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[Nigel Farage MEP on the Greek tragedy inflicted by the EU authoritarian madness...]

Noticias : Europa :: REINO UNIDO

2012

December

HM Queen Elizabeth II Christmas Message

Russian state 'involved in spy's death'.
Spanish link may shed light on motive for the killing of Mr Litvinenko

An official hearing into the murder of the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, has been told the government has evidence that Moscow was involved.
Mr Litvinenko died six years ago after he was poisoned with a radioactive substance.
Lawyers for his widow said that Britain had a duty to protect him because he was working for MI6 at the time.
The BBC's Security Correspondent, Gordon Corera, reports.

... more in the BBC - The Independent - The Telegraph - The Guardian - El Confidencial / And in the website of Alexandre LITVINENKO INQUEST
Read also:
Marina Litvinenko's fight for truth about spy husband's polonium murder: Six years ago Alexander Litvinenko died in agony. His widow believes the inquest into his murder next year may help reveal the truth about who killed him and why... [+]

UKIP Nigel Farage, BBC Breakfast interview responding to the Budget

BBC Newsnight - UKIP, A new political centre which represents the people

... more in UKIP website
Read also:
Enigma hero Alan Turing should be pardoned -indeed the Government could apologises-, leading scientists claim: Alan Turing, the British codebreaker, should be pardoned posthumously over his historic conviction for homosexuality, Prof Stephen Hawking and other leading scientists have said... [+]

November

Nigel Farage declares war on David Cameron over Ukip racism 'slur'

Nigel Farage has declared "war" on David Cameron over immigration policy after the the Prime Minister suggested some Ukip members may be racist.
The row over Ukip's stance on immigration blew up after a council took three foster children away from a couple on the grounds their support of the party was "racist".
Mr Cameron has previously said that Ukip members are mostly "closet racists" and Downing Street infuriated the party further by clarifying this weekend that not all Ukip members are racist.
Mr Farage today condemned the "slur", arguing it is not racist to believe in tighter border controls limiting immigration.
"[David Cameron] alone in British politics today continues to throw this slur at us that because we believe in not having our law set in Europe and controlling our borders that somehow that is racist. If he wants an electoral war with my party on his immigration open door policy he can have one," he told Sky News.
He said Ukip, which came third in the recent Corby by-election, would tackle the Prime Minister on his immigration policies in the run-up to 2015.

... more in The Telegraph - BBC - The Guardian - The Independent / more in UKIP

Read also:
Offshore secrets: BBC Panorama undercover reporting

On the 15th - Local Police & Crime Commissioner election Day - Vote UKIP

BBC Sunday politics with UKIP [United Kingdom Independence Party] Nigel Farage MEP

October

The EU Arrest Warrant serves Britain badly
Dealing with extradition cases costs the British state at least £27 million a year, and the crimes they deal with are often trivial

...it does not work smoothly or beneficently in most cases. One basic problem is that the European regulations have been interpreted by British courts to mean that they are not allowed to examine the merits of an extradition request, and that they must endorse it without checking whether it is supported by reliable evidence. As a result, British citizens have been extradited to countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, whose legal systems cannot be described as fair or free from the taint of corruption. Britons have ended up serving long sentences in ghastly prisons after trials that would never have resulted in guilty verdicts in the UK. Indeed, the allegations would never even have led to prosecutions.

There is a second problem with the warrant. Requests from other EU countries to extradite their own citizens living in Britain have risen fourfold over the past three years, clogging up our courts and costing British taxpayers millions. Last year, 1,355 people were sent for trial in other EU countries by British courts under the warrant. Dealing with these cases costs the British state at least £27 million. As our reporters – who attended two days of typical extradition proceedings in court – discovered, the court process itself is chronically inefficient and cumbersome. Most cases are adjourned because critical people or documents cannot be located. Moreover, some of the offences for which extradition is requested are trivial: in one case, for instance, a Pole living in Britain was wanted by the Polish authorities for stealing a wheelbarrow and tools worth just £60; in another, the Poles sought the extradition of one of their citizens because he had failed to pay a fine.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, the British Government has the option of opting out of more than 100 EU regulations relating to extradition and transnational justice. If we opted out of everything, then we could decide which of those regulations we want to opt back into. That is the strategy which David Cameron and the Coalition seem committed to following. We applaud the Prime Minister and the Cabinet for their desire to remedy an unacceptable situation, but the question has to be asked: why has it taken so long? The German courts have for several years operated a “proportionality test” before devoting time and energy to extradition cases: the extradition request has to be for a serious crime, rather than a trivial one. That cuts down the amount of money and time the German courts devote to extradition cases significantly, and if a similar test were introduced here, it would have the effect of reducing a sizeable proportion of the cases that occupy our courts. The Germans instituted their test without opting out of anything: they simply noted that the principle of proportionality is part of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, and used that as the basis for employing the test. This proportionality rule has the additional benefit of allowing the Germans to consider the cost and effort of formal extradition before proceeding.

The Dutch, meanwhile, have acted to ensure that Dutch citizens cannot be extradited for actions that are not crimes in Holland, and the French appear simply never to extradite a French citizen for trial in a foreign country. No sanctions have been imposed on either country by the EU authorities. Indeed, they appear to condone, or at least tolerate, the French and Dutch practices. Why have we not followed the German, French and Dutch examples? It would be the easiest way to protect our citizens from the injustices that the European Arrest Warrant can bring, and to stop our courts’ time being wasted on trivial extradition requests.

All the same, the British Government is right to take on the European Arrest Warrant at the most fundamental level: the way the law itself was made. The law and its associated regulations illustrate the basic problem with EU regulations. They have no democratic mandate. They are not made by an elected body but by a committee appointed in secret that sits in secret. Laws made in that fashion can never command the legitimacy they need to have if citizens are to respect and to obey them. That is why the Government is right to reject the EU justice regulations en masse, opting back in only to those that will be endorsed by the British people.
...more in The Telegraph
Read also:
Julian Assange threatens to make the EU look good: The case against Europe’s extradition system is being hurt by the WikiLeaks founder's dissembling ... [+]

How Britain pays £27m a year to return EU’s wheelbarrow thieves: The number of people brought before British courts to be extradited to European countries has almost quadrupled in just three years, new figures show today... [+]

Europe to charge Britain for exiting policing laws: Britain could be handed a bill running into millions of pounds if MPs vote to take back almost 140 policing and justice powers from Europe... [+]

Germany shocks EU with fiscal overlord demand: Germany has stated its exorbitant price for keeping Greece in the euro and agreeing to mass bond purchases by the European Central Bank... [+]

British doctor charged over double kidnap in Syria to appear in court: A British doctor will appear in court today after being charged with terrorism offences following the kidnapping of a photographer and his colleague in Syria... [+]

Unemployment falls to 15-month low: Jobless rate down to 7.9% as number of people out of work falls 50,000 to 2.528 million, the ONS says... [+]

Gary McKinnon feels 'set free' after US extradition decision: Hacker describes his sense of liberation after the home secretary announced she would not send him to the US for trial... [+]

September

A new optimism for Britain

August

Daniel Hannan - A Deal With United Kingdom Independence Party [Nigel Farage]

Read also:
UKIP 2012 Annual Conference ... [+]

UKIP's Nigel Farage plans to make more impact at polls ... [+]

Together, let's build a brighter future for our children: UKIP's candidate for the upcoming by-election in Corby and East Northants is local businesswoman and mother-of-two Margot Parker.
Margot has lived in Corby and East Northants for 18 years, and in the area all her life. Her father came down from Scotland to look for work, and carved a life for himself and his family of seven – through hard work and dedication... [+]

We Only Ask Peace among Nations - Voxpop & The Swingle Singers

...more in Perfil

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the murdered Russian spy, has called on Londoners to wear a white ribbon in protest at the visit of Vladimir Putin to the Olympics.

Marina Litvinenko, whose husband was poisoned with radioactive polonium 210 at a London hotel in December 2006, said she was “dismayed” at the news that Mr Putin had decided to attend the Olympics.
Mrs Litvinenko called Mr Putin a “Russian dictator” and accused him of ordering her husband’s murder and rigging last year’s Russian elections.
She said she could see “no logic or consistency” in banning Alexander Lukashenko, the Byelorussian president dubbed “Europe’s last dictator”, from Britain but allowing Mr Putin to visit.
She said: “Mr Putin's agents killed my husband, a British citizen, in the center of the British capital and contaminated hundreds of innocent people with radioactive poison - not to mention that he has rigged Russian election, suppressed free speech, beat protesters and jailed dissidents exactly the same way as Mr Lukashenko did.”
Mrs Litvinenko, who still lives in London with her son, urged her fellow Londoners to put on a white ribbon, the symbol of Russian protest, on the day Mr Putin arrives on Thursday, saying it would be “an appropriate way to greet” the Russian president... [+]

July

Nigel Farage: The time will never be right for David Cameron to hold a referendum on the EU
The Prime Minister should explain why Britain can’t vote on continued membership of the failing European Union

I have had enough of being told that we will have an EU referendum “when the time is right”. The time has come for a real debate: I challenge the Prime Minister to debate with me why he will not give us a say on our relationship with the European Union.
Anyone following David Cameron’s recent twists and turns on the EU could be forgiven for feeling dizzy. At one time, there was a “cast-iron guarantee” of a referendum. Then, last year, he three-line-whipped Conservative MPs to oppose the idea of holding one. Events last week did nothing to add clarity. On Friday in Brussels, with Angela Merkel looming over him, we were told that there would be no referendum. But 48 hours later, in an article in The Sunday Telegraph, he suggested that a referendum might be a possibility, though not just yet.
There is one note of total consistency. On at least half a dozen occasions, the Prime Minister has been clear that there will not be – must not be – a choice of whether we stay in or leave the EU.
The explanation is that it is in our interests to remain a member, so it does not matter what voters think. It’s a case of “I, David Cameron, have made up my mind.” This assertion, shared by almost the entire political class, must be questioned in an open debate. Those of us who have dared to challenge the consensus have been mocked and derided, but opinion polls now show that the British people do not want to be part of a political union.
The Prime Minister overstates the benefits of EU membership. I believe we would be better off out. My parents’ generation voted to remain a part of a Common Market which they believed to be a free-trade agreement that would not impinge on our rights of self-government. We were conned in 1975 and we must not allow that to be repeated today.

...read the excellent article by Nigel Farage in The Telegraph - IF YOU CARE FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE UK and in the EU support United Kingdom Independence Party
Read also:
Finlandia dice que prefiere abandonar el euro antes que pagar las deudas de otros ...[+]

Europe: There’s only one question: 'Are we in or out?’: Any effort to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU is just a smokescreen... [+]

EU Summit: How Germany reacted to Merkel's 'defeat': For the first time in years, following this week's European summit in Brussels Angela Merkel has returned to Germany defeated - with the newspapers saying she has been 'blackmailed' and suffered an 'evil setback'...[+]

Francois Hollande announces French tax grab on holiday homes: British owners of holiday homes in France are to be hit with punitive tax rises under plans announced by the new Socialist government... [+]

British taxpayers will be ordered to pay an extra £350 million to fund the European Union next year after a behind-the-scenes deal in Brussels which left the UK powerless to resist the increase... [+]

June

Queen Elizabeth meets victims of IRA bombing en her first day tour of Northern Ireland

The Queen has met relatives of the victims of an IRA bombing in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, 25 years ago.
Enniskillen was the scene of one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles when 11 people were killed on Remembrance Sunday in 1987.
The Queen and Prince Philip are on a two-day visit to Northern Ireland as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour.
They have also attended a service of thanksgiving to mark her 60-year reign.
The meeting with Enniskillen bomb families included those injured in the atrocity.
Stephen Gault was injured in the bombing and his father, Samuel, was killed.
He said he was honoured to have met the Queen.
"It highlights the point that the Enniskillen victims will not be forgotten, when Her Majesty the Queen made time in her hectic schedule, in her Jubilee year to come to Enniskillen," he said.
He said he was "not that bothered" about the prospect of former IRA leader and Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness shaking the monarch's hand "as long as it didn't happen in Enniskillen".
"I would have been a bridge too far to actually have the handshake in Enniskillen... after what happened in 1987," he said.
Earlier, thousands of people lined the streets to welcome the couple after their flight was delayed for about an hour due to bad weather.

... more in the BBC - The Guardian - The Telegraph - The Independent

UKIP Nigel Farage & Red Ken Livingstone on collapsing Eurozone

>
...more in the United Kingdom Independence Party
Read also:
Dithering Europe is heading for the democratic dark ages: A Greek economy run by Brussels will ignore the lessons of history, leading to more misery, writes Boris Johnson... [+]

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee: Guide to the weekend of events

The Queen is marking her Diamond Jubilee this year and celebrations reach a peak in early June with a four-day weekend of events, between Saturday 2 and Tuesday 5 June.
The late May bank holiday has been moved to Monday 4 June and there is an additional Jubilee bank holiday on 5 June.
You can download a PDF version of this guide (2.74MB), to print out and keep.

Saturday 2:
The Queen attends the Epsom Derby on its second day. Organisers expect more than 200,000 people to attend the horse-racing event, which normally attracts 135,000 race-goers...

Sunday 3:
The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant will be one of the highlights of the weekend celebrations. At high water (about 14:00BST) more than 1,000 boats traditional and modern will escort the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh aboard a specially decorated royal barge down the River Thames...

Monday 4:
A special concert organised by the BBC and singer Gary Barlow will be held at Buckingham Palace. It will be attended by the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and other members of the Royal Family in the surroundings of the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. Guests, who were granted tickets by ballot, will also be invited to attend a Jubilee picnic in the Buckingham Palace Gardens. The concert will begin at 19:30BST...

Tuesday 5:
The final day of the Diamond Jubilee weekend will be marked by a national service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral attended by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. There will be a special prayer for the Diamond Jubilee. This will be followed by two receptions, a lunch at Westminster Hall and a carriage procession to Buckingham Palace, with a balcony appearance and a fly-past.

The Queen and other members of the royal family will attend the Service of Thanksgiving marking the Diamond Jubilee at St Paul's Cathedral in the morning. The service, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, will include a special prayer for the Diamond Jubilee. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will be taken to a short reception at Mansion House while the rest of the congregation attends a reception at Guildhall... [+] ...visit also the web of The Royal Museums Greenwich

Read also:
Pomp and pageantry on the Thames: Without the River Thames, London would not be the city it is today. In past centuries it helped commerce and trade grow, but also was used to stage grand events and regal ceremonies... [+]

Prince Charles shares archive of Queen in BBC documentary...
Never-before-seen footage of the Royal family, including home movies of and by the Queen, are to be shown in a BBC documentary - in a tribute by the Prince of Wales to his mother.
In it, Prince Charles shares his family memories, providing insight into Queen Elizabeth's public and private life.
The Queen is celebrating her Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60 years on the throne.

The programme will be broadcast on BBC One on Friday evening.
The documentary includes footage - filmed by the Queen - of nine-year-old Charles and his younger sister Princess Anne on a family beach holiday in Norfolk in 1957... [+]

Prince Charles at 60: The Passionate Prince

Tory peer Baroness Warsi and her secret business: the Conservative Party chairman, faces damaging new questions over her business dealings... [+]

Senior Liberal Democrats in secret talks with Labour: Nick Clegg has suffered a fresh headache after it emerged that senior Liberal Democrats are holding secret talks with Labour with a view to closer co-operation between the two parties in the future... [+]

Duke of Edinburgh rushed to hospital with bladder infection, Buckingham Palace announces: HRH Prince Philip has been taken to hospital suffering from a bladder infection and will miss the remainder of the Jubilee celebrations, Buckingham Palace has announced... [+]

Olympic opening ceremony will recreate countryside with real animals: Director Danny Boyle reveals plans for London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, including village cricket, maypoles and rain ... [+]

Public spaces in Britain's cities fall into private hands: Projects such as London's new outdoor space, Granary Square at King's Cross, favour business over community, say critics... [+]

May

Princess Michael’s assassinated friend was in conflict with Russian ministry

A Russian friend of Princess Michael of Kent who was shot dead by a hit man had become embroiled in a conflict with his country’s interior ministry, it emerged on Monday night.
Mikhail Kravchenko, 46, was gunned down on the outskirts of Moscow on Sunday after his business was raided by officers from the ministry’s economic crime unit.
A fellow businessman said Kravchenko, who was pictured holding hands with Princess Michael during a holiday in Venice, had been a target because competitors were eager to get their hands on his property portfolio, built around his successful March 8 furniture brand.
On Monday, Princess Michael, 67, went ahead with a pre-planned trip to Chelsea Flower Show, where she accompanied the Queen and other members of the Royal family, despite being “very distressed” by her friend’s death.
The Princess was forced to deny rumours of an affair with Kravchenko six years ago when they were seen walking hand in hand through Venice, where she had booked into a hotel under an assumed name. At one point she was photographed stroking her young friend’s cheek.
Her husband, Prince Michael, also has connections in Russia and admitted earlier this month he had accepted £320,000 in secret payments from the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a leading critic of President Vladimir Putin.
...more in The Telegraph - Perfil
Read also:
Mikhail Kravchenko, Russian tycoon friend of Princess Michael of Kent, shot dead in Moscow: A long-standing friend of Princess Michael of Kent was found shot dead in a Moscow suburb yesterday morning... [+]

Dr. David Ison appointed new Dean at St Paul's Cathedral:

The Very Rev Dr David Ison, dean of Bradford, will take up post in May after predecessor resigned in row over Occupy camp...
...Ison, who is married with four children, has been dean of Bradford since 2005. He said: "My appointment as dean of St Paul's has been as unexpected for me as the vacancy itself was unanticipated.
"The upheavals of the last few months at St Paul's, and the underlying spiritual, social, economic and political issues which they highlight for our country, are very much on the agenda for the cathedral in London – but they are also issues for people, churches and cathedrals across the country.
"Even Bradford has had an Occupy camp, although it was in front of City Hall rather than at the cathedral."
The bishop of Bradford, the Right Rev Nick Baines, said: "I am delighted that St Paul's Cathedral is to have as its new dean a man of such warmth, ability and stature as David Ison.

... [+] and in Christian Today

Tories urge Cameron to push for growth:
Conservative MPs are stepping up pressure on David Cameron to use this week’s Queen’s Speech to unveil a radical pro-growth agenda.

Even Conservative members who back the Prime Minister’s current strategy said senior Tories must change the Government’s message and stop scoring “own goals”.
The Telegraph spoke to MPs from across the party in the wake of last week’s local election results, which saw the Tories lose more than 400 seats in local government.
The Conservatives secured just 31 per cent of the vote, down nine points from the equivalent elections in 2008. Labour took 38 per cent.
Bernard Jenkin, the veteran backbencher, warned that Tories risk losing the next general election unless there was urgent change.
He said that if the Coalition remained wedded to plans for House of Lords reform it risked “electoral oblivion”... [+]

Queen's Speech: Cameron criticsed for lack of growth plans ... [+]

50 agents face DNA tests over spy-in-the-bag killing as coroner brands death 'unlawful' and puts MI6 in the frame

15 colleagues of Gareth Williams have already given DNA evidence. Coroner: 'It is unlikely the spy's death will ever be satisfactorily explained'. Dr Fiona Wilcox says lack of compelling evidence removes possibility of unlawful killing verdict but says it is probable his death was 'illegal'. 'It would appear that many agencies fell short' during the investigation. Coroner: British Secret Service's involvement 'still a legitimate line of inquiry'. MI6 chief apologises 'unreservedly' to Mr Williams' family over the way the police inquiry was hampered by his colleagues. Family pay emotional tribute to their 'special and adored son and brother' and blast MI6's 'reluctance and failure' in helping detectives ... [+]

The beguiling power of mystery that can make us forget a family's pain: Our desire for life to be dramatic can lead us to merge real-life stories such as the death of Gareth Williams into fiction ... [+]

Why the Gareth Williams case could have disastrous consequences for Britain's cyber security ... [+]

Lawrence Web for London Major
To change for the better, vote UKIP
[United Kingdom Independence Party]

... more information in the website of UKIP / and in LondonElects.org.uk

April

The stupid economy - No savings and no growth

A great Queen's birthday

Dozens of cannons fired into the air at the Tower of London, Hyde Park, York's Museum Gardens, Portsmouth Harbour, Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle.
The Queen spent the day celebrating privately at Windsor Castle, where she often spends weekends.
The ceremonies come in the year of June's Diamond Jubilee, which will mark the monarch's 60 years on the throne.
Her official birthday is celebrated in that month.

