Illustrations: Francesco Bongiorni for the Guardian. Click on image for full illustration. Nobody likes to queue. It’s long been known that, in fancy restaurants, a handsome tip to the maître d’ can shorten the wait on a busy night. Such tips are quasi-bribes and handled discreetly. No sign in the window announces immediate seating for [...]
One of the difficulties exposed in this article is the use of money and expense as a standard in a discussion that should be about attitudes to energy, waste and reducing emissions. The whole basis of the capitalist fight against the unwanted, by them, environmental objectives is to pounce on cost as a way to [...]
There are a lot of things you could call Clarkson, from popular to fascist. Fascist is far closer to the truth as his points of view so often collide with anything or principle seen as decent. But a recent BBC description of him as a “cultural treasure” probably says as much about the fascism of [...]
Glenn Mulcaire: former private investigator for the News of the World. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images The private investigator Glenn Mulcaire is understood to have been arrested in connection with voicemail interception and perverting the course of justice. Detectives investigating phone hacking said a 41-year-old man was arrested at an address in London on Wednesday morning and was [...]
Helen John, 73, with a banner protesting against unmanned drones being based at RAF Waddington. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian Protest and survive: the Greenham veteran who refuses to go away Thirty years ago, Helen John was the first full-time member of the Greenham Common peace camp. Now 73, she’s still hard at [...]
Labour MP John McDonnell has challenged the government to disclose details about alleged meetings with the Murdochs to discuss the BBC licence fee freeze. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA reddit this John Plunkett guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 October 2011 16.13 BST Article history John McDonnell MP calls for more details about ministerial meetings with News Corporation before licence [...]
The life and times of Charles Dickens Energy and ambition … detail of a portrait of Charles Dickens by William Powell Frith. Photograph: V&A Images His novels – full of laughter, indignation and sentimentality – have a special place in our cultural heritage reddit this Comments (9) Claire Tomalin guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 [...]
Metropolitan police drop action against the Guardian Scotland Yard forced into abrupt climbdown over attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal phone-hacking sources reddit this Owen Bowcott and Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 September 2011 21.50 BST Article history Metropolitan police claimed that Amelia Hill could have ‘incited’ a source to break the Official Secrets Act. [...]
Magistrates were told to send rioters to crown court, emails show Emails sent out after August’s riots have raised doubts about sentencing guidelines. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters Emails sent to justices’ clerks after August riots raise questions about judicial independence and the use of blanket guidance reddit this Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent The Guardian, [...]
Phone hacking: Taylor ‘wanted to be vindicated or made rich’, say lawyers Phone hacking: the News of the World‘s lawyers said Gordon Taylor increased his claim to £1m after the disclosure of the ‘for Neville’ email. Photograph: Matthew Roberts/Reuters Letter from News of the World’s legal advisers says PFA boss increased claim to £1m after [...]
WikiLeaks files revealed that the Australian government quietly tried to undermine a proposed ban on cluster bombs [EPA] There is the violence you see, and then there is the violence you don’t. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek captures this point expertly in his monograph Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, when he opens with the well-known story about an [...]
WikiLeaks: IDF uses drones to assassinate Gaza militants An Israeli-made drone Photo by: Reuters Leaked document reveals IDF Advocate-General informed U.S. of use of unmanned aircraft armed with missiles to kill 16 Palestinians at a Gaza mosque. By Anshel Pfeffer The IDF uses weaponized unmanned aircraft to assassinate militants, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. [...]
WikiLeaks is defending itself against accusations it may have put lives at risk in releasing certain files [AFP] WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, has said that its massive archive of unredacted US state department cables was exposed in a security breach, which it blamed on its one-time partner - Britain’s Guardian newspaper. In a 1,600-word-long editorial posted to the internet [...]
WikiLeaks has published 120,000 diplomatic cables, almost all unredacted, in the last week. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images WikiLeaks is conducting an online poll of its Twitter followers to decide whether the whistleblowing site should publish in full its unredacted cache of US diplomatic cables. The site last week released more than 120,000 of its cache [...]
A screensaver from the WikiLeaks website. Unredacted US embassy cables have been made available online after a security breach. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images A security breach has led to the WikiLeaks archive of 251,000 secret US diplomatic cables being made available online, without redaction to protect sources. WikiLeaks has been releasing the cables over nine months [...]
‘Now Pakistan and America have some problems. So they’re taking it out on me’ Binosche Barrett, Matthew’s wife, with their two children. Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian ‘Now Pakistan and America have some problems. So they’re taking it out on me’ Tensions between Pakistan and the US often made life tricky for [...]
Twitter study casts doubts on ministers’ post-riots plan A study has shown that Twitter was used mainly to react to riots and looting during the recent unrest across the UK. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle / Rex Features Analysis of tweets during recent unrest appears to undermine the case for banning people from social networks Interactive: [...]
