Ugandan Airforce killing Congolese elephants?

This video, recorded in Congo, is called Support to conservation activities in the Garamba National Park.

The air force of Ugandan dictator, Pentagon ally and killer of Somali journalists and other civilians, Museveni, may, like the Kenyan air force, have illegally crossed sovereign states’ borders. In the Kenyan case, to kill civilians in Somalia. In the Ugandan case (if confirmed) to kill elephants in the Democratic Republic Congo. Congo, against which Museveni has an old grudge, as he supported a bloody rebellion of warlords using child soldiers which did not win there.

From Wildlife Extra:

Elephant massacre was conducted from a helicopter – Official

Investigation into Garamba elephant poaching concludes that they were shot from a helicopter

May 2012. Forensic investigations conducted by African Parks park management into the killing of 22 elephants in Garamba National Park in the DRC on March 15th have proved that the elephants were killed from a helicopter.

Initial forensic examination revealed that a number of AK-47 assault rifles were used in the attack.

Although there was evidence of a number of human tracks around the elephant carcasses, no tracks were found between the groups of carcasses, or leading to or away from the poaching scenes, indicating an attack by air. The 22 elephants – 18 adults and four calves – were found in distinct groups in the middle of the park and had been encircled before being shot as the carcasses were found grouped together. Further forensic evidence showed that at least 15 of the 22 elephants were shot with a single shot to the top of the head – evidence of professional marksmen firing from a helicopter.

Troop carrying helicopter

During the weeks after the poaching incident, African Parks management conducted intensive air and ground patrols in the park. During this period a military troop-carrying helicopter was spotted flying at low level within the park on two occasions – on April 6 and April 10. From the photographs, the helicopter has been identified as a Russian manufactured Mi-17 troop-carrying helicopter (Registration Number AF-605).

Ugandan Airforce?

According to an online helicopter database, that machine is, or at least was, registered to the Ugandan Airforce. Garamba NP is around 200 kilometres from the Ugandan border, though is much closer to South Sudan.

DRC’s military authorities have stated that this aircraft was unauthorised to fly within the DRC, however it is not clear to park management whether this helicopter is linked to the poaching incident or not.

[With] one of the largest remaining elephant populations in Central Africa, Garamba has offered a substantial reward for concrete information leading to the identification of the perpetrators of this poaching incident. Garamba’s elephants represent one of the largest remaining Central African elephant populations, and park management is determined to do everything it can to bring the perpetrators to account and ensure that the park’s remaining elephants are protected.

Garamba National Park is situated in the north east corner of the DRC bordering South Sudan. It was one of the first national parks in Africa and was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.

Researchers report that war has been a consistent factor in the decades-long decline of Africa’s large mammals. But the researchers also found that wildlife populations rarely collapsed to the point where recovery was impossible, meaning that even protected areas severely affected by conflict are promising candidates for conservation and rehabilitation efforts: here.

Greek nazis deny Holocaust

This video is called Greek neonazi leader gives Hitler-style speech after the elections.

From weekly Socialist Worker in Britain:

Greek Golden Dawn Nazis: a warning from history

Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, leader of Greece’s fascist Golden Dawn party, is using the publicity he has gained since the Greek elections to deny the Nazi Holocaust.

In a TV interview last Sunday he declared, “There were no ovens—this is a lie. There were no gas chambers either.”

Golden Dawn polled 7 percent in the Greek general elections earlier this month. Like most European fascist parties it formally denies its Nazi nature.

But in Golden Dawn’s case the pretence is pretty thin. The party’s thugs give Nazi salutes and parade under a swastika-style logo.

Votes for the fascists come primarily from the lower middle class—small business owners and the like who previously supported mainstream right wing parties.

Around a fifth of this lower middle class vote backed Golden Dawn, according to one poll. Another survey shows almost half of all serving police officers in Athens voted for the Nazis.

Capitalist crises do not just hit workers—they also threaten to ruin many of those who bought into the system’s values.

These middle classes form the soil in which the Nazis grow.

History shows that fascists try to use crises to smash the working class—and in extreme situations our rulers let them.

We need to organise against fascism. But we also need to build the kind of resistance that can defeat austerity and strengthen the working class.

