Cops Blotter

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Baggage handlers to strike at Easter

 

Baggage handlers at Stansted Airport are to strike over Easter in a row over pay, the GMB union announced today. The move follows an overwhelming vote in favour of industrial action by 150 GMB members employed by Swissport after the union claimed that shift changes would lead to wage cuts of up to £1,000. The GMB said strikes will be held on Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday, threatening disruption to passengers flying on holiday for the holiday break. GMB official Gary Pearce said: "GMB members have voted overwhelmingly for strike action and for action short of a strike. "Up to now the company has been intent on imposing these changes without agreement and this is completely unacceptable, as this vote shows. "GMB has offered several alternative shift patterns and working arrangements but the company refuses to listen so far. "I have notified Swissport of the ballot result and I have asked them for more talks to try to avert action over these pay cuts. "GMB members consider that Swissport is attempting to make savings at their expense and they are not willing to agree to this. "Unless there is urgent talks and a settlement, this vote for action this will result in disruption over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. "The travelling public need to be aware that it has been this aggressive move by Swissport to cut our members pay at a time of high inflation that has led to this strike vote. "If the strike goes ahead, Swissport is entirely to blame for the disruption."

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Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Shawn Tyson guilty of murdering two Britons in Florida

 

An American teenager has been found guilty of the first degree murder of two British tourists in Florida. James Cooper, 25, from Warwickshire, and James Kouzaris, 24, from Northampton, were shot dead on a public housing estate in Newtown, Sarasota. The pair, who met at Sheffield University, were killed after drunkenly wandering into the estate in the early hours of 16 April 2011. The court heard Shawn Tyson, 17, killed them after trying to rob them. Tyson, who was tried as an adult despite being 16 at the time of the shooting, faces life in prison with no chance of parole. 'Shattered soul' The families of Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris were not in court but said in a statement they were satisfied with the verdict. They added: "It is a fact that we were given a life sentence when our sons were so brutally and needlessly taken from us. "Ours is a life sentence, with no chance of parole from a broken heart, and a shattered soul." Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before they were shot The families also criticised the Sarasota court system that freed Tyson after a judge warned he was a danger to the public. Hours before he shot the two Britons, Tyson was arrested for a separate shooting incident in which no-one was hurt. In the statement the families said: "The evil of the killer is one thing, but the fact is, he would not have been on the streets had instructions to keep him incarcerated been passed from one judge to another." Killer's boast When the mistake came to light the Mayor of Sarasota, Kelly Kirschener, vowed the city's prosecutors would never let anything similar happen again. During the trial jurors heard how Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before getting lost and wandering into the Newtown area in the early hours. The prosecution said they were confronted by Tyson who tried to rob them and then shot them when he realised they had very little money. The court heard Tyson had boasted to his friend Latrece Washington, who testified against him, that one of the men had begged for his life but he shot him anyway.

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Tuesday, 27 March 2012

French judges seek arrest of Equatorial Guinea leader's son

 

Two French judges sought an international arrest warrant for the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema on money laundering charges, a judicial source said on Tuesday. The two judges, Roger Le Loire and Rene Grouman, consider there are grounds to suspect that Teodorin Obiang, who is agriculture minister in the small, oil-rich central African country, acquired real estate in France by fraudulent means. The warrant will not be released until a prosecutor has reviewed the request and decides whether to proceed. Teodorin is frequently seen enjoying an extravagant lifestyle abroad with multi-million dollar mansions, jets and yachts. Billboards in the capital Malabo seek to show him at work and in touch with the people, but diplomats and analysts cite his playboy lifestyle as a cause for concern. The French judges, who have been handling the case since 2010 on the basis of "concealment of embezzled public funds," suspect that the properties were purchased with public money from Equatorial Guinea. The judges had previously sought permission from the government of Equatorial Guinea to question Teodorin, but that request was rejected, Olivier Pardo, lawyer for the oil producing nation, told Reuters in Paris. "Unless one wishes to violate the sovereignty of the State of Equatorial Guinea and harm relations between France and Equatorial Guinea, it is absurd to want to launch an arrest warrant," he said. As part of the investigation, French police raided a building belonging to Equatorial Guinea in a wealthy area of Paris in February. After three days they removed art works and fine wines worth several million euros. The building was valued at about 150 million euros and investigators say it housed a nightclub and hairdressers, which suggested it was not being used as a diplomatic residence. Anti-corruption organisation Transparency International had filed the original legal complaint against Teodorin Obiang. On March 1, Teodorin filed for defamation against Daniel Lebegue, the president of the French arm of Transparency, denying he had embezzled funds. President Teodoro Obiang has ruled the former Spanish colony for more than three decades, making him the longest-serving African leader following the demise of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, with rights groups labelling his regime one of the world's most corrupt. The country produces about 240,000 barrels of oil per day. In January, Teodorin asked a U.S. court to dismiss attempts by the Obama administration to seize some $71 million worth of his assets, denying charges that they were obtained with allegedly corrupt funds taken from his country. He argued he had not violated U.S. or Equatorial Guinea law and called the corruption allegations "character assassination" against him and his country. Equatorial Guinea in October said it wanted to appoint Teodorin as its deputy permanent delegate at U.N. cultural agency UNESCO in Paris, a position that would give him diplomatic status in France. Until now the agency has not received any official documentation to proceed further with that request.

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JetBlue plane in emergency landing after captain's apparent breakdown


The captain of a JetBlue plane screamed "They're going to take us down!" and rambled about al-Qaida as passengers pinned him to the floor while another pilot took charge to make an emergency landing. An off-duty airline captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the cockpit, locked the door and landed in Amarillo, Texas, the airline said in a statement. JetBlue Airways said the original pilot on flight 191 from New York's John F Kennedy international airport had been taken to hospital after suffering a "medical situation" on board. The captain had earlier stormed through his plane rambling about a bomb and threats from Iraq until passengers on the Las Vegas-bound flight tackled him just outside the cockpit, passengers said. He had seemed disoriented, jittery and constantly sipped water when he first marched through the cabin, then began to rant about threats linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan after crew members tried to calm him down. "They're going to take us down! They're taking us down! Say the Lord's prayer!" the captain screamed, according to passenger Tony Antolino. Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida". Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, told the Amarillo Globe-News: "He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down." "A group of us just jumped up instinctually and grabbed him and put him to the ground," Antolino said after arriving in Las Vegas later Tuesday. "Clearly he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown." Antolino, a security executive, said he and three others pinned down the captain as he ran for the cockpit door and sat on him for about 20 minutes until the plane landed at Rick Husband Amarillo international airport at 10am. Shane Helton, 39, who was seeing off his son at Amarillo airport, said: "They pulled one guy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance." The flight had left New York around 7am and was in the air for three and a half hours before landing in Texas. The passengers completed their journey to Las Vegas several hours later on another flight. The FBI was co-ordinating an investigation with the police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said FBI spokeswoman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests. Earlier this month an American Airlines flight attendant took over the public address system on a flight bound for Chicago and spoke for 15 minutes about 9/11 and the safety of their plane, saying: "I'm not responsible for this plane crashing," passengers said. She was wrestled into a seat while the plane was grounded at Dallas-Fort Worth international airport. The attendant was taken to hospital. In 2008 an Air Canada co-pilot was forcibly removed from a Toronto to London flight, restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown. A flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot make an emergency landing in Ireland. None of the 146 passengers and nine crew members on board were injured. In August 2010 JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater pulled the emergency chute on a flight from Pittsburgh after it landed at John F Kennedy international airport. He went on the public address system, swore at a passenger, grabbed a beer and slid down the tarmac. He was sentenced to probation, counselling and substance abuse treatment for attempted criminal mischief. An aviation expert remembered only two or three cases in 40 years where a pilot had become mentally incapacitated during a flight. John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said incidents in which pilots become mentally incapacitated during a flight were "pretty rare". He said he could only recall two or three other examples in the more than 40 years he has been following commercial aviation. Airlines and the FAA strongly encouraged pilots to assert themselves if they thought safety was being jeopardised, even if it meant contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts had studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results. In Tuesday's case the FAA is likely to review the unidentified captain's medical certificate, which must be renewed every six months to a year.

