On the heels of Saturday’s news that a young woman has accused Rep. David Wu of sexual assault , Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are demanding a House ethics investigation, the Washington Post reports. “I call on the Ethics Committee to initiate an investigation into the allegations against Congressman Wu,…
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Authorities accused of muzzling media coverage after crash in Zhejiang province kills at least 38 people and injures 192 Chinese authorities face growing public fury over the high-speed train crash that killed at least 38 people and injured 192, with the disposal of wreckage and attempts to control coverage of the incident prompting allegations of a cover-up. The railways ministry has apologised for the collision in eastern Zhejiang province and announced an inquiry. Spokesman Wang Yongping added: “China’s high-speed rail technology is up to date and up to standard, and we still have faith in it.” Internet users attacked the government’s response to the disaster after authorities muzzled media coverage and urged reporters to focus on rescue efforts. “We have the right to know the truth!” wrote one microblogger called kangfu xiaodingdang. “That’s our basic right!” Leaked propaganda directives ordered journalists not to investigate the causes and footage emerged of bulldozers shovelling dirt over carriages. Wang, the railways spokesman, said no one could or would bury the story. He said a colleague told him the wreckage was needed to fill in a muddy ditch to make rescue efforts easier. But Hong Kong University’s China Media Project said propaganda authorities have ordered media not to send reporters to the scene, not to report too frequently and not to link the story to high-speed rail development. “There must be no seeking after the causes [of the accident], rather, statements from authoritative departments must be followed,” said one directive . Another ordered: “No calling into doubt, no development [of further issues], no speculation, and no dissemination [of such things] on personal microblogs!” Officials also ordered more coverage of “extremely moving” stories, such as blood donations, and said the overall theme should be “great love in the face of great disaster”. Beijing sees high-speed rail as a matter of national prestige, highlighting China’s development, but critics appear to see the disaster as symptomatic of the country’s problems. Internet users repeatedly described the crash as a man-made, not a natural disaster, and blamed officials. “When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash … none of us is exempt. China today is a train rushing through a lightning storm … we are all passengers,” ran one of the most frequently forwarded comments on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo service. The breakneck pace of the massive project had already caused safety concerns. In just a few years Beijing has constructed the world’s largest high-speed network, with 10,500 miles completed or under construction. “Overly rapid development has caused safety issues. This is the result of the irrational behaviour of the former leadership of the ministry of railways,” said Professor Zhao Jian, a prominent critic of high-speed rail at Beijing Jiaotong University. The former railways minister Liu Zhijun, one of the project’s keenest champions, was sacked in February for “serious disciplinary violations” – a phrase usually indicating corruption allegations. Six carriages were derailed and four of those plunged 20 to 30 metres from a viaduct in Saturday’s crash, when a train stalled after being struck by lightning and was rammed by another one behind it. State media said the power failure knocked out an electronic safety system that should have alerted the second train to the problem. Zhao said the trains should have been equipped with an automatic braking system and that dispatchers should also have been able to halt the second vehicle. Chinese media had already highlighted the problem of lightning strikes after they halted several other trains earlier this month – including on the recently opened Beijing-Shanghai link . The state-run English language Global Times newspaper said the accident should be “a bloody lesson for the entire railway industry in China”, but said the crash should lead to “safer, not slower, railway transportation”. The Zhejiang crash involved the first-generation high-speed trains, launched four years ago, which have a top speed of 155 mph. The former railways minister said newer trains would travel at 217mph, but after his ousting that was cut to 186mph amid safety and financial concerns. China’s railway system has been regarded as having a generally good safety record, although 72 people died in 2008 when an express train from Beijing to Qingdao derailed. China Rail transport Press freedom Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Draft legislation permits opposition groups to Ba’ath party for the first time in decades, but move met with scepticism by activists Syria’s cabinet has backed a draft law to allow rival political parties to the ruling Ba’ath party of president Bashar al-Assad for the first time in decades, but the move has been largely dismissed by opposition groups as an empty gesture. The draft law, which must be ratified by parliament, permits parties that commit to “principles of democracy” but prohibits those affiliated to organisations outside Syria and those based on religion, tribe, denomination or profession, the state media agency Sana reported. If implemented fully, it could end decades of monopoly by the Ba’ath party, which banned opposition groups in the country after coming to power in a military coup in 1963. In 1972 Assad’s father and former president Hafez allowed parties willing to form a coalition with the Ba’ath party under the National Progressive Front, for which 167 of 250 seats in the parliament are