Related articles

• Golden Dawn leader denies gas chambers of Holocaust
• Strong showing for Golden Dawn in Greek local elections
• Greek bigot becomes government minster
• Greek conservative politician advocates collaboration with nazis
• film-screening ‘Neo-Nazis: the Holocaust of Memory’, at Passing Clouds, Saturday 30/11 at 13.00
• Greek Jews anxious over neo-Nazis’ electoral gains

Animal sounds and music

This video is called THE GREAT ANIMAL ORCHESTRA by Bernie Krause: Water Sounds.

By Susan Darlington in Britain:

The Great Animal Orchestra

by Bernie Krause (Profile Books, £12.99)

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is passionate about sound and he can describe, with poetic beauty, the noise of a virus or a falling snowflake.

Verging on the obsessive, he is also not averse to creating cat-shaped ears out of cardboard in order to better understand how the pinna funnel – the visible part of the ear – sounds.

Krause’s mission is to make people passionate about what he terms biophony, sound made by all animals excluding humans, and geophony, natural sound such as wind and rain.

These sounds, he argues, underpin everything else including human speech and music.

According to his “niche hypothesis,” individual species occupy a unique bandwidth within this biophony.

This allows them to navigate, warn one another of predators, and attract mates.

Evolving over hundreds of thousands of years, it’s an “orchestral” sound that humans ignore at their own risk, Krause argues.

With the aid of spectrograms he demonstrates the effects humans have on animal life, be that by clear-cutting rainforests or the noise generated by military operations.

He describes in heartbreaking detail the vocalisations made by a beaver after wardens destroyed its dam and family and of zoo animals resorting to infanticide after being spooked by a military jet.

Krause also convincingly argues that such industrialised white noise is stressful to human life, reducing both efficiency and concentration levels.

Such discussions make a fascinating new chapter to the conventional environmentalist books.

But it would be misleading to file The Great Animal Orchestra alongside such works.

Large sections are part autobiography and travelogue, taking the reader from one exotic location to another as Krause is manhandled by gorillas or surrounded by crocodiles in a flimsy boat.

Some chapters presume a certain amount of musical knowledge, although meaning can generally be inferred by the context.

And they require tolerance of the slightly eccentric, such as the challenge to Western composers to take inspiration from holistic wild soundscapes.

The rambling prose style can make the book heavy going in places but it is worth persevering with for the fascinating, if at times alarming, facts and environmental consequences of deafening ourselves to the sounds of nature.

Vidal Sassoon, anti-nazi hairdresser, dies

This video is called Vidal Sassoon: The Movie – Official Trailer.

By Peter Frost in Britain:

Obituary – Vidal Sassoon

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Multimillionaire hairdresser Vidal Sassoon died at his home in Los Angeles last week aged 84.

Not perhaps a fact that you would expect to take up too much space in a serious left-wing paper like the Morning Star, particularly when you take into account that Sassoon was an enthusiastic zionist for most of his life.

However there is another side to this man’s story that needs to be told – a more important aspect of the man. All his life Vidal Sassoon was a relentless fighter against fascism.

Born in London on January 17 1928, the son of a poor Turkish-Jewish carpet salesman, Sassoon spent his early years in an orphanage. He left school at 14 to become an apprentice hairdresser.

Like all poor Jews growing up in the East End he soon encountered institutionalised anti-semitism and the Communist-led fightback characterised by events like the battle of Cable Street.

Sassoon joined the fight against fascism. When he was still in his teens he plotted with other Jewish and communist East End teenagers to kidnap Oswald Mosley, strip him naked and chain him to a lamp post in Piccadilly Circus – sadly the plot failed.

In a recent interview with the BBC Sassoon explained that fascism didn’t die with World War II.

“Suddenly there were fascists preaching hate on every corner. These rabble-rousers were the same nazi sympathisers who had spent the war years in prison, and were now starting up where they had left off.

“When you’ve got a thousand throats all screaming “the Yids, Yids, we’ve gotta get rid of the Yids,” that is pretty terrifying. They’d wear uniforms, insignia, the whole thing. That and the pictures we were seeing from Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Dachau changed the shape of our rage. Our slogan became “Never Again!”

Sassoon was a founder member of the anti-fascist 43 Group, a paramilitary force which began with a meeting of 43 Jewish ex-servicemen and which grew to number more than 1,000 Jews and gentiles, men and women, many of them Communists.

