The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- UK's top cop under fire after hacking probe arrest
- Egyptians to give army rulers "Final Call" on Friday
- Libya rebels regroup but battle exposes weakness
| UK's top cop under fire after hacking probe arrest Posted: 14 Jul 2011 03:53 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's police chief came under fire on Thursday after his force said a former News of the World deputy editor, arrested by officers investigating phone hacking by the paper's reporters, had himself been hired as a consultant by the police.
Paul Stephenson, London's police commissioner, was summoned for a 90-minute meeting with the city's mayor after the capital's force said it had employed the journalist between October 2009 and September 2010. The disclosure was an embarrassment for a police force facing questions about its links to tabloid reporters and prompted Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May to write to Stephenson asking for an explanation. Lawmaker Keith Vaz, the head of a parliamentary committee investigating the police's failure to properly probe phone hacking in 2006, asked Stephenson to appear before his committee next week and said the police chief had agreed to attend. Neil Wallis, 60, was arrested in London on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. He is the ninth person to be arrested since an inquiry was reopened this year into phone hacking at News of the World newspaper, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. London mayor Boris Johnson said he had a "very frank discussion" with Stephenson over the hiring of Wallis. Police are investigating allegations journalists on the paper hacked the phones of members of the royal family, politicians and celebrities, as well as victims of crime, including child murders, and the 2005 London bombings. The scandal dates back to 2005-6 when the News of the World's royal reporter Clive Goodman and a private detective were arrested and later jailed for snooping on the voicemail messages of royal aides. Police are also investigating claims police officers were bribed by journalists to provide information. Last week, detectives arrested the paper's former editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief before resigning in January. Wallis was the deputy editor under Coulson until he quit following the conviction of Goodman, and went on to become the paper's executive editor before leaving in 2009. The Metropolitan Police said Wallis had worked for them as an advisor for almost a year and was paid 24,000 pounds ($39,000). "Chamy Media, owned by Neil Wallis, former Executive Editor of the News of the World, was appointed to provide strategic communication advice and support to the MPS, including advice on speech writing and PR activity," it said. Wallis worked for the Met for two days a month while the Met's Deputy Director of Public Affairs was on extended sick leave. In April, the paper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, one of its senior reporters James Weatherup, and Ian Edmondson, a former senior editor who was sacked after an internal inquiry into his conduct, were quizzed about listening to voicemails. The officer leading the inquiry told lawmakers on Tuesday those arrested so far had been bailed until October and she did not expect any possible criminal charges before then. (Additional reporting by Tim Castle) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Egyptians to give army rulers "Final Call" on Friday Posted: 14 Jul 2011 03:23 PM PDT CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians demanding a swifter purge of the country's political old guard were gearing up for more mass protests on Friday against a leadership they accuse of failing the revolutionary cause.
Hundreds camped out in Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Thursday in the scorching heat to press Egypt's military rulers to punish corruption and brutality under President Hosni Mubarak, toppled in a February uprising. The protesters said they saw the interim government's pledge to end the service of 650 senior police officers in response to lingering anger over the killing of peaceful demonstrators as too little, too late. "This police shake-up came too late and is not enough. This was one of our main demands three or four months ago," said Ahmed Hassanein, a 30-year-old assistant professor who was protesting in Tahrir. "The military council has not implemented any of the demands of the revolution. I don't understand them. Their position has been flimsy since they started running the country." An air of revolution has returned to Tahrir in the past week as activists blocked streets to the square, set up tents and unfurled banners demanding that the ruling generals remove Mubarak's allies and those blamed for police brutality. The protests, coupled with others in the coastal cities of Alexandria and Suez, lack the scale or intensity of the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak but have rattled markets, sending the main Egyptian share index down 5 percent this week. Mubarak, who is at a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, is due to go on trial on Aug. 3 over the death of more than 840 protesters. Activists are calling their planned Friday rally their "Final Call" to the military council. The council said on Tuesday the protests were threatening public order and Egypt's security, angering the protesters who vowed not to leave Tahrir until their demands are met. "Our protest tomorrow is to demand civilian rule. After watching the military speech on TV, I realised the military is not on our side," said car salesman Mohamed Salah el-Din, 26. "I will not leave Tahrir until our revolution succeeds." A banner in Tahrir denounced the military statement. The sharpening discourse highlights how the army -- once feted for overseeing an orderly end to Mubarak's rule and stopping Egypt sliding into chaos when police deserted the streets -- has fallen out of favour with pro-democracy civil society groups. The army has reiterated its pledge to hand power back to civilians after elections, which are now postponed and may take place in November. In an attempt to assuage public anger, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said the cabinet would be reshuffled in a week. The government has also pledged to raise the minimum wage. "Some army personnel came to talk to us in Tahrir yesterday and tried to convince us that elections are the solution," said Atef Farouk, 37 and self-employed. "But I want an elected transitional council and for the military council to step aside from the political life." Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Libya rebels regroup but battle exposes weakness Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:52 PM PDT AL-QAWALISH, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan rebel fighters prepared for a new offensive south of Tripoli on Thursday but tactical errors raised new questions about whether they will be able to march on the capital. Western states are frustrated by a five-month rebel campaign that -- despite support from NATO warplanes -- has failed to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and some governments are now looking instead to talks as a way out of the conflict.