reserved, but the other parties are mainly window-dressing for Ba’athist rule. Syrian officials have increasingly spoken of a transition to democracy, showing how far protesters have pushed regime discourse in more than four months of protests. But the move was met with widespread scepticism by activists and opposition figures, inside and outside the country who say words have not been followed by actions. “Bashar al-Assad has made tremendous concessions – he lifted the state of emergency which was the top demand of the Syrian opposition of the last 40 years, but the security killed people the next day,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian dissident and rights activist exiled in the US. “These decisions are documents only. There is no guarantee any party will be licensed just in the way no protest has been under the new law for demonstrations.” Under the new law the government retains control over the formation of parties, which must apply for a licence to operate. New parties must also respect the constitution, which enshrines the dominance of the Ba’ath party as the “leading party in state and society” despite Assad’s promises to look at altering it. The criteria would also continue to outlaw Kurdish parties, which operate in the north-east as the most organised of Syria’s political opposition. Opposition figures have emphasised that there can be no dialogue or trust in the regime’s reform programme until the security crackdown stops. Human rights groups say more than 1,500 civilians have been killed and more than 12,000 detained since the uprising started in mid-March. Activists reported ongoing detentions across the country as well as a continued clampdown in the neighbourhood of Bab Sbaa in Homs. Protests have intensified in the week before Ramadan when analysts and diplomats say they expect demonstrations to grow in frequency and size. A sit-in by 200 lawyers at the Justice Palace in Damascus on Monday turned into a brawl after pro-regime lawyers arrived, the local co-ordinating committees reported, hours after security forces carried out raids in the Damascus suburb of Hajr al-Aswad. The suburb is home to many Palestinians and Syrians from the Golan heights displaced after it was captured by Israel in 1967 and illegally annexed in 1981. Nour Ali is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus Syria Middle East Protest Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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County forces act jointly to make it easier to bug suspects’ computers and phones and carry out covert investigations Britain’s police forces are forming regional surveillance units with the power to carry out covert and intrusive investigations. Detectives believe the groups will make it easier for the authorities to bug computers, break into properties and interfere with wireless internet networks as part of countersurveillance operations, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Until recently, covert investigations were carried out by individual forces in co-operation with the Serious Organised Crime Agency , which is being disbanded. The disclosures have concerned civil liberties campaigners who fear that it will lead to an increase in covert operations. They want to know how the new regional police groups will be controlled and monitored. Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that earlier this month five forces – Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire – formed the East Midlands Technical Surveillance Unit (Emtsu) after a series of internal consultations that took place behind closed doors in March. Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Waterfield of Nottinghamshire police wrote in an internal paper that the new £2m-a-year organisation would improve access to hi-tech surveillance as well as the planting of bugs. ” Emtsu (pdf) will provide Nottinghamshire with a ‘one-stop shop’ approach to covert forensics, covert hi-tech crime and specialist support unit, which will include covert entry into premises, covert search and the deployment of intrusive surveillance methods,” he said. The contract between the five East Midlands forces contains a clause that prohibits each force from taking steps to publicise the existence of the unit or its investigations without express consent of each party. It also prevents internal reports about the formation of the units being published on their websites under the Local Government Act on the grounds that they relate to the prevention, investigation or prosecution of crime. There are believed to be at least seven other regional organisations, according to police sources. One, calling itself the South East Covert Operations Unit (Secou), was formed by Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Thames Valley police authorities last year. The use of covert surveillance by police has been a key weapon in fighting organised crime and terrorism, according to police. One former Metropolitan police specialist believes the development will make it easier and cheaper for the authorities to conduct countersurveillance operations including “covert forensics” – a method of hi-tech spying involving installing keyloggers on suspects’ computers to record what they type. Jonathan Krause, an ex-member of Scotland Yard’s hi-tech crime unit, said he had heard of police surveillance officers disguised as plumbers entering suspects’ homes to bug computers. “They can sit outside the house in a van and they’ll be looking at the wireless networks and the wireless traffic,” he said. “Which is not that difficult to do technically, breaking in to wireless networks and seeing the traffic going back and forth.” Krause, who now works as the managing director of computer company Forensic Control , explained that forms of “live” covert surveillance on computers are on the rise due to an increase in users storing their data online – known as “cloud