“The men were mostly ex-servicemen, unsung heroes who had fought Hitler’s nazis for five years and had come back to be abused by fascists as they walked down the street,” said Sassoon.

“We had to use the same weapons as the fascists did – knuckle-dusters, coshes, and cut-throat razors. I used my pointed hairdresser’s scissors.”

The most famous hair stylist in the world will be mostly remembered for ending the 1950s bouffant and beehive hairstyles of lacquer and hairpins.

He invented the simple, well-cut wash-and-wear look. Sassoon’s hairstyles along with Mary Quant’s miniskirts changed fashion forever. When the Beatles adopted Sassoon haircuts his fame and fortune were made.

Whisper it quietly, but Vidal Sassoon’s new look – or a cheaper copy of it – was just as popular on the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in Grosvenor Square as it was in the swinging King’s Road Chelsea. But that’s just by and by.

The important thing is to remember Vidal Sassoon for what he was – a brave street fighter against fascism. We need the like just as much today.

British transport workers support Greek workers

This video freom the USA is called February 17, 2012: Occupy San Francisco Greek Solidarity Rally Part 1/4.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Union declares Greek solidarity

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Chrissie Barrell (London Metropolitan) moved a successful motion urging TSSA support for the Greece Solidarity Campaign set up by the Coalition of Resistance.

Ms Barrell said that pensions in Greece had been halved and medicines withdrawn from national health provision, being available only on private prescription.

She described the desperate anti-government protest of a 77-year-old diabetic pensioner in Athens who committed public suicide after his drugs were withdrawn.

Rame Alia (Network Rail North London) exposed the role of the European Union in Greece’s problems, looking forward to “the question of EU membership” becoming an issue in Britain.

“Our brothers and sisters in Greece are demanding to know where the money went,” he said.

General secretary Manual Cortes said that the issue went further than the EU, describing a worldwide “capitalist counter-revolution trying to take back all the gains made by working people since the second world war.”

Conference resolved earlier to affiliate TSSA to the Coalition of Resistance.

Related articles

• Greece rejects return of EU/IMF inspectors to Athens-source
• Greek demonstration against neo-nazism in Ukraine
• Hundreds protest against bosses TTIP trade deal
• Greek ministers cave to troika to keep up relentless austerity
• Time For a ‘New Deal’ For Greece
• Scottish trade unionists against against anti-democratic European Union policies
• Return of the Greek general strike
• Juncker, more European Union austerity

Greece will vote again

This video is called Greeks rally against austerity cuts.

By Tom Mellen:

Greek coalition talks break down

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Greek social democrat leader Evangelos Venizelos announced today that Greece will hold fresh elections.

After nine days of fruitless coalition talks the Pasok chief said: “The country is heading toward elections under adverse conditions.”

The new vote is expected to be held next month.

In May 6 elections Greek citizens gave more than 60 per cent of the vote to parties that campaigned against the hated 2010 EU-IMF-Central Bank loans-for-austerity deal.

Pasok and New Democracy, which signed up to the agreement, saw their combined share of the vote plummet from 77 to 33 per cent.

Support for the left is growing as new elections loom.

A poll published on Monday indicated that the far-left Syriza coalition had 20.5 per cent of public support, compared with 19.4 per cent for the right-wing New Democracy and 11.8 per cent for Pasok.

The prospect of a Syriza triumph at the ballot box sparked fears in Brussels that the country will stop implementing the cuts and privatisations under the 2010 deal.

The so-called troika is currently pressuring Greek politicians to plan €14.5 billion (£11.5bn) worth of additional cuts for 2013-14.

But popular anger at the anti-social impact of the cuts is rising.

Thousands took to the streets of Athens on Monday for a Communist Party of Greece (KKE) rally demanding that Greece pull out of the the eurozone.

KKE general secretary Aleka Papariga (pictured), whose party won 8.5 per cent on May 6, called for fresh elections and urged citizens to vote Communist.

“Compromises suggested by other forces requires unending heavy and unnecessary sacrifices – with no positive outlook for the people,” Ms Papariga argued.

“The only government that can face up to the demands of the crisis and meet people’s needs is one that unilaterally cancels the debt, terminates and reverses the EU-IMF loan agreement, and frees Greece from the EU,” she insisted.