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Cannabis: Legal high

 

CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birmingham. The small shop, its windows filled with graffiti-style posters, also sells fertilisers with names like “Nirvana” and “Bud Candy”, alongside strong lights and giant rolls of tin foil to line greenhouses. In one corner, a couple of juicy-looking tomato plants grow in a demonstration set-up. But the youth behind the counter guesses that his customers are “not all growing tomatoes”. Birmingham now has 58 hydroponics shops, up from 42 just a year ago. Whether aided by the latest plant-growing technology or not, cannabis production is soaring. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the number of cannabis factories detected each year increased from around 800 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2010. Birmingham is one of the most fertile areas; West Midlands Police, which set up a Cannabis Disposal Unit in 2010 to tackle the problem, dismantled more than 500 factories last year. Your correspondent visited one recently closed by police; the gardener was a cocaine-addicted woman growing a few plants in a spare room in the hope of earning a cut. Other set-ups have been found in tents in the bedrooms of high-rise council flats and in the lofts of terraced family houses. Many growers are simply feeding their own habits. As one officer on the West Midlands Police drugs team says, “It’s becoming the most popular cottage industry in the country.” In this section A big splash with little cash Falling flat Earning a hearing The worst job in the world Constituency of the world Mother tongue Money for old metal »Legal high A rock and a hard place The Notting Hill budget Reprints Related topics United Kingdom Birmingham, England Small growers are squeezing out both importers and the well-connected, often Vietnamese, gangs that once dominated domestic production. The big cannabis factories set up by the latter, with their telltale heat hazes, are fairly easy to spot. Smaller operations are often uncovered only when the electric lights start fires, or when local teenagers mount a burglary. The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so. Last month the government published new sentencing guidelines that advised judges to treat small cultivators less strictly. Attitudes to smokers are softening, too. The reclassification of cannabis in 2009, from class C to the more stringent class B, was oddly accompanied by a more liberal approach to policing consumption. Users caught on the street are rarely arrested; rather, they are issued “cannabis cautions” (a reprimand which doesn’t appear on a criminal record) or fined. In Brixton, a south London neighbourhood, an open-air cannabis market exists within ten minutes’ walk of the underground station. The dealers are frequently moved on but they soon regroup elsewhere. As one dealer admits, his competitors are a bigger hassle than the police. “They get to fightin’, over money and things,” he says in a deep Caribbean drawl. Violence is far more likely to get a dealer into legal trouble than business. Strangely, this lackadaisical approach is not encouraging people to take up the reefer habit. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.

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Cat-Sized Rats Invade Florida

 

Cat-sized rats are causing trouble in the Florida keys. A pack of Gambian giant pouched rats have been breeding in the keys despite officials’ efforts to eradicate them. NBC Miami reports that Officials are worried about the vermin making it over to the mainland, saying that the hungry species could wipe out crops and upset the delicate ecological balance in Florida. Scort Hardin, the exotic species coordinator for Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said: “We thought we had them whipped as of 2009…. In the early part of 2011, a resident e-mailed me and said he saw one of the rats. We were skeptical but went back and talked to people and [saw] there were rats that we missed.” Hardin believes that there are less than two dozen giant rats roaming Grassy Key where they were trapped during multiple efforts last year. The Wildlife Conservation Commission will set out once again this July in an attempt to trap the Gambian giant pouched rats. Hardin told Keys Net: “I would not imagine there’s more than another couple of dozen at most. We’ve caught them all within a half-mile of each other… We think they have not moved far but they clearly reproduced.” MSNBC reports that the cat-sized rats were introduced to the island by a local rat breeder more than a decade ago. The rats have moved into the wild where they are now breeding and wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.

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New Black Panther leader arrested as group sets bounty in Florida shooting

 

high-ranking member of the New Black Panther Party was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said Monday. DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Hashim Nzinga, 49, was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. More Atlanta area news » Immigration-related complaint may become ‘moot' 'Chicken Man' house explodes Trayvon Martin rally at Capitol draws many Gang member guilty of 2011 killing Hashim Nzinga, 49, recently announced on CNN that his group was offering a $10,000 reward for the capture of George Zimmerman, the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. CNN identified Nzinga as the chief of staff of the New Black Panther Party. According to a DeKalb arrest warrant, Nzinga was in possession of an FN Herstal 5.7 x 28 handgun, which investigators said he pawned at a shop on Rockbridge Road. That alleged transaction would be illegal due to Nzinga’s convictions last month for felony deposit account fraud in Gwinnett County, the DeKalb Sheriff's Office said. Nzinga was arrested by members of the fugitive squad at a probation office in Lawrenceville and transported to DeKalb County Jail. The New Black Panther Party is offering a $10,000 bounty for the capture of Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed Martin, an unarmed teenager, last month. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad said Saturday at a rally in Sanford, where Martin was killed Feb. 26, according to Fox News. Zimmerman has claimed he shot Martin in self-defense, but the New Black Panthers are calling for mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture Zimmerman, who has gone into hiding, the Orlando Sentinel reported. "He should be fearful for his life," Muhammad said. "You can't keep killing black children." According to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New Black Panthers "is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers." The group was founded in Dallas in 1989 and believes black Americans should have their own nation, according to the SPLC. Zimmerman shot Martin as he returned to his father's house from a store where he had bought candy. Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher that Martin was acting suspicious and told police that he was attacked by Martin. Sanford police say they were advised by prosecutors that they did not have enough evidence to charge Zimmerman.

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Wednesday, 21 March 2012

A Nation 'Addicted' To Statins...


Dear Reader,

In the UK alone, more than 7 million people are taking cholesterol-lowering statins. This is extremely worrying when you consider the damage these over-prescribed drugs can inflict, with side effects ranging from liver dysfunction and acute renal failure to fatigue and extreme muscle weakness (myopathy).

Slowly tearing us apart

Even more concerning are the side effects that crop up after long-term use, which are often not linked to statins. For example, one study monitored the symptoms of 40 asthma patients for a year. 20 of these patients started statins at the outset of the study, while the remaining 20 did not.

The results showed that those patients on statins used their rescue inhaler medications 72 per cent more often than they had at the start of the study, compared to a 9 per cent increase in those who were not taking statins. The researchers also reported that patients taking statins had to get up more frequently at night because of their asthma and also had worse symptoms during the day...

Worsening asthma symptoms is just the beginning. More recent research has linked statins with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, depression, Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Still, doctors are very quick to reach for their prescription pads and push these drugs. There appears to be an unofficial (but widely practiced) 'statins for all' approach... especially if you are aged 50 and over.

Luckily, some mainstreamers are slowly catching on to what we've been saying for nearly a decade. In 2011, research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine drew attention to the fact that there is inadequate medical data available that proves the benefits of statins, and that many studies fail to acknowledge the most commonly reported adverse effects of statins.

The fact remains (and your doctor may still deny this) that in total, statins cause serious damage in about 4.4 per cent of those taking them, in comparison to the 2.7 per cent statin users benefiting from them... and it looks as if this message is finally getting through to medical authorities.

A case in point is simvastatin or Zocor. After being on the market for almost 3 decades and causing havoc and distress with its horrendous side effects, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally issued a warning about the use of this drug... saying that even the approved dosage can harm or even kill you!

Yep! Kill you!

All well and good

It's all fair and well and good that the FDA flagged this warning, but what's the point if doctors continue to prescribe these drugs left, right and centre?

Professor Sarah Harper, director of Oxford University's institute of population ageing, recently said that the UK's "love affair" with prescription medicine, shows how people choose to pop pills rather than follow a healthy lifestyle.

She cited the widespread use of statin drugs to 'help' protect against heart disease and lower cholesterol, instead of eating healthily, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol intake and taking regular exercise.

By all means, I applaud Prof Harper for pushing the message that living a healthy life plays a big part in preventing disease, but why blame patients for being a bunch of pill poppers when doctors hand out drugs with reckless abandon... and recommend taking preventative drugs to ever younger age groups. So in fact, the white coats should be labelled as Big Pharma's drug pushers, because they're part of the problem... especially considering that so many people put their entire trust in their doctor and would never dream of questioning their advice. Most people take what they say as gospel.

Then there's the media, inundating Joe Public with inflammatory headlines like: 'Statins could help fight breast cancer' or 'Statins can prevent infections like pneumonia'... Not to mention their reporting on botch studies showing the 'unintended benefits' of statins, like their potential to prevent pneumonia, combat diabetes, reduce the risk of oesophageal cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer — all of these so-called benefits are of course not yet proven, and highly unlikely. Still, they reach the front pages!

So, yes we might have turned into a pill popping public, but it's the mainstream and the media that have created this monster all with the help and backing of the puppet master: Big Pharma. Because as you and I know all too well, it's all about the money. 