Youths throwing bricks at police on 7 August during unrest in Enfield, North London. Photograph: Karel Prinsloo/AP England rioters: young, poor and unemployed Guardian data project reveals link between economic hardship and those taking part in last week’s riots Matthew Taylor, Simon Rogers and Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 August 2011 21.28 BST Article history [...]
Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire sues News of the World publisher Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire’s writ was received by News International on Wednesday. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking affair, is suing the now defunct tabloid’s publisherNews International in an attempt to force the [...]
Noam Chomsky on Venezuela Noam Chomsky interviewed by Rory Carroll The Guardian, July 4, 2011 Rory Carroll: A few questions about the [Afiuni] case. Do you believe Judge Afiuni could receive a fair trial in Venezuela? Noam Chomsky: Well as far as I’m aware she’s not receiving any trial at all. I rather doubt, I’d [...]
Rioters convicted of first-time offences deserve leniency, says Simon Hughes, deputy leader of the Lib Dems. Photograph: Sarah Lee Two of the most significant figures in the British legal establishment have made urgent warnings about tough sentencing for riot-related offences as the split in the coalition over the response to last week’s violence dramatically widened. Lord [...]
The wreckage of Dag Hammarskjöld‘s plane near Ndola, now Zambia. Eyewitnesses claim they saw a second plane fire at the UN chief’s plane. Photograph: TopFoto New evidence has emerged in one of the most enduring mysteries ofUnited Nations and African history, suggesting that the UN secretary general, Dag Hammarskjöld‘s plane was shot down over Northern Rhodesia [...]
Mikhail Gorbachev: I should have abandoned the Communist party earlier Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, said he should have left the Communist party months before the attempted coup of 1991. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images The former president looks back on his role in the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago [...]
Simon Hughes: ‘The private sector, like the public sector, should not be allowed to get away with obscene pay ratios’. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian For several hours from late afternoon last Monday people defying law and authority dominated much of my south London constituency. I made public appeals for people to get off [...]
Simon Hughes: hoping to ‘get to the bottom of what happened during this dark period in British journalism’. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian The Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes, is to sue News Internationalover phone hacking at the News of the World, he confirmed on Thursday. Hughes told the Evening Standard: “It is important now that all [...]
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:22:43 +0300 From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca Subject: (en) Britain, North London Solfed’s response to the London riots To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca> Message-ID: <4E4150C3.7070500@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”windows-1252″; Format=”flowed” With media sources blaming anarchy for the unfolding violence in London and across England, the North London Solidarity Federation felt a response from an anarchist organisation active [...]
James Murdoch gives evidence to MPs on phone hacking. Photograph: Parbul/AFP/Getty Images James Murdoch is expected to explain within the next 24 hours why he did not mislead a parliamentary select committee investigating phone hacking at the News of the World. He has until Thursday to reply to a list of detailed questions asked by [...]
Violence has continued in parts of London, the British capital, for a third day with fears that rioting may extend through the night. Protesters hurled rubbish bins and supermarket trolleys at officers on Monday night and some rioters broke into shops, apparently to find objects to throw at police lines. Police with riot shields responded [...]
The document referred to can be seen and read at http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2011/aug/04/mi6-torture-interrogation-policy-document A number of men said they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images A top-secret document revealing how MI6 and MI5 officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas [...]
David Cameron is facing growing pressure over his appointment of Andy Coulson. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/AFP/Getty Images David Cameron is facing growing pressure this weekend over his hiring of Andy Coulson after the Labour leadership demanded to know if the former News of the World editor ever saw documents inside Downing Street that should have been available [...]
GILAD ATZMON: DE-ZIONIFICATION NOW FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2011 AT 4:12PM GILAD ATZMON “It (immigration) was a politically motivated attempt by ministers to transform the fundamental make-up and identity of this country (Britain). It was done to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language [...]
Charlie and Rebekah Brooks. Photograph: Tom Jenkins Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International. The Guardian has learned that a bag containing the items was found in an underground car park in the Design [...]
Andy Coulson leaving Lewisham police station last week. David Cameron said he never received warnings about Coulson’s fitness for a job in government. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA David Cameron revealed in parliament that warnings about his former communications chief’s fitness for a job in government, made to one of his most senior aides, were not [...]
Binyam Mohamed and Jamil el-Banna, two of the former Guantánamo Bay detainees at the centre of the secret evidence case. Photograph: Press Association The supreme court has outlawed the use of secret evidence in court by the intelligence services to conceal allegations that detainees were tortured. The decision will be seen as a significant victory [...]
Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks. Photograph: Tom Jenkins Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman and chief executive, has been asked to appear before MPs on the Commons culture select committee to answer questions about the phone-hacking scandal along with his son James and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The culture, media and sport select committee, [...]