Large crowds watched the gunfire, with more than 1,000 observing the 41 gun salute in Hyde Park.
Some 80 Irish draft horses were used to pull six World War I-era guns into position. ... [+]

The Cutty Sark returns to the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Opening by HM the Queen on Wednesday 25th April morning

...more at http://www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark/ / BBC

Robert Redford and Prince Charles at Sundance-London Film and Music Festival launch: ... [+]

Sundance London to host Royal Premiere of Harmony: A New Way Of Looking At Our World by Prince Charles ... [+]

30th Anniversary of the fascist invasion of the Falkland Islands

A total of 255 British servicemen and about 650 Argentines died after the UK sent a task force following the Argentine invasion on 2 April 1982.
In a statement, Mr Cameron also said that he remained committed to upholding British sovereignty over the islands.
Meanwhile, the Royal Navy has confirmed one of its newest warships, HMS Dauntless, will leave the UK on Wednesday for a six-month routine deployment in the South Atlantic.
Britain has controlled the Falklands since 1833 but Argentina claims the territory - which it calls the Malvinas - saying it inherited rights to them from Spain.
This demagogic claim is a fallacy because Argentina became independent from Spain on the basis of people's auto-determination, therefore the Argentina government if it was honest should recognise the same right to auto-determination to the British people of the Falklands. The other false argument is that Spain discovered the Falklands when it was an English mariner, Mr John Strong, a century earlier than a first Spaniard set food on a Falkland island.
The true is that the fascist dictatorship ruling by terror Argentina in 1982, aimed to extend its power by betting on populist feelings of the mass. If Britain would not had been faithful to democratic principles which stand on the sine qua non condition that a state ought to defend the fundamental rights of every citizen, then the fascist dictatorship of Argentina would have call elections in the certainty that the masses would have vote the military for taking the Falklands.

...more in the BBC - AlJazeera - The Guardian - The Independent - The Telegraph
Read also:

Port Stanley remembers victims of Falklands War: Falklands veterans and current members of the Islands' Defence Force mark 30 years since their local military were mobilized ahead of the 1982 war between the UK and fascist Argentina...
Short, victorious war: On April 2nd 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The war Britain fought to recover them still colours domestic politics...

March

'Shock' over witchcraft murderer Eric Bikubi ... and other simiilar crimes

People who knew 28-year-old Eric Bikubi have spoken of their shock to learn that the promising football coach killed a teenager believing him to be a witch.
On Thursday, Bikubi and his girlfriend Magalie Bamu were found guilty of murdering her 15-year-old brother Kristy Bamu.
Kristy, from Paris, who was visiting his sister, drowned in a bath in a flat in Newham, east London, on Christmas Day in 2010.
He was tortured to produce exorcism, an Old Bailey jury heard.

...A 15-year-old boy is tortured to death for witchcraft. In London. In 2010. And the private reaction of police and social workers? Quiet despair. It’s happened before and will happen again.
The boy, Kristy Bamu, was hit in the mouth with a hammer, had his ear twisted with pliers, had bottles smashed over his head, and was finally drowned in the bath by his sister, Magalie, and her boyfriend, Eric Bikubi.
The Metropolitan Police waited until after the end of the court case to warn us that children are being abused and murdered in increasing numbers in Britain because their African relatives think they are “spirit children” – that is, witches.
Also, children’s charities and campaigners “urged communities to report abuse and said social workers must be firmer in confronting abuse in immigrant groups”.
...more in the BBC - The Telegraph - The Guardian - Le Figaro - Afrik.com
Read also:
Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case...

February

Group of Argentinean intellectuals demand the Peronist government to acknowledge the right of the British citizens settled in the Falklands Islands to decide their future, a right that founded Argentina as an independent nation

Para Beatriz Sarlo, los isleños son sujetos de derecho y deben ser reconocidos.
Parte del grupo de intelectuales que firmó el documento crítico por Malvinas, la ensayista pidió incluir a los kelpers en la discusión bilateral.

...more in Perfil - Clarín - La Nación - Pagina 12
Read also:
Una idea distinta sin que se caiga el mundo: Otro argumento sobre las Islas provocó la crítica paraoficial. Temor a que pensar diferente sea peligroso...
Falklands tension: Argentina turns away cruise ships...

2nd of April (*)
(1982; in Memory of a dictatorship's War to retain power)

A few days after the defeat of the Falklands War, I had the sad opportunity to be among the first clinical staff who treated the soldiers arriving from the islands; this was in the Service of Psychiatry of the Regional Hospital of my city, Commodore Rivadavia.

I still recall the climate of oppression, uneasiness and sadness, in a background of anguish silence, while we observed perplex and scared, the landing of helicopters bringing so many young people; who were distributed to various services in the hospital, according to the symptoms they show.

In Psychiatry, the silence was suffocating. We receive the boys, placing them in in the beds available within different rooms; the majority of them were in a state of stupor, constituting a nightmare scene that I shall never forget.

I still remember that, as soon as they start to recover the faculty of speech, the predominant memories revolved around these subjects: how kindly the British had treated them (“they gave us to eat, doctor”, they said), about the strength of the British (“you can imagine how big were the knapsacks they carried”), about the harsh conditions endured in the war (the trenches, the climate, the mistreatments), as they tried to communicate the incredible experience.

One of them asked me to touch the handkerchief of a Gurkha tied to his the neck (“touch it, doctor, touch it”), still surprised to be alive.

Another one, walked excited, repeating: “we could have won”, looking impotent with a rage that I still remember.

The majority of recruits stay in their respective beds, in a still position, with their eyes shut in silence.

I felt, as all my colleagues did, a tremendous pain. I felt shame.

I also felt, a humiliating impotence. I felt that I was witnessing, again, the consequences of the ruthless and cruel exercise of a dictatorship's dark power. I felt, like never before, what the word filicide means.

I felt that the damage was beyond repair.

And I still feel that way.

Dr. Miguel Ángel de Boer.
Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut , Argentine
2nd April 2001
(*) Published in local newspapers and in “Pagina 12”, “Clarin” and other national media in the month of April of the 2001

Phone hacking network to benefit Rupert Murdoch media empire: 54 MPs and peers in Glenn Mulcaire notebooks seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking, contain details of 54 current and former MPs and peers, the detective leading the investigation has disclosed...

UN: drug gangs controlling parts of British cities: Parts of British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control, a United Nations drugs chief said today...

Sir Mervyn King accuses banks of profiting at taxpayers' expense by rigging lending: The Governor of the Bank of England has accused Britain's banks of trying to profit at the taxpayer's expense by rigging the Treasury's attempts to boost small business lending...

Celebrating Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee

The Queen has said she is dedicating herself "anew to your service", as she marks the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.
In a message, she also said she felt "deeply moved" by the support shown for her Diamond Jubilee.
It will be marked by several events, with the main celebrations in June.
The Queen, 85, usually spends Accession Day - the day her father, George VI, died in 1952 - privately but this year has two engagements in Norfolk.
This year's anniversary will be marked by visits to King's Lynn Town Hall and the nearby Dersingham Infant and Nursery School.
Crowds are expected to gather to greet the Queen, despite the cold conditions.
Two official photographs are being released and a 41-gun salute will be held in Hyde Park, London, followed by a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London.
During her reign over the UK and Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II has seen 11 prime ministers come and go, with David Cameron her 12th.
Mr Cameron praised the "magnificent service" given by the Queen and called her a "source of wisdom and continuity".
"With experience, dignity and quiet authority she has guided and united our nation and the Commonwealth over six varied decades," he said.
One former Prime Minister, John Major, reflected on the counsel of the Queen and the many private meetings he had with her during his premiership during an interview on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
He said: "Most of the present cabinet weren't born when the Queen became monarch. So there's very little she hasn't seen, very little she doesn't understand. And anyone who doesn't listen to her view and consult her when necessary is missing a huge opportunity."
Meanwhile, Sir John has formally launched the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust to help those in need across the Commonwealth.
He will chair the grant-making body, which will focus on areas such as fighting curable diseases and the promotion of education and culture.

...more in the BBC - The Telegraph - The Guardian - The Independent - El Mundo - The Washington Post - Press Association
Visit the website of The British Monarchy

Read also:
To mark the Diamond Jubilee, Greenwich has been given 'Royal Borough' status, with celebrations taking place this weekend.

UK sends warship to protect Brisith citizens living in the Falkland Islands
The Argentine president and her empire in the south: Argentine President Cristina Kirchner has been quick to accuse Britain of 'imperialism'. But, as Ian Mount and Philip Sherwell write, she has been creating a rather impressive empire of her own...

Leveson Inquiry: Evidence suggests 'network of corrupt officials': Police are investigating a "network of corrupt officials" as part of their inquiries into phone hacking and police corruption, a media inquiry has heard...

Rupert Murdoch's Sun established 'network of corrupted officials', Sue Akers tells Leveson: Police officer leading investigation into bribery and hacking at News International tells inquiry of 'culture of illegal payments'...

January

Fascist Peronist's colonialism over Falklands Islands

Last month, a powerful South American trading bloc announced a ban on ships flying the Falklands Island flag from docking at ports. Tensions are high as the 30th anniversary of the 1982 Falklands War approaches.
Mr Cameron said that Britain's National Security Council had discussed the issue and ensured that all defences were in order in the British-held South Atlantic archipelago.
"The key point is we support the Falkland Islanders' right to self-determination, and what the Argentinians have been saying recently, I would argue is actually far more like colonialism because these people want to remain British and the Argentinians want them to do something else," he said at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.
"I'm determined we should make sure that our defences and everything else is in order, which is why the National Security Council discussed this issue yesterday."
He added: "The absolutely vital point is that we are clear that the future of the Falkland Islands is a matter for the people themselves, and as long as they want to remain part of the United Kingdom and be British they should be able to do so."

Editor's note: It is to highlight that Argentina was founded, as a nation, on the principle of auto-determination, the same principle that the Peronists -as did earlier the military dictatorship- want now to deny to the British citizens settled for centuries in the Falklands Islands.

...more in The Telegraph - The Guardian - The Independent - BBC - Penguin News

Read also:
Complacency over the Falklands could cost Britain dear: The mandarins in Whitehall should take more seriously Argentina's renewed interest in the South Atlantic islands...
Once again, Britain must show Argentina that it is a serious nation: We are in danger of losing the prestige that victory in the Falklands conflict brought...Argentina badly misread our character. We must leave them in no doubt that we are still the people we were.
Royal Navy to send HMS Dauntless to Falkland Islands: The Royal Navy’s most sophisticated warship is being sent to the South Atlantic in a move that will send a powerful message to Argentina...
Las Falkland Islands or Malvinas: ese oscuro objeto del deseo: ...En 1690 el inglés John Strong incursionó en el área...
Queen needs Prince Philip at her side - Prince Harry

The Falklands war

2011

December

The Queen's Christmas message 2011
In her traditional televised Christmas message, the Queen said she had been "inspired by the courage and hope" the royal family had witnessed in Britain and the Commonwealth in 2011.

..more in the BCC - The Telegraph - The Guardian - Al Jazeera
Prince Philip in 'good spirits' after surgery: Buckingham Palace says 90-year-old Duke of Edinburgh will remain under observation after heart procedure.

Tory minister breaks ranks with Cameron over Europe
Owen Paterson's call for a UK referendum if the EU agrees major treaty changes is also endorsed by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

A cabinet minister has intensified the pressure on the prime minister by saying that there will have to be a referendum in the UK if treaty revisions are agreed by EU leaders.
In an interview with the Spectator, Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary and a leading Eurosceptic, broke ranks with David Cameron's carefully crafted position before Thursday's Brussels summit, when leaders will attempt to stabilise the eurozone.
Cameron's line came under further pressure when the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, also entered the fray, calling for a referendum and saying that allowing the eurozone countries to create a closer fiscal union was a mistake – even though the prime minister has said he is in favour of closer fiscal union in the eurozone.

...more in The Guardian - BBC - Al Jazeera - The Telegraph - The Independent - El Mundo - France 24

God save the Queen!

'Big Issue' photographic exhibition celebrates 20 years

Iranian opposition student groups condemn storming of British embassy
Tahkim Vahdat and Advar Tahkim claim the Tehran attack was carried out by those associated with the Islamic regime

Two opposition student organisations in Iran have condemned the storming of the British embassy, claiming those behind it were associated with the Islamic regime.
Tahkim Vahdat and Advar Tahkim, groups with some influence among Iranian students, have issued separate statements criticising the attack that triggered one of the worst crises in bilateral ties between Tehran and London since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"The office of Tahkim Vahdat condemns the attack at the British embassy – the attackers were not true representative of Iranian students, they were affiliated with the authorities in power," the statement said, according to Kalame.com, a website close to the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi.
"The [local] media portrayed the attackers as a group of students but people associated with pressure groups and some forces from the revolutionary guards were seen among them who have no affiliation to students," it added.
Tahkim Vahdat was originally created in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution as a conservative Islamist student organisation aimed at combating secular movements. At the time, many of its members were involved in the seizure of the US embassy and the hostage crisis.

...more in Al Jazeera - BBC - The Guardian - France 24 - El Mundo - Die Spiegel - La Repubblica

November

Cameron may have more leverage in Europe than he thinks

There's just over a week to go until the crunch EU summit on 8-9 December, so David Cameron has to decide how best to play his cards — and quick. The problem, as Daniel Korski has pointed out, is that Britain faces the risk of ‘structural isolation’ in Europe in the short-term. To counter this, Cameron effectively has two options. First, work with allies on both sides of the euro divide to seek political assurances — formal or informal — against the formation of a two-tier Europe with a more integrated eurozone in the driving seat. Or, second, press ahead with UK-specific carve-outs from the EU structure.
The former would be supported by euro ‘ins’ (including Germany, to a certain extent) and ‘outs’ alike, but essentially involves seeking to lock in the status quo — which may prove futile given the rapidly worsening euro crisis abroad, as well as public opinion at home. The latter would be more in line with events and public opinion, but faces strong opposition from even natural allies such as Sweden, who want London’s help to keep the EU-27 intact.
To date, Cameron has been notably inconsistent. He has stated that his over-arching aim is to safeguard the single market, while simultaneously seeking to explore UK-specific assurances over intrusive EU financial rules — which, by definition, would fragment the single market (his lecturing of the eurozone has also been thoroughly unhelpful). Clearly, he needs to be smarter than this moving forward.
...more in The Spectator - The Telegraph - BBC - Al Jazeera - The Guardian

Euro crisis 'opportunity for UK' to reclaim powers

EU debt crisis: European Union in peril without reform, warns David Cameron
The European Union is in “peril” unless leaders grasp the “opportunity” presented by the single currency crisis to reform the institution, David Cameron has warned.
The Prime Minister insisted that leaving the EU was “not in our national interest” but said he felt “very personally” that now was the time for a fundamental reconsideration of European relations.
The intervention, in Mr Cameron's annual foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, came after Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, called for stronger political union and warned that Europe faced its “toughest hour since World War Two”.
A senior German minister suggested that a European government could be elected by voters from across the continent.
There were also growing indications that Mrs Merkel may call a German referendum on plans to strengthen political ties within the EU, in a move that would make it difficult for Mr Cameron to continue to resist calls for a referendum.
On Monday, the markets gave a sceptical welcome to the new Italian government after Mario Monti was appointed Prime Minister. The cost of Italian bonds rose and the value of the euro fell. There were fears the crisis will spread to Spain where the cost of government borrowing rose to more than six per cent. The country will hold elections this weekend and the new administration is expected to quickly announce austerity plans, or Spain may be forced to seek a bail-out.
...more in The Telegraph - The Guardian - BBC

Read also:
Germany's secret plans to derail a British referendum on the EU: Germany has drawn up secret plans to prevent a British referendum on the overhaul of the European Union amid concerns it could derail the eurozone rescue package, leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph disclose.
Eurozone crisis to dominate Cameron talks with Merkel
New Austerity Incites a Bitterness the Postwar Generation Did Without

Collapse of the euro 'will help Britain’

Britain will be better off in five years’ time if the eurozone breaks up than if the single currency survives the debt crisis, research suggests today.
The disorderly break-up of the euro would mean a short, sharp economic shock and probably a recession, but would be followed by a quicker return to strong economic growth, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
As European governments struggle to keep the eurozone together, Greek political leaders last night sealed a pact to form a national unity government after George Papandreou, the prime minister, announced his imminent resignation under pressure from a European ultimatum.
David Cameron will today tell MPs that the failure of eurozone leaders to resolve the debt crisis is harming the economy, and will warn that the break-up of the single currency would be even more damaging.
However, CEBR economists suggest that the demise of the euro would “not be anything like the disaster that has been argued”.
Freed from the constraints of the single currency, strong countries such as Germany would see their currencies gain in price in relation to the pound, boosting British exports.

...more in The Telegraph - Al Jazeera - BBC

October

HM Queen Elizabeth II visit Australia

...more in BBC - ABC - the web of The British Monarchy

Rally at Parliament Square in London
Monday 24th October at 12 noon
To regain Freedom, Democracy & Justice from undemocratic EU shackles
Please take care of British values attending this rally
...more information at UKIP web

And please ACT NOW : ask your MP to vote YES for an overdue REFERENDUM to decide if a majority of people want to regain Fairness, Democracy and Justice from the EU ever growing corporatism.

Litvinenko's poisoners 'made a big mistake'
Five years after the Russian dissident's death, his widow has won a full inquiry into his murder. She tells why she's determined to get justice – even if it means taking on the Russian state

Five years ago a little-known Russian dissident met two friends in a hotel in London's Mayfair. His name was Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko sat with his companions, businessmen Andrey Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, in the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar. (The room is a bit pokey. Litvinenko's alcove table no longer exists; a large piano has been tactfully parked there instead.)
What happened next is the stuff of cold war fiction. According to Scotland Yard, Lugovoi slipped polonium-210 – a rare isotope – into Litvinenko's tea. Litvinenko drank the green tea, or at least some of it. Later that evening he felt violently ill. At first his symptoms resembled E coli. Then the truth emerged: he had been radioactively poisoned.
The infamous Pine Bar meeting happened on 1 November 2006. Litvinenko's painful death three weeks later sparked headlines around the world and a major crisis in British-Russian relations. From his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of plotting his murder; the Kremlin reacted angrily, complaining that London was "politicising" the situation.
Detectives, meanwhile, made an extraordinary discovery: a trail of polonium billowing across central London. Whoever came up with the murder plot must have calculated that the obscure isotope was untraceable. In fact, investigators found the equivalent of footprints in the snow. They tracked polonium to Lugovoi's hotel room, to his plane seat, and to northern Germany, where Kotvun stayed before he flew on to London. The clues pointed in one sinister direction: Moscow.
Five years on, Litvinenko's widow Marina is no closer to achieving any form of justice for Sasha, as she calls her murdered husband. The British authorities requested Lugovoi's extradition back in May 2007. Since then they have got nowhere. Lugovoi remains in Moscow, protected by the Russian state and, it seems, by Putin personally. He is a deputy in Russia's Duma, the lower parliament – a sign of Kremlin patronage – having made an unlikely CV leap from alleged assassin to anti-British, nationalist politician.
...more in The Guardian

September

Cameron meeting Putin is a 'historical mistake', says exiled Russian tycoon: Boris Berezovsky

Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has warned David Cameron that his decision to meet Vladimir Putin is a "historical mistake" that will lead to more bloodshed inside the country.
Russian dissidents and exiles are urging the prime minister to raise Russia's disastrous human rights record in his talks with the country's leadership. Cameron is due to hold a day of talks in Russia on Monday, accompanied by two dozen British businessmen, as the two countries seek to revive a relationship all but frozen in the wake of the London killing of the Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
"The longer you speak with the gangster head of a country, the more victims there will be in the end, until these cannibals are erased from the story," Berezovsky said in a telephone interview from London.
Cameron is due to hold talks with Putin on Monday, the first British premier to do so since Tony Blair met the powerful leader in mid-2007.
Russian-British relations had plunged to new lows following the 2006 murder by polonium poisoning of Litvinenko in London. Russia continues to refuse British requests to extradite the chief suspect in the murder, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, who received parliamentary immunity inside Russia after being elected to an MP post following the attack.
"Cameron is not the first politician to face such a choice – to speak or not to speak with the criminal leader of a country," Berezovsky said. "It's the same as when the West decided to speak with Gaddafi," he said. "History always provides the answer – it is a historical mistake."