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Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Second arrest after man killed at Herbie Hide's home

 

A second person has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man at the Norwich home of former boxing world heavyweight champion Herbie Hide. Tafadzwa Kahn, 25, of St Giles Street, Norwich, died from a stab wound at the house in Long Lane, Bawburgh, on Sunday morning. An 18-year-old man from the Norwich area was arrested on Tuesday. The first person arrested, a 16-year-old boy, remains in custody in Wymondham Police Investigation Centre. Detectives said the stabbing followed an argument at a party in the house. 'High visibility patrols' The property remains sealed while a forensic examination is carried out. Police said they would continue to provide high visibility reassurance patrols in the area. More than 100 people were at the party at the time of the stabbing. Police said earlier they were "fairly certain" Mr Hide was not on the premises at the time of the stabbing. Mr Hide told the BBC on Monday: "The reality of this right now is a man is dead. Imagine this - a lady was told her son has gone. Imagine that." A spokesman said a post-mortem examination found the cause of death was a stab wound to the body. Mr Hide and his family have relocated while investigations at the house continue. Mr Hide won the WBO (World Boxing Organisation) heavyweight title for the first time in 1994, beating American Michael Bentt, but lost it to another American, Riddick Bowe, the following year. He regained the title in 1997 and made two successful defences before losing to Vitali Klitschko in 1999.

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Azhar Ahmed to stand trial over Facebook post about dead soldiers


Azhar Ahmed, 19, appeared at Dewsbury magistrates' court charged under the Communications Act 2003 with sending a message that was grossly offensive on March 8. In court a racially-aggravated public order charge was withdrawn, but Mr Ahmed, from Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, denied the new charge. Police and demonstrators outside Dewsbury Magistrates Court (Picture: PA) He has been bailed and is due to stand trial at Huddersfield magistrates' court on July 3. There was a large police presence outside court as 50 far-right protesters staged noisy demonstrations when he arrived and left. Mr Ahmed's court appearance came as the bodies of the six soldiers killed in Afghanistan on March 6 were repatriated to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. Demonstrators shouted when Azhar Ahmed arrived and left court (Picture: PA) They died when their Warrior vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Lashkar Gah in the deadliest single attack on British forces since 2001. Sergeant Nigel Coupe, 33, of 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment was killed alongside Corporal Jake Hartley, 20, Private Anthony Frampton, 20, Private Christopher Kershaw, 19, Private Daniel Wade, 20, and Private Daniel Wilford, 21, all of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment.

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Harry Potter Star Jamie Waylett Jailed For Two Years For Violent Disorder In London Riots


Actor Jamie Waylett, who starred in the Harry Potter films, has been jailed for two years for being part of a violent mob during last summer's London riots. The 22-year-old, who played Hogwarts bully Vincent Crabbe in six of the films, was found guilty of violent disorder by a jury at London's Wood Green Crown Court. The actor, who had already admitted swigging from a stolen bottle of Champagne during the rioting, was cleared of intending to destroy or damage property with a petrol bomb he was pictured holding. He already has a previous conviction for cannabis possession. Waylett of Hillfield Road, northwest London, was with a gang of at least four people who went into Chalk Farm on August 8, the third night of violence in the capital. He was captured on CCTV at various points during the evening, often with his hood over his head. Buildings on fire in Tottenham during the riots Judge Simon Carr sentenced the actor to two years for violent disorder and 12 months for handling stolen goods, to run concurrently. Jailing him, the judge said: "A considerable amount has been said about what happened over those few days. Anyone watching the footage in this case can only imagine the mayhem that took place on the streets. "You chose to go out on to the streets on what was the third day of the violence. "You were pictured on a number of occasions with a bottle full of petrol with a rag as a wick. "I accept entirely the jury's verdict that you did not throw or have any intention of throwing it, but merely being in possession of it would have been terrifying to anyone who saw you." Waylett will be eligible for parole after serving a year in jail. The star, who had a shaved head and a goatee beard, wore a white shirt with an open collar and a dark suit to hear the sentencing. He nodded to the public gallery as he was led down to the cells.

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Friday, 16 March 2012

Police plans to fire rubber bullets in London

 

Scotland Yard authorised the deployment of rubber bullets ready for use on the streets of London 22 times in the past two years, The Independent can reveal. The figure suggests the Metropolitan Police had considered ordering its officers to open fire during public disorder incidents far more frequently than previously thought. The Yard yesterday refused to say on what dates and during which situations it ordered some of the nearly 3,000 baton rounds it possesses to be distributed to firearms teams. It said the release of such information could endanger future policing operations. The revelation that the Met authorised the distribution of the non-lethal rounds on average almost once a month in 2010 and 2011 follows the disclosure earlier this week that senior officers wanted to fire rubber bullets at rioters in south London last summer – but firearms specialists could not reach the trouble spots in time. The Met has now promised to make "more agile use" of the weapons. Although they have been used in Northern Ireland for many years, baton rounds have never been fired on the British mainland. Even in the extreme circumstances of last August's riots their use would have been seen as a significant escalation in police tactics and a move away from Britain's consensual policing model. The figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrat peer Dee Doocey, are an indication of an increasingly muscular response to what police believe is the increased threat to officers and the public from gangs or individuals bent on violent disorder. But campaigners argue that the use of non-lethal firearms in crowd control has no place in policing on the British mainland. The Yard was criticised last year when it released a statement saying that baton rounds – referred to by police as attenuating energy projectiles (AEPs) – might be deployed if extreme disorder occurred during a protest in London against tuition fees. In a written answer to a question last month from Baroness Doocey, the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, confirmed on behalf of the Met Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, that the force had "authorised the movement" of rubber bullets 22 times in 2010 and 2011. But he said details of the incidents would only be given under conditions of secrecy because, if made public, they could compromise future operations. Lady Doocey, a member of the Greater London Authority and the Metropolitan Police Authority until it was replaced with a new body in January, said the disclosure of the precise dates was in the public interest. She told The Independent: "I have long believed rubber bullets have no role in policing demonstrations in London. This secrecy over their potential use merely confirms that view. It is simply wrong for the Met to be silent when on so many occasions the use of rubber bullets was being considered." Rubber bullets are designed to offer a non-lethal alternative to conventional firearms and police argue modern AEPs pose less threat of serious injury. Between 2006 and October 2011, the Met Police bought 2,700 AEP rounds. It said it could not produce figures for baton round deployments in previous years, adding that it followed strict guidelines designed to protect life and prevent serious injury. Opinion about rubber bullets remains divided within police ranks. A Met Police review of last summer's riots revealed officers dealing with violence in Enfield and Brixton decided against deploying the weapons because they believed it would escalate the confrontation. During the rioting, Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said he did not consider the deployment of rubber bullets in London to be sensible in "any way, shape or form".

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Wednesday, 14 March 2012

The former chief reporter of the News of the World was arrested yesterday by police investigating the phone hacking scandal, on suspicion of intimidating a witness.

Neville Thurlbeck, 50, who was also news editor on the defunct Sunday tabloid, was detained by appointment at a central London police station by officers from Operation Weeting a day after his former editor, Rebekah Brooks, was arrested with five others on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He was later released on bail. Yesterday's arrest came as James Murdoch used a letter to the House of Commons media select committee to distance himself once more from any wrongdoing inside News International (NI). He blamed two former trusted lieutenants, Colin Myler and Tom Crone, claiming there were "inconsistencies" in their evidence to MPs. Mr Thurlbeck has been a central figure in the unfolding phone-hacking saga since being named in the so-called "for Neville" email. This showed voicemail interception went beyond a single "rogue" reporter at the NOTW. He was arrested last year on suspicion of conspiring to hack phones and eavesdropping voicemail messages. During recent months, he has adopted a higher media profile, with broadcast appearances and the launch of a blog commenting on developments in the crisis enveloping NI. In a blog entry last week, Mr Thurlbeck revealed how Will Lewis, a key member of News Corp's Management and Standards Committee, which has been marshalling millions of internal NI emails to Scotland Yard, had hired a private security company to provide security at his home. Mr Thurlbeck published the name of the security company, noting that it had spent several hours at Mr Lewis's home, and gave the name of the street where the NI executive lives. In a subsequent blog, Mr Thurlbeck, who is suing his former employer for unfair dismissal, said his story had prompted approaches from lawyers and a public relations company representing Mr Lewis, asking for the removal of his posting. He claimed it was suggested to him that the details he had provided about the security company "somehow implied I had put [Mr Lewis's] home under surveillance. Bonkers!". He added: "I accepted their point that printing the name of his street was distressing to his family and took this down immediately as I have absolutely no wish to do this. Although I have not been asked to do so, I would like to apologise to Mrs Lewis for any distress." A spokesman for the Management and Standards Committee declined to comment last night on Mr Thurlbeck's arrest. Meanwhile Mr Murdoch has sought to influence the parliamentary report into phone hacking, which is expected to be published before the Easter recess, by telling the committee that he did not mislead them, that he never tried to hide wrongdoing at the NOTW, and that when he did ask questions about what was going on, he was given "false assurances" by senior executives at Wapping. In a personal letter to John Whittingdale, chair of the media select committee, the former executive chairman of NI initially takes responsibility "for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier". However, the limited apologetic tone of his seven page letter, in which he accepts that it "would have been better if I had asked more questions", also contains evidence of anger directed at former trusted lieutenants inside NI. He says he relied too much on people who assured him that investigations had been carried out and who claimed that further inquiries were unnecessary. The former NOTW editor, Colin Myler, and News Group Newspaper's former legal manager, Tom Crone, are named repeatedly and described as offering "inconsistencies" to Parliament, while Mr Murdoch says his own evidence "has always been consistent". The letter states: "The truth is that incomplete answers and what now appears to be false assurances were given to the questions that I asked." In summaries of earlier evidence to the committee, he says he was "never intimately involved with the workings of the NOTW"; and on key meetings that discussed how senior executives were dealing with the emerging hacking culture, he says: "I was given a narrower set of facts than I should have been given..." He also says that if "Messrs Crone and Myler" had given him the highly critical private opinion offered in 2008 by NI's leading counsel, Michael Silverleaf QC, which described "widespread wrongdoing", then he would have "acted differently". He ends his letter by repeating that he neither knew about, nor attempted to hide, wrongdoing, and tells MPs: "The evidence does not support any other conclusion." James Murdoch: What he wrote "I take my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier. However, I have not misled Parliament. I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing. I do not believe the evidence before you supports any other conclusion..." "It has been said I did not ask enough questions. However, the truth is that incomplete answers and what now appears to be false assurances were given to the questions that I asked."