In addition to Brown,the News of the World‘s hacking scandal is alleged to have targeted Britain’s royal family [Reuters] Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, has accused Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper business of employing criminals to obtain confidential information about his family and others. Brown told the BBC on Tuesday that it appeared that the [...]
JUAN GONZALEZ: Let’s look into something a little more important in the world right now. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is engulfed in a growing scandal after new evidence emerged that his reporters in Britain paid corrupt police officers for story tips and hacked the voice-mails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to politicians to [...]
I sent the following email to George Monbiot and the Guardian. I will keep you posted if there is any response. George Ikners ikners.com Related articles Monbiot on Sydney (ikners.com) Monbiot on putting a price on nature and the environment (ikners.com) A Piece from ‘UK Government Watch’ (not me) about ‘The Hidden Economy’ (ukgovernmentwatch.wordpress.com) Monbiot [...]
An Egyptian protester injured during clashes with security forces evacuated from Tahrir square in the worst violence since Mubarak’s fall. Photograph: Amel Pain/EPA The fiercest street fighting seen in central Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has left more than 1,000 people injured, as popular dissatisfaction with the military-led transitional government boiled over into [...]
Aung San Suu Kyi‘s idea of freedom offers a radical message for the west The Burmese heroine’s Reith lectures expose our patronising attitudes to Buddhism, and injects fresh meaning into a concept we have abused Share reddit this Comments (81) Madeleine Bunting guardian.co.uk, Sunday 26 June 2011 21.00 BST Article history On the wall by [...]
Arab League chief admits second thoughts about Libya air strikes Amr Moussa, who played central role in securing Arab support for Nato strikes, calls for ceasefire and ‘political solution’ The head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, pictured left with the European commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, said he had ‘misgivings’ about the Libya air [...]
What’s it costing British taxpayers to bomb Libya? The UK government has shrouded the financial cost of bombing Gaddafi in secrecy and obfuscation Share310 Comments (190) Ian Katz guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 June 2011 22.00 BST Article history Smoke rises after a Nato air strike on the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Photograph: Str/EPA This weekend provided [...]
Sarah Palin emails – live coverage Follow our live blog as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting Sarah Palin emails with your help Share153 Comments (137) This page will update automatically every minute: On | Off The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill and Ed Pilkington take delivery of Sarah Palin’s emails in Juneau, Alaska. [...]
Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the ‘devil’s experiment‘ Survivors tell of damaged lives after being deliberately infected in secret 1940s experiment on 1,500 men, women and children Share281 Rory Carroll in Guatemala City guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 June 2011 23.00 BST Article history Marta Orellana, 74, a victim of the US syphilis [...]
Coalition on course to miss carbon emissions targets, says CBI Powerful business lobbyist says ministers failing on 12 of 13 environmental indicators after series of policy U-turns Share26 Comments (34) Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 June 2011 11.00 BST Article history One of the indicators the government is failing on is improving household insulation, the [...]
Mark Kennedy case: CPS accused of suppressing key evidence CPS opens inquiry after claims prosecutors withheld undercover police officer’s surveillance tapes from defence lawyers Share115 Rob Evans and Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 June 2011 20.44 BST Article history Former police officer Mark Kennedy working undercover with environmental activists. Photograph: Guardian Prosecutors have been accused [...]
America’s Imperial War on Libya Submitted by Stephen Lendman on Tue, 2011-06-07 08:28 Corporatism and Fascism America’s Imperial War on Libya – by Stephen Lendman Obama’s claimed humanitarian intervention, if fact, is lawless imperialism by any standard, America’s latest target to be conquered, colonized, controlled and pillaged for greater power and profit. As a result, [...]
This photo taken on September 8, 2009 shows Indian booker prize-winning author and anti-globalisation activist Arundhati Roy ahead of the ‘International Literature Festival Berlin 2009′ in Berlin. Arundhati Roy: ‘They are trying to keep me destabilised. Anybody who says anything is in danger’ The Booker prize-winning novelist on her political activism in India, why she [...]
Biofuels boom in Africa as British firms lead rush on land for plantations Controversial fuel crops linked to rising food prices and hunger, as well as increased greenhouse gas emissions Share126 Comments (44) Damian Carrington and Stefano Valentino guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 May 2011 21.00 BST Article history An Ivory Coast nursery for jatropha, a non-edible [...]
Libya: SAS veterans helping Nato identify Gaddafi targets in Misrata Ex-SAS soldiers and private security firm employees passing information to Nato attack helicopters, sources tell Guardian Share Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 May 2011 18.25 BST Article history Western advisers are passing information on Gaddafi’s forces to Nato, sources have told the GuardianFormer SAS soldiers [...]