computing”. As a result, he said, it is now more common for authorities to deploy “covert forensics” by installing software that monitors what is being typed on a suspect’s computer, with a record automatically sent to police by email without the suspect’s knowledge. Covert surveillance is currently regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) , with the power to conduct clandestine investigations granted internally by senior officers within each respective police force. In a speech given to human rights group Liberty in February , Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said he favoured introducing an “additional element of judicial oversight in keeping with our traditions of accountability” in order to “secure the confidence of right-thinking people”. The terms under which Ripa can be used to justify covert surveillance are broad, and include in the interests of public safety, national security and economic wellbeing of the UK. In 2010 there were more than 21,000 authorisations of covert surveillance by law enforcement agencies across the UK, according to the latest figures produced by the Office of Surveillance Commissioners. Such tactics are primarily used to detect serious organised crime. But police have also used the powers afforded to them under Ripa to unlawfully target political activists, placing undercover officers at the heart of protest groups to gather intelligence. Daniel Hamilton, director of pressure group Big Brother Watch , expressed concern over “expansion by stealth” of the police’s ability to conduct invasive surveillance, and called for a review of the police’s Ripa powers. “While covert operations play an important role in solving criminal investigations, these operations should be the exception, not the norm,” he said. “Expanding the use of wiretaps and the monitoring of internet connections risks dragging scores of innocent people into police investigations they should rightly play no part in. “The government has pledged to limit the ease by which local councils can utilise Ripa powers. A similar review of police Ripa powers should take place.”A spokesman for the East Midlands police collaboration programme said: “Due to the sensitive operational nature of the work that the unit will undertake, we have not sought to proactively publicise its establishment. “However, details of the proposal have been discussed in police authority meetings, which are open to the public, and in media interviews.” A spokesman for the South East Covert Operations Unit said that the forces concerned had been open about the formation of the new group – in press releases and documents published online – which would save money for taxpayers. “There is strong and clear governance of the unit and it is already successful in helping to tackle serious regional criminality,” he said. Police Surveillance Hi-tech crime Cloud computing Hacking Internet Computing Ryan Gallagher Rajeev Syal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Science teams in both Europe and America are reporting promising new data in the hunt for the elusive Higgs boson particle —the so-called “God particle” believed to give mass to matter that remains the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of physics that has not yet been seen in…
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Mark Thompson also says cuts will not include dropping BBC Parliament from Freeview, but will not rule out service closures The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has ruled out the merger of local radio with BBC Radio 5 Live or dropping the BBC Parliament channel from Freeview as part of plans to find 20% of cost savings. Thompson said he would not be closing any local radio stations or merging regional TV news operations in England, but declined to rule out service closures entirely. “We haven’t ruled out service closures yet but the work so far suggests there’s a smarter way of making savings without taking entire services away from the public … because every single service is strongly valued by its audience,” he added. The director general made the comments in an email to staff updating them on the progress of his “Delivering Quality First” (DQF) initiative to cut costs by 20% as a result of last year’s flat licence fee settlement. A merger between local radio and Radio 5 Live was one of the proposals to come out of DQF, but it has now been ruled out, as was the withdrawal of the BBC Parliament channel. “I’d also like to reassure you about some of the things that we won’t be proposing, but about which there has been speculation,” said Thompson. “We won’t be closing any local radio stations or television regions. There will be no full or partial merger of local radio and Radio 5 Live. We will not be removing BBC Parliament from Freeview. And as you heard from the chairman earlier this month, we will not be privatising BBC Worldwide. Thompson said job losses would be “relatively higher in non-content areas and among senior managers”. He added that his staff email followed what he called a “positive meeting” with the BBC Trust last week, with final proposals due to be presented by management in September. Thompson said the BBC would focus its investment on five editorial priorities: the best journalism in the world; inspiring knowledge, music and culture; ambitious UK drama and comedy; outstanding children’s content; and events that bring communities and the nation together. Of the 20% savings, 10% will come from productivity, 8% from “scope reductions” and 2% from current efficiency programmes and from increased commercial revenue. “Those scope changes have to mean real cuts in activity rather than efficiencies by another name, otherwise there’s a risk that quality will suffer,” Thompson said. “We haven’t ruled out service closures yet but the work so far suggests there’s a smarter way of making savings without taking entire services away from the public.