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James Murdoch pleads innocence ahead of committee report

James Murdoch has written to an influential parliamentary committee, investigating a phone hacking scandal at his company, to apologise and restate his innocence ahead of a potentially damaging report that could determine his future in Britain. The 39-year-old son of Rupert wrote to the committee to accept responsibility for failing to uncover the criminal behaviour, which has damaged the reputation of the News Corp media empire, British politicians and police. At stake is his role as chairman of British pay-TV group BSkyB and potentially his future at News Corp, where he had for years been marked out as the heir apparent to his father Rupert as chief executive.   "I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing," he said in the letter published by the committee on Wednesday. "Whilst I accept my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing sooner, I did not mislead parliament and the evidence does not support any other conclusion." Analysts and some shareholders believe Murdoch would struggle to remain at BSkyB if he is singled out for particular criticism as it could impact his ability to negotiate with the government and regulators on behalf of one of Britain's most powerful media firms. The all-party committee summoned James and his father Rupert to a hearing at the height of the scandal last July, for a three-hour often testy grilling that was watched live by millions on television in both Britain and the United States. Just four months later, the younger Murdoch had to return to answer further detailed questions over what he knew and when after two former colleagues publicly contradicted his evidence. News Corp's British newspaper arm News International had long argued that the hacking of voicemails to generate stories was the work of a single rogue reporter and private investigator who had already gone to jail for the crime. But as more people came forward to accuse the company of hacking their phones, that defence crumbled and attention turned to those at the top of the company and it was asked why they had not pushed further to discover the truth. "Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, I acknowledge that wrongdoing should have been uncovered earlier," Murdoch said in his letter. The parliamentary committee had originally planned to publish its report before Christmas but due to the sensitivity of the material it is having to write the document by committee and is now aiming for the Easter holiday in April.

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British man, wife killed at Thai resort

 

POLICE say a British man and his Thai wife have been robbed and beaten to death at a seaside resort south of Bangkok. Police Major General Wichean Tantawiriya says three Thai men - a security guard and chef at the resort and their friend - were arrested today and had confessed to killing the couple and taking a mobile phone and 5000 baht ($155). Wichean says the bodies of Michael Raymond, 68, and Suchada Bowkamdee, 52, were discovered yesterday in their bungalow at the Jack Beach Resort in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, 350km south of Bangkok. He says they had checked in a day earlier. Wichean says two of the three suspects were addicted to methamphetamine, a stimulant, and needed money to buy drugs.

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American Airlines flight attendant restrained after taking over PA system and screaming 'we're going to crash'

 

A flight attendant had to be restrained by passengers and crew on an American Airlines flight after she started ranting that the plane was going to crash over the PA system. According to news.com.au, she told passengers on the flight from Dallas to Chicago: "We are not taking off. We're having technical difficulties. We are heading back to the gate." First class travellers helped cabin crew subdue the woman after she started screaming things like, "I am not responsible for crashing this plane", talking about 9/11, and rambling about American Airlines' bankruptcy.

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A Moroccan teenager killed herself after a judge forced her to marry her rapist.

 

The 16-year-old girl, named as Amina Filali, ate rat poison after a Tangier court which was supposed to be punishing her 26-year-old attacker decided that they should instead be wed.

This is because Moroccan laws exempt a rapist from punishment if he agrees to marry his victim.

Sentenced: A judge in Tangier (pictured) ordered the rapist to marry his victim as 'punishment'

Sentenced: A judge in Tangier (pictured) ordered the rapist to marry his victim as 'punishment'

Traumatised by the rape and the forced marriage, Moroccan newspaper al-Massae said she committed suicide at her husband's house.

 

 

 

Hafida Elbaz, director of the Women’s Solidarity Association, criticised the law and said rapists often believed they could avoid punishment by marrying their victims.

Rape victim: Gulnaz, who was pardoned by the Afghan president earlier this month, with her daughter in a Kabul jail. She was today released

Rape victim: Gulnaz, who was pardoned by the Afghan president earlier this month, with her daughter in a Kabul jail. She was today released

The incident throws more light on the way women are treated in Islamic countries.

Last year Afghan 21-year-old Gulnaz was jailed for 'adultery by force' after she was brutally raped by her husband's cousin.

Her attacker was jailed for seven years for the crime that left her pregnant.

A global outrage saw the President of Afghanistan personally pardoning her and releasing her from Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, with no pre-conditions.




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Goldman Sachs director quits 'morally bankrupt' Wall Street bank

 

A Goldman Sachs director in London has resigned after publishing a devastating open letter accusing senior staff of being "morally bankrupt" and bent on extracting maximum fees from clients by offloading unsuitable investment products. Greg Smith, who has left his post as executive director of the firm's equity derivatives business in Europe, claimed that chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and president Gary Cohn have "lost hold of the firm's culture on their watch". He added that "this decline in the firm's moral fibre represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival".. Smith's charges, which were swiftly denied by the bank, were published in Wednesday's New York Times and raised questions about the firm's relationship with existing clients, whom Smith claimed were referred to as "muppets". Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and his party's former Treasury spokesman in the Lords, said the matter raised questions about any relationship between the UK government and Goldman. Smith, who joined Goldman as a summer intern and worked at the firm for 12 years, first in New York and then in London, claimed managing directors made their remarks about "muppets" in internal email. "I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off them." Selected as one of 10 people, out of a firm of 30,000, to appear in a Goldman recruiting video which is played on college campuses around the world, Smith has hired and mentored new recruits and managed a summer intern programme for the bank. "I knew it was time to leave when I realised I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work," he wrote. He said junior analysts are absorbing a culture in which the most important question is "how much money did we make off the client?", and that hearing talk of "muppets," "ripping eyeballs out" and "getting paid" will not turn them into "model citizens". "Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an axe murderer) you will be promoted to a position of influence." In response, Goldman Sachs denied that Smith was giving an accurate view of life at the company. "We disagree with the views expressed, which we don't think reflect the way we run our business. In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful. This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves," the bank said. Fast-track to promotion Smith claims to have advised the five largest US asset managers, Middle East and Asian sovereign wealth funds, and the world's two largest hedge funds. His letter did not name them, but Bloomberg ranks Man Group and Bridgewater Associates as the biggest hedge funds. The LibDem peer Oakeshott said: "We know in the City that Goldmans help themselves before their clients. Now here's the proof. Greg Smith says you get promoted there if you make enough money for the firm and you are not an axe murderer - and the people of Greece and the rest of the eurozone are paying the price after Goldmans cooked their books and Greece joined the euro at an unsustainably high exchange rate. Until this culture is stamped out, Goldmans are not fit and proper to receive a penny of British taxpayers' money or advise our government in any way." Goldman is among the gilt-edged market makers which help to facilitate trading in UK government bonds. Smith claims the fast-track to a Goldman promotion involves persuading clients to invest in stocks or other products "that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit"; getting clients to trade "whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman" – referred to internally as "hunting elephants" and securing a job trading "any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym". Goldman has lost the "secret sauce" that allowed it to endure for 143 years and is at risk of losing its clients' trust, wrote Smith: "Goldman Sachs is one of the world's largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act in this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for."

