Youths attempt to block path of Ardoyne parade as police count cost of rioting As Northern Ireland reached the climax of the Ulster loyalist marching season on Tuesday, police reported that 24 officers had been injured in violence surrounding the parades and new rioting flared in north Belfast. Most of the police casualties were caught up in riots in Greater Belfast. In trouble that flared into the early hours of Tuesday morning, nationalist youths threw missiles including petrol bombs and, at one stage, drove a hijacked bus at police lines. Violence erupted again in the republican area of Ardoyne in north Belfast on Tuesday evening with riot police confronting nationalist youths just before a controversial Orange Order march was due to pass by the district. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) deployed two water cannon vehicles in order to quell disturbances and prevent republican demonstrators blocking Crumlin Road, the main route home for the Protestant Orangemen and their supporters. Bricks, bottles and fireworks thrown at police lines. The Greater Ardoyne Residents’ Collective were denied the right to gather on the Crumlin Road because police feared they would mount a sit-down protest. As loyalists marched through Belfast city centre, the republican residents amassed along Berwick Road to protest against the Orange parade passing by their district. Gerry Kelly, the Sinn Féin assembly member for the area, said he was concerned at the rising tension in north Belfast. “We have a situation where we have two parades at one time,” he said as he appealed for locals to keep protests against the parade peaceful. Kelly condemned nationalist youths behind the violence of the previous 24 hours – “some of them would have been involved in torturing the community throughout the year,” he said – but he also blamed the Orange Order for failing to reach a compromise with Catholic residents along contentious parade routes. Dozens of PSNI Land Rovers were deployed along the Crumlin Road to deal with any violence. On the same spot last year, about 80 PSNI officers were injured during three days of rioting that followed protests against the loyalist parade. A small number of republican dissidents opposed to the peace process gathered in Ardoyne, an area that is home to a unit of the anti-ceasefire republican organisation Óghlaigh na hÉireann. The first leg of the parade passed off relatively peacefully on Tuesday morning. Amid driving rain and the drone of a police helicopter overhead, the Orangemen and two loyalist bands were accompanied by two rows of protesters shortly before 8.30am. As marchers reached the Protestant Twaddell Avenue, they were given a heroes’ reception by local loyalists. The loyalists marched behind a banner accusing local republicans of imposing “cultural apartheid” due to their continued opposition to the Orange Order march. In the early hours of Tuesday, plastic bullets were fired and water cannon was deployed to deal with a mob of up to 200 youths in the Broadway area in the west of Belfast. The rioters attacked police lines separating the area from the loyalist Village district close to the M1 motorway. Baton rounds were fired during disturbances in the Oldpark area of north Belfast close to the so-called peaceline separating nationalist and loyalist communities. A bus was hijacked on the Falls Road with the driver dragged from the vehicle and passengers ordered off it. It was then driven at police lines on the Donegall Road, but crashed a short distance away. A van was also set alight on the Donegall Road. Northern Ireland Northern Irish politics UK security and terrorism Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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David Cameron backs Labour motion urging Murdoch to withdraw £8bn takeover bid in wake of phone-hacking scandal Rupert Murdoch will face the humiliation of the Commons issuing a unanimous all-party call for his scandal-ridden News Corporation to withdraw its £8bn bid for BSkyB, the great commercial prize he has been pursuing to cement his dominance of the British media landscape. In an extraordinary volte face David Cameron will disown the media tycoon by leading his party through the lobbies to urge him to drop the bid. Murdoch can defy parliament and press ahead with the bid, prompting a Competition Commission inquiry, but he risks finding himself ostracised by a political class that once scrambled to bend to his wishes. In the latest of a series of strategic coups that has left Downing Street looking flat-footed, the Labour leader Ed Miliband tabled a Commons motion for debate this afternoon urging News Corporation to withdraw the bid “in the public interest”. With the Liberal Democrats certain to back Labour’s simple motion, the prime minister took the rare and possibly legally questionable step to row in behind the opposition, even though only the day before Downing Street insisted he and the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, must remain impartial on the takeover. Miliband will lead the debate and will argue that the bid has to be withdrawn at least until police and judicial investigations into phone hacking and police bribery at News International have been completed. That could be 2014. Cameron’s spokesman said it was for News Corp to decide how to respond to the vote, but added “we would always expect people to take seriously what parliament says”. A spokesman for the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said the vote represents “an extraordinary unified statement of the will of the people. It is unimaginable that any public corporation or public figure will want to ignore such a strong statement by the legislature of this country”. Clegg first called for Murdoch to withdraw the bid on Monday, when Cameron had also said he thought Rupert Murdoch’s priority should be to sort out malpractices exposed in his company rather than trying to clinch what could eventually a takeover costing roughly $15bn. First indications suggested that the News Corp chairman will ignore the vote in parliament, and will turn down an invitation to give evidence to the culture select committee next Tuesday. In London, BSkyB’s shares