Ms Papariga said that such a government would “socialise the main means of production and implement scientific central planning of the economy.”

‘We will defy the bankers’ – Greek workers speak out: here.

As new Socialist President Francois Hollande advances up the Champs Elysees and the Greek fight against austerity continues it’s tempting to hope for better things. But that temptation has to be tempered with a realisation of the sheer enormity of the beast that is our common enemy: here.

German PCB scandal trial

This German video is called Dirk Neupert vergiftete aus Profitsucht seine Angestellten [Dirk Neupert poisoned his workers because of lust for profits.]

By a correspondent:

Trial opens in German environmental scandal

15 May 2012

On May 9, legal proceedings began at the Dortmund district court against four defendants, accused by the public prosecutor of involvement in the criminal activities of Envio Recycling Ltd.

The company, which had made huge profits by recycling PCB industrial capacitors (devices for storing electrical energy) in Dortmund’s Rhine dock area, was closed by the supervisory authority of the Arnsberg district administration in May 2010. This followed a local newspaper’s reports of gross violations of safety and environmental regulations. Employees had worked with their bare hands, dismantling capacitors containing highly toxic PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). The dust extracting equipment was inefficient, and the dismantling often took place inside factory buildings.

The production of cancer-causing PCBs was banned in Germany in 1983 and also worldwide, following the Stockholm Convention of 2001. All PCBs and equipment containing PCBs were to be discarded by late 2010. Envio Recycling Ltd’s business practice was organised around the subsequent obligation of firms to safely dispose of the carcinogenic substance, and it was able to maximise profits by simply ignoring the new safety regulations. Under normal circumstances, the waste management of PCBs is extremely costly. The high-quality copper from the capacitors enabled Envio to draw substantial revenues on commodity exchange markets.

Those accused are Dr. Dirk Neupert, a director of the firm, a former operations manager, an off-site pollution control officer, and a former workshop foreman.

In view of the serious consequences of the affair this is a very selective choice of those who must have been involved. The extent of the violations would have been impossible without the cooperation of regulatory authorities—from the staff of the municipal environmental office to members of the district governing body.

The consequences for the Envio workers and their families have been catastrophic. Local press and television documented the lives of members of one particular family, whose father worked at Envio and brought the poison into his home via his work clothes. His wife was pregnant at the time, and their child was born with a cyst-covered kidney that soon failed and had to be removed. The poisonous substance was also found in the blood of the child’s five-year-old brother. The parents and children now live in a constant state of fear because no one knows what effects the toxin is going to have.

‘Closed’ Iraq torture prison still open

This video is called Inside Abu Ghraib, Part 1 (Iraq prison camp, CBC).

By Barry Malone:

Iraq‘s Secret Prison Still Open, Human Rights Group Claims

05/15/2012 3:28 am Updated: 05/15/2012 11:29 am

BAGHDAD, May 15 (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday Iraqi authorities were still running a jail they said had been shut over a year ago after reports of prisoners being beaten and electrocuted, but the government denied this, saying the site was empty.

The New York-based watchdog and other critics of the administration of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accuse it of pushing Iraq back towards authoritarianism by cracking down on protests, harassing opponents and torturing detainees.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the prison, known as Camp Honor, is inside Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone, an area that houses most government offices and foreign embassies.

Camp Honor is a former U.S. military base of more than 15 buildings that was handed over to Iraqi forces in 2006. The last U.S. forces left the country in December.

…

Human Rights Watch said its latest report was based on interviews with 35 former prisoners, witnesses, family members, and government officials.

The report alleged that, in addition to Camp Honor, there were two other secret prisons inside the Green Zone.

…

HIDING PEOPLE AWAY

Human Rights Watch said that, since October 2011, the government has carried out several waves of detentions, surrounding neighbourhoods and going door-to-door with lists of people marked for imprisonment.

“Iraqi security forces are grabbing people outside of the law, without trial or known charges, and hiding them away in incommunicado sites,” Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

It called on the Iraqi government to reveal the names and locations of all prisoners, free those not yet charged with any crime and set up an independent judicial authority to try those who had been charged.

Human Rights Watch said in a Feb. 1 report that security forces were torturing inmates at Camp Honor, citing interviews with former detainees.