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Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Escaped prisoner Anthony Downes arrested and held in Amsterdam

 

Anthony Downes, who was arrested in Amsterdam, escaped from a prison van while being transported from HMP Manchester to Liverpool Crown Court in July last year. He had been facing trial for conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to cause damage with intent to endanger life. He was convicted in his absence at Woolwich Crown Court and is due to be sentenced at the end of this week. Downes, 26, featured as part of Crimestoppers’ latest Operation Captura Campaign in October 2011, which seeks to locate wanted fugitives believed to have fled to Spain, who are wanted by UK law enforcement agencies. Lord Ashcroft, KCMG, Founder and Chair of Crimestoppers, said: “This is yet another example of how criminals on the run will eventually be caught and I am delighted to hear that this individual has been arrested. “Crimestoppers is seeing huge success with its fugitive campaigns and the fact that we now have 48 arrests out of 65 appeals from our Captura campaign proves that wanted criminals will eventually be brought to justice.” Deputy Chief Executive, Dave Cording, added: “This arrest comes less than six months after the fifth anniversary of Operation Captura. “Through close collaboration with the Spanish police, SOCA and the public, these individuals have nowhere to hide and those still on the run should think about handing themselves in before they are caught next.” This latest arrest brings the total number of those located to 48 out of 65 appeals since the campaign launched in October 2006. Operation Captura is the successful multi-agency campaign which identifies serious criminals believed to be on the run in Spain.

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Expats in Spain warned of faulty hip replacements


Therapist Carol Duquemin, 59, decided to act after being forced to have her hip replacement removed after just four months. Duquemin – whose ordeal came after the manufacturer recalled the faulty product in 2010 – has teamed up with free health care service Medilink to provide advice and support to expats. “Up to 9,000 people in Spain could have been affected by the implants,” Duquemin said. “People are still not aware of the problem and the danger it poses to their health. “The law says you have to have it removed in the country where you had the operation but some hospitals here are not giving the help and information that they should, and it is a big operation that causes a huge trauma to the body.

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Rebekah Brooks and husband arrested in phone hacking inquiry

REBEKAH Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband are among six suspects arrested today by detectives investigating allegations of phone hacking at News International. The former News International chief executive and Charlie Brooks were arrested at their Oxfordshire home on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, sources said. Police are searching several addresses after dawn raids also took place in London, Hampshire and Hertfordshire, Scotland Yard said. Ms Brooks, a former editor of The Sun, had been on bail after being questioned by detectives last summer on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption. Today’s arrest comes after her lawyer, Stephen Parkinson, said evidence given by Sue Akers at the Leveson Inquiry had brought “much prejudicial material” into the public domain.

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Sunday, 11 March 2012

Nicolas Sarkozy threatens to pull France out of Schengen zone


His call came as the French centre-Right threw its full firepower behind their candidate in Villepinte, near Charles de Gaulle airport, in a huge, glitzy show of force designed to breath new life into his flagging campaign. Hailed like a prizefighter, Mr Sarkozy climbed the huge white stage to the strains of his campaign anthem and an amended slogan: "Strong France with You". Actor Gérard Depardieu lent some star power to proceedings, along with Mr Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and her predecessor as First Lady, Bernadette Chirac. Days after telling France that he would give up politics if he lost the forthcoming elections, Mr Sarkozy told supporters "I have lost none of my desire to act" before launching into a series of protectionist proposals for France and Europe. These included suspending France's participation in the Schengen visa-free zone signed by all 27 EU states bar Britain and Ireland if its rules were not revised to fight illegal immigration in the coming 12 months.

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US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children,


A US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, after entering their homes in Kandahar. Sky sources said the Afghan victims also included women and elderly men. Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, who is investigating the incident, said the soldier entered three homes, killing 11 people in the first one. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) coalition confirmed the incident but did not release the number of killed or injured. Sky defence reporter Mark Stone said: "Details are still sketchy and various death tolls have emerged. "It appears to be an isolated incident and the soldier is believed to have been a staff sergeant." Isaf Deputy Commander Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw said: "I wish to convey my profound regrets and dismay at the actions apparently taken by one coalition member in Kandahar province. "I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorised ISAF military activity." According to the Panjwai district governor office, seven people died and up to 17 injured were injured in the rampage. The injured have been treated for their wounds at Nato medical facilities. Protests were held over the Koran-burning incident The US embassy in Kabul attempted to quell expected Afghan unrest by also issuing an apology. It said: "We deplore any attack by a member of the US armed forces against innocent civilians, and denounce all violence against civilians. "We assure the people of Afghanistan that the individual or individuals responsible for this act will be identified and brought to justice." The diplomatic response comes after weeks of tense relations between US forces and their Afghan hosts following the burning of Korans and other religious materials at an American base. Although US officials apologised and said the burning was an accident, the incident sparked violent protests and attacks. Britain also pulled out civilian advisers from buildings in Kabul as protests spread. Six American soldiers have been killed in attacks by their Afghan colleagues since the Koran burnings came to light.

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Saturday, 10 March 2012

Rioter who attacked Malaysian student jailed for seven years

 

Beau Isagba, now 18, was last month found guilty of the attack, which has become a symbol of the riots after a video of the student's ordeal was by millions around the world on YouTube. Isagba punched 20-year-old Mr Rossli before stealing his bicycle. As the victim slumped bleeding to the pavement, clutching his jaw, a gang posing as "Good Samaritans" then rifled through his rucksack before fleeing. On Friday a judge sentenced Isgaba to a total of 84 months for the attack and other convictions including carrying a blade and cannabis possession. While sentencing him, the judge said Isgaba represented the "worst aspects" of society. Jailing him at Wood Green Crown Court in north London, Judge Witold Pawlak said: "You represent the worst aspects. On the 8th of August you behaved like a thug, and without any compassion.

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Friday, 9 March 2012

A4e faces new fraud investigation

 

The government has launched an investigation into an allegation of attempted fraud against the welfare-to-work company A4e. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it had been made aware of an allegation of attempted fraud in relation to a mandatory work activity contract with the firm, which is already facing a police investigation in relation to previous allegations. A statement said: "As a result of this new allegation, DWP has immediately commenced its own independent audit of all our commercial relationships with A4e. "We have required A4e to make available all documentation which our auditors may require and provide full access to interview any A4e employees. This is separate from the independent review of internal controls which A4e has previously announced. "The chief executive of A4e was informed of this at a meeting with a senior DWP official earlier today. "We have made it absolutely clear to A4e that we take this matter very seriously, and that if, at any point during the audit or thereafter, we find evidence of systemic fraud in DWP's contracts with A4e, we will not hesitate to immediately terminate our commercial relationship." A4e said: "The board has made consistently clear in all previous statements that we take any allegations of fraudulent or otherwise illegal activity extremely seriously. There is absolutely no place for this type of misconduct at A4e. "We obviously acknowledge the concerns raised by DWP, and we welcome and will co-operate fully with their planned investigations. "A4e has more than 3,500 staff and operates out of 200 offices in the UK. From December 2005 to date, nine cases relating to A4e have been referred to the Department of Work and Pensions to review claims submissions. "Of these nine referrals, one, dating back to May 2008, resulted in the prosecution of an individual member of A4e staff, which was widely reported at the time. "Another is the case now being handled by Thames Valley police. In each of the remaining, closed cases, the DWP's view was that these were not incidences of malpractice. "The board has asked White & Case LLP to lead an independent and thorough review of A4e's controls and procedures. That process will be carried out concurrently, and all findings will be provided to DWP."

