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UK police arrest Hollywood reporter over phone hacking

August 18, 2011 By admin

British police investigating a phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's defunct News of the World have arrested a senior Hollywood reporter at the tabloid, James Desborough, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Police said they had arrested a 38-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications after arriving at a south London police station on Thursday morning by appointment.

Desborough joined the News of the World in 2005 as a showbusiness and news reporter and was promoted to become US editor, based in Los Angeles, in 2009. He worked for the News of the World up until it closed last month.

The Guardian newspaper's website said the allegations were believed to relate to events before Desborough was sent to the United States.

US agencies are investigating whether the News of the World's phone-hacking activities extended to the United States. So far, they have not found evidence that they did.

The arrest is the 13th this y

ear in an inquiry that has rocked the News of the World's parent company, Murdoch's News Corp, and has had far-reaching implications for the British establishment.

A spokeswoman for News International, News Corp's British newspaper arm, said the company was cooperating fully with police and could not comment further because of the police investigation.

Former News of the World editor and Murdoch favourite Rebekah Brooks and Britain's top two policemen have resigned over the allegations, while Murdoch and his son James have been quizzed in parliament.

James Murdoch, who runs News Corp's non-US operations, may be recalled to face further questions after two senior former News International executives called his evidence into question.

A letter published this week suggested that many senior figures at the News of the World were aware of phone hacking, undermining the media company's defence that the practice was the work of a rogue reporter.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: british establishment, former news, guardian newspaper, hollywood reporter, james desborough, police investigation, Rebekah, south london

South African officials withhold findings of Caster Semenya’s gender test

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Sep. 19 (ANI): Even before South African star athlete Caster Semenya’s gender was questioned at the World Championships in Berlin, Athletics South Africa (ASA) had found out and withheld the fact that she had internal testes, an e-mail exchange has revealed.

According to the e-mail exchanges published in the Mail and Guardian newspaper, ASA officials were aware of the findings of a Pretoria clinic that Semenya had internal testes and produced abnormal amounts of testosterone for a woman, Times Online reports.

It was ASA’s chief medical officer and team doctor, Harold Adams, who had suggested the need carrying out the tests on Semenya, 18, because of her deep voice, muscular body and facial hair, which later became a subject of controversy in Berlin.

Another email exchange shows that Adams later suggested that the results to be kept confidential while the South African team was in Berlin.

“Thinking about the current confidential matter, I would suggest we make the following decisions. 1. We get a gynae opinion and take it to Berlin. 2. We do nothing and I will handle these issues if they come up in Berlin,” the report quoted from Dr Adams’ email to ASA President Leonard Chuene and General Manager Molatelo Malehopo, as saying.

Following the IAAF establishing that Semenya was a hermaphrodite, South African officials not only angrily denounced it, but also denied carrying out their own tests.

Taking matters a step further, South African Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile lost his temper at a press conference and threatened to start a “third world war” if Semenya was banned from international competition because of her gender.

Earlier, Semenya’s ex-coach Wilfred Daniels had said the ASA had duped Semenya into thinking the gender test carried out on her were routine drug tests. (ANI)

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Punk rocker John Lydon reforming his band ‘Public Image Ltd’

September 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, September 7 (ANI): Rocker John Lydon has revealed is reforming his band ‘Public Image Ltd’ after 17 years.

Formerly named Johnny Rotten, he is famous as the frontman for the punk pioneers the ‘Sex Pistols’.

A Guardian newspaper report says that Lydon has revealed that PiL will start a mini-tour in England in December.

This will be the first comeback for PiL, the experimental band that was created in 1978, just 12 months after the disintegration of the Sex Pistols, and it lasted eight years.

“We’ll see where we can go. Some things may be quite similar, some may not,” the Courier Mail quoted 53-year-old Lydon as saying.

PiL is said to have influenced bands like Manic Street Preachers.

It had chart success with singles such as ‘Public Image’ and ‘This is not a Love Song’. (ANI)

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Ex-England coach Fletcher reignites feud with Ponting

July 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 15 (ANI): Former England coach Duncan Fletcher has claimed that Australian captain Ricky Ponting knows nothing about the spirit of cricket.

Fletcher, who was abused by Ponting during the 2005 Ashes over the use of substitute fieldsman Gary Pratt, said England would have been delighted to get under Ponting’s skin in the Cardiff Test.