As well as electrocution, asphyxiation and beatings, the group said prisoners were packed into windowless cells that “reeked of human excrement”.

Torture was widespread in Iraq under Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and executed in 2006. Disclosures in 2004 that U.S. jailers had abused and sexually humiliated Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison outraged many Iraqis. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Allegations that British troops carried out systematic torture of civilians during the occupation of Iraq were set to be heard in court on Thursday of this week: here.

Related articles

• Abu Ghraib torture by mercenary corporations (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Britain breached international law by ‘torturing and killing prisoners’ during Iraq War, claim 180 Iraqis (dailymail.co.uk)
• Torture: An All-American Nightmare (readersupportednews.org)

Bad bird news, British and Australian

Unfortunately, today not just good bird news from Britain.

This video is about hen harriers in Scotland.

From Wildlife Extra:

Just 1 pair of Hen harriers nesting in England

The future of England’s most threatened birds of prey hangs in the balance

May 2012. The future for England’s most threatened bird of prey – the hen harrier – is looking perilous, as the species teeters on the brink of extinction as a breeding bird.

No nests in Bowland

Early reports indicate that only one pair is showing signs of nesting in England. If this situation continues it will be the worst year for hen harriers since they recolonised England, following extinction in the late Nineteenth Century. Worryingly, there are currently no birds attempting to nest in the Bowland Fells, Lancashire – the bird’s only stronghold in England in recent decades.

See also here.

Also from Wildlife Extra:

Ducks are disappearing from UK seas

WWT calls for international action

May 2012. Numbers of seven species of sea duck have dropped by up to 65% in Northern Europe in the last 15 years, including some that winter off the UK’s coasts, particularly long-tailed duck and velvet scoter.

The mysterious nature of sea ducks and the challenges in monitoring their numbers have meant that the situation had gone largely unnoticed.

Moray Firth – Huge decline

The UK coast is one key area for sea ducks during winter. Counts at the Scottish estuary the Moray Firth show that in less than a decade velvet scoters have gone from several thousand to less than 100 and long-tailed ducks have plummeted ten-fold, to fewer than 1,000.

Similar declines were reported from the Baltic Sea at the end of 2011, strongly suggesting that these birds aren’t just going elsewhere, they’re disappearing. Whilst smaller species like Steller’s eider have attracted concern since 2000, some of the more shocking recent declines have been among common and widespread populations like the common eider, which has halved since 1993, and the long-tailed duck, which has declined by over 65%.

The causes remain unknown, however, though the widespread nature of the declines has prompted concern that it is linked to environmental change across much of the arctic and sub-arctic regions where most of these species breed.

Again, from Wildlife Extra:

Australian officials investigating shooting of Wedge-tailed Eagles

DSE investigates alleged Wedge-tailed Eagle deaths

May 2012. Wildlife officers from the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) are investigating reports that a number of Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila audax) have been shot and killed recently in the Yea area. Senior DSE Wildlife Officer, Gary Dash, said DSE has received a number of calls from concerned local residents who have heard about the alleged shootings.

“It concerns us greatly that it appears that a number of Eagles have been shot and killed illegally in recent weeks,” Mr Dash said. “DSE is taking this matter extremely seriously and is seeking the assistance of the local community to provide us with additional details.”

Australia’s largest bird of prey

Wedge-tailed Eagles are Australia’s largest bird of prey and are protected under the Wildlife Act 1975. They can grow to 100cm in height and have a wing-span of 2.5m. Eagles eat predominately live prey, including rabbits and hares. Other food sources include lizards, birds and mammals.

Mr Dash said Eagles at times, depending on other food sources, may prey on young lambs, however this was not a legitimate excuse for shooting or trapping them.

Residents who have information about the alleged shootings are urged to contact the DSE Customer Service Centre on 136 186. They can choose to remain anonymous if they wish.

It’s not the first time DSE has investigated allegations of destroying protected wildlife in the north east region. In 2005 a Euroa man was fined more than $3000 and costs for illegally trapping and starving to death two Wedge-tailed Eagles at a Strathbogie property. The man claimed he trapped the birds so that they didn’t attack his new-born lambs.

And last year, DSE investigated the death of a Wedge-tailed Eagle on private property near Violet Town after it was found with a serrated jawed rabbit trap around its leg. Under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulations serrated jawed traps, which were once used to hunt rabbits, are now prohibited.