...more in The Guardian - The Independent - The Telegraph - BBC
Read also:
PM urged by former foreign secretaries to raise corruption with Putin and Medvedev
To Vladimir Putin, David Cameron is a useful idiot: Russia badly needs democratic reform. But Cameron's day- tripping pragmatism will only strengthen Putin's autocratic grip...
It was only last Christmas, after all, that pro-democracy opposition street protests were repressed and leading campaigners such as Boris Nemtsov arrested. The crackdown followed last year's expansion of the powers of the FSB secret police and Putin's exhortation to the security apparatus to "crack heads with batons" if people protested without permission. All this against the backdrop of the show trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an arch-opponent of Putin, and other more recent abuses. ...

UKIP conference at Eastbourne: Farage accuses PM of 'EU deception'

Mr Farage told delegates at their autumn conference in Eastbourne that the Conservative leader had "let down" his supporters over a referendum on the EU and a range of domestic issues.
UKIP's call for an "amicable divorce" from the EU which had become "mainstream", he said, and he urged Tory MPs frustrated with their policy to join his party.
UKIP failed to elect any MPs last year.
The party is attempting to regroup after recent disappointing election results and dissent in its ranks.
UKIP, which campaigns for the UK to leave the EU, is demanding a referendum on Britain's membership. It says there should still be a free trade agreement with other European countries, without the existing political links.

...more in the BBC - The Guardian - The Independent - And in the website of the UK Independence Party

Watch also Nigel Farage on the Euro deception

Baha Mousa inquiry criticises the British troops' 'lack of moral courage'
Report's damning verdict on behaviour of British soldiers highlights systemic failings and ignorance of law on detainees

British soldiers indulged in an "appalling episode of serious, gratuitous violence" on a number of Iraqi civilian detainees leading to the death of the 26-year-old Basra hotel worker, Baha Mousa, and the abuse of nine others.

Mousa, the father of two children, was "subjected to violent and cowardly abuse and assaults by British servicemen whose job it was to guard him and treat him humanely".
Sir William Gage, a retired appeal court judge who presided over the two-year inquiry, paints a devastating picture of military culture in general and in particular a group of soldiers of 1st Battalion Queen's Lancashire Regiment.
His report was described in the Commons by Liam Fox, the defence secretary, as "a painful and difficult read". Fox also called it "sober, focused and detailed". He added: "Above all I believe it to be both fair and balanced."
Mousa died on 15 September 2003 after spending 36 hours in detention when he and his fellow detainees were punched, sworn at and humiliated. A subsequent postmortem found that he had sustained 93 external injuries.
"For almost the whole of the period up to Baha Mousa's death … the detainees were kept handcuffed, hooded and in stress positions in extreme heat and conditions of some squalor," the report says.
Among the humiliations forced upon the detainees were toilets being flushed over their heads, beatings with metal bars, verbal abuse, being forced to "dance like Michael Jackson" and having lighter fuel poured over them.

...more in The Guardian - Al Jazeera - The Independent - BBC - The Baha Mousa Public Inquiry
Read also:
Robert Fisk: It's not the brutality that is 'systematic'. It's the lying about it

August

Injured Malaysian man mugged in UK riots.
Online footage of an injured student being brazenly robbed has shocked the nation.

A video posted online depicting a group of youths appearing to help a young Malaysian student who was mugged during the London riots, and then stealing the contents of his bag, has been widely circulating.
The footage is just one moment captured on video in recent days showing an ugly side to a city often considered as civilised or forward-looking.
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from London

The perverse consequences of children growing without mature parental couples and without education:
riots and looting in various parts of London and the country, as gangs of illiterate youth enjoy themselves driven by unconscious death pulsion.

London riots escalate as police battle for control.

The prime minister cut short his holiday and flew back to Britain as London witnessed devastating scenes of violence stretching the emergency services beyond limit on a third night of rioting in the capital.
Buildings were torched, shops ransacked, and officers attacked with makeshift missiles and petrol bombs as gangs of hooded and masked youths laid waste to streets right across the city.
The sheer number of incidents – including in Hackney, Croydon, Peckham, Lewisham, Clapham and Ealing – seemingly overwhelmed the Metropolitan police at times, who had poured 1,700 extra officers onto the streets.
Disturbances continued into the early hours on a breathtaking scale, and they spread outside London for the first time with riots reported in Birmingham and Liverpool.
David Cameron, forced to break off from holiday in Tuscany, was this morning due to chair a meeting of the government's emergency committee, Cobra. He was travelling on a UK military flight leaving Italy at 3am. Asked why the prime minister had now decided to return, a Downing Street source said: "The situation has become more serious."
Officers from Thames Valley, Essex, Kent, Surrey and City of London were drafted in to support the Met. But apparent "copycat" riots continued to spread in the wake of Tottenham's riots on Saturday precipitated by the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, 29, a father of four, last Thursday. So far 225 people have been arrested and 36 charged.
The violence erupted in daylight in Hackney, east London, where police confronted rioters hurling missiles and setting fire to bins and cars. One officer could be seen lying on the ground after being struck on his shield by a missile.
In Hackney's Pembury Estate, the centre of the violence in east London, masked youths – both men and women – helped carry debris, bins, sticks and motorbikes, laying them across the roads to form a flaming boundary to the estate.
Several buildings were set alight in Croydon, south London, one massive fire consuming the 100-year-old Reeves furniture store. The fires were so severe that approach roads into Croydon were thick with smoke leaving some residents struggling to see or breathe. "Words fail me. It's just gone, it's five generations. My father is distraught at the moment. It's just mindless thuggery," said owner Trevor Reeves.
A bus was torched in Peckham as police struggled to respond to the spread of sporadic incidents. Witnesses said a 100-strong mob cheered as a shop in the centre of Peckham was torched and one masked thug shouted: "The West End's going down next."
A baker's next door was also alight. One onlooker said: "The mob were just standing there cheering and laughing. Others were just watching on from their homes open-mouthed in horror."
A trail of bins and abandoned vehicles were ablaze in Lewisham.

...more in the BBC - The Guardian - Al Jazeera - The Telegraph - France 24 - La Repubblica - El Mundo - El País
Watch also:
"London's burning

Tensions are running high after police shot and killed a man accused of being a gangster in the London borough of Tottenham on Thursday.
At first there was a small and reportedly calm protest by members of the man's family; but within hours the protest had escalated into arson, violence and mass looting. Parts of the borough in north London were left in ruins after crowds set fire to cars and buildings.
And there were more disturbances on Sunday night - eight kilometres away in Enfield, with shop windows smashed.
Later the British police condemned a wave of "copycat criminal activity" across the capital.
So after a weekend of destruction, looting and arson across London, we ask: What are the root causes of the violence, why did the riots break out so suddenly and why has it become such a vicious and destructive affair?
Inside Story presenter Stephen Cole discusses with guests: John Pitts, the director of the Vauxhall Centre for the Study of Crime at the University of Bedfordshire; Mehdi Hasan, a senior political editor at The New Statesman; and Martin Bentham, the home affairs editor at The Evening Standard.

July

Murdoch media phone-hacking whistle-blower Sean Hoare found dead

A former News of the World journalist who made phone-hacking allegations against the paper has been found dead.
Sean Hoare had told the New York Times the practice was far more extensive than the paper acknowledged when police first investigated hacking claims.
Hertfordshire Police said the body of a man was found at a property in Langley Road, Watford, on Monday morning.
A police spokesman said the death was currently being treated as unexplained, but was not thought to be suspicious.

...more in the BBC - Al Jazeera - The Guardian - The Telegraph - El Mundo
Police examine bag found in bin near Rebekah Brooks's home: Former NI chief executive's husband denies bag – containing computer, paperwork and phone – belonged to his wife

Rupert Murdoch's media empire's phone-hacking scandal - live updates:
• Andy Coulson has been arrested
• Former NotW royal correspondent Clive Goodman arrested
• Both being held at separate south London police stations
• Cameron announces two inquiries, one by judge

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and one of his former top reporters were being questioned about alleged corruption today after a dramatic double arrest by Scotland Yard.
Mr Coulson, the ex-Downing Street communications chief, was also being questioned over phone hacking during his time at the paper.
Police sources later confirmed that former royal editor Clive Goodman - who was jailed in January 2007 over the scandal - had been rearrested in connection with alleged payments to police.
Mr Coulson, 43, and Mr Goodman, 53, were being held for questioning at different police stations in south London.
The former editor had been expected to be arrested after an appointment at a station but Mr Goodman - who currently works for the Daily Star Sunday - was held after a dawn swoop by officers at his home in Surrey.
Detectives are searching both Mr Coulson's address in Forest Hill, south London, and Mr Goodman's property.
Officers investigating Operation Elveden - the inquiry into payments to police by the News of the World - and Operation Weeting, the long-running hacking investigation, are questioning the pair.

...more in The Guardian - The Independent - The Telegraph - BBC - Al Jazeera - El Mundo - Publico - France 24 - ABC News

June

Thanks God Britain is not in the Eurozone ...but it should be either leading institutional standards of Fairness and democratic accountability in the European Union or out of it -not to be burden by corruption and misuse of public funds

David Cameron: We won't bail out Greece ...again and again... David Cameron has promised to fight "very hard" in Brussels to ensure the British taxpayer does not shoulder any of the cost of a European bailout of Greece.
The Prime Minister said he "absolutely" did not think the UK should contribute towards a possible 12 billion euro (£10.6bn) package for the ailing eurozone country.
He would be taking that message to fellow European Union leaders when they gather in Brussels later this week, he added.
Mr Cameron was speaking at a conference for chief executives organised by The Times newspaper.
Asked whether Britain could afford to help the bailout, Mr Cameron said: "I absolutely don't believe we should.
"I don't believe that we will and I shall be fighting very hard to achieve that at the European Council this week."

...more in The Telegraph - The Guardian - The Independent - El Mundo - El País - France 24 - Al Jazeera - ABC
Also read:
Boris Johnson: let Greece go bankrupt and leave the euro

May

Reform begins with referendums:
It would be absurd to hold a referendum on electoral reform and not on the bigger question of European Union membership
by Daniel Hannan

While our eyes have been turned inward, Greece has been collapsing. There is a lesson for us here: leaving a budget deficit unaddressed makes the cuts more painful when they come. Britain could be months away from a similar fate: our overspend is set to overtake Greece's next year. No other issue – not the pupil premium or carbon taxes or AV Plus – is so immediate.
Could the Conservatives and the Lib Dems coalesce around an austerity budget? I hope so. The difference between the two parties is mainly one of timing. Nick Clegg, using stronger language than any Tory, has proposed "savage cuts", saying only that he wants them postponed for a year. The markets, however, seem disinclined to give him the option of deferral.
As for the rest of the Lib Dem programme, there are chunks that many Tories would warmly endorse. We want to repeal the authoritarian laws brought in by this government under the guise of security. We'd like to scrap ID cards. We'd gladly cancel the Eurofighter. And as tax cuts become available, they should indeed be directed at low-earners: lifting the disadvantaged out of taxation will do more to incentivise work than any number of tweaks to the benefits system.
There is more to our constitution than the voting system. With politicians disdained as never before, our aim should be to shift power from the political caste to the rest of the country. Two years ago, Douglas Carswell and I co-authored a book called The Plan, which set out a comprehensive agenda for the diffusion of power: referendums, recall mechanisms, self-financing local councils, citizens' initiative procedures, an elected upper house, open primaries, fewer quangos, democratic local control of policing, a great repeal bill. Most of these ideas have since found their way into both the Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos, and could be the basis of a reformist programme.
True, there is unlikely to be agreement on the voting method. But, as a fan of referendums, I'd be happy to consider one on single transferable vote – on one condition. It would be absurd to hold a referendum on electoral reform, but not on the bigger question of EU membership.
You can't decentralise power in the UK while centralising it in Brussels. You can't oppose quangos while subjecting our country to the biggest quango of the lot, namely the unelected European Commission. You can't look for cuts everywhere else while increasing our net contribution to the EU budget by 60%. You can't boast of trusting the people while denying them a vote on the main constitutional issue of the day.
Political reform should begin with a referendum on the location of power. Grant this, and much follows.
...more in The Guardian and in the web of UK Independence Party
Read also:
Will anyone vote for AV in the electoral reform referendum?
UK says a resounding 'NO' to AV
AV referendum: A century of highs and lows for electoral reform
After the AV referendum: What next for electoral reform?: The prospects are bleak. But I still believe many of the failures of British politics are down to our creaking voting system

April

The Royal Wedding Ceremony of Prince William and Catherine Middleton
at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011

...more in The Royal Channel and the website of the The British Monarchy

February

Referendum on voting system goes ahead after Lords vote

A referendum on changing Westminster's voting system will take place on 5 May after MPs finally managed to get their bill through Parliament.
Legislation authorising a referendum received royal assent late on Wednesday night after a stand-off over the issue.
Peers had proposed only making the referendum binding if 40% of the public took part, but the government managed to defeat that measure by 68 votes.
It had to be approved by Thursday for the referendum to happen in May.
The House of Lords eventually backed down shortly after 2300 GMT when a Labour amendment urging MPs to think again on the issue was defeated by 221 to 153 votes.
...more in BBC - The Guardian - The Independent

Assessment of the abuses of the European Arrest Warrant

...CONCLUSION
In our opinion the European Arrest Warrant has caused more problems than it has solved, due to issues of compatibility with Human Rights, the Rule of Law, traditional UK common law safeguards, and European Union member states’ sovereign autonomy. The European Arrest Warrant has allowed British Citizens to be extradited and held in prison for a long time without trial, unfairly and often when they are innocent. In the past this was not allowed to happen because the UK Justice Minister would have vetoed the extradition request, both on the grounds of shaky evidence but also because the nation's paramount job is to protect their citizens. This is what happened in the past, when we were not signed up to the European Arrest Warrant and the vast majority of British people would probably like to go back to these happier days. One of the ways a nation can protect individual citizens is through protecting them from arbitrary arrest. If we want to still be a nation where ‘innocent until proven guilty’ means something, we need to pull out of the European Arrest Warrant. At the moment the European Arrest Warrant has trampled over centuries of old tradition in Britain and led to a situation where a citizen is deemed guilty as soon as the judicial system is interested in you.

We of course believe the government should see first if other EU member states are willing to reform the European Arrest Warrant. However we expect this to achieve little, as in the past when this has been muted the European Commission has quashed it due to fears that reform would lead to the unravelling of the whole European Arrest Warrant system. The worry of course is that, perhaps like when the present government signed up to the European Investigation Order in July 2010, you cannot opt out of the legislation once you have opted in. If this is the case, the Freedom Association believes that this, amongst other issues with our EU membership, is so important to both individual liberty and national sovereignty that a referendum on our membership of the EU should take place.
by The Freedom Association / More information in our page STOP the EAW, STOP FASCIMS in EUROPE

January

MI6 offered to detain Hamas figures.

British government also provided financial support for two Fatah security forces linked to torture.
The Palestine Papers reveal that the British government played a significant role in equipping and funding the Palestinian security forces, several of which have been linked to torture and other abuses.
More unbelievably, the UK’s MI-6 intelligence service proposed detaining members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extraordinary –and illegal – scheme in which the European Union would have paid for their detention.
Under the heading “degrading the capabilities of the rejectionist groups,” the MI-6 document suggests:
"... the disruption of their leaderships' communications and command and control capabilities; the detention of key middle-ranking officers; and the confiscation of their arsenals and financial resources held within the Occupied Territories. US and - informally - UK monitors would report both to Israel and to the Quartet. We could also explore the temporary internment of leading Hamas and PIJ figures, making sure they are welltreated, with EU funding."
An appendix to the document outlines how the British government might help the Palestinian Authority. It includes British plans to seize firearms and rockets from the West Bank and Gaza; to cut off funding to “rejectionist groups” like Hamas; and to reduce weapons smuggling through tunnels into Gaza.

...more in Al Jazeera - The Guardian

Chilcot Iraq inquiry : Tony Blair has to respond for war crimes and misleading Parliament and the British citizens

Andrew Sparrow with minute-by-minute coverage of Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry today:
Asked about Blair's return to the Chilcot panel, Galloway explained it this way: "I think that the recall is because even the establishment stooges on the inquiry could not ignore what in establishment-speak they call 'inconsistencies' in the former prime minister's initial evidence, which in real-people's-speak is now in tatters ... It's clear that they kept the attorney general [then Lord Goldsmith], the country's most senior legal official, absolutely out of the loop, to use his words, and as far away from the prime minister as it was possible to keep him, just so that they attorney would not be able to tell the then-prime minister that what he was proposing to do was illegal."
Alastair Campbell shook his head at this. Galloway went on: "Another way of putting that is that what he was proposing to do was a crime. And usually when people commit a crime, though not always, they end up in front of the courts and in front of a justice system. And I look forward to the day when Mr Blair is not in front of establishment stooges, but in the Hague, facing war crimes charges at the international court [applause], and by the way, his Goebbels, his Lord Haw-Haw, Alastair Campbell, who's got the same blood on his hands, ought to be sitting in the dock alongside him."

...more in The Guardian - Iraq Inquiry - The Independent - BBC - The Telegraph - France 24 - Le Monde - El País - El Mundo - Público - Al Jazeera

Current time in Edinburgh -

"El único Estado duradero es áquel en que todos las personas son iguales ante la Ley"
Aristóteles

"I never ask a man his religion, race or country, it is enough for me to know he belongs to the worse specimen of beast"
Jonathan Swift

Noticias : Europa :: REINO UNIDO

2010

Student fees protest: Mobile footage shows wheelchair protester's abused by police

One student's camera-phone catches the moment when disabled protester Jody McIntyre is manhandled by police officers during last Thursday's protests in London.