He claimed England captain Andrew Strauss would have been “amused” to receive a blast from Ponting over England’s time-wasting tactics.

“If any side in the world doesn’t play within the spirit of the game, it’s Ponting’s Australians, yet here he is sitting in judgment on England because he’s frustrated that his bowlers failed to complete the job,” Fox Sports quoted Fletcher, as saying.

“We’re left with the ridiculous situation of being told off by an Australia captain for transgressing cricket’s spirit – a notion he seems to only vaguely understand himself. Ponting has to be careful. Someone needs to sit down and ask him what he understands by the spirit of the game,” he added.

Fletcher’s explosive outburst – in his column for The Guardian newspaper – will raise Ashes tensions another notch going into Thursday’s second Test at Lord’s.

In 2005, Ponting let fly with a furious outburst at Fletcher when he was run-out by England substitute fielder Pratt during Australia’s fourth Test loss at Trent Bridge.

Now Fletcher insists Ponting’s frustration is starting to overflow over as it did in England four years ago.

He claims that Ponting turned on a petulant performance in Cardiff when he confronted umpire Aleem Dar over a disputed catch at silly mid-off.

“England will now be thinking that the Australians are getting very prickly – just like four years ago – and that’s a good sign for Andrew Strauss and the team. The pressure is on Australia now after their bowlers messed up, and that’s something England can take advantage of,” said Fletcher. (ANI)

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Jacqui Smith was aware hubby had been watching porn movies

July 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 12 (ANI): Former British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has admitted that she was aware that her husband had been watching pornographic movies before the expenses scandal broke out.

Jacqui resigned from her post after the humiliating revelation that she claimed taxpayer-funded allowances for the cost of two porn films watched by her partner Richard Timney, who later made a public apology.

The Labour Party politician said that the couple often had arguments over Richard’s use of pornography.

“I would argue with him. I would say to him I think porn is wrong because of my feminist background,” the Telegraph quoted her as saying in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.

“It didn’t happen a lot, I was much more angry with him about the fact that we had not properly checked the expense claim than I was about the film,” she added.

Jacqui, who previously served as the first female Home Secretary, said she barely had any hopes that the damage to her reputation “will ever go away”.

She added: “My sister, who is a journalist, says you couldn’t have designed a story that was more embarrassing – or exciting for people. And it happened to me.” (ANI)

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Royal Air Force embarassed by yet another sensitive data loss

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London – Last autumn’s reported loss of hard drives containing personnel files on members of the armed forces took on new dimensions Monday with reports that data containing sordid details of some employee’s sex lives and drug use was also lost.

The information, if it falls into the wrong hands, could be used to blackmail some employees, the Royal Air Force warned in a memo that was cited by the BBC on Monday.

The memo, written by an unnamed officer, goes on to say that the data “provides excellent material for foreign intelligence Services and blackmailers,” reported the BBC, still quoting the memo.

In October, Britain’s Ministry of Defence reported the loss of data affecting about 100,000 serving personnel and their families and 600,000 potential applicants to the military and their sponsors.

At the time, the data reported lost included names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving license details.

But, as reported by the BBC and the Guardian newspaper this week, the data was stolen and included details on a series of vices – including data on drug use, criminal inquiries, visits to prostitutes and extramarital affairs – of about 500 employees.

The data had been gathered during security checks on the personnel.

The British government has made no comment on the matter so far.

A ministry spokesman said there is no evidence so far that the stolen data has been put to use for criminal enterprises. Counselling has been made available to all affected employees.

The reported data loss comes on top of the government’s loss last year of data on the banking details of millions of people who receive child support payments.(dpa)

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Britain to amplify military and intelligence presence in Pakistan : Report

May 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 5 (ANI): Concerned by the expanding threat from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Britain is planning to amplify its military and intelligence presence in Pakistan to help the country counter the existential threat, the Guardian reports.

According to the newspaper, Whitehall officials have revealed that at least 20 ‘military advisers’ will interact with the Pakistani army and particularly with the Frontier Corps and advice them over planning more effective strategies to counter the extremists.

This is not the first instance where western military experts would be lending strategic support to the Pakistan Army against the terrorists.

