclear programme, with analysts’ doubts and qualifications ignored during the drafting process. In one draft, an analyst added the qualification “probably” to a claim that the programme, on which there was little intelligence, was based on gas centrifuge uranium enrichment. But that qualification was not used in the published dossier. Early drafts of the dossier did not include any estimated timescale for Iraq’s development of a nuclear weapon if it obtained fissile material from abroad. Experts thought this scenario “unlikely” – an assessment that was not included in the published dossier. But the documents show that the DIS was asked to produce such an estimate at a Cabinet Office meeting attended by government communications officials. At first, the DIS produced an estimate of “at least two years”. In an email apparently responding to Cabinet Office dissatisfaction with that timescale, a DIS expert wrote: “We refuse to budge on timelines – two years min….” The documents show that the Cabinet Office continued to question this timescale. Subsequent redrafts reduced it, first to “within two years” and then “one to two years”. The final figure was closer to a claim President George Bush made in a speech to the UN that Iraq could obtain a nuclear weapon “within a year”. The Guardian disclosed last year that this change was made after pressure from Campbell to bring the dossier into line with claims made by the Bush administration. The documents show that claims that Iraq had used the biological agent aflatoxin in 1991 were removed from the dossier because of concerns that they might be used by sufferers of “Gulf war syndrome” to explain their illnesses. One document, which has been heavily redacted, refers to a statement in a draft dossier that “in 1991 Iraq used the biological warfare agent aflatoxin against the Shia population of Karbala”. The DIS analyst wrote: “The information is of great interest but we feel that you should be aware that many of the symptoms of aflatoxin poisoning in animals are similar to those claimed by some Gulf war veterans.” The DIS later clarified its concerns: “The purpose of us writing to the Cabinet Office regarding inclusion of aflatoxin in the dossier is simply to alert them to the possibility that if this information is in the public domain it could be used by Gulf war veterans to explain the illnesses that they are claiming. If Iraq [redacted] aflatoxin [redacted] that our troops were in theatre it is possible that they could well have been exposed.” The redacted sections appear to relate to the possibility that Iraq used aflatoxin during the Gulf war, thereby exposing British troops to its effects. Brian Jones, a former DIS manager who told the 2003 Hutton inquiry of concerns among his colleagues that the dossier had been “over-egged”, told the Guardian: “The documents clearly refute the defence devised in what appears to have been a conspiracy between the Cabinet Office and senior DIS managers: to suggest that most DIS analysts were happy with the dossier and that only myself and one other analyst thought there was a problem. Comparison of the issues raised by a number of analysts over several weeks shows that a large number of them had not been resolved and were allowed to go into the published document. I do hope this is a matter that the Chilcot inquiry will consider.” Iraq war inquiry Iraq Alastair Campbell Chris Ames guardian.co.uk
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• Roadside bomb explodes near vehicles in Peshawar • One passerby dies but US consulate staff escape unharmed • Pakistan Taliban claims responsibility for the attack A roadside bomb exploded near a pair of US consulate vehicles carrying Americans in Peshawar, north-west Pakistan, on Friday, killing a Pakistani passerby and wounding several people including some of the passengers, officials said. The Pakistan Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack. In the wake of the 2 May US raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden elsewhere in Pakistan’s north-west, militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban have vowed revenge attacks including those targeting Americans in Pakistan. A US embassy spokesman, Alberto Rodriguez, said some of the Americans in the vehicle were only slightly wounded, and that only one of the vehicles was damaged during the attack. No high-ranking US official was in the vehicles, which were making routine trips to and from the consulate. Footage from the scene showed that the car apparently hit was a large, SUV. It appeared to have veered into a pole and the bonnet was damaged. Senior police official Shafi Ullah said the vehicle was bulletproof. Nearby buildings also were damaged during the blast. The US consulate in Peshawar is widely believed to be a front for CIA operations, and its employees have been targeted in the past. In August 2008, Lynne Tracy, then the top US diplomat at the consulate, survived a gun attack on her armoured vehicle. Peshawar lies just outside Pakistan’s tribal regions, where al-Qaida and the Taliban have long had hideouts. The city itself has witnessed numerous suicide and other bombings in recent years, including many that have killed security forces and ordinary civilians. The Bin Laden raid in Abbottabad has badly soured Pakistan-US relations. Pakistan is angry it was not warned in advance that the navy Seals would storm the compound, and insists it had no idea that Bin Laden was hiding there. US officials have visited Pakistan in recent days to try to patch up differences. Pakistan Taliban Osama bin Laden United States US foreign policy guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …As fighting and casualties in Afghanistan’s war reached an all-time high, US soldiers and Marines there reported plunging morale and the highest rates of mental health problems in five years. Only 46.5% of soldiers said their morale was medium, high, or very high last year, compared with 65.7%…
Continue reading …Big-name politicians such as Andrew Cuomo and Michael Bloomberg support the idea of legalizing gay marriage in New York state this year, but they have one very big hurdle to overcome, the New York Times explains. The hurdle’s name is Michael Long, and he is chair of the state’s Conservative…
Continue reading …It took e-books less than four years to achieve world domination—or, at least, Amazon.com domination. Amazon now officially sells more electronic books than printed books. Since April 1, it has sold 105 e-books for every 100 printed books. What’s behind those numbers? Printed books include both hardcover and…
Continue reading …Some homeowners are putting up a fight against the mighty Mississippi and its tributaries, notes Popular Science . The AP and Getty have remarkable images of homes near Vicksburg shielded by makeshift levees. It’s “a testament to the human instinct to protect hearth and home,” notes Clay Dillow. Click to read…
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