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Wednesday, 7 March 2012

The shooting of three IRA members by the SAS in March 1988 is linked to a major review commissioned by the Prime Minister David Cameron

 

The shooting of three IRA members by the SAS in March 1988 is linked to a major review commissioned by the Prime Minister David Cameron, it has emerged. Sir Desmond de Silva , PC,QC, a member of the Gibraltar Bar, was asked by the Prime Minister to chair a Review into the assassination of a well-known Belfast lawyer - Patrick Finucane, in 1989. As this case has had attached to it allegations of state collusion in the murder Sir Desmond’s Review will involve an examination of the activities of the intelligence services, the police and the army in Northern Ireland at the time. In order to properly discharge the work of this Review, Her Majesty appointed him a member of Her Privy Council. A Gibraltar connection springs from the SAS shootings of IRA operatives on the Rock. Mairead Farrell, who was one of the IRA operatives who was shot dead in Gibraltar, was engaged to be married to Seamus Finucane the brother of Patrick, whose own killing allegedly by agents of the state, Sir Desmond is currently investigating. It is understood that once the Review is complete and his Report is presented to Parliament Sir Desmond will return to his busy practice in London and abroad. Although he has been involved with the prosecution of some very high profile cases he is, perhaps, best known as a hugely successful defence QC who has, in Gibraltar alone, defended in many contested cases before the Supreme Court. On the October 12 2011 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appointed Sir Desmond de Silva QC to carry out an independent review into state involvement in the murder of Pat Finucane in 1989. Sir Desmond de Silva is determined to expose the truth about this “appalling” murder. “I know from my work internationally over many years that it is only when the truth is fully exposed that communities can put the trauma of conflict behind them to secure a lasting peace. Naturally, I will be applying the key principles of independence, thoroughness and impartiality in carrying out my work. The Government may have set my remit but it is now for me to take the task forward independently. There have been suggestions that this Review is not capable of hearing from individuals who may have information that could assist me in my work. This is not the case; I will certainly wish to see such individuals.” Sir Desmond asked any who may be able to assist to come forward and contact the Review at any stage to provide information or make representations. BBC reported that when they met last October 2011, the family of Pat Finucane cut short a meeting with Mr Cameron after the Prime Minister failed to order an inquiry into the killing. His family have long campaigned for an independent public inquiry. Pat Finucane’s widow Geraldine told reporters she felt so angry she could hardly speak. Mr Finucane’s family said they were “insulted” at the proposal for a review of the case and said they would continue their campaign for an independent public inquiry and would not participate in the review. Sir Desmond has written to the family asking them to contribute to the review.

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Britain's biggest ever Ponzi scheme Kautilya Pruthi faces 14 years in jail

 

Kautilya Pruthi, 41, swindled investors out of £38m under a scheme that resulted in massive contractual losses. Among the 800 victims were former England cricketer and Strictly Come Dancing star Darren Gough and Unchained Melody singer Jerome Flynn, who are rumoured to have lost as much as £1m each. Pruthi blew £10m in three years renting luxury homes across the South East, buying Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Jaguars, while lavishing more than £370,000 on his lovers. He confessed to fleecing investors in January and John Anderson, 46, and Kenneth Peacock, 43, were convicted of carrying on an unauthorised regulated activity earlier this week. Anderson and Peacock were cleared of a charge of recklessly making misleading false or deceptive promises.

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Man Held After Headless Torso, Feared To Be EastEnders Actress Gemma McCluskie Is Found In Canal


The brother of former EastEnders actress Gemma McCluskie has been arrested after a headless torso believed to be missing 29-year-old was dragged from a canal in east London, Sky News understands. Tony McCluskie remains in custody at an east London police station, sources say. Police have not yet confirmed the identity of the suspect The limbless body was discovered near to the Broadway Market stretch of Regent's Canal in Hackney at 2.40pm yesterday. "Police were initially contacted by a member of the public who had noticed something suspicious floating in the water," the Met Police said in a statement. "The torso was recovered by divers from the Met's Marine Support Unit and additional searches are due to be carried out in the water." Relatives and co-stars of 29-year-old Miss McCluskie were said by sources to be "fearing the worst", as Scotland Yard carried out forensic tests on the remains. Miss McCluskie starred in the soap as Kerry Skinner on more than 30 occasions in 2001. Her character arrived in Walford as a friend of Zoe Slater and the great niece of the late Ethel Skinner. She briefly dated Robbie Jackson and got him to propose to her. Brooke Kinsella turned to Twitter to appeal for help in finding Miss McCluskie Miss McCluskie disappeared from Bethnal Green, east London, last week. Friends had been carrying out searches in the area and handing out leaflets. Co-stars Brooke Kinsella and Natalie Cassidy both appealed for help finding her on Twitter. Kinsella, who has become a prominent anti-knife crime campaigner since her brother Ben was murdered in 2008, had tweeted: "Gemma McCluskie has been MISSING from Bethnal Green since Thursday please get in touch if you have seen her." Cassidy, who played Sonia in the soap, also posted on the website: "Gemma McCluskie, missing since Thurs, if u have sn her/have any info PLS contact @CarlyKarma ... #FindGemma." Officers believe they know the identity of the victim but are awaiting further forensic tests before formal identification can take place. The man being questioned by police is understood to be known to Miss McCluskie. He remains in custody at an east London police station. Detective Inspector John Nicholson, who is leading the murder inquiry, has appealed for witnesses.

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Allen Stanford faces decades behind bars after being convicted of a $7 billion fraud that snared investors in 113 countries

 

A MONTH after Sir Fred Goodwin was stripped of his title for leaving Royal Bank of Scotland shredded, another erstwhile knight of the financial-services realm has been put in his place—this time a jail cell. Allen Stanford faces decades behind bars after being convicted of a $7 billion fraud that snared investors in 113 countries, from Latin America to Libya. When in 2008 the sky fell in on Bernard Madoff, the only fraudster to have taken investors for more, the Texas-born Mr Stanford was still swaggering. He had done so much for Antigua, the Caribbean island where he based his empire, that it made him a Sir. He took to the airwaves to tut-tut rivals who had been felled by subprime mortgages. His star rose further when he sponsored an international cricket tournament. He was said to be worth over $2 billion. He certainly lived like he was. Within a few months, however, the authorities had swooped in, closing his Antigua-based bank and his brokerage operations. Prosecutors accused him of flogging bogus certificates of deposit and raiding the bank, siphoning deposits to a Swiss account used to finance his passion for yachts, jets and islands. His lawyers tried to have him declared incompetent to stand trial, saying a prison beating had led to loss of memory and an addiction to anti-anxiety drugs. When that ruse failed, they argued in court that he had been his group’s visionary, uninvolved in its day-to-day running, even as they claimed the businesses had been viable until they were “disembowelled” upon being seized. Countering this narrative was damning evidence from the prosecution’s star witness, Mr Stanford’s former chief financial officer, who testified that he and his boss had falsified documents and that the firm had presented hypothetical returns as the real thing in client pitches. Others said that, for all his public bravado, he had been aware of a hole in the accounts. When another colleague suggested he raise more money to plug this, he reportedly said: “I’ll go to the Libyans. They love me.” Victims cheered the verdict, but their victory is hollow. Three years on, they are yet to receive a penny from the court-appointed receiver, Ralph Janvey. Of the $216m he had recovered by late last year, more than half had been eaten up by legal and other fees. His team reckons that total recoverable assets may be a mere $500m, or 7% of the account balances shown at the time of Mr Stanford’s arrest (though that could increase if lawsuits seeking $600m from Stanford brokers, customers who extracted more than they paid in and political organisations that received donations from Mr Stanford succeed). Investors also bemoan the hefty cost of litigating jurisdictional issues. Mr Janvey is locked in a fight over how to divide up the estate with a separate receiver in Antigua, who has control over the fraudster’s bank accounts in Switzerland and Britain. America’s Securities and Exchange Commission has backed the victims’ cause, taking the unprecedented step of suing the Securities Investor Protection Corporation after the congressionally-chartered group balked at paying them up to $500,000 each in compensation (on the ground that Stanford’s operations were based offshore). Too little, too late, scream the SEC’s critics. Its district office in Fort Worth, Texas, first concluded that the Caribbean kingpin’s businesses were a Ponzi scheme in 1997, only to be ignored then and several times subsequently by enforcement staff. This story has only one true villain, but many others come out looking bad.

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Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Two UK Murdoch journalists in apparent suicide bids

Two senior journalists working for Ruper t Murdoch's News International have apparently attempted suicide as pressure mounts at the scandal-hit publisher of the now-defunct News of the World. Three sources close to the company told Reuters on Tuesday the two journalists at the Sun daily appeared to have tried to take their own lives. Investigations sparked by a phone-hacking scandal continue to expose dubious practices by present and past employees. Eleven current and former staff of the Sun, Britain's best-selling daily tabloid, have been arrested this year on suspicion of bribing police or civil servants for tip-offs. Their arrests have come as a result of information provided to the police by the Management and Standards Committee (MSC), a body set up by parent company News Corp to facilitate police investigations and liaise with the courts. The work of the MSC, which was set up to be independent of the conglomerate's British newspaper arm News International, has caused bitterness among staff, many of whom feel betrayed by an employer they have loyally served. 'People think that they've been thrown under a bus,' one News International employee told Reuters. 'They're beyond angry - there's an utter sense of betrayal, not just with the organisation but with a general lynch-mob hysteria.' News International is facing multiple criminal investigations and civil court cases as well as a public inquiry into press standards after long-simmering criticism of its practices came to a head last July. Politicians once close to Murdoch, including Prime Minister David Cameron, turned their backs on him and demanded answers after the Guardian newspaper revealed the News of the World had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Police officer Sue Akers, who is heading three criminal inquiries into News International, said last week there appeared to have been 'a culture of illegal payments' at the Sun. Staff at the tabloid have been under additional pressure for the past two weeks because they have also had to produce a Sunday paper, hastily announced by Murdoch to replace the News of the World. News International has increased the level of psychiatric help available to employees to help them cope.