The sight of a man allegedly being dragged out of his wheelchair at last week's protests was shocking to many. Not to Jody McIntyre himself
It takes only a minute or so with Jody McIntyre to realise it would take much more than the combined forces of the Metropolitan Police, the Daily Mail and the BBC to keep him down. After a week of tumult and sleeplessness, he is buoyant and focused when I meet him at his family home in East Dulwich, south London. Seven days ago, this 20-year-old political activist was at the student protests in London with his younger brother Finlay when police allegedly hit him with a baton, and pulled him from his wheelchair not once, but twice.
...more in The Guardian and in the blog 'Life on Wheels' by Jody McIntyre

WikiLeaks cables: UK police 'developed' evidence against McCanns in Madeleine disappeared case

British ambassador's reported comments to US counterpart offer insight into role of UK police in 2007 investigation.
British police helped to "develop evidence" against Madeleine McCann's parents as they were investigated by Portuguese police as formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, the US ambassador to Portugal was told by his British counterpart in September 2007.
The meeting between US ambassador Al Hoffman and the British ambassador, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, took place a fortnight after Kate and Gerry McCann were formally declared arguidos, or suspects, by Portuguese police. The McCanns have said that there was "absolutely no evidence to implicate them in Madeleine's disappearance whatsoever."
In a diplomatic cable marked confidential, the US ambassador reported: "Without delving into the details of the case, Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents, and he stressed that authorities from both countries were working co-operatively."
...more in The Guardian - and in Wikileaks / also in the web Find Madelaine

US embassy cables vindicate Litvinenko murder claim, says widow.
Unlikely Vladimir Putin was not aware of killing, suggests cable written by a top US diplomat two weeks after 2006 poisoning.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko said that leaked US diplomatic cables vindicated her long-standing claim that Vladimir Putin had authorised her husband's murder.
In secret conversations with the French, the top US diplomat Daniel Fried said it was unlikely Putin was not aware of the operation to poison Litvinenko with polonium, "given Putin's attention to detail".
Fried also dismissed the idea that rogue criminal elements were to blame. The Russians were behaving with "increasing self-confidence to the point of arrogance", he added, in a classified cable revealed yesterday.
In a statement to the Guardian today, Marina Litvinenko said the cable – written two weeks after her husband's death in November 2006 – confirmed her assertion this was a Kremlin-authorised operation.
She said: "There is some satisfaction in seeing what we have all known to be true documented so officially, and I would add brutally by being so matter of fact in its description. It brings me a little closer to achieving truth and justice for my late husband.
"For years we have been trying to get the authorities in the west to view my husband's murder as a state-sponsored crime. Now it appears they knew it all along."
Marina Litvinenko recalled that while dying her husband had accused Putin of the poisoning, calling it "Vladimir Putin's work".
"Now the whole world knows and can see the truth through the leaking of these official US documents,' she said.
...more in The Guardian - Al Jazeera - The Independent
And in the Litvinenko Justice Foundation / for complete information visit WikiLeaks and support transparency to protect Democracy and Justice

Student fees protest: 'This is just the beginning'

Tory HQ attacked as demonstration spirals out of control. 35 arrested and 14 injured in violent clashes at Millbank. Police admit being caught out by scale of student action.
Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of London today in a demonstration that spiralled out of control when a fringe group of protesters hurled missiles at police and occupied the building housing Conservative party headquarters.
Tonight both ministers and protesters acknowledged that the demonstration – by far the largest and most dramatic yet in response to the government's austerity measures – was "just the beginning" of public anger over cuts. Police, meanwhile, were criticised for failing to anticipate the scale of the disorder.
An estimated 52,000 people, according to the National Union of Students, marched through central London to display their anger over government plans to increase tuition fees while cutting state funding for university teaching. A wing of the protest turned violent as around 200 people stormed 30 Millbank, the central London building that is home to Tory HQ, where police wielding batons clashed with a crowd hurling placard sticks, eggs and some bottles. Demonstrators shattered windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building, while masked activists traded punches with police to chants of "Tory scum".

Police conceded that they had failed to anticipate the level of violence from protesters who trashed the lobby of the Millbank building. Missiles including a fire extinguisher were thrown from the roof and clashes saw 14 people – a mix of officers and protesters – taken to hospital and 35 arrests. Sir Paul Stephenson, Met police commissioner, said the force should have anticipated the level ofviolence better. He said: "It's not acceptable. It's an embarrassment for London and for us."
While Tory headquarters suffered the brunt of the violence, Liberal Democrat headquarters in nearby Cowley Street were not targeted. "This is not what we pay the Met commissioner to do," one senior Conservative told the Guardian. "It looks like they put heavy security around Lib Dem HQ but completely forgot about our party HQ."
...more in The Guardian - BBC - The Telegraph - Al Jazeera - El Mundo - France 24 - El País - Die Zeit - La Repubblica

Read also: Highest UK Universities fees in the world while the European Union want more money to increase their already big salaries! / more in El Mundo -

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) is an International People’s Tribunal created by a large group of citizens involved in the promotion of peace and justice in the Middle East. These past years, following, inter alia: the international community’s failure to implement the International Court of Justice’s 2004 Advisory Opinion on the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory ; the lack of implementation of the resolution ES-10/15 confirming the ICJ Opinion, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 July 2004 ; and the Israeli offensive on Gaza in December 2008 – January 2009, committees have been created in different countries to promote and sustain a citizen’s initiative in support of the rights of the Palestinian people, with public international law as a legal frame of reference.

London session November 2010
Register for the London session
The second international session of the RToP will take place in London, on 20, 21 and 22 November 2010.
It will examine International corporate complicity in Israel’s Violations of International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, and War Crimes.

more in the website of The Russell Tribunal

Read also: Tories must clarify human rights policy

Government's move to curb universal jurisdiction sends wrong message

Nick Clegg calls for investigation of abuses in Iraq

Allegations of killings, torture and abuse in Iraq contained in leaked US military logs "need to be looked at", Nick Clegg said today.
The deputy prime minister said any suggestion that the rules of war had been broken or torture had been condoned were "extremely serious".
The almost 400,000 secret US army field reports show two cases of alleged involvement of British troops in the abuse of detainees.
Clegg did not rule out the possibility of an inquiry into the actions of British forces in Iraq, but said it was up to the US administration to answer for the actions of its forces.
His comments contrasted with a statement from the Ministry of Defence yesterday, which warned that the posting of classified US military logs on the WikiLeaks website could endanger the lives of British forces.
Clegg told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show: "We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they are very serious.

...Asked if there should be an inquiry into the role of British troops, he said: "I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at."
He added: "People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking."
Vince Cable, the business secretary, also said allegations of abuse should be investigated ... He told Sky News Sunday Live: "The Liberal Democrats were strong opponents of the Iraq war and we do feel vindicated by what's happening."

...Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, appearing alongside the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a press conference in London yesterday, said some of the deaths documented in the reports may have involved British forces and could now go through the UK courts. The Iraq war logs, Shiner said, indicated that British as well as US commanders were likely to have ignored evidence of torture by the Iraqi authorities, contrary to international law.
"Some of these deaths will be in circumstances where the UK have a very clear legal responsibility. This may be because the Iraqis died while under the effective control of UK forces – under arrest, in vehicles, helicopters or detention facilities," he said.
...more in The Guardian - The Independent - The Telegraph - El País - BBC - Al Jazeera - Cuarto Poder - El Mundo

Documentos secretos del Ejército británico revelan vejaciones a presos: 'The Guardian' destapa 'manuales de interrogación' que violan la legislación internacional.
Nuevo golpe a los denigrantes abusos militares. Cuatro días después de que Wikileaks denunciara las sistemáticas torturas que durante años cometieron los soldados estadounidenses en Irak, la edición electrónica de The Guardian publica ahora que el Ejército británico entrena a sus interrogadores en métodos que incluyen humillación a los presos: desnudos, tratos vejatorios, privaciones sensoriales...
más en The Guardian - El País - Al Jazeera - France 24 - Le Figaro - Público - Cuarto Poder

Una base española en Irak sirvió de centro de torturas

Interrogation techniques at 'Britain's Abu Ghraib' revealed during high court proceedings brought by former Iraqi inmates

Blair's sister-in-law converts to Islam and hopes Tony will give up his prejudices

There is quite a lot that could be said about anyone who converts to Islam in Iran under the impression that it is less inhumane than New Labour, but as a piece of theatre, Lauren Booth's conversion could hardly be beaten.
We tend to think of conversion as an essentially solitary or individual choice: the classic picture is the kind of "conversion experience" described in William James, and central both to evangelical Christianity and Alcoholics Anonymous. But it is also always a political and social act, a statement about where you fit into the world. To convert is to announce your allegiance to a new tribe, or a new idea of humanity.
...But leave God out of this for the moment. Conversion always involves a conversation with the people around you, and just as with any other conversation, the meaning depends on where you are. To become a Muslim in Britain is a very different thing to becoming one in Indonesia, and in Argentina it's different again. This has absolutely nothing to do with doctrine. Baptists in the southern US can believe almost exactly the same things as Baptists in the Ukraine, but in one case baptism means you are becoming a normal person, and in the other that you are defining yourself as a weirdo.
In theory, all of the monotheistic religions try to stress the way in which true conversion moves you away from worldly things and into a relationship with God, rather than one with society. But in practice, most of the time, most people find their theological beliefs are a way of expressing their relationship with society. Disraeli could never have become prime minister had his father not converted from Judaism to Christianity. Even within Christianity, Margaret Thatcher found it necessary as part of her social rise to move from Methodism to Anglicanism.
To convert to Islam in a British prison is one way of expressing your disdain for the world outside, whereas conversion to Christianity is an attempt to come to terms with the dominant culture. To proclaim yourself an atheist in some parts of America is to invite derision, as much as it would be to announce in the BBC that you were a practising Calvinist.
...more in The Guardian - ABC

Iraq inquiry: Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat: Baroness Manningham-Buller said the Iraq war "undoubtedly increased" the level of terrorist threat. The invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK, the former head of MI5 has said.
Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the action had radicalised "a few among a generation". As a result, she said she was not "surprised" that UK nationals were involved in the 7/7 bombings in London. She said she believed the intelligence on Iraq's threat was not "substantial enough" to justify the action. Baroness Manningham-Buller said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited", and she believed that assessment had "turned out to be the right judgement". Describing the intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat as "fragmentary", she said: "If you are going to go to war, you need to have a pretty high threshold to decide on that."
...However, she said the UK's participation in the March 2003 military action "undoubtedly increased" the level of terrorist threat.
A year after the invasion, she said MI5 was "swamped" by leads about terrorist threats to the UK. "Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam," she said, before immediately correcting herself by adding "not a whole generation, a few among a generation". The ex-MI5 chief said she shared her concerns that the Iraq invasion would increase the UK's exposure to terrorism with the then home secretary David Blunkett, but did not "recall" discussing the matter with Prime Minister Tony Blair. MI5 did not "foresee the degree to which British citizens would become involved" in terrorist activity after 2004, she admitted. "What Iraq did was produce fresh impetus on people prepared to engage in terrorism," she said, adding that she could produce evidence to back this up. "The Iraq war heightened the extremist view that the West was trying to bring down Islam. We gave Bin Laden his jihad.
...more in the BBC - The Guardian - The Independent - Al Jazeera

David Camerons first speech as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: Conservative leader David Cameron has become the new UK prime minister after the resignation of Gordon Brown. Mr Cameron, 43, entered 10 Downing Street after travelling to Buckingham Palace to formally accept the Queen's request to form the next government. He said he aimed to form a "proper and full coalition" with the Lib Dems to provide "strong, stable government". His party won the most seats in the general election last week, but not an overall majority. In a speech outside his new Downing Street home, Mr Cameron said he and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg would "put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and the national interest".
He paid tribute to outgoing Prime Minister Gordon Brown for his long years of public service and pledged to tackle Britain's "pressing problems" - the deficit, social problems and to "rebuild trust in our political system".
...more in Al Jazeera - BBC - The Guardian - The Independent - France 24 - El País

Gordon Brown: 'Thank you and goodbye'; the Liberal Democrats support an stable government with the Conservatives: Gordon Brown has announced he is resigning as UK prime minister. Mr Brown has officially tendered his resignation to the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and recommended Conservative leader David Cameron succeed him. Speaking alongside his wife Sarah outside No 10 Downing Street, he said the job had been "a privilege" and wished his successor well. His decision comes as the Tories and Liberal Democrats are poised to agree a deal to form a government. Mr Brown said he had taken the decision to resign after concluding he would not be able to form a government after days of talks between the parties following Thursday's inconclusive election result.
In an emotional farewell speech outside No 10, Mr Brown said he had "loved the job" and it had been "a privilege to serve". "I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more democratic, more prosperous and more just - truly a greater Britain.
...more in the BBC - Al Jazeera - The Independent - The Guardian - France 24 - El País

Anger mounts over problems that left thousands without their democratic right to vote: The voting system was condemned today as a throwback to the Victorian era as polling stations closed while hundreds of people were still queueing up to vote.
Jenny Watson, chairman of the Electoral Commission, promised a comprehensive review of the system after describing it as close to breaking point.
She dismissed it as "Victorian" amid growing anger at a lack of resources at several polling stations around Britain which left many voters unable to cast their ballot.
In chaotic scenes around Britain, some polling stations remained open for an extra half an hour, while others allowed no leeway at all and shut their doors. Elsewhere, voters complained of ballot papers running out and names being left off the electoral roll.
And amid growing anger at the number of people who were prevented from voting because of failings in the system there were several calls for a legal challenge.
Ms Watson said the Electoral Commission had warned for some time that the "system is at breaking point" and "clearly the law will need to be reviewed and changed".

A spokesman for Gordon Brown said: "The Prime Minister is very concerned by the reports and would support a thorough investigation into them."
Police were called in Sheffield, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle Upon Tyne and several London locations as late-arriving voters found themselves locked out.
In the marginal seat of Chester, where Labour has a majority of just 973, Labour party officials claimed that more than 600 people were turned away because polling lists had not been updated.
At Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam constituency, voters who had been turned away went to protest outside the Liberal Democrat leader's house. At the polling station in Ranmoor, where Mr Clegg cast his vote, police were called as angry voters refused to let ballot boxes leave the building.
...more in The Independent - The Guardian - Al Jazeera - France 24 - El País - and the webs VOTE FOR A CHANGE and The Electoral Commission

Independent journalist investigating [Labour] postal fraud in East London (denounced by Respect and Conservative parties) violently attacked by a number of Bengali youngsters: When I look back on it now what surprises me is how disarmingly polite my attackers were. "What are you doing?" asked one of the two, seemingly inquisitive, Asian teenagers who approached me on a quiet cul-de-sac in Bow, east London, shortly after 1pm yesterday.
"There's been a photographer around here, do you know her?" he added.
I didn't, but I explained I was a journalist for The Independent looking to speak to a man at an address in the area, who was standing as a candidate in the local elections, about allegations of postal vote fraud. "Can we see your note pad," the boy asked.
I declined and then the first punch came – landing straight on my nose, sending blood and tears streaming down my face. Then another. Then another.
I tried to protect myself but a fresh crop of attackers – I guess between four and six – joined in. As they knocked me to the ground one of them brought a traffic cone repeatedly down on the back of my head.
As their fists and feet slammed into me, all I could think about was some advice a friend had given me. She's a paramedic and has dealt with countless victims of assault. "Whatever you do don't get knocked to the ground," she once said. "Blows on the floor are much more dangerous." It seemed faintly absurd now. "That's easy for you to say," I thought. "How on earth are you meant to stay up?"
I don't know how long it lasted – it was probably only a minute – but it was a long minute. I don't remember them saying anything as they did it. The first noise I was aware of was the beeping of a car horn and a woman screaming.
The noise brought a man out of a nearby block of flats. With little regard for his own safety he waded in and defended me until my attackers ran away.
I shudder to think what would have happened if he hadn't been brave enough to take action and I cannot thank him enough for what he did. He gave me a bottle of water to wash the blood away and showed me a mobile phone that one of the attackers had dropped which he later handed to the police. He also maintained that he saw at least two of the attackers run into the candidate's house. ...
...more in The Independent - The Guardian - BBC

The hypocrisy of new Labour fully revealed by Gordon Brown despise for his own electors let alone others: Gordon Brown calls Labour supporter a 'bigoted woman'. Microphone picks up comments by prime minister about Labour supporter Gillian Duffy, who had challenged him over the economy.
Watch the encounter with Gillian Duffy and the aftermath Link to this video Gordon Brown's election campaign was thrown into turmoil today after he was caught on mic calling a Labour supporter who had challenged him over the economy and immigration a "bigoted woman". Gillian Duffy, 65, heckled the prime minister as he was interviewed live on TV in Rochdale about Labour's plans to cut the deficit, repeatedly challenging him to say he would tackle the debt. Brown ignored her intervention but was then asked by senior aides in his entourage to meet her. After a few minutes of exchanges she told reporters that Brown was a "very nice man" and that she had voted Labour all her life and intended to do so again next week. But as he got in his car, he was still wired up to a Sky News microphone which picked up comments he then made rebuking his advisers. He said: "That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? Ridiculous.
Asked what she had said, he replied: "Everything, she was just a bigoted woman." Brown later confirmed he had phoned Duffy to apologise for his remarks but not before the recording of his comments had been aired on every television bulletin. Brown's unguarded comments are likely to refocus attention back to previous allegations about the his temper and character in the runup to the all-important final TV debate. After the heckling, Sue Nye, Brown's long-term gatekeeper and director of government relations, was seen inviting Duffy to meet with the prime minister. During the exchange between Brown and Duffy she questioned him on pensions, the deficit and tuition fees. At one point, Duffy mentioned the presence of eastern Europeans in Britain but did not develop her argument. The Labour party released a transcript of the exchange. Duffy said: "We had it drummed in when I was a child … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable. But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it." Brown replied: "But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months…" Duffy interjected: "You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?"
Brown said that although there were 1 million immigrants to Europe from Britain, there were also 1 million Britons who had moved to Europe. At the end of the exchange Brown said: "Good to see you. Thanks very much." He got in the car and seconds later is heard saying: "That was a disaster," before calling Duffy "bigoted". Brown later told the Jeremy Vine programme: "I apologise if I have said anything like that what I think she was raising with me was an issue about immigration and that there were too many people from eastern Europe. I apologise profusely to the lady concerned I don't think she is that. It was the view I objected to." Footage of the interview shows Brown with his head in his hands and he responded tetchily to other questions, accusing Vine of "butting in".
...more in The Guardian - The Independent - The Times - The Telegraph - El País - El Mundo - France 24 - Al Jazeera - Libertad Digital

UK cabinet 'misled' over invasion of Iraq: A former UK minister has told a public inquiry into the war in Iraq that the British cabinet was "misled" over the legality of the invasion in 2003. Clare Short, who is an outspoken critic of the war, on Tuesday said Peter Goldsmith, the attorney general at the time, did not tell the cabinet of his doubts about whether it would be against international law to invade Iraq. "I think he misled the cabinet, he certainly misled me, but people let it through," she said. "I was stunned by his advice." She also accused Tony Blair, the former prime minister who sent UK troops to Iraq, of standing in the way of cabinet discussion on the conflict. "Everything that's happened since makes me know that there was deliberate blockage and there were also all sorts of secret, private meetings," she told the hearing in London.
Nadim Baba, Al Jazeera's correspondent in London, said Short painted a damning picture of Blair's style of government. "She describes an atmosphere at 10 Downing Street which was very secretive," he said. Short, who quit her post of international development secretary in May 2003 over the handling of the conflict, said normal parliamentary communications were "closed down" in the lead up to war. in depth Analysis: Iraq inquiry - another whitewash? Blogs: Tony Blair: Poodle or Bulldog? Blair still believes Iraq war was right Blair unbowed during Iraq evidence. Iraqis react to Blair war testimony "There was never a meeting that said 'what's the problem, what are we trying to achieve, what are our military, diplomatic options?' "We never had that coherent discussion ... never." Short said Goldsmith had not told the cabinet about his deliberations over the legality of war, or that senior foreign office lawyers believed the invasion would be illegal without a second UN resolution. Last week the former attorney general told the inquiry that he had initially believed going to war would not be legal without an explicit UN mandate, but changed his mind after consulting lawyers abroad. ...more in Al Jazeera - The Guardian - The Times - BBC - The Telegraph - The Independent

'Culture of dishonesty' at Westminster allowed politicians to line their pockets: The reputation of British politicians will receive a fresh body blow today as the Commons expenses auditor accuses them of deliberately creating a culture of dishonesty at Westminster. Sir Thomas Legg, who has scrutinised the claims of more than 700 politicians over five years, will order 350 of them to repay up to £1m of public money as he publishes details of his trawl through their expenses. His scathing comments, contained in a foreword to his report, will put him on a collision course with backbenchers livid over being forced to return so much cash. The Independent has learnt that Sir Thomas has concluded that MPs – and not Commons officials – should shoulder the blame for the expenses scandal that convulsed Westminster last year. He will acknowledge that a "culture of deference" developed at the Commons fees office which meant officials rarely challenged or refused MPs' claims. ...more in The Independent - The Telegraph - The Times - The Guardian - BBC - El País