In 2008, a joint British-American team of military instructors trained about 120 senior Pakistan soldiers in tactics, weapons and communications techniques.

The training programmes have resulted in greater success for the Army over a period of time, which otherwise has struggled to challenge the extremists.

According to an estimate, a Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps used CIA-provided intelligence to kill or capture up to 60 militants in military operations carried out in the restive and law less tribal regions along the Afghanistan border. (ANI)

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Video of Taliban flogging girl a fake: Investigators

April 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Islamabad, April 19 (IANS) The video footage of a girl being flogged by Taliban militants in Pakistan’s restive Swat valley is a fake, a five-member team of investigators has said in its final report.

Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said: ‘It (the probe team) has completed its investigation and handed over a report to me.’

The report said the video footage was ‘false and fake’ and no such incident had taken place, Shah was quoted as saying by the Dawn.

Shah was speaking at a press conference Friday at the Commissioner’s House in Saidu Sharif in Swat district.

He said the probe team, headed by the Malakand deputy inspector general of police, had been formed after the Supreme Court chief took a suo motu notice of the incident.

The report would be submitted before an eight-member bench of the Supreme Court during the next hearing, he said, adding the team had recorded statements of ‘both the girl and the man who were allegedly flogged and they had disowned the video tape’.

The dangers of imposing Sharia laws in Pakistan’s restive Swat Valley were brought into sharp focus earlier this month with the airing of a two-minute video showing the 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl being whipped by Taliban fighters for coming ‘out of her house with another guy who was not her husband’.

The grainy video, shot on a mobile phone, showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly, London’s Guardian newspaper had reported.

The newspaper said it received the video through Samar Minallah, a Pashtun documentary maker.

After 34 lashes the punishment stopped and the wailing girl was led into a stone building.

The NWFP government ceded authority to the Taliban under a peace deal, giving the militants a free hand to impose their puritan Islamic rule on the around 600,000 people of Swat and its neighbouring districts.

The peace accord signed with pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad includes measures to establish Islamic courts, a ban on music, expulsion of prostitutes and pimps from the area, closure of businesses during prayer times, and a campaign against what they call obscenity.

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British G20 man died of bleeding not heart attack, says coroner

April 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London – The man who died after being pushed to the ground by police at this month’s London G20 summit died of internal bleeding, not a heart attack as previously said by police, a second postmortem revealed on Friday.

A police officer suspended after the incident has now been interviewed under caution on suspicion of manslaughter, a statement from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said.

Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, was not part of the protests but walking home with his hands in his pockets when pushed to the ground from behind by police on April 1 – an act caught by chance on video.

An initial postmortem had suggested 47-year old Tomlinson died of coronary artery disease, but a subsequent postmortem – carried out at the request of the IPCC and Tomlinson’s family – found the death was due to “abdominal haemorrhage.”

“The cause of the haemorrhage remains to be ascertained,” the IPCC statement said.

The death of Tomlinson has created a political row in Britain, where police at first claimed to have no contact with the dead man, but come under bottle-throwing attack when attempting to resuscitate him.

Instead, subsequent video footage aired by The Guardian newspaper showed a police officer push Tomlinson over from behind in an apparently unprovoked attack.

A rash of subsequent home-made videos from the clashes between demonstrators and police at the protests in the City of London appear to show other examples of police brutality.

One shows an officer hit a woman on the legs with his truncheon at a rally for Tomlinson the next day, April 2.

On Wednesday an officer was suspended in connection with the Tomlinson death. (dpa)

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Controversy in Britain over death of man at G20 protest

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London – British politicians and civil rights groups Wednesday called for a criminal inquiry into how a 47-year-old man died from a heart attack on the fringes of anti-Group of 20 (G20) demonstrations in London after a police encounter last week.

Video footage published Wednesday on the website of the Guardian newspaper showed Ian Tomlinson walking with his back to a group of police officers, hands in his pockets, when a helmeted officer lunges at him from behind.

Tomlinson, who was not protesting, is seen falling heavily to the ground and complaining to the officers before being helped to his feet by passers-by on April 1, the eve of the G20 summit.

Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor, walked on, but collapsed with a heart attack shortly afterwards near the Bank of England, where the demonstrations had taken place and protestors were still milling around.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) watchdog is investigating the incident, but the opposition Liberal Democrats Wednesday demanded a criminal inquiry.