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Allen Stanford was convicted on Tuesday of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, a verdict that caps a riches-to-rags trajectory for the former Texas financier and Caribbean playboy.

Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg News

 

 

It was a vindication for the U.S. government, which closed down Stanford's financial empire in February 2009 but had failed for years to address signs that the business was built on air. The Stanford case was the biggest investment fraud since Bernard Madoff's.

Stanford was found guilty on 13 counts of a 14-count criminal indictment, including fraud, conspiracy and obstructing an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He was found not guilty on one count of wire fraud. The charges carry a possible prison sentence of nearly 20 years.

As Stanford, 61, was led out of the courtroom after the verdict, he touched his fist to his heart and looked at the bench where his mother and two daughters sat. He has been jailed since his June 2009 arrest.

"We're disappointed in the outcome," said Stanford's defense attorney Ali Fazel. "We do expect an appeal." He said he expects sentencing in several months.

The verdict came less than a day after the Houston federal jury said it could not reach a decision, and U.S. District Judge David Hittner instructed jurors to keep deliberating.

Still, the verdict may prove only a moral victory for Stanford's victims. Most have received none of the money back they invested in Stanford's certificates of deposit.

"For all the investors I think there is a sense of relief that they weren't just fools," said Cassie Wilkinson, a Houston investor in Stanford funds who attended the six-week trial. "There was a jury of 12 people who found the same thing - that we were just conned."

Stanford's unraveling was one of the most closely watched fraud cases since Madoff's. Madoff, 73, pleaded guilty in 2009 to orchestrating what prosecutors have called a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme. He is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

The guilty verdict did not end the case. The jury of eight men and four women, including a pawn shop operator and a retired hairdresser, returned to the courtroom on Tuesday afternoon to consider the government's demand that more than $300 million in assets tied to Stanford be forfeited.

The money, which has been frozen, is held in more than 30 bank accounts in Geneva, the United Kingdom and Canada in the names of Stanford and other entities, according to the government. Stanford, wearing a navy blue suit, also was back in the courtroom to hear the testimony in the forfeiture case.

"Every single dollar that the U.S. is seeking to forfeit is CD depositor money that stems from Mr. Stanford's crimes and belongs to the victims of his crimes," prosecutor Andrew Warren said in opening statements.

'PERSONAL ATM'

Stanford's personal fortune was once valued at $2.2 billion.

At trial, prosecutors told how he repeatedly raided the bank he owned in Antigua, Stanford International Bank, using it as his "personal ATM."

He bought a castle in Florida for one of his girlfriends and his oldest daughter lived in a million-dollar condominium in Houston. He wore custom-made suits, lived in luxury homes and on a yacht in the Caribbean and bankrolled a $20 million prize for an international cricket tournament.

The government's star witness, former Stanford aide James Davis, testified that he and Stanford faked documents and made up financial reports to calm investors and fool regulators. They funneled millions of dollars from Stanford International Bank to a secret Swiss bank account that Stanford tapped for his personal use, Davis testified.

Davis, 63, has pleaded guilty to three criminal counts.

Stanford's lawyers portrayed their client as a visionary who was not involved in his firm's daily activities. They blamed Davis for any fraud and argued that Stanford's businesses were viable until the government shut down Stanford Financial Group in Houston in February 2009. Left with no money, Stanford was declared indigent by the court and his defense was paid for with public funds.

Wendell Odom, a criminal defense attorney in Houston who observed much of the trial, said Stanford's attorneys did a good job of discrediting Davis by getting him to admit to being a liar. But they failed to develop an alternative theme for the jury. "There was just too much evidence," he said.

BRAIN INJURY

While in jail awaiting trial, Stanford was beaten by another inmate, leaving him with a brain injury and broken bones in his face. He then became addicted to an anti-anxiety medication. His lawyers argued that those events caused him to lose his memory, making him incompetent to stand trial.

After eight months at a prison hospital in North Carolina, he was deemed competent to stand trial. Before his trial began on January 23, Stanford's lawyers said their client wanted to tell his story to the jury, raising the possibility that he would take the stand. Ultimately, he did not testify.

Stanford grew up in Mexia, Texas. He studied finance at Baylor University, where Davis, who later become chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group, was his roommate.

In the 1980s, Stanford bought up real estate in Houston with his father, later selling it at a profit. In 1986, he opened an offshore bank on the Caribbean island of Montserrat and, after banking regulations there tightened, he moved his operation to Antigua.

The bank specialized in aggressively selling certificates of deposit to wealthy people, his former employees testified at the trial. They targeted clients in Latin America, especially Venezuela, and oil company workers with fat pensions who lived along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

In Antigua, he became a philanthropist and sponsor of cricket, the national sport, and was known as "Sir Allen" after being knighted there in 2006. By 2008, Stanford made No. 205 on Forbes magazine's list of the wealthiest Americans.

But questions surfaced about how Stanford International Bank's CDs could persistently pay above market rates. By February 2009, investors were trying to withdraw their money and, on February 17 of that year, the government descended on his headquarters in Houston and shut it down.

Antigua stripped him of his knighthood and seized his local assets.

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The Rediscovery of Character


The obituaries for James Q. Wilson, the eminent social scientist, generally emphasized his “broken windows” theory on how to reduce crime. That’s natural. This strategy, which contributed to the recent reduction in crime rates, was his most tangible legacy.  Originated ‘Broken Windows’ Policing Strategy (March 3, 2012) Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (121) » But broken windows was only a small piece of what Wilson contributed, and he did not consider it the center of his work. The best way to understand the core Wilson is by borrowing the title of one of his essays: “The Rediscovery of Character.” When Wilson began looking at social policy, at the University of Redlands, the University of Chicago and Harvard, most people did not pay much attention to character. The Marxists looked at material forces. Darwinians at the time treated people as isolated products of competition. Policy makers of right and left thought about how to rearrange economic incentives. “It is as if it were a mark of sophistication for us to shun the language of morality in discussing the problems of mankind,” he once recalled. Wilson worked within this tradition. But during the 1960s and ’70s, he noticed that the nation’s problems could not be understood by looking at incentives. Schools were expanding, but James Coleman found that the key to education success was the relationships at home and in the neighborhood. Income transfers to the poor increased, but poor neighborhoods did not improve; instead families disintegrated. The economy boomed and factory jobs opened up, but crime rates skyrocketed. Every generation has an incentive to spend on itself, but none ran up huge deficits until the current one. Some sort of moral norms prevented them. “At root,” Wilson wrote in 1985 in The Public Interest, “in almost every area of important concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers or voters and public officials.” When Wilson wrote about character and virtue, he didn’t mean anything high flown or theocratic. It was just the basics, befitting a man who grew up in the middle-class suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1940s: Behave in a balanced way. Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Cooperate. Be decent. He did not believe that virtue was inculcated by prayer in schools. It was habituated by practicing good manners, by being dependable, punctual and responsible day by day. Wilson lived in an individualistic age, but he emphasized that character was formed in groups. As he wrote in “The Moral Sense,” his 1993 masterpiece, “Order exists because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society sets limits to what those members can do.” Wilson set out to learn how groups created a good order, why that order sometimes frayed. He worked patiently and meticulously. The phrase “we don’t know” rings throughout his writing. He was quick to admit ignorance in the face of knotty social problems. When Wilson started talking about character, he was surprised that many in the academy regarded him as an archconservative. Why should character talk be conservative? But he accepted the label and responded gracefully. Some conservatives in the academy respond to their isolation by becoming combative and extreme. Wilson’s rule was that conservatives should respond by being twice as productive and four times as nice. In “The Moral Sense,” he brilliantly investigated the virtuous sentiments we are born with and how they are cultivated by habit. Wilson’s broken windows theory was promoted in an essay with George Kelling called “Character and Community.” Wilson and Kelling didn’t think of crime primarily as an individual choice. They saw it as something that emerged from the social psychology of a community. When neighborhoods feel disorganized and scary, crime increases. Over the years, Wilson argued that American communities responded to the stresses of industrialization by fortifying self-control. Thanks to the temperance movement, for example, adult per-capita alcohol consumption fell from 7.1 gallons a year to 1.8 gallons a year between 1830 and 1850. But America responded to the stresses of the information economy by reducing the communal buttresses to self-control, with unfortunate results. Occasionally, when there was sufficient evidence, Wilson recommended policies that might reverse this slide. In one 1998 Public Interest essay, he promoted ideas to strengthen the family: create publicly supported, privately operated group homes for teenage mothers; increase adoption; investigate ways to increase preschool programs; create a G.I. Bill for young mothers — if you take care of your kid now, the government will pay for training later; create a religious United Way fund to increase the role of religion in American society. Wilson was not a philosopher. He was a social scientist. He just understood that people are moral judgers and moral actors, and he reintegrated the vocabulary of character into discussions of everyday life.

