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Match-fixing inquiry probes 200 European football games

BBC
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:59 EST

Football matches are fixed all the time. Here's Thierry Henry, the French national team captain using his hand to control the ball and set up a team-mate to score an extra-time winner against the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday night. France thus qualified for the World Cup tournament in South Africa next summer, while the Irish were left stunned that the referee had pretended not to see the illegal infringement.

About 200 European football games are under investigation in a match-fixing inquiry, German prosecutors have said.

At least three of the games were in the Champions League and another 12 were in the Uefa Europa League, officials said.

Uefa representative Peter Limacher called it the biggest match-fixing scandal ever to hit Europe.

On Thursday police carried out about 50 raids in Germany, the UK, Switzerland and Austria, making 17 arrests and seizing cash and property.

Fifteen of those arrested were in Germany and the other two in Switzerland.

BBC
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:51 EST

A Brazilian transsexual named in a sex scandal involving a former Italian politician is believed to have been killed in a fire in her Rome flat.

The media said a bottle of whisky was found near the body of the woman, known as Brenda. There is no confirmation.

She was linked to the case of Lazio Governor Piero Marrazzo, who quit last month after a video emerged apparently showing him with a transsexual.

Brenda had denied having any relationship with the former governor.

On Friday, police said that forensic tests were expected to formally identify the remains found in Brenda's basement flat.

Terry Hurlbut
Essex County Conservative Examiner
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:29 EST

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

The FTP link first appeared on a blog called The Air Vent. The blog's owner, identified as "Jeff Id", downloaded the file, examined it, and posted a brief summary on his blog. Another commenter, identified as "Steven Mosher," passed the information on to Steven McIntyre's Climate Audit blog and to another blog, The Blackboard, run by a blogger identified as "Lucia." Most recently, blogger Anthony Watts, who runs a blog titled Watts Up With That? mentioned the FTP archive in his own blog.

Commentary on all the blogs involved has been brisk, except, oddly enough, at The Air Vent, where only seven comments have been received.

Russia Bans Junk Foods' Advertising

Green Planet.net
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:28 EST

Further to an agreement with leading multinationals, from January 2010 advertising of snacks, burgers, fries and sugary drinks addressing children under 12 years will no longer be allowed in Russia.

The multinationals that have signed the agreement are Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, Bolshevik, Mars, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestlé Inmarko, an article in the Pravda paper notifies.

PressTV
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:56 EST

A man with an automatic weapon has opened fire on a car near a Paris train station, killing one man and wounding two others.

The shooting took place near the Gare du Nord train station, for trains to London and other international destinations.

Such an incident is told to be rare in France, which has strict gun control laws, AP reported.

A police officer said one of the occupants was hit in the head and died soon after. The other two victims have been hospitalized.

Steve Kingstone
BBC News
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:39 EST

The UK has apologized to Spain after the Royal Navy used a buoy with the Spanish colors for target practice.

The exercise took place off the coast of Gibraltar earlier this week. The UK ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry in Madrid to explain.

According to local reports, the navy hastily removed the buoy, which had a red-and-yellow marker, when approached by a Spanish police launch on Tuesday.

Ambassador Giles Paxman conceded it was insensitive and an error of judgment.

While acknowledging that the target had appeared "similar" to the Spanish flag, he insisted that was not what it was supposed to represent.

Russell Jenkins
Times Online
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:29 EST

An eminent rabbi was so exhausted after three days of constant cocaine-fuelled partying with escorts that his pimp grew worried and cancelled that day's supply of girls, a jury was told.

Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 55, who has a £6 million fortune, was a scholarly academic, an accomplished businessman, a charity giver and a dutiful family man until his first wife died of cancer and his world fell apart.

He turned to alcohol in his depression, then took refuge in cocaine, spending up to £1,000 a week. He lived in squalor, seeking comfort from prostitutes, Manchester Crown Court was told.

The prosecution said that Chalomish was the financier in a commercial cocaine supply business while Nasir Abbas, 54, a convicted drug dealer, provided the drugs and the customers.

Comment: A tragic fall from grace? Or a mask of sanity discarded, revealing the underlying pathology?

Press TV
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:03 EST

A collision between a nuclear-powered US Navy submarine and a US warship in the Strait of Hormuz was caused by "catastrophic failure" in management, a US Navy report says.

US Navy investigators found that "ineffective and negligent" management and the failure of navigation practices were to blame for a March 2009 collision between the USS Hartford and the USS New Orleans, an amphibious vessel.

"This incident comes down to weak and complacent leadership, which led to inadequate planning and preparation of the crew," the Navy Times said in its report.

Commander of US Fleet Forces Command Adm. John C. Harvey Jr. endorsed the findings of the report and described the collision as "avoidable."

BBC
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:22 EST

Riot police in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, pushed back a violent demonstration near the Algerian embassy in the early hours of Friday.

Egyptian protesters reportedly hurled firebombs at police protecting the embassy and overturned a police van.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said 35 people were injured.

The clashes stem from Egypt's defeat by Algeria in a World Cup qualifying match on Wednesday, securing Algeria the last African place for next year's finals.

On Friday Alaa Mubarak, the son of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak, made a rare public statement calling for a "tough stance" to be taken against Algeria.

"When you insult my dignity... I will beat you on the head," the businessman, who had attended the game in Khartoum, said.

Richard Norton-Taylor
Guardian.co.uk
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:02 EST

© Lewis Whyld/AP
From one polce state to another: Binyam Mohamed on his arrival in Britain from US where he was held at Guantanamo Bay.

- Sixth damning ruling in Binyam Mohamed case

- Foreign secretary's claims of security risk dismissed

The high court today flatly rejected claims by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, that releasing evidence of the CIA's inhuman and unlawful treatment of UK resident Binyam Mohamed would harm Britain's relations with the US by giving away intelligence secrets.

Evidence that the foreign secretary also wants to suppress is believed to reveal what British intelligence officers knew about Mohamed's treatment. Mohamed, 31, an Ethiopian, says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

In the sixth in a string of damning rulings, the high court accused Miliband of wanting to suppress information about CIA activities even though details had already been disclosed by the Obama administration. Dismissing Miliband's claims, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones insisted they were not trying to give away "American secrets". They said: "Of itself, the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as 'a secret' or an 'intelligence secret' or 'a summary of classified intelligence'."

Comment: What a useful distraction from the fact that the British army has been routinely torturing Iraqis for the past 6 years.

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