The legal smooth, padded jawed traps can only be used on rural private land and are not to be used on Crown Land. Large fines and imprisonment can apply to people who illegally kill or injure protected wildlife.

Murdoch underling charged with bribing police

This video from Britain is called Rebekah Brooks and others charged with perverting course of justice (15 May 2012).

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Rebekah Brooks charged with perverting the course of justice

Former News International chief executive, her husband and four others charged in phone-hacking inquiry

Sandra Laville, crime correspondent

Tuesday 15 May 2012 16.02 BST

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been charged over allegations that she tried to conceal evidence from detectives investigating phone hacking and alleged bribes to public officials.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, would be charged with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July last year at the height of the police investigation.

And Scotland Yard later confirmed she had been charged along with her husband, Charlie Brooks, and four others.

Brooks is accused of conspiring with others, including her husband, a racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, and her personal assistant, to conceal material from detectives.

Brooks and her husband were informed of the charging decision – the first since the start of the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation last January – when they answered their bail at a police station in London on Tuesday morning.

They are among six individuals from News International, along with the company’s head of security, Mark Hanna, to be charged over allegations that they removed material, documents and computers to hide them from officers investigating phone hacking. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

In a statement, Brooks and her husband – who are both close to David Cameron – condemned the decision made by senior lawyers and overseen by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions. …

Brooks is accused in one charge of conspiring with her PA, Cheryl Carter, to “remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International”.

In a separate charge she is accused of conspiring with her husband, Hanna, her chauffeur and a security consultant to conceal “documents and computers” from the investigating detectives. All the offences are alleged to have taken place in July last year.

Alison Levitt QC, Starmer’s principal legal adviser, said the decision to charge six of the seven individuals arrested over the allegations came after prosecutors applied the two-stage test required of them when making charging decisions.

“I have concluded that in relation to all suspects except the seventh there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction,” she said.

“I then considered the second stage of the test and I have concluded that a prosecution is required in the public interest in relation to each of the other six.”

Levitt said the televised statement had been made in “the interests of transparency and accountability to explain the decisions reached in respect of allegations that Rebekah Brooks conspired with her husband, Charles Brooks, and others to pervert the course of justice”.

She said detectives handed prosecutors a file of evidence on 27 March this year in relation to seven suspects: Brooks, her husband, Hanna, Carter, Paul Edwards who was Brooks’s chauffeur employed by News International, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided security for Brooks, supplied by News International.

See also here.

Tories’ panic mounts as Cameron’s chum Rebekah Brooks charged: here.

Of course, no objection at all to charging Ms Brooks, a rich and powerful criminal suspect and friend of David Cameron. However, compared to her boss Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks is just an organ grinder’s monkey. When will the police (sections of the police not yet bribed by the Murdoch empire, one should hope) do something about the organ grinder Murdoch himself?

Leveson inquiry: Damning evidence of political corruption of Labour and Conservative parties: here.

There have been over 800 complaints over police corruption in the last three years, a government-commissioned report has revealed: here.

Pressure mounted on Tory Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Thursday after a lobbyist and a former special adviser laid out the gory details of his office’s dealings with the Murdoch empire over its bid for broadcaster BSkyB: here.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told his special adviser Adam Smith to quit after emails revealing the close relationship between his department and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation were released, the Leveson inquiry heard today: here.

USA: Charles Koch + Roger Ailes = Ohio University? Robert Greenwald, Brave New Foundation: “Why would the esteemed Ohio University host a talk by the likes of Roger Ailes? Maybe we should ask one of the talk’s patrons, Charles Koch. Ailes, of Fox News fame, is giving his talk today. The guy who invited him says the point was to get ‘perhaps the most influential newsman in America’ to spark a discussion about ‘free speech and the media,’ particularly given OU’s ‘first-rate school of journalism.’ But Roger Ailes isn’t a newsman and doesn’t do journalism. He does political advocacy that’s (very) thinly disguised as journalism. As Eric Boehlert of Media Matters says, ‘places of higher learning shouldn’t help perpetuate the Fox myth while turning a blind eye to the lasting damage Ailes’s enterprise is doing to journalism and to our national discourse'”: here.