2009

November

Wille Sullivan on this evening's Vote for a Change meeting with Gordon Brown

Voters want the whole Kelly expenses package to stop MP's corruption with expenses: 'Ordinary people with families' could not care less about inconvenience to MPs. They want immediate reforms - and the more stringent, the better. The Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, went on television yesterday and indicated that the Government does not support proposals expected to be central to the independent review of MPs' allowances by Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life, published this week. She also implied that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – set up in response to the MPs' expenses scandal revealed by this newspaper – will not implement the bits of the Kelly review it does not like. And there are likely to be quite a few of those, since the politicians sitting on it will include defenders of controversial parliamentary perks, such as the Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell. Miss Harman focused yesterday on the ban on MPs' employing their spouses (in most cases, wives) that the Kelly review is likely to recommend. "They can't simply say 'You've all got to be made redundant'," she told the BBC. Actually, Parliament can indeed say that: it may not seem a "fair" or pleasant step to take in the case of wives who have worked loyally within the rules – but then there was nothing fair about the gross exploitation by many MPs of rules that were themselves not remotely fair to taxpayers. ...more in The Telegraph

MPs to face ‘trial’ if they refuse to repay expenses claims: MPs who refuse to repay excessive or incorrect expenses claims could be forced to appear in public before a High Court judge to plead their case. Sir Thomas Legg, the independent auditor charged with reviewing Commons second home claims following The Daily Telegraph's disclosures of widespread abuse of the system, is said to be concerned that many MPs are challenging his findings. Amid fears that many of the worst culprits could escape “Scot free” by spinning out their exchanges with him until after the election, he is reported to be considering asking a high court judge to hear individual MPs' arguments in person. ...more in The Telegraph

October

MPs' Expenses scandal: The Telegraph's investigation, The Expenses Files, into how politicians - from Gordon Brown's Cabinet to backbenchers of all parties - exploit the system of parliamentary allowances to subsidise their lifestyles and multiple homes. ...more in The Telegraph

September

New parliamentary watchdog offers six-figure salaries: The executives being hired to run the new anti-sleaze body set up in the wake of the MPs expenses scandal will be among the best paid in the public sector, documents leaked to the Daily Telegraph have disclosed. The chief executive of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) will be offered a salary of up to £160,000 and the chairman will earn up to £120,000. The executives will also be allowed to claim expenses. IPSA was rapidly established in July by Gordon Brown in the wake of the expenses scandal. The new authority will scrutinise MPs expense claims and ensure that politicians abide by Parliament’s code of conduct. However, there are likely to be questions over the qualities being sought in the executives being recruited to police Parliament. Head-hunters are told to identify people who will be “politically sensitive” and show “fairness” when dealing with complaints. At least one of the senior positions at the new authority will be filled by a former MP. Among the problems of the MPs expenses system - identified by this newspaper - was the apparent unwillingness of Parliamentary officials in the past to challenge politicians over questionable claims. ...more in The Telegraph

April

Damian Green scandal or the autoritarism of Blair & Brown's years :: How a minister's frustration led to the arrest:
As Damian Green languished in a cell while 20 police officers raided his home and offices, the Tories feared they were to be implicated in a damaging row over national security. But today it is ministers and civil servants who are accused of triggering a chain of events unprecedented at Parliament since Charles I. The charge they face is that they were not motivated at all by threats to national security, but by embarrassment over leaks which exposed their incompetence. One of the triggers for the arrival of counter-terrorism officers at Mr Green's London home was the revelation a year earlier that illegal immigrants were working in the security industry. Worse still, according to the press reports, was that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had apparently ordered officials to keep it quiet because there was no explanation "good enough for press officers or ministers to use". The Tories accused the Home Secretary of deliberately suppressing sensitive information at the time the Prime Minister was considering whether to call an election.
...Speaking to reporters at the Commons today, Mr Green welcomed the CPS decision and said that he had been targeted simply for doing his job properly. "One of my jobs as Conservative immigration spokesman is to expose the many failings of government immigration policy. That is precisely what I was doing in my case and that is why ministers were so embarrassed," Mr Green said. "I can't think of a better symbol of an out-out-touch, failing, authoritarian Government that has been in power way too long." Mr Green said that his arrest had “whipped away the veil” to reveal the true nature of Mr Brown’s Government in which ministers were “very keen to use the full power of the State” against their opponents, but refused to have their own activities scrutinised. The MP's solicitor, Michael Caplan QC, also welcomed the decision. He said: "Mr Green has always emphatically denied these allegations. The police need now to learn the lessons from their operation. There was no necessity to arrest Mr Green, he should have been asked to attend the police station voluntarily. "No credible reason has been advanced for the covert tape recording of him from arrest to arrival at the police station, and then failing to reveal this to him and me. The police themselves have now referred this to the surveillance commissioner. The search of his parliamentary office in the way it took place was highly questionable and no proper regard was given to issues of parliamentary privilege."
...more in The Telegraph - The Times - The Independent - The Guardian - BBC - And in the website of Damian Green MP

Sir Clement Freud dies at his desk aged 84:

Sir Clement Freud, the broadcaster, writer and former Liberal MP, died last night while sitting at his desk at home, his family said. He was 84. The grandson of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, Sir Clement emerged from his famous forebear's shadow to enjoy a long and improbable career in public life, in which he was variously also a nightclub proprietor, celebrity chef, journalist, university rector, tipster and amateur jockey. During a stint in the Army at the end of the Second World War, he was even a liaison officer at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Recently he has been known mainly through his appearances on the long-running BBC Radio 4 show Just a Minute, where the formidable bon viveur was famed for his deadpan delivery and bone dry humour. He featured in the show's first edition in 1967, and recorded his latest appearance two weeks ago. He won. His five children include Matthew Freud, the media relations tycoon, and Emma Freud, the television presenter. Today, celebrity friends paid tribute to his towering personality. "I got to know him because I was lucky enough to do a couple of Just A Minutes and I became immensely fond of him," said Stephen Fry, the broadcaster, writer and comedian. "I was at first very afraid of him. A lot of people were. There were stories that he was immensely grouchy, he was rude sometimes to people who asked for autographs. I never experienced that side of him at all. "And another element to him which perhaps should not go unmentioned is his raffishness, if you like, his air of disreputability. "He, during the 1950s and 1960s, was a real Soho figure, he knew all the girls of easy virtue, he knew the pimps, he knew the racetrack tipsters and, of course, the restaurateurs, which is where he learnt his business as a chef. "His fund of stories about that time was simply remarkable, and he lived a sort of life on the edge. His brother Lucian is known as the more bohemian, I suppose, as an artist, but Clement had that quality too." ...more in The Times - The Telegraph - The Guardian - The Independent - BBC

Britain's Got Talent's Susan Boyle makes millions of fans by the grace of her singing: Miss Boyle, who admits she has never been kissed, astonished the judges at the auditions for ITV1 show with her rendition of 'I Dreamed A Dream' from 'Les Misérables'.

Susan Boyle Singer Britains Got Talent 2009 With Lyrics @ Yahoo! Video

The 48 year old charity worker from West Lothian, announced from the stage that her dream was to emulate West End star Elaine Paige. Her eccentric ways and less than polished appearance drew sniggers from the audience when she initially appeared but they were mesmerised from the moment she broke into song and gave her a standing ovation. Simon Cowell pronounced her voice "extraordinary" and Amanda Holden was reduced to tears by hearing her sing. Piers Morgan, their fellow judge, said the performance was "without a doubt the biggest surprise I have had in three years of this show". Miss Boyle, who says she has never been on a date or even been kissed, is now the favourite to win the 2009 series of Britain's Got Talent. Her story invites comparisons with Paul Potts, the unassuming mobile phone salesman who won the first series of Britain's Got Talent in 2007. He has become the most internationally successful reality show winner in history, scoring a number one album in 15 countries. ...more in The Telegraph - The Guardian - The Times - BBC - France 24 - BBC Mundo - El País - CBS NEWS - And in the web of Susan Boyle's fans

March

London protests against G-20 Summit, economical unjustice and environmental negligence:

Around 35,000 protesters gathered in the rain in London today for a huge march for “jobs, justice and climate” in the first of a week of demonstrations ahead of the G20 summit.
The Put People First march involved an alliance of 150 groups, including unions, charities, environmental campaigners and faith organisations. Campaigners are expected to target bankers and city financiers who they blame for the global recession.
A massive security campaign was launched as the Metropolitan police warned of an “unprecedented” threat posed by the protests, but organisers stressed today’s events would not turn violent.
Ed Miliband, climate change secretary, met campaigners before the march got under way and said the “vast majority” were planning a peaceful protest. “There is a very important line between peaceful and non-peaceful protest,” he said. “I think the kind of campaigning that people are engaged in today - certainly what the organisers intend, what the vast majority of the people who are going on this march will do - is the kind of peaceful protest that is very much part of our society.”
...more in The Times - The Guardian - MSNBC - El Mundo - BBC - France 24 - Le Monde - Le Figaro - Al Jazeera - The Independent - The Telegraph

Terroristas del IRA asesinan de nuevo / IRA terrorists kill again: Two army personnel were shot dead during a drive-by shooting at an army base in Co Antrim last night, raising fears that the grim spectre of terrorism has returned to haunt Northern Ireland. Two more military personnel were wounded along with two civilians in what is believed to be the first major terrorist attack in the province for over a decade. All four are said to be in a "serious" condition. The shootings occurred at the Massereene Army base in Antrim, 16 miles north of Belfast, at 21.40 last night. It is understood that a car or van pulled up outside the main gates. Soldiers and security staff thought pizzas were being delivered and walked straight into an ambush. Witnesses described hearing two long bursts of gunfire. At least six ambulances and three paramedic vehicles were dispatched to the scene and a total of six people were taken to Antrim hospital. The area around the barracks was sealed off and a major security operation was last night under way. The attack is the first major incident believed to involve dissident republican terrorism since the Omagh bomb in August 1998. It would also be the first time members of the security forces have been killed by a Republican terrorist organisations since July 1997 when the Provisional IRA killed two members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Lurgan, Co Armagh. If the killings are confirmed as the work of dissident terrorists, they represents a return to the campaign of assassination of soldiers and police officers that was meant to have ended when the IRA declared its final ceasefire in mid-July 1997. The killings come just 48 hours after Northern Ireland's chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, warned that the dissident terrorist threat was at its highest level since he took over seven years ago. Observers fear it could signal an upsurge in the campaign by splinter IRA groups to destabilise the political settlement that has Sinn Féin sharing power with its Unionist enemies. ...more in The Guardian - El Mundo - BBC - The Times - The Independent - The Telegraph - El País - Le Figaro - France 24 - Le Monde

February

Un abogado -digno de ese título, uno como no hay en España ni en hispanoamérica- contra el infierno de Guantánamo:

Fue el primero en llevar la prisión ilegal a los tribunales. Abrió el camino para defender a los detenidos. Con su ONG, Clive Stafford Smith ha luchado por liberar a casi un centenar. Ahora confía en Europa para echar el cierre.
Cuando en enero de 2002 empezaron a conocerse las primeras noticias sobre la prisión de Guantánamo (Cuba), a la que los militares estadounidenses estaban trasladando a supuestos terroristas de Al Qaeda y talibanes afganos capturados “en combate”, un abogado de sonrisa torcida decidió meter una cuña antes de que se cerrara la puerta de la guerra sucia contra el terror. “Demandemos al presidente Bush”, escribió Clive Stafford Smith en un correo electrónico a sus colegas defensores de los derechos civiles en Estados Unidos. La mayoría respondió con silencio. Otros no veían ningún problema con la prisión. Algo había cambiado, se excusaban: su país se encontraba en guerra desde el 11-S.
A Stafford Smith, de 49 años, estadounidense de origen británico, no le retuvo ningún complejo patriótico. Después de dos décadas defendiendo a los innombrables en el corredor de la muerte de los Estados sureños, en febrero de 2002 demandó al entonces presidente, George Walker Bush; al secretario de Defensa, Donald Rumsfeld, y a dos mandos de la base naval de Guantánamo por retener “incomunicados y bajo custodia ilegal” a dos ciudadanos británicos. Dos años y medio más tarde, gracias a esta demanda, la Corte Suprema reconocía a los presos el derecho al procedimiento de hábeas corpus y abría una rendija para la entrada de abogados en la base....más en El País - The Guardian -

Damian Green, the shadow Minister for immigration, talks about the need to make the public aware of the current threats to our Liberty:

Binyam Mohamed returns to Britain after horrible Guantánamo ordeal:

Binyam Mohamed, the former UK resident who has been incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay for more than four years, arrived back in Britain today. The twin-engined chartered Gulfstream jet carrying him from the US detention base in Cuba landed at the RAF Northolt airbase near London at 1.11pm, finally ending a total of seven years in custody abroad. Shortly beforehand, a welcoming party consisting of Mohamed's UK lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Gareth Peirce, his US military attorney, Yvonne Bradley, and his sister, Zuhra, arrived at the airport to meet the flight. Around 20 minutes after the US-chartered plane landed, Mohamed, looking slim and moving unaided, walked the short distance to the airport terminal, surrounded by the Metropolitan police officers and Foreign Office officials who had travelled with him. He is believed to be in poor health after a hunger strike that ended earlier this month. Mohamed, who has been given interim leave to remain in the UK, was detained for several hours under the Terrorism Act 2000, but was not arrested. He was later released. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: " Police are conducting investigations into his case. Their inquiries are being carried out, as they must be, strictly in accordance with UK law." Shortly before the plane touched down after the 10-hour flight, which included a refuelling stop in Bermuda, Mohamed's legal team issued a statement in which the released detainee accused Britain of direct collusion in his torture. "I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years," he said. "For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence." ...more in The Guardian - The Independent - Democracy Now - The Times - The Telegraph - BBC

Essex police lost crucial evidence and failed to investigate the assasination of a young male who was rape in Barrymore's house says watchdog:
Potentially crucial evidence of possible sexual abuse suffered by a man who was found dead at the home of Michael Barrymore was never seized by police, an independent report found yesterday. The results of an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into how Essex police investigated the suspicious death of Stuart Lubbock, 31, eight years ago were welcomed by the man's father, who said he was considering launching a civil case. Terry Lubbock said he was considering suing the force for negligence after reading the IPCC report. However, the most crucial allegations made by the dead man's family against the force - that officers were corrupt and the inquiry was incompetent - were not upheld by the IPCC. Upholding six out of 36 complaints, the watchdog found that mistakes were made by officers in securing the scene and evidence. Lubbock was found face down in Barrymore's swimming pool after a party held at the entertainer's home in March 2001. He was pronounced dead in hospital and post mortem results showed severe internal injuries consistent with sexual assault and evidence he had ingested cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol. An inquest recorded an open verdict. The IPCC, which began an inquiry after complaints from Lubbock's father, found that two important pieces of evidence - a swimming pool thermometer and a door handle - were never seized by police at the scene and had gone missing. Both of these may have been used to assault Lubbock, they said. IPCC commissioner David Petch said there were "lingering fears" that potentially crucial evidence may be lost. He rejected Lubbock's father's allegation that the inquiry was incompetent. As well as the missing thermometer and door handle, the IPCC report found that blood on Lubbock's boxer shorts was not properly investigated, and the police also failed to "promptly investigate" blood stains found on towels and a robe. Barrymore and two other men were arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and murder in June 2007 but later released without charge. No one has been charged in connection with the death. Essex police maintained yesterday that witnesses had not shared information. Andy Bliss, deputy chief constable of Essex police, said: "Somebody knows exactly what happened to Stuart, but so far they have not shared this information with us." He said the investigation remained open and the police would pursue all leads. But the shortcomings of the first investigation are likely to hamper any further police inquiry because the crucial golden hour in which the evidential trail is fresh was not exploited. The missing evidence was never forensically tested so it was impossible for the police to establish whether the implements were used to cause the injuries, the IPCC report said. The complaints which were upheld included: the scene not being effectively preserved, unauthorised people allowed to stay at the scene, a member of the public being allowed to take the temperature of the swimming pool, and the investigation being suspended prematurely. Terry Lubbock said: "If they had done the job properly in the first place we would have had people in court charged. I am sure of that ... I want justice to be done and I will not rest until it is."
... more in The Guardian - The Times - The Independent

January

Judges accuse US of cover-up on torture: Britain succumbed to “blackmail” from America by suppressing details of the torture of a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay, it has been claimed. Two High Court judges issued a scathing attack on the White House after it emerged that the US threatened to withdraw all intelligence co-operation from Britain if details of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed were made public. The row threatened to damage relations with President Barack Obama’s administration after the Foreign Office confirmed that the US’s stance on the issue had not changed since his inauguration last month. The dispute stems from a High Court case in London. Two High Court judges, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, had intended to order that the documents on Mr Mohammed’s alleged torture be published. However, they decided reluctantly to block the release of the information after being told that the withdrawal of American co-operation would lead to Britons facing a “very considerable increase” in the risk from terrorists. ... Two senior British judges have expressed their anger and surprise that President Barack Obama's Government has put pressure on Britain to suppress evidence of torture in US custody. Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said they had been told that America had threatened to stop co-operating with Britain on intelligence matters if evidence were published suggesting that Binyam Mohammed, a British resident held at the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, had been tortured into confessing crimes. The judges said that lawyers for the Foreign Office & Commonwealth Office had assured them that the threat still held good, even since Mr Obama had come to power and reversed many of his predecessor's policies on the torture and detention of terror suspects. In a withering ruling that condemned America for a lack of principles, the judges said: "We did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials . . . relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be. We had no reason . . . to anticipate there would be made a threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence-sharing relationship, when all the considerations in relation to open justice pointed to us providing a limited but important summary of the reports. The ruling concerns the case of Mr Mohammed — an Ethiopian national who came to Britain as a teenage refugee — who was arrested and taken into US custody in Pakistan in 2002 and who has been held at Guantánamo Bay since September 2004 on suspicion of terrorism. Mr Mohammed, 31, claims that he was tortured and mistreated into falsely confessing to being involved in an alleged dirty bomb plot — claims that the US denies. However, the charges against him have been withdrawn and no new charges brought gainst him before Mr Obama's order on January 22 freezing all proceedings against Guantánamo detainees, pending a review. Mr Mohammed wants reports written by US intelligence officials, which it is understood may back his claims of torture, to be published. In an initial ruling on his claims in August, the two judges tantalisingly revealed that MI5 had taken part in unlawfully interrogating Mr Mohammed. They ruled that the British Government was under a duty to disclose evidence that it held about Mr Mohammed's treatment after his detention in Pakistan. The US Government objected, and they edited out of their ruling any details from reports written by American intelligence officials and supplied to the British courts. Various media organisations then mounted their own legal challenge to have the US reports made public. Today the judges issued their verdict, declining to publish the US reports, but lashing America for bullying Britain to conceal information that posed no threat to America's national security. "Championing the rule of law, not suppressing it, is the cornerstone of a democracy," the judges wrote. ...more in The Guardian - The Telegraph - El Mundo - The Times

Democracy needs your help: "Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009" is about to ban transparency:
On the 16th of May 2008 the High Court ruled that MPs’ expenses must be published under the Freedom of Information Act. This Thursday, MPs are voting to change the law to keep their expenses secret after all, just before publication was due and after spending nearly a million of your pounds and seven months compiling the data. Your MP may not even know about this proposal (it was sneaked out under the Heathrow runway announcement). Please take a few minutes to alert them to this attack on Parliamentary transparency and ask them to vote against the measure. The outcome of this vote will be prominently displayed on every MP’s page until after the next General Election.
What can you do?
Write now to your MP to protest. ...click here to enter the web TheyWorkForYou.com