fell another 3% to 692p because investors fear Murdoch’s bid could be delayed indefinitely or scrapped altogether. News Corp, which owns 39% of BSkyB, is determined to keep the lucrative bid alive and on Monday withdrew its proposal to spin off Sky News as a financially and editorially independent unit. The move effectively forced Hunt to refer the bid to the Competition Commission. The switch in tactics gave Murdoch the chance to capture BSkyB before a police investigation or judicial inquiry had been completed. A competition commission inquiry can only last six months, with a possible three-month extension, before a recommendation must be referred to Hunt. Hunt will abstain in the vote in an effort to preserve his political impartiality over the bid. Privately Downing Street is frustrated at the way Miliband has shaped the political agenda in the past week, and Cameron will try to regain the initiative by setting out the terms of reference of two inquiries into the crisis. Cameron is likely to announce the judge-led inquiry will go wider than previously thought, looking at the police investigation into phone hacking, and other malpractice throughout the newspaper industry, relations between press and politicians, the inadequacy of the original police investigation and wider issues of corporate governance. Cameron and Clegg met Miliband in the Commons on Tuesday evening to discuss the terms of reference of the judicial inquiry. Afterwards, Labour said Cameron had acknowledged that the main judge-led inquiry, with witnesses giving evidence under oath, will have to be given a wide remit. A second inquiry into media ethics is likely to be seen as a subsidiary narrow inquiry. Cameron also held discussions with John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture select committee, and Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee. Vaz’s committee criticised John Yates, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, on Tuesday for his handling of the investigation into phone hacking. Cameron is also expected to announce plans to strengthen transparency rules over meetings between ministers and media figures, including for the first time private social meetings. Until now ministers have declined to publish details of meetings with senior media figures, save those that are defined as business meetings. Ministers are also looking at new rules designed to oversee the future employment of former senior police officers. Andy Hayman, the Met’s assistant commissioner in charge of the investigation into News International in 2005-6, subsequently ended up in News International employment. The judicial inquiry is likely to look at why the last Labour government failed to launch an inquiry into phone hacking at News International. Supporters of Gordon Brown are furious that the cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell objected to Brown’s private urging for a judicial inquiry in 2010. Labour backbencher Chris Bryant tabled a question asking Cameron “to publish the advice provided by the then cabinet secretary in early 2010 to the then prime minister on the case for a statutory public inquiry into the phone hacking scandal.” The debate will see an intense political battle between the Conservatives and Labour over which party did least to distance themselves from the Murdoch group. The Lib Dems will relish reminding the public they shunned Murdoch, with its three most senior figures outside government writing to Murdoch to accuse him of tainted journalism. The party’s deputy leader, Simon Hughes, writes: “People working for your company have sought to cover up the many wrongs which it has committed. Your company has been accused of lying to the Press Complaints Commission, by its chair. “Only yesterday the police accused News International of trying to undermine the ongoing police investigation into the affair. News International is simply no longer respected in this country. “Given the history of the last six or more years, it should be of little surprise to you that many people in this country have no desire to have any more of our media fall into your hands, tainted as News International is by a history of completely unacceptable journalistic practices.” Rupert Murdoch News International BSkyB News Corporation Television industry BSkyB House of Commons David Cameron Ed Miliband Mergers and acquisitions Media business Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Hillary Clinton is fighting mad over yesterday’s attack on US and French embassies by pro-regime protesters in Syria. In a statement yesterday, Clinton said the US “strongly condemns Syria’s failure to protect diplomatic facilities,” and essentially disowned the regime. “If anyone, including President Assad, thinks that the United States is…
Continue reading …Jon Stewart was depressed when he returned to the Daily Show after vacation to find the US “broke, unemployed, endlessly deployed.” Fortunately, correspondent John Oliver was there to cheer him up—by showing him Britain is worse off. Stewart got progressively more nauseous as he heard about how News of…
Continue reading …Six races down, two to go, and score another one for Pamplona’s famed bulls. Two people were gored in today’s 8am run, the fastest yet, notes the AP . One person sustained a horn injury to the back, another was wounded in the shoulder, and at least two other people received…
Continue reading …So much for learning from the tragedy of others: On Thursday night, Shannon Stone fell to his death while trying to catch a ball at a Texas Rangers game. Last night, Keith Carmickle almost shared the same fate. In an attempt to catch a ball hit by Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder…
Continue reading …The GOP’s high-wire debt ceiling talks have turned a spotlight on the growing rivalry between John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the Washington Post observes. Until Sunday’s talks, Boehner had been pushing for a grand compromise, while Cantor categorically refused anything involving tax increases. Yesterday, Cantor insisted that he and Boehner…
