Pyongyang, accused of opening fire near disputed maritime line, blames skirmish on South’s ‘overreaction’ to construction noise North Korea has called South Korea’s claim of an artillery exchange between the rcountries “preposterous”, saying the South mistook construction noise for artillery when it accused Pyongyang of opening fire near the rivals’ disputed maritime line. North Korea said in a statement that the South overreacted to “normal blasting” from a North Korean construction project “aimed at improving the standard of people’s living”. South Korean defence officials say marines returned fire on Wednesday after North Korea launched artillery shells into the same waters that saw a deadly artillery exchange between the countries last November. “It was preposterous in the age of science when latest detecting and intelligence means are available that they mistook the blasting for shelling,” an unnamed North Korean representative to inter-Korean military talks said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency. “It was a tragicomedy that they indiscriminately reacted to what happened with counter-shelling even without confirming the truth about the case in the sensitive waters.” South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said three North Korean shells originally fired near the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea prompted the South to fire back three shells. Another ministry official, who refused to be named because of office policy, said North Korea fired more rounds later in the day and that South Korea responded. All the shells landed in the water, South Korea said, and there were no reports of casualties. South Korean forces have been on high alert in the area since last November when a North Korean artillery attack killed four people, including two marines, on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island. Wednesday’s artillery exchange took place nearby, South Korea said. It follows a recent easing of animosity between the Koreas and comes ahead of joint US-South Korean military drills set for next week. Last month, a senior North Korean diplomat met with US officials in New York to negotiate ways to restart long-stalled international talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its aspirations concerning nuclear weapons. The meeting came after the Koreas’ nuclear envoys held cordial talks during a regional security forum in Indonesia. In its statement on Thursday, the North repeated its call for the cancellation of the US-South Korean drills and said South Korea was deliberately trying to ruin “the atmosphere of dialogue in the Korean peninsula”. On Wednesday, the US urged North Korea to exercise restraint and take steps to allow the six-nation disarmament talks to resume. “This incident is now over, and we now need to move back to the main business at hand,” state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington. North Korea’s shelling took place unexpectedly, South Korean officials said, and neither side was conducting firing drills at the time. Violence often erupts in the contested slice of sea. Three deadly naval clashes since 1999 have claimed dozens of lives. Kim said one North Korean artillery shell is believed to have fallen south of the maritime line. The maritime line separating the countries was drawn by the US-led UN Command without Pyongyang’s consent at the close of the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended with a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula still technically in a state of war. North Korea routinely argues that the line should run further south. Baek Seung-joo, a military analyst at the state-run Korea Institute for Defence Analyses in South Korea, said the North appears to be rattling its sabres ahead of the annual US-South Korean military exercises. On Monday a North Korean military spokesman released an open letter that called the joint exercises “hideous provocations”. He warned that Pyongyang had access to a “nuclear deterrent powerful enough to protect” itself. It has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006. North Korea South Korea guardian.co.uk
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Veteran chairman insists on ethics and integrity Rupert Murdoch pledged to do “whatever is necessary” to prevent a repeat of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of his News of the World newspaper, thrown his succession plans into chaos and left his company facing decades of legal woes. “There can be no doubt about our commitment to ethics and integrity,” said the chairman of News Corp. “I have run this company for more than 50 years,” Murdoch added as he announced strong results for his media empire. “The kind of behaviour that occurred in that newsroom has no place at News Corporation. It does not reflect the actions and beliefs of our more than 50,000 professional employees. I am personally determined to put things right when it comes to News of the World.” Murdoch’s comments came as News Corp announced a full-year operating income of $4.98bn (£3.08bn), compared with $4.46bn reported a year ago – a 12% increase driven in large part by the success of his television and cable network programming. The company reported a 22% drop in fourth-quarter earnings because of losses from the sale of its struggling social network Myspace. It made a $254m after-tax loss from the sale of Myspace. But strong results from its television assets, including the Fox TV network, beat analysts’ estimates. Its net income fell to $683m, or 26 cents a share, down from $875m, or 33 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 11% to $8.96 bn, helped by advertising sales and fees at Fox TV and its cable networks. Operating income at its cable network unit rose 12%, helped by a 23% rise in advertising revenue at its domestic channels and a 30% rise in affiliate fees at its international cable channels. Advertising at its Fox broadcast business also rose by 7%. Film profits rose 53% thanks to animation hit Rio, and home entertainment sales of Black Swan and The Chronicles of Narnia. This was the first results presentation that Murdoch has hosted for nearly a year and the first since his appearance before the parliamentary committee investigating the hacking scandal. He said the company did not yet have any idea what the financial bill to News Corp could be from potential legal action and fines. He said the company needed to “get to the bottom” of what happened: “Were there a dozen guilty people or two dozen?” Murdoch said: “While it has been a good quarter from a financial point of view, our company has faced challenges in recent weeks relating to our London tabloid, News of the World. We are acting decisively in the matter and will do whatever is necessary to prevent something like this from ever occurring again.” News Corp closed the News of the World last month as the