2008

Damian Green arrest was caused by Labour's abuse of Parliament: Through the smoke of battle surrounding the police raid on Damian Green's parliamentary offices, hold on to one simple point. This would never have happened before 1997. Until the era of New Labour, the conventions were understood. The police, without being constitutional experts, knew instinctively not to bring handcuffs into political matters. The Civil Service, though rightly furious about leaks, was cautious when it came to investigating elected politicians. The Government itself, getting wind of trouble, deployed the ancient concept of the "quiet word" to discourage too much zeal by the constabulary. And if, nevertheless, the police had come to the Commons authorities with their proposal to raid, the Speaker would have seen at once that such a request touched on the vital rights of Parliament. He would have wanted to know the precise nature of the accusation (on Privy Council terms), and would almost certainly have prevented the raid. ...more in The Telegraph

November

Anger at 'Stalinesque' arrest of Tory MP in a so called "leak inquiry":
A political row erupted last night after counter-terrorism police arrested the shadow Home Office minister, Damian Green, after he published leaked documents allegedly sent to the Tories by a government whistleblower. An angry David Cameron condemned the arrest as "Stalinesque", after Green was taken into custody at about 1.50pm in his Ashford constituency and escorted to a central London police station. At around 11pm, as the Tories accused the authorities of a "perverse sense of priorities" for using counter-terrorism officers to arrest an MP while terrorists attacked Mumbai, Green was released on unconditional bail to return at a date in February for further questioning. A "tired and angry" Green said early this morning: "I was astonished to have spent more than nine hours under arrest for doing my job. I emphatically deny that I have done anything wrong. I have many times made public information that the government wanted to keep secret, information that the public has a right to know. "In a democracy, opposition politicians have a duty to hold the government to account. I was elected to the House of Commons precisely to do that and I certainly intend to continue doing so." Green's defiant statement came at the end of a day in which nine counter-terrorism officers conducted simultaneous searches at four locations: Green's constituency office and home in Ashford, Kent, his office in the House of Commons and his London home.
...more in The Guardian - The Times - The Telegraph - The Independent - BBC - and in the web of Damian Green MP

El jefe de Scotland Yard dimite tras discutir con el alcalde de Londres: Ian Blair deja su puesto después de una tensa reunión con Boris Johnson. El jefe policial del Ulster suena como posible sucesor en el cargo. Llevaba meses en el punto de mira de los periódicos, pero nadie esperaba de él una dimisión inminente. Y sin embargo el jefe de la policía metropolitana de Londres, Ian Blair, anunció este jueves que se va. Según sus propias palabras, lo hace "en atención al interés de la gente de Londres y de la policía". En realidad, lo que late debajo es su desacuerdo profundo con Boris Johnson, el nuevo alcalde conservador de la capital, elegido en las municipales de mayo. La ministra de Interior, Jacqui Smith, aceptó la dimisión de Blair y rindió homenaje a su labor, que considera impecable y digna de elogio. Un panegírico que no hace justicia a un mandato plagado de claroscuros y contrariedades. Porque Blair fue el jefe de policía que deslumbró al mundo con su pulso y con su dedicación en la resaca de los atentados del 7-J, pero también el responsable de que una patrulla policial acribillara a balazos al brasileño Jean Charles de Menezes, confundido con un terrorista en la estación de metro de Stockwell el 22 de julio de 2005. Nombrado en febrero de 2005 y hombre muy próximo a su homónimo Tony Blair, distintos escándalos le sobrevolaban en los últimos meses. Los más relevantes, las acusaciones de racismo dentro del cuerpo y un servicio de asesoría que al parecer pagó con dinero público a la empresa de uno de sus amigos. Nada de esto sin embargo le ha convencido de que debía dimitir. Se va en cambio porque el nuevo alcalde no quiere que se quede. Ya dejó claro durante su campaña que desconfiaba de Blair y una vez elegido eludió en repetidas ocasiones respaldarlo en el cargo. ...más en El Mundo - The Guardian - The Times - The Independent - The Telegraph - El País

La policía libera al joven de 21 años en relación al brutal asesinato de dos estudiantes franceses en Londres:
La Policía de Londres ha liberado hoy sin cargos a un joven de 21 años, arrestado en relación con el asesinato de dos estudiantes frances el jueves pasado. Laurent Bonomo y Gabriel Ferez recibieron un total de 244 puñaladas después de ser atados por el asesino que los sorprendió en su apartamento por la noche, según la policía. El joven había sido arrestado en torno a las 03:40 horas de ayer y tras ser interrogado fue puesto en libertad esta tarde. La policía baraja la hipótesis de que el asesinato puede guardar relación con un robo ocurrido en el apartamento de los jóvenes la semana anterior, en el que desapareció un portátil. El hecho de que el o los asesinos no tuvieran que forzar la entrada, hace pensar a los investigadores que las llaves podían haber sido robadas en el asalto anterior. Dos consolas portátiles PSP desaparecieron de la escena del crimen. Una explosión provocada por una sustancia aceleradora de la combustión despertó a los vecinos y les llevó a avisar a la policía después del crimen. Fue un intento de incendiar el apartamento para eliminar pruebas. La policía ha recibido 25 llamadas de la colaboración ciudadana. En tanto, la policía ha difundido hoy un retrato robot de un hombre a quien se vio huir de un lugar cercano al apartamento, la noche de los asesinatos. Los testigos lo han descrito como un varón blanco y delgado, de entre 30 y 40 años, y que llevaba una gorra deportiva, camiseta negra, vaqueros azules y zapatillas blancas. El aumento de los crímenes con arma blanca ha desbancado al terrorismo como prioridad de Scotland Yard, la policía metropolitana de Londres, según anunció ayer un portavoz . En el Reino Unido se producen casi 14.000 agresiones con arma blanca al año, con una media de 38 hospitalizaciones al día, según las estadísticas que publica hoy el diario británico The Independent. El foco de la violencia es Londres, donde ya han sido asesinadas de esta manera 18 personas en lo que va de año. En 2007 murieron un total de 27. Cunde la preocupación por la creciente juventud de víctimas y agresores.
...más en El País - Le Figaro - The Guardian - France 24 - BBC

Junio / June

David Davis's courageous challenge in UK Parliament : 42 days detention without charges - the worst of all worlds

Speaking in the remaining stages of the Counter Terrorism Bill, Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said:

"Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the government's new clauses and to support amendments 4 and 5 to remove 42 days from the Bill.

Today there are essentially two arguments to deal with.
The first is, has the government made its case for 42 days?
If not, then this change should be rejected out of hand, because you do not give away freedom without good cause.

Secondly, if it has made its case, are the powers proportionate, and are the checks and balances to prevent both improper use of the powers and injustices adequate?

The issue of how long we incarcerate those on whom we have insufficient evidence to charge with any crime has become one of the defining debates of the last ten years in this country.

This week marks the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta.

For almost 800 years, we have built on the right of habeas corpus founded in that ancient document the fundamental freedom from arbitrary detention by the state.

The liberty of the person is in our blood, part of our history, part of our way of life.

Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Democratic Unionists and other parties. Liberty is the common strand that binds us together.

We have shed blood to protect it, both abroad and at home.

Today, the government asks us to sacrifice some of that liberty.

The Home Secretary offers a Faustian bargain to trade a fundamental liberty for a little extra security.

And yet as this debate has gone on, the case for 42 days has crumbled, then collapsed.

So, after months of debate, what are the basic facts?

Let us start with the Home Secretary's own witnesses.

Witness number one, Sir Iain Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

In his evidence to Parliament, the Commissioner said explicitly 'We have never put forward a case that there is evidence of a need for an extension.'

He based his support for 42 days on a 'pragmatic inference', based on trends in the number of plots and their complexity.

In support of that, he and his counter terrorism chief initially claimed that there had been 15 terrorist plots thwarted since the 7/7 bombing.

It was on that basis he presented his evidence to the Bill Committee.

But then it transpired there had been a mistake.

The corrected evidence revealed the true picture which is that between 2003 and 2005 there were 9 plots and 4 since the beginning of 2006.

So far from increasing the number of plots has decreased over the last 3 years.

Mr Deputy Speaker, that is a good thing. But it is not an argument for more powers.

And whilst we should not underestimate the threat, we should not overstate it either.

The second witness in support of an increase in detention without charge is Mr Peter Clarke.

As was argued in the 90 day debate, he told us how complex and technical anti-terror cases were becoming.

His example of a technically challenging case was Dhiren Barot.

There is no doubt it was technically challenging, but a case in which charges were successfully brought inside 14 days is hardly evidence that we need three times that long.

Mr Clarke offered the observation that in the Barot case, police officers had occasion to sleep at the office.

Frankly, I would prefer that police officers sleep at the office for two weeks than risk putting innocent people in a cell for 6 weeks.

Her third witness is Ken Jones, the President of ACPO.
He says that the police operating under the current 28 day limit were in his words 'up against the buffers'.

He based his judgement in this on the most complex counter-terrorism investigation in our history Operation Overt the plot to blow ten airliners out of the sky at Heathrow in August 2006.

In that case, five people were held for 27 or 28 days.
So you can see why a superficial analysis leads to the idea that we are 'up against the buffers'.
But only a superficial analysis.

I asked Mr Jones if he had examined the detailed evidence in Operation Overt.
He told me he had not had the 'opportunity'.

Well I did look at the evidence.

Three of the five suspects held for the maximum period more than half were innocent.

That demonstrates not a virtue, but a serious danger in further extension - namely that the longer you hold people without charge, the more likely they are to turn out to be innocent.

And of the six cases that John Stephens said 'took us to the brink' - half were innocent.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Ministers now say they will pay compensation in cases where innocent people are detained for longer than 28 days.

Could we ever have a more explicit admission of the inevitable failure of this law? Or the foreseeable injustices it will bring?

It is for this House to search its conscience to determine whether putting in place a system of six weeks detention in which on current experience half or more are likely to prove innocent will serve the vital interests of either national security or British justice.

But what of the other two held for 28 days?
These are held up as the illustration that, due to the complexity of investigations, 28 days is proving inadequate.

But, is that really what these cases show?
The key issue here is when the evidence was available on which the charges were based.

Ministers and officials have been asked a number of times to answer this question, and have implied that the evidence was obtained very late in the 28 day period.

During our numerous meetings when we were trying to reach a consensus I asked the Home Secretary three times to show me the facts that demonstrated that evidence gathering had delayed the decision to charge to the limit during Operation Overt.

But she has failed to explain, in even the most general terms - or on a Privy Council basis - what that evidence was or when it was acquired.

So I was forced to establish the facts for myself and then check them with the investigating team at Scotland Yard and with the Crown Prosecution Service.

The facts are as follows:

In neither of the two cases was the evidential basis of charge encrypted data, evidence requiring complex forensic analysis or intelligence from overseas.

In one case it was telephones, handwritten and printed literature, an unencrypted CD and a receipt.
All this was available within 4 days of arrest.

The second case was based on witness statements, some mobile phone text messages and a single unencrypted computer file.

All this was available within 12 days of arrest.

Mr Deputy Speaker, that does not mean that the police should be criticised.
Far from it. They should be commended for their handling of that operation.

It does not mean that the CPS acted improperly. They rightly look to gather as much evidence as possible within the timeframe Parliament sets them.

But it does show that all of the evidence on the only two suspects charged after 21 days in the most complex terrorism investigation in our history was in the possession of the police within 4 days and 12 days respectively.

At second reading, my friend the Member for Wycombe asked about the earlier availability of evidence in these two cases. She said:

'I have sought assurances from the police … the occurrence to which he refers did not take place.'

We now know that it did.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it has also been suggested that an extension to 42 days is necessary to protect the public from danger.
That releasing people at 28 days will put the public at risk.

So the House should know that both of those individuals charged at the end of the period of 28 day detention were subsequently released on bail which no court would allow if they posed an ongoing threat to public safety.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the Home Secretary reminds us time and again that she is responsible for national security.
She stresses this responsibility.

The Home Secretary must take advice from all members of our law enforcement agencies.
But she must check it.

She must ask questions. She must establish the facts. That is her responsibility.

And as the evidence in favour of extending pre-charge detention has evaporated under scrutiny it has been replaced with growing evidence that prolonging pre-charge detention risks making us less - not more - safe.

The former Chief Inspector of Constabulary described it as a 'propaganda coup' for Al-Qaida

A gift to 'propagandists' that will drive the brainwashed to 'acts of martyrdom' according to one former Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

And a threat to local community intelligence according to the government's own impact assessment.

So the proposal for 42 days is wrong in principle and dangerous in practice.

Mr Deputy Speaker, some weeks ago the government was clearly at risk of losing this aspect of the Bill, so it conjured up a series of so-called safeguards.

They are an attempt to import a diluted version of the Civil Contingencies Act into the Bill.

Again, this comes as something of a surprise.

The House will recall that Ministers spurned the Civil Contingencies Act model for months.
They said it was 'inappropriate'. 'Fundamentally flawed'.
The Home Secretary called it a 'draconian response.'

If the Civil Contingencies Act is draconian, it is hard to understand why in her proposed amendments supposedly based on that Act she deliberately diluted the safeguards.

The Home Secretary says the 42 day power of detention could only be invoked if there was a 'grave exceptional terrorist threat'.
But it is clear that this is not a condition for invoking an extension beyond 28 days.

It is merely a notification requirement to Parliament, entirely irrelevant to the unfettered discretion the Home Secretary will retain.

But even if it were relevant, let us consider what could constitute a 'grave exceptional terrorist threat'?

The small print in the amendments refers to events which cause or threaten 'serious loss of human life',
'serious damage to human welfare in the United Kingdom' or 'serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom'.

These definitions are so broad …a massive expansion of the criteria in the Civil Contingencies Act … that virtually any terrorist plot would satisfy them.

The Dhiren Barot plot in 2004 to set off a dirty bomb would easily meet the conditions but in that case all charges were brought within 14 days.

The Crevice fertiliser bomb plot in 2004 would also meet the definition but all charges were brought within 14 days.

And the 21/7 attacks would certainly qualify but again all charges were brought within 14 days.

The definition of 'grave exceptional terrorist threat' is not only irrelevant to the power of the Home Secretary to order 42 days.

It presents such a low threshold that the Home Secretary, in reporting to Parliament, will in practice just be ticking the box.

Because, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no ability to challenge her assessment that 42 days detention is necessary in court. Indeed the Prime Minister confirmed in his letter to Members of 7 June that the possibility of judicial review had been deliberately excluded.

And there are no additional judicial safeguards for the individual.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the House need not take my word for it.

David Pannick QC, a leading practitioner in the field, Counsel regularly retained by this government, who quite literally wrote the text book on the subject provided a formal legal opinion and I quote:

'Not only do the Amendments fail to replicate the safeguards in the 2004 Act but they fail, significantly or meaningfully, to provide similar or analogous safeguards.'

Mr Deputy Speaker, the truth is that these so-called concessions are not a serious attempt to sustain consensus by providing proper checks and balances on the Home Secretary's now draconian powers.

They are a vain attempt to save face.
The government has salami-sliced the safeguards. Watered down the checks.
And buried an issue of high principle amidst a blizzard of fine print.

Mr Deputy Speaker
There is nobody in this House who does not feel horror at the loss of life, the terror, the pain and the mutilation faced by the victims of terrorism.
But two wrongs do not make a right.
Least of all if what we do is ineffective, unnecessary, or even counter-productive.

I have no sympathy for terrorists whatsoever, but I want the House to imagine for a moment what if feels like if you are innocent under this regime.

You are taken from your bed in the early hours of the morning.
You are locked in a cell for 6 weeks - 1000 hours - and you do not know why - not what you are accused of, not what the suspicions are, not what the evidence is.

You do not know what is happening to your job.
You do not know what is happening to your reputation.
You do not know what is happening to your wife and the neighbours.
You do not know what is happening to your children, facing sometimes the harsh cruelty of other children.
You do not know this for six weeks - 1000 hours.

So what we have is the worst of all worlds.
A symbolic assault on liberty which is unnecessary.
A change in the law which is counter-productive.
And a procedure which is unworkable.
Isn't the only way to describe what the government is proposing today is that it is ineffective authoritarianism?"

Speech edited as in the web of the Conservative Party

El gobierno 'socialista' de Blair y Brown amplía la detención sin cargos por terrorismo a 42 días, anulando efectivamente el derecho de Habeas Corpus creado por Inglaterra. David Davis, ministro del Interior por el partido Conservador, renunció para protestar la monstruosidad de esa ley :
El primer ministro Brown se salva por nueve votos de una derrota parlamentaria. Gordon Brown se salvó ayer por los pelos de un tropiezo parlamentario mayúsculo. Los Comunes aprobaron por 315 votos a 306 su propuesta de ampliar de 28 días a 42 el periodo de detención preventiva sin cargos de los sospechosos de terrorismo. A pesar de varias semanas de intensa presión sobre los rebeldes laboristas que se oponían a la medida, anoche se estimaba que hasta 37 votaron contra su Gobierno. Brown se salvó gracias a los nueve votos del partido unionista norirlandés, que negocia un paquete económico con el Gobierno. En cierto modo, Brown se salvó de una crisis de consecuencias impredecibles gracias a su debilidad. El catastrófico rumbo de su Gobierno y el auge imparable de los conservadores facilitó el trabajo de los whips (látigos; los cuadros del partido encargados de imponer la disciplina de voto) para convencer a los diputados más dubitativos de que no era el momento de provocar una derrota del Gobierno. Pese al empeño de Brown en sostener que es una medida imprescindible para luchar contra el terrorismo, los tories, los liberales-demócratas y muchos laboristas creen que es un ataque a una tradición de libertades individuales. "Hace casi 800 años que la Carta Magna consagra el derecho a no ser mantenido preso sin cargos", subrayó uno de los rebeldes laboristas, Frank Dobson.
...más en El País - The Independent - The Guardian - The Times - The Telegraph - El Mundo - BBC

Mayo / May

Colombian 'hit' that set off a UK cocaine war:
A drugs baron from Liverpool built up a £200m fortune through his links with the Colombian cartels. But when he tried to cheat the South American traffickers, he was brutally assassinated by a contract killer. Now police across Europe fear an international drugs war between the two syndicates. Even by the standards of gangland executions, it was a ruthless hit. The gunman sauntered up to his target outside a gym on a Liverpool council estate. From under his jacket he calmly produced a pump-action shotgun and, from close range, aimed at his target's head. Colin 'Smigger' Smith, Britain's so-called Cocaine King with an estimated personal fortune of £200m, was dead. Six months on, his assassin remains at large despite a massive police investigation. Only now, though, can the circumstances behind the murder of Britain's biggest cocaine baron be revealed. It is a vicious tale of duplicity, violence and retribution in the shadowy world of international drug dealing. But Smith's killing carries more profound implications, threatening a ferocious war between Britain's original drug syndicate, the so-called Liverpool mafia, and the largest Colombian cocaine suppliers to Europe, the Cali cartels. At stake, say underworld sources, is control of Britain's £2bn cocaine market. They revealed that Merseyside's crime gangs believe Colombian cartels ordered the hit on Smith over a missing consignment of the Class A narcotic worth £72m. Merseyside police are aware of at least one meeting in which the heads of Liverpool's cocaine trade met and agreed to avenge the death of Smith, a high-stakes player whose 1,000kg deals were legendary and sometimes affected the price of cocaine throughout Britain. Police throughout Europe are concerned that any attempt by Liverpool's gangs to target the Cali cartel's sophisticated cocaine distribution network will produce a spate of killings. Sources in Amsterdam, where Liverpudlians and Colombians operate together to disseminate cocaine across the continent, claim that Liverpudlian expat dealers in Amsterdam, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Turkey and South America - allied to the Merseyside mafia - have been warned to prepare for a 'mafia-style bloodbath'. Already Liverpool dealers are understood to have shot at least one senior Colombian cocaine emissary in Amsterdam.
...more in The Guardian - La Semana
Watch also
The ecological impact of Colombia's cocaine trade