“There must be a full-scale criminal investigation. The officer concerned and the other officers shown in the video must immediately come forward,” said the party’s justice spokesman, David Howarth, Wednesday.

He said the footage, recorded by a New York fund manager in London’s financial district showed a “sickening and unprovoked attack” by police.

The family of the dead man also asked for “answers” and called for witnesses of the incident, stressing that Tomlinson, a keen football fan, would never have taken part in any political demonstration.

Scotland Yard has said it would “not be appropriate” to comment while the IPCC investigation was continuing.(dpa)

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Pakistan girl denies flogging, but rallies condemn Taliban

April 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Islamabad, April 6 (IANS) The girl who was reportedly whipped by the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley has denied the incident even as a rally was taken out in Karachi to condemn the public lashing. The Supreme Court Monday ordered a probe into the matter.

The girl was reportedly flogged by a Taliban cleric for ‘coming out of her house with another man who was not her husband’.

The girl’s statement before a magistrate was presented in the Supreme Court through Attorney General Latif Khosa. ‘The girl has denied the alleged flogging incident,’ Geo TV reported. The lashing footage was telacast on many TV news channels worldwide.

The victim was not present during the hearing.

Senior officials, including the interior secretary and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) inspector general of police, appeared before the eight-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, which is hearing the Swat lashing case.

Chaudhry said that ‘investigations be conducted’ into the incident.

A two-minute video showed the 17-year-old, burqa-clad girl screaming while being whipped by Taliban fighters.

The newspaper said it received the video through Samar Minallah, a Pashtoon documentary maker.

After 34 lashes the punishment stopped and the wailing girl was led into a stone building.

The MQM Sunday condemned the flogging of the girl and its women wing staged a rally near Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum in Karachi, the Nation newspaper reported.

MQM activists wore black armbands and hung effigies of Taliban.

The Minhajul Quran Women League (MQWL) Saturday staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club to condemn the flogging and demanded strict action against those involved in the incident, the News International reported.

Addressing the protesters, MQWL chief Fatima Mashadi said those who flogged the girl were not following Islam and they had brought a bad name to the religion and the country.

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Games, music bonded ‘nerdy’ Miller, Knightley on ‘The Edge Of Love’ set

March 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 11 (ANI): Sienna Miller has revealed that she and Keira Knightley bonded on the set of their 2008 movie ‘The Edge Of Love’ by evoting hours to their mutual love of ‘nerdy’ pastimes.

Miller and Knightley play two lovers of poet Dylan Thomas in the period drama, but Miller insists they were anything but rivals off set.

She revealed that the pair devoted hours playing games and learning musical instruments together.

“I mean, we’re quite nerdy. We talk about books and we play cards and do The Guardian (newspaper) crossword. We were living together in this house in Wales that was really beautiful and we all sort of walked around in our pyjamas and went for long walks,” Contactmusic quoted Miller, as telling Starpulse.com.

Their friendship has continued long after the filming was over – and now the two actresses are spending their time together inspiring each other to learn new skills.

“She’s (Knightley’s) learning the flute at the moment, I’m learning the piano, quite nerdy. I used to play the piano when I was younger and I’m kind of now going back to it, but I can’t read music, so I play it by ear. I need someone to play it, so it’s a little complicated to do on my own, but it’s fun,” Miller added. (ANI)

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Rushdie dubs Slumdog’s plot “patently ridiculous conceit”

March 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Sydney, Mar 3 (ANI): Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire’s plot is “patently ridiculous conceit”, says British-Indian author Salman Rushdie.

According to Rushdie’s article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the central feature of the film – that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to win the Indian TV version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – “beggars belief”, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

“This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name,” the author of The Satanic Verses said in the article.

Going by Rushdie’s comments, the film’s central weakness was that it was adapted from a book by Indian diplomat-novelist Vikas Swarup called Q and A, which is itself “a corny potboiler with a plot that defies belief”.

“It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the filmmakers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief,” wrote Mumbai-born Rushdie.

Rushdie signed off by saying: “We can only hope that the worst is over, and that better movies, better musicals and better times lie ahead.”

Last month, the author marked the 20th anniversary of the Islamic death sentence imposed on him by Iran following the publication of The Satanic Verses. (ANI)

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