revelations that its journalists had hacked into people’s phones, including the murdered teenager Milly Dowler, led to public outrage, a parliamentary inquiry at Westminster triggered a US investigation of possible abuses under US law. “It is important to note that there has been no material impact on our other operations,” he said. “Our broad, diverse group of businesses across the globe is extremely strong today. The drivers of our businesses are intact, our position is strong and our future is promising. “Our fundamental goals at News Corp are to produce sustained, meaningful value for shareholders, provide outstanding content and services to customers and consumers – and do it with integrity. These goals are interrelated and all three are critically important. And we will deliver.” Murdoch said he and Chase Carey, News Corp’s chief operating officer, had “full confidence” in James Murdoch, long seen as Murdoch’s heir apparent. James Murdoch is facing allegations that he mislead the parliamentary select committee. Murdoch also dismissed allegations that his independent board of directors was not independent. “That’s not true,” he said. Murdoch said the company had retained outside advice and evaluated its corporate governance practices and found no flaws. The News Corp boss, and largest shareholder, said he was disappointed that he had had to scrap plans for a full-takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB. News Corporation Media business News International Newspapers & magazines Newspapers Phone hacking BSkyB BSkyB Rupert Murdoch Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …An online petition by Change.org to have Bert and Ernie get married on Sesame Street is generating lots of buzz but also plenty of criticism—including from those who support same-sex marriage: Nicole Fabian-Weber, the Stir : “Utterly stupid idea.” Why? “They’re puppets. They bicker, sing songs, and teach kids…
Continue reading …Somewhere in Texas, Rick Perry just groaned. He was all set to steal the thunder from the candidates competing in Iowa’s Ames straw poll on Saturday by announcing his candidacy that same day in South Carolina. Now he’s got serious media competition: Sarah Palin is firing up her bus again…
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Ladybird spider to be released into new areas by conservationists The UK’s rarest spider is to be safeguarded from extinction by conservationists releasing the species in a new home in Dorset – using plastic water bottles. The ladybird spider – Eresus sandaliatus – is one of the most colourful arachnids in Britain, but by the 1990s only 56 were left. There are now more than a thousand, thanks to the efforts of conservationists, and the spider is ready to be released into new areas. The first of these introductions begins on Thursday with the release of 30 ladybird spiders into the RSPB’s Arne reserve in Dorset. They will be monitored in their new home and, if successful, more will be released in the next few years. Toby Branston, the RSPB’s senior warden at Arne, said: “The hope is that this will establish a self-sustaining population here so that if one of the other satellite populations gets damaged by fire, for example, then the species will not become extinct in the UK … It will be safeguarding the species in Britain.” Wildfires in May hit heathland in parts of the Scottish Highlands, Ireland, north-west England and Berkshire with devastating results for wildlife , though the spider’s current home elsewhere in Dorset was unaffected. The spiders will be taken to their new home in plastic water bottles, each filled with heather and moss. Then the bottles will be buried to allow the spiders to crawl out in their own time. “Burying plastic bottles in the heathland may seem a little strange to some of our visitors, but the experts have found that this is the best way to translocate the spiders,” said Branston. “This is an ideal habitat for them so we will be keeping a close eye on the new colony and carrying out regular surveys to see if they take to their new home.” Scientists had believed that the ladybird spider was extinct in the UK, but in the 1980s one small colony was found in Dorset. The species was deeply affected as its heathland habitat was disappearing, being lost to farming, forestry and housing. The Arne nature reserve – the spiders’ new home – is an insect hotspot that covers a range of habitats. It already has 240 spider and hundreds of insect species, including a subspecies of the rare silver-studded blue butterfly and the Purbeck mason wasp (which even appears on a set of stamps of endangered British insects issued by Royal Mail in 2008). It is the mature male ladybird spiders that have the bright red bodies covered in small black spots, which give the species its name. The females – with body lengths between 10 and 16mm, almost twice that of the colourful males – and juveniles are a velvety black. Ladybird spiders live in a hole in the ground, a tube which they line with silk and decorate with the remains of their prey, often beetles. The females rarely leave their burrows and both sexes feed off insects that become entangled in the fine strands of web at the hole’s entrance. Insects Conservation Endangered species Biodiversity RSPB Endangered habitats Wildlife Animals guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Catch those new photos of Sinead O’Connor performing in Ireland? (See the video in the gallery at left for a sample.) She is, gasp, no longer the slim, bald 20-something who captivated fans, and the Internet has not been kind in pointing this out. Lay off, write Mimi Turner…
Continue reading …The Quay County Sun of New Mexico offers this heart-tugger: A lost dog that survived a fatal car crash more than a year ago will be reunited his owners across the country. The Maltese, named Caesar, belongs to the Benson family of Michigan. They were driving in New Mexico last…
Continue reading …Sign of the times: The six biggest satellite and cable TV companies lost a combined 580,000 customers in the second quarter, which Bloomberg calls a record high. Take your pick of reasons: rising prices, increased online competition from the likes of Netflix, a lousy economy, the slump in home…
Continue reading …Sarah Palin may be the former governor of Alaska, but she’s getting the state’s legal help in the present. Activist Chip Thoma is suing Palin for at least $100,000, for what he says was her role at the helm of a campaign to “punish, embarrass, discredit, and silence” him…
Continue reading …John Boehner raised eyebrows by selecting Michigan congressman Fred Upton for the debt super committee. After all, explains Steve Kornacki at Salon , Upton has the reputation of being a moderate and an “individual thinker” unafraid to buck his party. Might he provide Democrats with the crucial GOP vote they’ll need?…
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