Churchgoing falls out of favour:
Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests. The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die. In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035. According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. The forecast to 2050 shows churchgoing in Britain declining to 899,000 while the active Hindu population, now at nearly 400,000, will have more than doubled to 855,000. By 2050 there will be 2,660,000 active Muslims in Britain - nearly three times the number of Sunday churchgoers.
...read the full article in The Times

Blair y Brown totalmente derrotados en Londres:

Los conservadores logran una amplia victoria en las municipales de Inglaterra y Gales.- El conservador Johnson da la puntilla al partido de Gordon Brown al arrebatar a Livingstone la alcaldía de Londres. El conservador Boris Johnson se perfila ya como ganador en las elecciones a la alcaldía de Londres. A la espera de que concluya el recuento oficial de votos, los gráficos orientativos de la comisión electoral indican que Johnson va a la cabeza en al menos 8 de las 14 circunscripciones en que se divide la capital, imponiéndose al actual alcalde, el laborista Ken el Rojo Livingstone. Johnson da así la puntilla a los laboristas y remata una jornada de castastróficos resultados para el partido del primer ministro británico, Gordon Brown, que afronta su peor derrota en unas elecciones locales de los últimos 40 años. La jornada electoral de ayer en Inglaterra y Gales, en la que estaban en juego 160 municipios de Inglaterra y Gales, ha sido un duro golpe para el premier en su primera cita con las urnas desde su toma de posesión, ya que, según los resultados conocidos hasta ahora, los laboristas quedan en tercer lugar, por detrás de los conservadores e incluso de los liberal-demócratas. Con un escrutinio en torno a los dos tercios, los conservadores obtienen un 44% de los votos, 20 puntos por delante de los laboristas, lo que supone un varapalo histórico. Es más, el partido del primer ministro, que aún no ha cumplido un año en el cargo, tras recogerlo de manos de Tony Blair en junio del año pasado, queda un punto porcentual por detrás de los Liberal-Demócratas. Gordon ya ha admitido que los resultados, a falta de conocerse Londres, son "malos y decepcionantes"...
Se fue Tony Blair, llegó Gordon Brown y se atenuó la influencia de Irak en la arena política, pero poco ha importado. El laborismo británico cosechó en las municipales del jueves la peor debacle electoral de su historia reciente. Peor que las de la 'era Thatcher' y muy similar a que los conservadores sufrieron en 1995, dos años antes de que Blair barriera del poder a John Major. A la espera del escrutinio definitivo en la capital, los conservadores ganan 256 ediles y rondan el 44%. Los laboristas, sin embargo, pierden 331 y se desploman hasta un porcentaje de voto del 24%, que les coloca como tercer partido, por detrás incluso de los liberal-demócratas, que obtienen un 25%. Se espera que al final del día los 'tories' hayan ganado también la Alcaldía de Londres. Brown ha calificado de "malos" y "decepcionantes" los resultados de las elecciones municipales en Inglaterra y Gales. "Debemos sacar lo positivo este resultado, vamos a analizar lo que se ha pasado y a seguir adelante", añadió. Se trata del escenario de pesadilla para el primer ministro, Gordon Brown, cuyo liderazgo estaba de alguna manera a prueba en estos comicios. Lo es aún más si se tiene en cuenta que la última vez que estuvieron en juego estas concejalías fue en los comicios de 2004, con el Partido Laborista en plena resaca de la Guerra de Irak. Brown ha logrado pues lo que parecía imposible: superar la ignominia del resultado de entonces. Y ni siquiera puede achacarlo a un conflicto bélico impopular o al desgaste en el poder de su antecesor. Los comicios se interpretan pues como un duro voto de castigo a Brown y la prueba de que el líder conservador, David Cameron, empieza a ser visto como una alternativa creíble a sucederle en las próximas generales, que tendrán lugar entre mayo de 2009 y junio de 2010.
...más en The Guardian - The Independent - The Times - The Telegraph - El Mundo - El País

Abril / April

Londres protesta masivamente -a pesar de la nieve- contra Juegos Olímpicos -emblema de libertad y democracia- en países totalitarios como China que violan los Derechos Humanos de sus propios habitantes, de Tibet, de Birmania, de Darfour, etc.:

Habeas-Corpus.net ha participado en las protestas en primera fila. Detenidos activistas pro tibetanos y pro democracia en Birmania por intentar apagar la llama olímpica en Londres. Los manifestantes portaban extintores. Al menos 30 personas arrestadas por varios incidentes durante el recorrido de la antorcha. Dos personas han sido arrestadas tras haber tratado de apagar la llama olímpica con unos extintores a su paso por Londres, mientras al menos otros 30 activistas pro tibetanos han sido también detenidas por distintos incidentes durante el recorrido. Desde el principio del trayecto se registraron incidentes con manifestantes que protestaban por la represión china en el Tíbet, donde el pasado jueves se informó de la muerte de ocho personas en un tiroteo contra monjes y civiles en la provincia de Sichuan. Dos personas intentaron apagar la llama portando extintores con un letrero en el que se leía Extintor de la propaganda y quisieron llevar a cabo su objetivo cuando la antorcha pasaba por Ladbroke Grove, pero fueron reducidos por la policía. La tensión ha sido una constante durante el paso de la llama por la capital británica. Algunos manifestantes han protestado en las cercanías del estadio de Wembley mientras otro activista intentó arrebatar la antorcha olímpica a la presentadora de la BBC, Konnie Huq. Los temores se dispararon cuando la embajadora de China en Reino Unido, Fu Ying, portó la antorcha a su paso por Chinatown. El primer ministro británico, Gordon Brown, recibió la antorcha a las puertas de su residencia oficial, en el número 10 de Downing Street, un gesto criticado por los activistas opuestos a la represión de las autoridades chinas en el Tíbet que manifestaron masivamente a lo largo de las 31 millas de recorrido y en especial frente a la residencia del Primer Ministro: Shame on you Gordon! [Eres una vergüenza Gordon!]. En cambio HRH el Prícipe Charles ha rechazado invitación a participar en la ceremonia de apertura de los Juegos Olímpicos en China que no respeta los valores democráticos de Grecia.
...más en El País - El Mundo - The Guardian - The Independent - Le Figaro - Libération - BBC - Libertad Digital - La Nación - The Times - The Telegraph
Y en las webs: Liberemos Tibet - Democracia en Birmania

Se llama a boycotear los Juegos Olímpicos en China: La actriz Mia Farrow transmitirá un programa especial desde un campo de refugiados de Darfur coincidiendo con la primera semana de los Juegos Olímpicos de Pekín en agosto. 'Sueños para Darfur' denuncia el papel de China como principal socio comercial de Sudán y quien le vende las armas que se usan en el conflicto, y llama a boicotear la ceremonia inaugural de los Juegos mientras no pueda desplegarse por completo la misión de paz de la ONU y la Unión Africana prevista para la región. ...más en la web de Mia Farrow

Marzo

Londres abre la 'Puerta de entrada al siglo XXI' en Heathrow:

La Reina inaugura la nueva Terminal 5. La reducción de los tiempos de espera y el respeto al medio ambiente, principales retos de un proyecto que ha costado 6.100 millones. La nueva Terminal 5 del aeropuerto londinense de Heathrow, bautizado como la Puerta de entrada al siglo XXI, ha sido inaugurada oficialmente hoy de la mano de la Reina Isabel II, aunque no será hasta el próximo 27 de marzo cuando comience a operar formalmente. Para llegar hasta aquí han tenido que pasar más de cinco años de obras y el proceso público de adjudicación más largo que se recuerda en Londres, desde 1995 a 1999. La nueva infraestructura, dotada con la más novedosa tecnología para agilizar los trámites de los viajeros y equipaje, es un proyecto del arquitecto Richard Rogers, que hace apenas unas semanas también inauguró la flamante T3 de Pekín, y tiene una capacidad para absorber un tráfico de 30 millones de pasajeros al año. La premura del estreno del aeropuerto, no obstante, quiere acallar los problemas de capacidad del aeródromo londinense, motivo de continuas quejas por parte de las aerolíneas, a pesar de ocupar lo mismo que 50 campos de fútbol repartidos en cinco plantas. Además, tal y como ha ocurrido en el proyecto de la capital de China, la ampliación del principal aeródromo de Reino Unido entra dentro de los planes de contar con un "nuevo aeropuerto" para los Juegos Olímpicos 2012 de Londres aunque, en el caso de la T5, la capacidad del actual Heathrow -limitado a 450.000 vuelos al año y con serios problemas de acceso y aparcamiento- también han sido un condicionante importante para llevar a cabo el proyecto.
...más en El País

Febrero

El gobierno del "nuevo" socialismo de Tony Blair y Gordon Brown reconocen por fin que habían mentido sobre vuelos para secuestro, tortura y asesinato de personas desde su territorio:

Después de mantener durante 1 año que no conocía un posible enlace británico a los vuelos secretos e ilegales de la CIA, el Reino Unido dijo que USA le ha dicho ahora que 2 aviones con detenidos repostaron en una base estadounidense en la isla británica de Diego García, en el océano Índico, en 2002. Las alegaciones de actividades estadounidenses encubiertas como parte de la "guerra contra el terrorismo" han circulado desde hace años. Un investigador del Consejo de Europa dijo el año pasado que tenía pruebas de que Polonia y Rumanía acogieron prisiones secretas de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de USA (CIA). "Al contrario de las garantías explícitas anteriores respecto a que Diego García no había sido empleada para vuelos de entregas, las últimas investigaciones estadounidenses han revelado que hubo dos ocasiones, ambas en 2002, cuando esto se ocurrió", dijo en el Parlamento el ministro británico de Asuntos Exteriores, David Miliband. "En ambos casos, un avión estadounidense con un único detenido a bordo repostó en la base estadounidense de Diego García", añadió. Es bochornoso para el Gobierno, ya sensible a las críticas de que está demasiado dispuesto a seguir la línea de Washington, y el anterior Primer ministro, Tony Blair, llegó a ser calificado de "perrito faldero" del presidente George W. Bush.
...más en Urgente 24 - El País - El Mundo

La corrupción del mentiroso gobierno Blair y Brown:
Renuncia ministro británico por escándalo de campaña Se trata de Peter Hain, titular de la cartera de Trabajo. “No me queda otra alternativa”, dijo al presentar su dimisión . Está involucrado en un escándalo por donaciones no declaradas destinadas a la campaña laboralista. El ministro británico de Trabajo, Peter Hain, involucrado en un escándalo sobre la financiación de su campaña para convertirse en el número dos del Partido Laborista, anunció hoy que no le quedaba "otra alternativa que renunciar" para "limpiar" su nombre. "No me queda más alternativa que presentar mi renuncia", declaró Hain, de 57 años, que anunció su dimisión pocos minutos después de que la Comisión Electoral informara que había solicitado a Scotland Yard la apertura de una investigación sobre el asunto. El jefe de gobierno británico, Gordon Brown, aceptó inmediatamente su renuncia, según un vocero de Downing Street. Hain pidió también "disculpas por los errores" que cometió, al no haber declarado donaciones por 103.000 libras (137.000 euros), destinadas a financiar su campaña a mediados de 2007 para convertirse en el número dos laborista. Quedó quinto entre seis candidatos en liza. "Lamento esos errores", declaró Hain a la prensa, poco después de anunciar su dimisión en un comunicado enviado a la prensa. "A la luz de la decisión de la Comisión Electoral, dimitiré para limpiar mi nombre y haré una declaración rápidamente", explicó Hain, que es igualmente ministro para el País de Gales. Ex titular de las carteras de Europa e Irlanda del Norte durante el mandato de Tony Blair, Hain se negó en un principio a dimitir, al justificar estas irregularidades en una "mala gestión" de sus cuentas. Hain había calificado de "absurdas" las acusaciones de haber tratado de esconder los orígenes de estos fondos. Pero la Comisión Electoral señaló hoy que, tras haber abordado el asunto con la Policía Metropolitana y la Fiscalía, lo transmitió a Scotland Yard "para que decida si se debe abrir una investigación".
...más en Perfil

Un incendio amenaza el mercado de Camden en Londres:
Más de 100 bomberos trabajan en la zona para sofocar las llamas.- Los equipos de emergencia informan de que podría haber gente atrapada en la zona del incendio. Un espectacular incendio está calcinando desde esta tarde el famoso mercado de Camden de Londres, una de la atracciones turísticas más populares de la capital británica. Según fuentes del cuerpo de bomberos más de 100 efectivos y más de 20 unidades luchan contra el fuego que comenzó al parecer cerca del pub The Hawley Arms pasadas la ocho de la tarde en la parte norte del mercado, una zona conocida como Chalk Farm Road. Por el momento, no hay noticias de heridos o víctimas mortales aunque los equipos de emergencia han señalado que puede haber personas atrapadas en las tiendas y tenderetes del mercado. Edificios desalojados La Policía ha acordonado las calles cercanas al mercado y algunas de las viviendas de las inmediaciones han sido evacuadas. También los curiosos de los bares y pubs de las inmediaciones han sido obligados a abandonar la zona de peligro, ya que las llamas superaban los nueve metros de altura. También han sido desalojados varios pisos por el temor a que existan bombonas de gas en la zona. El incendio ha afectado al funcionamiento de al menos una línea del metro, así como a varias de la red de ferrocarriles.
...más en El País - El Mundo

Enero

El ministro británico de Trabajo dimite por acusaciones de corrupción desde el gobierno de Blair:
La Policía investiga a Peter Hain en relación con unas donaciones no declaradas a su campaña. El ministro británico de Trabajo y Pensiones, Peter Hain, ha anunciado hoy su dimisión al ser investigado por la Policía en relación con unas donaciones no declaradas a su campaña por la vicepresidencia del Partido Laborista. La noticia ha sido dada por la cadena BBC que ha informado que Hain renuncia al cargo para "limpiar su nombre", después de las acusaciones según las cuales no había declarado donaciones a su campaña por la vicepresidencia en el Partido Laborista el año pasado. La Comisión Electoral, que investigaba esas posibles irregularidades, trasladó hoy el caso a la Policía Metropolitana de Londres (MET), que ha puesto en marcha una pesquisa para determinar si se cometió algún delito. El primer ministro, Gordon Brown, ha aceptado su dimisión, según indicó su oficina en Downing Street.
...más en El País

El totalitario Putin cierra el 'British Council' en Rusia y la UE pide a Moscú el cese del "acoso":
El organismo acusa a las autoridades rusas de una "campaña de intimidación". Moscú ha salido victoriosa del contencioso con Londres a cuenta de las oficinas regionales en Rusia del 'British Council', después de que el organismo cediese y anunciase hoy que cerrará las sedes debido a la "campaña de intimidación" ejercida por las autoridades rusas, ante el incumplimiento de la orden de cierre que entraba en vigor el 1 de enero. Lo que queda por ver es si esta decisión le pasará factura, puesto que para el Gobierno británico la situación actual mantenida por Rusia es "indigna de un gran país". Esta postura recibió el respaldo de la UE, que se mostró "muy preocupada", especialmente por "el acoso al personal del 'British Council'". El responsable del Foreign Office, David Miliband, calificó de "censurable" e "indigna" las presiones ejercidas desde Moscú con el objetivo de lograr el cierre, finalmente obtenido, de las oficinas regionales del citado organismo cultural en San Petersburgo y Ekaterimburgo. En un discurso ante el Parlamento, Miliband remarcó que no contraatacará con la misma moneda en ninguna actividad cultural rusa en Reino Unido, aunque hizo hincapié en que la insistencia llevada a cabo estos días es "indigna de un gran país". Sobre el terreno, el enésimo episodio de la tensión diplomática creada tras el asesinato en Londres en 2006 del ex espía Alexander Litvinenko se reflejará en las persianas bajadas de las oficinas regionales del 'British Council', tal y como confirmó su director ejecutivo, Martin Davison, achacando la decisión a la imposibilidad de realizar el trabajo acostumbrado con el Servicio Federal de Seguridad, heredero del KGB, sobrevolando en todo momento, según informaciones de la cadena 'BBC'. Así, Davison habla de "campaña de intimidación contra el personal", en alusión a la llamada a declarar de una veintena de trabajadores y la presencia de la Policía Judicial a altas horas de la noche en casas de otros diez.
...más en El País

2007

Noviembre

The Lady of Burma

at the RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
from Wednesday 7 Nov to 2 Dec 2007
Written and directed by Richard Shannon
with Liana Mau Tan Gould as Aung San Suu Kyi

This compelling solo show tells the inspirational true story of Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a time when the world is watching the crisis in Burma unfold. Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner, mother and grandmother, leader of the democratically-elected party in Burma, has endured house arrest for over a decade. This powerful performance has already had sell-out appearances at this year's Edinburgh Festival and the Old Vic, and is an unmissable hymn to the power of the human spirit in the quest for freedom.

Tells it all ... and catches the pain and wry humour inside that tiny frame and strong, wise face. - The Times
Rarely is a show so powerful. **** - The Independent

La viuda de Litvinenko acusa al Gobierno ruso de maniobrar para enterrar la investigación: Las investigaciones de Scotland Yard sobre la muerte se encuentran en punto muerto.

El envenenamiento del ex espía provocó tensiones entre el Gobierno británico y Moscú. LONDRES.- Un año después, Marina Litvinenko, la viuda del ex agente ruso que murió envenenado por una alta dosis de polonio 210, ha acusado al Gobierno ruso de hacer todo lo posible por enterrar el caso y reclama Justicia. Según su testimonio, lo único que han hecho las autoridades rusas ha sido "enterrar el caso". "Para las autoridades británicas no es fácil. Han intentado pedir la extradición del principal sospechoso (Andreï Lougovoï), pero eso no ha sucedido", ha afirmado a la cadena británica BBC la viuda del ex espía, que era opositor al régimen del presidente Vladimir Putin. Marina Litvinenko tiene previsto presentar una queja ante Tribunal Europeo de Derecho del Hombre en Estrasburgo para obligar a Rusia a cooperar en la investigación. "Para mí es importante que la investigación continúe", ha precisado Marina. Un año después de la muerte agónica por envenenamiento en Londres del ex espía ruso, las pesquisas de Scotland Yard se encuentran en punto muerto. Su muerte, el pasado 23 de noviembre de 2006, por la ingestión de altas dosis de polonio 210, una sustancia radiactiva muy rara, provocó estupor en Gran Bretaña, además de una escalada de tensión con Moscú, a medida que la investigación de Scotland Yard se centraba en la pista rusa.

...más en El Mundo

Una nueva era en trenes :: de Londres a París en sólo 2 horas y quince minutos:
SM la reina Elizabeth II inauguró un nuevo trayecto ferroviario que une las capitales de Gran Bretaña (estación St Pancras) y Francia (estación del Norte). La formación alcanza una velocidad máxima de 300 kilómetros por hora. El tren Eurostar de alta velocidad que une Londres con París en dos horas y quince minutos comenzó a circular hoy poniendo de esta manera más cerca de Europa a la capital británica. "Hoy comienza una revolución en el sector de viajes", dijo eufórico Richard Brown, director general de Eurostar, pese a que el lanzamiento se vio opacado por la huelga de transporte público que afecta a Francia. La celebración con música y bailes que iba a recibir a la formación a su arribo a París fue sin embargo suspendida por esa huelga. "No sería apropiado en estas circunstancias", dijo una vocera de la empresa. Los primeros pasajeros fueron unos 450 ambientalistas que querían subrayar el carácter escasamente contaminante de este tipo de transporte. Eurostar asegura que sus emisiones de dióxido de carbono se reducirán en un 25 por ciento por viaje hasta el año 2012. La velocidad máxima que alcanza el nuevo Eurostar es de 300 kilómetros por hora, indicó un cable de Dpa y agregó que el trayecto Londres-Bruselas se cubrirá en 1:51 horas.
...más en Clarín - y en las web enlazadas a esta nota. [Pulse la pantalla para ver un fragmento de la ceremonia de apertura de la terminal St Pancras renovada.]