Continue reading …The self-described conservative Christian who has confessed to killing nearly 100 people in the Norway terror attack plans to explain his actions in court today—”in uniform,” reports the BBC. But his attorney doesn’t know what kind of uniform Anders Behring Breivik hopes to wear. Prosecutors, meanwhile, are arguing to…
Continue reading …Now that’s harsh. Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester is suing her own mom. Meester, who plays snarky Blair, says she gave her mom money for medicine and treatments for little brother Lex, who suffers from major medical issues, reports TMZ . But her mother used it instead for plastic surgery, Botox,…
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Officials say Darioush Rezaeinejad was post-graduate electrical engineering student in Tehran Iran has denied claims that an academic shot dead during the weekend was involved in the country’s nuclear programme. Iranian media initially described Darioush Rezaeinejad, who was fired on by gunmen riding on motorcycles in east Tehran on Saturday, as a “nuclear scientist” and an academic associated with Iran’s atomic activities, but officials have since said he was a postgraduate electrical engineering student. Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday, Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, was quoted by the semi-official Isna news agency as saying: “The assassinated student was not involved in nuclear projects and [his murder] was not linked to [Iran's] nuclear programme.” Rezaeinejad, 35, was a masters student at Tehran’s Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology and was waiting to defend his thesis, officials said. In the aftermath of his death, Iranian news agencies reported different and often contradictory accounts about Rezaeinejad’s background. Isna said he had links with Iran’s nuclear agency and Fars, an agency under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, said he was associated with the country’s defence ministry. The similarity between Rezaeinejad’s assassination and that of other Iranian academics during the past two years also led news agencies to associate him with the country’s nuclear activities. Last November, Majid Shahriari, a nuclear scientist, was killed and Fereidoon Abbasi Davani, Iran’s current nuclear chief, survived assassination in co-ordinated attacks carried out by killers who rode up on motorcycles and stuck bombs to their car windows as they left their homes in Tehran. In January 2010, another academic, Masoud Ali Mohammadi was killed in a similar attack in what is now being seen by some analysts as a covert war against Iran’s nuclear activities. Despite several officials who saw a foreign hand in the assassination of Rezaeinejad, Moslehi said on Monday that no evidence was available to link the killing with foreign services. “We have not seen any sign which could demonstrate that the attack had been carried out by foreign services,” the intelligence minister said, according to Isna. “We are investigating what has happened, we haven’t found anything and there are yet some dark and vague issues surrounding the assassination.” According to Iranian media, no arrests have taken place in connection with the shooting. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, had accused the US and Israel of being behind the assassination. “[Saturday's] US-Zionist terrorist act that targeted one of the elites of Iran is another example which shows the hostility of US towards Iran,” the state news agency quoted Larijani as saying. Other officials including the Tehran governor, Morteza Tamaddon, have also blamed the US and Israel for the attack. “Undoubtedly, this was an American-Israeli project against our intellectuals and thinkers with the aim of discouraging the Iranian nation from continuing the path it has taken,” he was quoted as saying by Abna news agency at Rezaeinejad’s funeral. A month ago, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said his organisation had received information that “the enemies of the Islamic regime” were plotting more assassinations. Apart from the assassination of its scientists, Iran’s nuclear programme has also suffered from a computer worm, Stuxnet, which was designed to sabotage the country’s nuclear facilities. Iran Nuclear power Nuclear weapons Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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