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How Wall Street Bankers Use Seamless To Feast On Free Lobster, Steak, And Beer


A former Morgan Stanley banker recently described his weekend food-ordering ritual at the height of the recession. While pulling Saturday hours, for example, he'd log onto the bank's account on Seamless, the online food-ordering service, and redeem his meal allowance--plus a few allowances from phantom coworkers who weren't actually in the office, allowing him to eat well above his pay grade. Sure, someone could have cross-checked actual office attendence with the online orders, but is such effort worth the investment bank's time? "If people weren't around, it was totally acceptable to take their allowance, and pool it together when you ordered," the banker recalls. "Almost every weekend I was at the office, I'd have a $90 dinner of steak, lobster, mac & cheese, and calamari." Until several years ago, corporate giants like Morgan Stanley made up roughly 85% of Seamless's customer base. That figure has now tipped in favor of individual consumers, but enterprise clients still represent a significant (and growing) part of the New York-based company's revenue--companies offer Seamless as a benefit to those who typically work long or late hours. But for employees of these roughly 3,500 corporate Seamless customers, the benefit represents a huge opportunity to game the system. And no one has worked the system for financial gain better than Wall Street hustlers. "Abuse of the system was rampant," recalls another former Morgan Stanley staffer. "I added up how much I ordered in my first year: It was more than $3,000 of food." Here's how it works. Typically, junior professionals are allotted about $25 per meal at the office. But there are tricks to leverage this cash on Seamless. If employees want to order dinner, for example, they have to stay until 8 p.m. "But you could still order for a 7 p.m. delivery at 6 p.m., then call the restaurant directly and tell them to bring it right away," one employee says. "So I'd finish work around 6:30 p.m., hit the company gym, and then grab my sushi--spicy tuna rolls--on the way out." A Seamless Scam How Gordon Gekko Orders On Seamless 1// Top Seamless Fiend According to Seamless' statistics, the highest ordering corporate user placed more than 2,600 orders in 2011, or more than 7 meals per day. 2// Top Cuisine By Industry Employees Investment Bankers: Sushi; Educators: Pizza 3// Top Ordering Patterns Corporate dinner-orders in New York's Financial District peak at 8 p.m. In Midtown, corporate orders peak at 7 p.m. Corporate dinner-orders are higher, on average, from 4-5 p.m. and lower between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Ordering groceries on Seamless was--and likely still is--another practice. (Representatives at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have not responded to requests for comment.) One employee, who lived by Morgan Stanley's Midtown offices, would even remote into her office computer from her apartment, place an order on Seamless, and then call the restaurant and change the delivery address to her apartment. The lobster-loving Morgan Stanley banker's take on that old switcheroo? "Classic." Another trick: Since employees aren't allowed to order beer or alcohol on the system, it's not uncommon to pool money together, place a large order for random items, then call the store and request that they bring beer instead. "We definitely get a lot of random orders," says Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky. "Once in a while, I'll sit on the customer-care desk, just to get a feel on the pulse of what's going on. You see these orders come through, and you're like, 'Why are 20 rolls of toilet paper going to 200 Vesey Street [the World Financial Center]? What the hell?'" One former employee at Morgan Stanley said he wasn't sure how pervasive the "switch-for-beer order" was at the investment bank, but said he personally pulled the move several times. "Wow, I feel so lame now because when I'd order from Seamless, I'd just get dinner," says one former Goldman Sachs employee. "I never heard of anyone else pulling a fast one [like that], but that doesn't mean it never happened." The daily Seamless stipend is considered sacred for employees, and any abuse of the system appears generally overlooked by higher-ups. When Lehman Brothers went under, for instance, Morgan Stanley lowered the Seamless limit from $30 to $25, much to the anger of workers. "People went nuts," recalls a former employee. "Every so often there were these fireside chats with [Morgan Stanley CEO] John Mack 'Da Knife' and a collection of analysts. One of the women on the call asked Mack to raise the limit to $30 again. Mack, not really having paid much attention to expenses, was surprised to hear it had been reduced. Concerned, he asked her why she needed $30 instead of just $25. She said that with the new reduction, 'I can't order my Perrier anymore.'" The next day, as legend has it, there was an entire case of Perrier on her desk--courtesy of John Mack. "What a baller," an employee says. Zabusky is sure abuse exists on Seamless, but says it's not likely that widespread. "I think it's pretty funny," the Seamless chief chuckles. "I mean, I know it probably frustrates a CFO at Goldman, who is giving these guys $25 to order while they work on deals, and they're ordering toilet paper and jars of mayonnaise and all this other stuff. But in the overall scope, it's probably pretty small." Small as the abuses might be in terms of Seamless's bottom line, there's no doubt it has a big impact on the morale of employees, who seem to take pride in manipulating money one way or another. According to Seamless's statistics, for example, the highest ordering corporate user placed more than 2,600 orders in 2011. "There's nothing grosser or more magnificent than eating $25 of delivered Taco Bell under the fluorescent, sober lights of an office building," says one employee. "Do you have any idea how much baja sauce you can get for that money?"

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San Diego tax preparer for the wealthy accused of ordering hit on 2 witnesses in fraud trail

 former Internal Revenue Service agent whose tax preparation business catered to a wealthy clientele is accused of ordering at least two former customers killed as they prepared to testify against him on fraud charges. Federal prosecutors say the targets were key witnesses against Steven Martinez, 50, who was charged last year with stealing $11 million by preparing bogus tax returns for his customers. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post Martinez’s limousine driver — Norman Russell Thellmann, 64 — was charged Monday with conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Prosecutors allege he was ordered to deliver money to a hit man who was promised $100,000 for the two killings. Martinez did not enter a plea during his initial court appearance Monday on a charge of witness tampering. A federal magistrate judge ordered him held without bail. “I find it almost impossible to believe,” said David Demergian, his attorney. Martinez, an IRS agent from 1988 to 1992, faces a pretrial hearing March 19 on federal fraud charges and was free on bail until his arrest last week. An FBI agent’s affidavit says Martinez gave a former employee documents on four people about two weeks ago, including photos of one target from the wealthy suburb of Rancho Santa Fe and another target’s condominium in the upscale La Jolla area of San Diego. Martinez recommended the former employee use two different pistols for the killings and get a silencer, according to the affidavit. The former employee contacted the FBI, which recorded a meeting Thursday in which Martinez allegedly gave additional instructions like how to break into the La Jolla condominium. The targets were identified as 86-year-old Monique Siegel of La Jolla and Marianne Harmon of Rancho Santa Fe. The fraud complaint alleges that Martinez told customers to deposit their taxes into one of his bank accounts, promising to forward the money to state and federal authorities. He stated lower income on their tax returns without telling them, allowing him to pocket $11 million. The complaint identifies victims only by their initials. One “M.H.” had an income of $20.7 million in 2006 but Martinez filed a tax return for $2.1 million. One “M.S.” earned $200,046 in 2006 but Martinez’s return reported $32,900. Another customer who earned $12.2 million in 2005 reported income at $1.6 million, according to the complaint. The same customer earned $11 million in 2006, also reported as $1.6 million. Demergian, his attorney, said the fraud case was “certainly very defensible.” “He had a very dedicated loyal clientele,” Demergian said. “He was very successful.” Thellmann, who was arrested Friday night, told the FBI that Martinez sold him a limousine about three years ago and hired him as a chauffeur. He said Martinez told him to give $40,000 to a person who would call him with code. Thellmann denied he knew the money was to pay a hitman. FBI agents found $42,400 cash in a cereal box at his home.

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