Gaddafi himself vowed to fight on. In an audio speech carried on Libyan television, which was broadcasting a rally that gathered tens of thousands of supporters in the town of Al-Ajaylat, 80 km (50 miles) west of Tripoli, Gaddafi said: "I too will redeem you with my own life ... I will fight until the end." Denouncing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, an early backer of the NATO bombing campaign, as a war criminal, Gaddafi said: "The end of NATO will be in Libya ... The end of the European Union will be in this battle." About 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital where Gaddafi has his main stronghold, rebel commanders in the village of Al-Qawalish said they were massing their forces and preparing to advance east towards the town of Garyan, which controls access to the main highway into the capital. But only a day earlier, the handful of rebels defending Al-Qawalish ran out of ammunition and fled when forces loyal to Gaddafi staged a surprise attack. The rebels took back the village before nightfall, with the loss of seven men. "We came yesterday and we stayed here and we said we are not moving until the place is secure," said one rebel fighter who was manning a machine gun and gave his name as Tommy. "This mistake is not going to happen again. We're not going home." The fighting exposed the limitations of a rebel force which lacks a clear command structure and relies on civilian volunteers who are committed to bringing down Gaddafi but have little or no military training. The conflict in Libya started out as a rebellion against Gaddafi's 41-year-rule. It has now turned into the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" uprisings convulsing the region and has also embroiled Western powers in a prolonged conflict they had hoped would swiftly force Gaddafi out of power. RUSSIAN ENVOY The Russian presidential envoy who has been trying to broker a peace deal between Gaddafi's administration and the rebels said he believed the Libyan leader was far from beaten. "Gaddafi has not yet used a single surface-to-surface missile, of which he has more than enough. This makes one doubt that the regime is running out of weapons," Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted Mikhail Margelov as saying. "The Libyan prime minister told me in Tripoli: 'If the rebels seize the city, we will cover it with missiles and blow it up'. I assume that the Gaddafi regime does have this kind of suicide plan," Margelov said. NATO urged its members to provide more warplanes to bomb Libyan military targets. The campaign against Libya has strained resources and relations among NATO's 28 members after only four months of military action. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on alliance members to help more with air-to-ground strikes. "I encourage all allies that have aircraft at their disposal to take part in that operation as well," Rasmussen said in The Hague after a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said Dutch planes would not now take part in bombing Libya. NATO members France and Italy have spoken of the pressing need for a negotiated deal to end the Libyan conflict. France has said a political solution is taking shape and there have been contacts with Gaddafi emissaries. But it was unclear how it would be possible to bridge the gap between Gaddafi, who refuses to relinquish power, and the rebels who say they will accept nothing less than the departure of the Libyan leader and his family. Potentially adding to pressure on Italy to seek a peace settlement, Gaddafi's government said it was halting cooperation with Italian oil firm ENI. The company is the biggest foreign investor in Libya's energy sector and has been in the country since the 1950s. It angered officials in Tripoli by pulling out its staff when the rebellion started and by establishing ties with the rebels. Western powers, Arab governments and representatives of the Libya rebels are to meet in Istanbul in Friday for a session of the "contact group" which has been coordinating efforts to push Gaddafi from power. China said it would skip the meeting because the way the group operated needed "further study." Beijing has established contacts with the rebels but it has condemned NATO air strikes and urged a compromise deal between the opposing sides. (Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Nick Carey in Misrata, Tarek Amara in Tunis, Lutfi Abu-Aun in Tripoli, Thomas Grove in Moscow, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Justyna Pawlak and Christoper Le Coq in Brussels and Ben Blanchard and Sabrina Mao in Beijing; Writing by Christian Lowe and Giles Elgood; Editing by Sophie Hares) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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