Octubre

El primer ministro Brown anuncia la retirada de mil soldados de Irak ante un posible adelanto electoral:
Gordon Brown está haciéndose con todas las cartas de la baraja posibles por si finalmente decide que haya partida electoral a comienzos de noviembre. No cabe más explicación que el fin electoral para la visita sorpresa que el «premier» británico hizo ayer a Irak, torpedeando la atención mediática que los conservadores esperaban para su congreso. En su primer viaje a Irak como primer ministro, Brown anunció en Bagdad la retirada de mil soldados británicos antes de fin de año, con lo que las tropas del Reino Unido quedarán reducidas a 4.400 personas. También indicó que el traspaso del mando de la provincia de Basora, la última controlada por Londres, se producirá en el plazo de dos meses. Las tropas «pasarán de tener un papel de combate a otro de supervisión», según Brown. En realidad, esto supone sólo un recorte de quinientos efectivos, pues ya estaba previsto que una cantidad similar regresara a Gran Bretaña cuando culminara el repliegue en curso y la tropas dejaran el centro de Basora para quedar destacadas junto al aeropuerto de esta ciudad. El traspaso del control de la provincia de Basora también había sido ya programado por el Gobierno de Tony Blair. Aunque el paso no representa ningún punto y aparte en la estrategia respecto a Irak, Gordon Brown lo está presentando como el corte que necesita para distanciarse de los efectos electorales del problema de Irak.
...más en diarios ABC - El Mundo

Septiembre

Un 'thriller' ruso con sangre de verdad:
La esposa de Litvinenko recrea la muerte del disidente y pide justicia... La trama supera posiblemente el mejor trabajo de John Le Carré: un espía supuestamente traidor a la nueva Rusia imperial muere lentamente tras el estallido de una microbomba-atómica en forma de polonio tras cenar en Reino Unido bajo la teórica protección de su majestad, humillada ante el mundo. No se trata de un guión cualquiera, porque de sus páginas brota sangre muy real: los autores del thriller son la esposa del misterioso espía de ojos azules y su mejor amigo. Y el muerto se llama Alexander Litvinenko. ...El relato, Muerte de un disidente. El envenenamiento de Alexander Litvinenko y el regreso del KGB (Taurus), se presenta estos días en Madrid y describe una memorable y trágica historia de acción que también aspira a retratar el resurgimiento del imperio ruso bajo la bandera del nacionalismo y la dirección entre bambalinas de los antiguos camaradas del KGB y su sucesor "democrático", el FSB. "La democracia ha quedado completamente finiquitada en Rusia; ahora mandan los antiguos espías, que han buscado en el fascismo y en el imperialismo su andamiaje teórico", explica Goldfarb, que desmenuza todo tipo de datos -como la reciente designación de Víktor Zubkov como primer ministro- para dar mayor credibilidad a una afirmación tan gruesa. "El régimen de los neo-KGB es mucho peor que el antiguo régimen comunista", añade Marina Litvinenko, que exhibe unos modos tan educados que ni siquiera eleva el tono de voz ante acusaciones de tan alto calibre.
...más en diario El País

Julio

Gran Bretaña: la lluvia no da tregua y ya hay dos muertos por las inundaciones:
El centro-oeste del país continúa bajo el agua por el desborde de los ríos Severn y Támesis y prevén más tormentas para las próximas horas. Unos 340.000 afectados continúan sin agua potable y se teme una crisis sanitaria por contaminación. Dos personas murieron en un club de rugby de la ciudad de Tewskesbury. ...La Agencia de Protección de la Salud británica señaló que el riesgo de contraer una enfermedad es generalmente bajo, pero advirtió a las poblaciones de la zonas afectadas por los desbordamientos de los ríos que no entren en contacto con el agua estancada, para evitar contaminaciones. En tanto, más de 340.000 personas siguen sin agua potable en Gloucestershire (oeste), el área más golpeada por los desbordamientos, donde restaurar los servicios de agua podría tomar dos semanas, lo que también plantea riesgos para la salud de la población.
...más en diarios Clarín -

Revelan nuevos detalles sobre cómo Putin consumó el asesinato del disidente ruso y ciudadano del Reino Unido:
El mozo que atendió a Alexander Litvinenko en un bar de Londres aseguró que fue el ex agente de la KGB, Andrei Lugovoi, quien le colocó el polonio 210 en el té. "Fui obstaculizado deliberadamente y algo ocurrió en ese punto", contó el camarero. Según él, el acusado aprovechó la distracción para rociar el veneno en la tetera. Como en una oscura trama de un policial de ficción, se siguen sumando datos y personajes a la investigación por el asesinato del ex espía ruso Alexander Litvinenko. Ahora, el mozo que le sirvió el té en un bar de Londres el día que cayó enfermo aseguró que fue el ex agente de la KGB, Andrei Lugovoi, quien colocó el veneno en la tetera. Nomberto Andrade, camarero del Pine Bar del Hotel Millenniun, en el centro de Londres, le contó al periódico The Sunday Telegraph que fue distraído deliberadamente cuando trataba de servir la mesa del ex espía, donde además de Lugovoi también estaba sentado otro ciudadano ruso, Dimitri Kovtum. "Cuando estaba llevando un gin tonic a la mesa, fui obstaculizado deliberadamente. No podía ver lo que estaba pasando, pero parecía algo para generar una distracción", indicó Andrade al recordar los sucesos del 1º de noviembre. Consideró que ese fue el único momento en el que la situación "parecía poco amistosa" y afirmó, convencido, que "algo ocurrió en ese punto". "Creo que el polonio fue pulverizado en la tetera", hipotetizó. Las pericias demostraron que se encontró contaminación en el cuadro situado sobre el lugar donde Litvinenko había estado sentado y sobre la mesa, la silla y el suelo, "así que debió ser con un spray", continuó Andrade. Poco después de que se marcharan los tres hombres, el mozo fue a limpiar la mesa y entonces notó que el contenido de la tetera tenía un "color raro". "El té parecía más amarillo y era más espeso, parecía empalagoso", recordó el hombre, quien manifestó rastros de contaminación en las pruebas que le hicieron posteriormente.
...más en diario Clarín

Mayo

¿Por qué los hispanos no aprenden de la Grecia clásica y del Reino Unido qué es democracia?

Londres advierte a Moscú que no renunciará a la extradición del asesino de Litvinenko: En un tira y afloja continúan las relaciones entre Londres y Moscú a raíz de la decisión de la fiscalía británica de solicitar, anteayer, la extradición del ex agente del KGB y empresario ruso Andréi Lugovói por el presunto asesinato de su colega Alexandr Litvinenko. Mientras los abogados preparan la solicitud oficial, el primer ministro británico, Tony Blair, llamó la atención ayer sobre la posición dominante de Rusia en el control de los recursos energéticos mundiales y su disposición a utilizarlos como baza política. Londres ha dejado claro que no renunciará "de ninguna manera" a la extradición y ha pedido a Moscú que respete el derecho internacional.
...más en diarios El País - Página 12 - La Nación - ABC - Y en la web (en inglés y ruso) de la Fundación Litvinenko por la Justicia

Enero

La policía británica identifica el agente de Putin que envenenó el disidente Litvinenko: ...entró en el Reino Unido con falso pasaporte Europeo y salió con otro el mismo 1ro de noviembre pasado ...más en Perfil.

2006

Diciembre

La mentalidad fascista de Putin:
Hoy la policía británica solicitó oficialmente la ayuda de su contraparte rusa en la investigación del caso, que parece hecho a la medida de una novela de espionaje y al que ahora se sumó el pedido de otro ex agente de seguridad ruso, Mijail Trepashkin, que está encarcelado en los Urales y quiere declarar ante los investigadores porque, según sus abogados, tiene evidencia clave y su vida está en peligro debido a que no es asistido correctamente por el asma que padece. En una carta escrita desde prisión, Trepashkin, que cumple una sentencia de cuatro años por revelar secretos de Estado, aseguró que hace ya varios años él advirtió a Litvinenko que los servicios de seguridad habían creado una unidad especial para asesinarlo a él y otros oponentes del Kremlin.
...más en diario Clarín.

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Fair Trials International is a unique human rights charity. We campaign for fundamental rights for people facing the ordeal of criminal charges in a country other than their own. In addition to providing legal assistance and advocacy to individuals in need, we fight the underlying causes of injustice in cross-border cases through our policy interventions, research and training.

Misuse of the European Arrest Warrant

The Guardian, Thursday 16 December 2010
Julian Assange may ultimately succeed in his bail application, but the threat of extradition to Sweden will still hang over him (The Julian Assange case: a mockery of extradition?, 14 December). The public interest in Assange's case is understandable, but his case illustrates a wider, less publicised problem. Last year alone, Europe's fast-track extradition system was used to extradite nearly 700 people from the UK. Our work at Fair Trials International leaves us in no doubt that this system, designed to deliver justice, is in fact causing many serious cases of injustice.
A central concern in the Assange case is that Sweden seems not even to have laid charges. The European arrest warrant should, by law, be used only to prosecute or to enforce a sentence. Serious though the allegations may be, there is no basis to extradite Mr Assange, unless for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution. We have seen many cases of overseas prosecutors reaching for the quick-fire, tick-box EAW, rather than using other legitimate means of investigating alleged crimes. Michael Turner and Andrew Symeou are just two of those we have helped, and who experienced horrendous periods in detention after being surrendered, before even being questioned by police.
In such cases as these, less drastic tools should be used. Sweden should ask the UK to assist with its investigations, starting by questioning Assange. The EAW, used properly, is a key weapon in the fight against serious cross-border crime. It should not, however, be the measure of first resort.
Catherine Heard
Head of policy, Fair Trials International
Read also:
The European arrest warrant is being used to have thousands of people flown out to face charges that wouldn't stick in the UK
Extradition agreement under review as Theresa May launches inquiry
European arrest warrant in spotlight
Extradition treaty review will take a year:
The review, conducted by a panel of experts selected by the Home Office, will examine whether judges should be given powers to bar extradition and deal with some cases in British courts. Existing legislation allows the US and European Union countries to have British citizens arrested and sent for trial abroad without presenting the level of evidence that would be needed for a prosecution in the UK.
The panel will examine whether the Extradition Act and European Arrest Warrant are being used to unfairly pursue Britons. It follows the case of Gary McKinnon, a Scot who faces decades in a US jail for computer hacking crimes allegedly committed at his north London home. There has also been alarm at the use of European warrants to send people to countries with legal systems less robust than the UK's, and where they can face years locked up on remand.
Last night, the former home secretary David Blunkett, who signed the Extradition Act and has admitted he may have "given too much away" to the Americans, said that sensible discussions with Britain's extradition partners could resolve "any irritants quite speedily".
But he said Ms May's announcement of the scope of the review appeared "to kick these issues into the long grass" because the panel will not report until the end of next summer.
Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil rights group Liberty, also raised concerns about the time the review will take, saying: "A number of hard cases could be more urgently addressed by activating a 'forum' provision that has sat dormant on the statute book for four years."
By activating these provisions now, "judges would have the discretion to protect people who should most obviously be dealt with at home from being shunted off to Europe, the US or anywhere else", she added.

Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. We investigate, we litigate and we educate. Working on the frontline, we provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. We promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s right to a fair trial. In doing so we save lives. ...support Reprieve.org.uk

LITVINENKO JUSTICE FOUNDATION

Russian dissident and British citizen Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London with the radioactive isotope Polonium-210 in the autumn of 2006. The Foundation will campaign to secure justice for the Litvinenko family and inform the public about the Litvinenko case.

London 2012: Shakespeare's Olympic City

TheyWorkForYou.com An initiative to keep transparency and accountability alive in public service.

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Esta Web se actualiza diariamente.
Informaciones útiles y criticas constructivas son bienvenidas.

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This Website is updated daily.
Useful informations and constructive critique are welcome.

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English version from Babelfish

Habeas Corpus

Justice & Democracy

Noticias : Europa :: REINO UNIDO

2012

HM Queen Elizabeth II Christmas Message

Russian state 'involved in spy's death'. Spanish link may shed light on motive for the killing of Mr Litvinenko

UKIP Nigel Farage, BBC Breakfast interview responding to the Budget

Nigel Farage declares war on David Cameron over Ukip racism 'slur'

BBC Sunday politics with UKIP [United Kingdom Independence Party] Nigel Farage MEP

The EU Arrest Warrant serves Britain badly Dealing with extradition cases costs the British state at least £27 million a year, and the crimes they deal with are often trivial

A new optimism for Britain

Daniel Hannan - A Deal With United Kingdom Independence Party [Nigel Farage]

We Only Ask Peace among Nations - Voxpop & The Swingle Singers

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the murdered Russian spy, has called on Londoners to wear a white ribbon in protest at the visit of Vladimir Putin to the Olympics.

Nigel Farage: The time will never be right for David Cameron to hold a referendum on the EU The Prime Minister should explain why Britain can’t vote on continued membership of the failing European Union

Queen Elizabeth meets victims of IRA bombing en her first day tour of Northern Ireland

UKIP Nigel Farage & Red Ken Livingstone on collapsing Eurozone

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee: Guide to the weekend of events

Princess Michael’s assassinated friend was in conflict with Russian ministry

Dr. David Ison appointed new Dean at St Paul's Cathedral:

Tories urge Cameron to push for growth: Conservative MPs are stepping up pressure on David Cameron to use this week’s Queen’s Speech to unveil a radical pro-growth agenda.

50 agents face DNA tests over spy-in-the-bag killing as coroner brands death 'unlawful' and puts MI6 in the frame

Lawrence Web for London Major To change for the better, vote UKIP [United Kingdom Independence Party]

The stupid economy - No savings and no growth

A great Queen's birthday

30th Anniversary of the fascist invasion of the Falkland Islands

'Shock' over witchcraft murderer Eric Bikubi ... and other simiilar crimes

Group of Argentinean intellectuals demand the Peronist government to acknowledge the right of the British citizens settled in the Falklands Islands to decide their future, a right that founded Argentina as an independent nation

2nd of April (*) (1982; in Memory of a dictatorship's War to retain power)

Celebrating Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee

Fascist Peronist's colonialism over Falklands Islands

2011

The Queen's Christmas message 2011 In her traditional televised Christmas message, the Queen said she had been "inspired by the courage and hope" the royal family had witnessed in Britain and the Commonwealth in 2011.

Tory minister breaks ranks with Cameron over Europe Owen Paterson's call for a UK referendum if the EU agrees major treaty changes is also endorsed by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Iranian opposition student groups condemn storming of British embassy Tahkim Vahdat and Advar Tahkim claim the Tehran attack was carried out by those associated with the Islamic regime

Cameron may have more leverage in Europe than he thinks

Euro crisis 'opportunity for UK' to reclaim powers

Collapse of the euro 'will help Britain’

HM Queen Elizabeth II visit Australia

Litvinenko's poisoners 'made a big mistake' Five years after the Russian dissident's death, his widow has won a full inquiry into his murder. She tells why she's determined to get justice – even if it means taking on the Russian state

Cameron meeting Putin is a 'historical mistake', says exiled Russian tycoon: Boris Berezovsky

UKIP conference at Eastbourne: Farage accuses PM of 'EU deception'

Baha Mousa inquiry criticises the British troops' 'lack of moral courage' Report's damning verdict on behaviour of British soldiers highlights systemic failings and ignorance of law on detainees

Injured Malaysian man mugged in UK riots. Online footage of an injured student being brazenly robbed has shocked the nation.

The perverse consequences of children growing without mature parental couples and without education: riots and looting in various parts of London and the country, as gangs of illiterate youth enjoy themselves driven by unconscious death pulsion.

Murdoch media phone-hacking whistle-blower Sean Hoare found dead

Rupert Murdoch's media empire's phone-hacking scandal - live updates: • Andy Coulson has been arrested • Former NotW royal correspondent Clive Goodman arrested • Both being held at separate south London police stations • Cameron announces two inquiries, one by judge

Thanks God Britain is not in the Eurozone ...but it should be either leading institutional standards of Fairness and democratic accountability in the European Union or out of it -not to be burden by corruption and misuse of public funds

Reform begins with referendums: It would be absurd to hold a referendum on electoral reform and not on the bigger question of European Union membership by Daniel Hannan

The Royal Wedding Ceremony of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011

Referendum on voting system goes ahead after Lords vote

Assessment of the abuses of the European Arrest Warrant

MI6 offered to detain Hamas figures.

Chilcot Iraq inquiry : Tony Blair has to respond for war crimes and misleading Parliament and the British citizens

Noticias : Europa :: REINO UNIDO

2010

Student fees protest: Mobile footage shows wheelchair protester's abused by police

WikiLeaks cables: UK police 'developed' evidence against McCanns in Madeleine disappeared case

US embassy cables vindicate Litvinenko murder claim, says widow. Unlikely Vladimir Putin was not aware of killing, suggests cable written by a top US diplomat two weeks after 2006 poisoning.

Student fees protest: 'This is just the beginning'

Nick Clegg calls for investigation of abuses in Iraq

Blair's sister-in-law converts to Islam and hopes Tony will give up his prejudices

2009

2008

2007

The Lady of Burma

La viuda de Litvinenko acusa al Gobierno ruso de maniobrar para enterrar la investigación: Las investigaciones de Scotland Yard sobre la muerte se encuentran en punto muerto.

¿Por qué los hispanos no aprenden de la Grecia clásica y del Reino Unido qué es democracia?

2006

Misuse of the European Arrest Warrant

LITVINENKO JUSTICE FOUNDATION

Gracias por su visita

Thanks for your visit

Traducir esta página

Russian state 'involved in spy's death'.
Spanish link may shed light on motive for the killing of Mr Litvinenko

The EU Arrest Warrant serves Britain badly
Dealing with extradition cases costs the British state at least £27 million a year, and the crimes they deal with are often trivial

Nigel Farage: The time will never be right for David Cameron to hold a referendum on the EU
The Prime Minister should explain why Britain can’t vote on continued membership of the failing European Union

Tories urge Cameron to push for growth:
Conservative MPs are stepping up pressure on David Cameron to use this week’s Queen’s Speech to unveil a radical pro-growth agenda.

Lawrence Web for London Major
To change for the better, vote UKIP
[United Kingdom Independence Party]

2nd of April (*)
(1982; in Memory of a dictatorship's War to retain power)

The Queen's Christmas message 2011
In her traditional televised Christmas message, the Queen said she had been "inspired by the courage and hope" the royal family had witnessed in Britain and the Commonwealth in 2011.

Tory minister breaks ranks with Cameron over Europe
Owen Paterson's call for a UK referendum if the EU agrees major treaty changes is also endorsed by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Iranian opposition student groups condemn storming of British embassy
Tahkim Vahdat and Advar Tahkim claim the Tehran attack was carried out by those associated with the Islamic regime

Litvinenko's poisoners 'made a big mistake'
Five years after the Russian dissident's death, his widow has won a full inquiry into his murder. She tells why she's determined to get justice – even if it means taking on the Russian state

Baha Mousa inquiry criticises the British troops' 'lack of moral courage'
Report's damning verdict on behaviour of British soldiers highlights systemic failings and ignorance of law on detainees

Injured Malaysian man mugged in UK riots.
Online footage of an injured student being brazenly robbed has shocked the nation.

The perverse consequences of children growing without mature parental couples and without education:
riots and looting in various parts of London and the country, as gangs of illiterate youth enjoy themselves driven by unconscious death pulsion.

Rupert Murdoch's media empire's phone-hacking scandal - live updates:
• Andy Coulson has been arrested
• Former NotW royal correspondent Clive Goodman arrested
• Both being held at separate south London police stations
• Cameron announces two inquiries, one by judge

Reform begins with referendums:
It would be absurd to hold a referendum on electoral reform and not on the bigger question of European Union membership
by Daniel Hannan

The Royal Wedding Ceremony of Prince William and Catherine Middleton
at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011

US embassy cables vindicate Litvinenko murder claim, says widow.
Unlikely Vladimir Putin was not aware of killing, suggests cable written by a top US diplomat two weeks after 2006 poisoning.