Continue reading …It’s about as far away from Christmas as we can get, but much of the South and Midwest might feel like they’re roasting on an open fire. Heat advisories and warnings were issued yesterday for 17 states, reports the AP; that number increased to 22 states in the lower 48…
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Climate Reality Project aims to expose reality of global warming crisis and kicks off with a 24-hour live streamed event It should almost be called Inconvenient Truth 2.0. Five years after Al Gore launched his original documentary project, the former vice-president returned on Tuesday with a new campaign aimed at exposing the full scale of the climate crisis. Gore’s Climate Reality project announced it would kick off with a 24-hour live streamed event on 14 September. The day’s events will include a new multimedia presentation by Gore that will “connect the dots” between extreme weather events and climate change, a statement said. The campaign represents a modest comeback for Gore who has reduced his public profile on climate action in the past few years – probably out of consideration for the political consequences to his fellow Democrat Barack Obama. It is being launched four years after Inconvenient Truth, based on Gore’s climate change slide-show, won an Oscar for best documentary . The project made Gore the most visible advocate for action on climate change in the US – but it also made him an even greater target for the oil and coal lobby and Republicans. Republicans attacked Gore’s calls for climate action as a symbol of government excess. In recent years, the new conservative majority in the house of representatives has gone even further, casting almost any sort of environmental issue – including even a move to energy-saving bulbs – as an assault on personal freedom. But Gore came back into the spotlight last month in an essay in Rolling Stone in which he also accused Obama of failing to fight hard enough for climate action. Tuesday’s announcement, which echoed some of the themes in Gore’s Rolling Stone piece, suggests the former vice-president thinks the time has come for a broader fightback. “As the impacts of climate change are growing more prevalent, so is the resistance to finding the truth and implementing solutions. Just like the tobacco companies that spent decades in denial that smoking causes cancer, oil and coal companies are determined to sow denial and confusion about the science of climate change, ignore its impacts, and create apathy among our leaders,” the release said. “This event is the first step in a larger, multifaceted campaign to tell the truth about the climate crisis and reject the misinformation we hear every day.” Gore gave further details of the project in an interview with the climate blogger Joe Romm, saying the event would feature a new 30-minute slideshow with video on extreme weather events. Gore will host the event from New York City, but new content will be added to the slide show for the 24 locations used in each time zone. “Each site where a presentation originates will have basically the same 30-minute slide show, but with slides used in each time zone that illustrate particular impacts and particular efforts towards solutions at the venue representing than that time zone. And then the second 30 minutes of each hour will include a panel discussion focused on the climate crisis and the solutions to it from the perspective of leaders and scientists and others in that particular location. So it will be a 24-hour event,” he told Romm. Climate change Al Gore Activism Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
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Weeks of fierce fighting sees troops consolidate positions less than 100 miles from the capital, Tripoli A flattened lamp-post, two neat rows of bullets and a no-left-turn sign lying on the tarmac road mark the frontline in Libya’s western mountains. Nearby are seven young men, leaning against a battle-scarred building they say was once a guardhouse for Italian soldiers during the second world war. Another sits on a rock, gazing into the desert of no man’s land in search of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, said to be little more than a mile away. The advance in the Nafusa mountains has raised hopes of a significant breakthrough for rebels striving to reach Tripoli and topple Gaddafi. Whereas the battlefields in eastern Libya have reached a virtual stalemate, rebel soldiers have seized 25 miles of this arid, hot, rocky terrain in recent weeks, putting government troops on the defensive. But it is a hard campaign, an attritional struggle unlikely to meet Nato’s timetable for an end to the war, especially with a further slowdown expected for Ramadan next month. The rebels are forced to consolidate their incrementalgains before they can think about moving forward. The young men guarding the frontline post at Qawalish said Gaddafi’s troops tried to retake it two days ago and subject them to a nightly bombardment of Grad rockets, peaking from 11.30pm to 4am. “We are not scared,” said a 21-year-old, who gave his name as Ahmed, half-an-hour after another rocket had thudded into the earth nearby. “We are OK, we just take these things, we get used to it. It’s the Gaddafi army who’s afraid.” Sitting on a wooden crate of ammunition and wearing a Valencia football shirt, army trousers and trainers, Ahmed said he was risking his life for two reasons: “Democracy. Freedom.” Qawalish fell to the rebels a week ago as, mile by mile, they gradually push from west to east along the mountain ridge. On the road to the frontline the Guardian saw a series of ghost towns which were home to thousands of residents during peacetime. There were wrecked shop fronts and petrol stations, abandoned mosques, concrete buildings blackened by fire, cars blown upside down and tanks and rocket launchers apparently destroyed by Nato air strikes. Government soldiers who were not killed or captured during these battles appeared to have fled, leaving a trail of abandoned uniforms, boots and weapons still visible in the shade of trees where they once camped. Along roads the rebels used to move in on Qawalish, government forces planted 240 anti-personnel mines and 72 anti-tank mines, say Human Rights
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