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UK: Investors Brush off News Corp Hacking Saga

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Ben Fenton Ben Fenton
The Financial Times
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:24 UTC
Rupert Murdoch
© unknownRupert Murdoch
In the six months since the revelation that the News of the World accessed a murdered teenager's voicemail messages, the scandal has cost Rupert Murdoch the British tabloid he bought in 1969 his bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting, some of his closest executives and, perhaps, his dream of family succession.

Yet, in Wall Street's eyes, it is as though nothing happened. This week, shares in News Corp hit a 52-week high, edging past the peak at which they stood before the Milly Dowler report upended Britain's media, police and political establishment.

Over six-month and 12-month periods, the stock has beaten rivals including Walt Disney, Time Warner and Viacom, and, of 25 analysts following News Corp, 17 rate the stock a "buy" and the other eight a "hold", according to Bloomberg.
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Rocket

Iran, Israel and US plan Gulf Exercises

James Blitz
The Financial Times
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:13 UTC
Image
© unknown
Tension in the oil shipping lanes of the Gulf looks set to intensify amid indications that Iran, Israel and the US will hold military exercises designed to test weaponry and tactics.

As the US and European Union press ahead with oil sanctions on Iran, Tehran's defence minister announced on Friday that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will hold large-scale exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf next month.

The drills will be the "greatest naval war games" to be conducted by the Iranian military's elite corps, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, said in remarks published by the semi-official Fars news agency. The exercises, called "the Great Prophet", will take place in February and will be more extensive than Iranian naval manoeuvres in the Sea of Oman that ended this week.
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Radar

US: Work as Usual for U.S. Warship After Warning by Iran

C. J. Chivers
The New York Times
Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesA jet after landing on the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis in the North Arabian Sea on Wednesday.
Abroad U.S.S. John C. Stennis, in the North Arabian Sea - If Iran's warning on Tuesday to this American aircraft carrier was intended to disrupt the ship's routine or provoke a high-seas reaction, nothing of the sort was evident on Wednesday.

Steaming in international waters over the horizon from the Iranian fleet, the John C. Stennis spent the day and the early hours of the night launching and recovering aircraft for its latest mission - supporting ground troops in Afghanistan. All visible indications were that the carrier's crew was keeping to its scheduled work, regardless of any political or diplomatic fallout from Iran's warnings.

"It is business as usual here," said Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller, commander of the carrier strike group, as he watched a large-screen radar image showing the nearby sea and sky cluttered with commercial traffic.

The screen also showed Navy jets flying back and forth in a narrow air corridor to Afghanistan, known as "the boulevard."
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USA

Mark Levin: 'We Have a Constitutional Crisis'

Patrick Burke
CNS News
Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
"That is a forthright statement of a dictator."

On his radio show last night, Mark Levin said that President Barack Obama has caused a "constitutional crisis" by appointing members to the National Labor Relations Board and a director to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without going through the constitutionally required Senate confirmation process.

"We have a constitutional crisis," Levin said. "It is in fact a constitutional crisis."

"The President of the United States is trashing the Constitution now day in and day out," Levin said.

At one point, Levin likened the explanation Obama made yesterday for appointing these federal officials without Senate confrmation to the "forthright statement of a dictator."

Listen to Levin's full argument here:

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Magic Wand

Chile to rethink 'dictatorship' curriculum blunder

Olivia Crellin
Santiago Times
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:54 UTC
pen paper
© AlaskaTeacher/Flick
National Education Council will evaluate other proposals for teaching Chile's military past.

After a five-hour meeting Thursday Chile's Education Minister Harald Beyer said he would instruct the National Education Council to reconsider a controversial change in the wording of Chile's national curriculum for primary school students.

On Wednesday press revealed a measure to replace the word "dictatorship" with "military regime" in the textbooks of primary school students between first and sixth grades, when referring to the brutal 17-year rule of right-wing Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

The measure was approved by the National Education Council (CNDE), the body responsible for proposing curricular changes to the ministry, on Dec. 9.
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Handcuffs

Chilean government labels Carahue fire terrorist act

Michael Andrews
Santiago Times
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:44 UTC
President Sebastian Piñera
© Courtesy of Gobierno de Chile.President Sebastian Piñera
Government invokes anti-terrorist law and suggests Mapuche arsonists are to blame.

A fire which has claimed the lives of seven firefighters near Carahue in Chile's Araucanía Region was deliberately lit and exhibits conduct of a "terrorist nature," President Sebastian Piñera said late Thursday.

The announcement paves the way for the use of a controversial anti-terrorism law to prosecute suspects. Under the law, which has often been used to prosecute indigenous Mapuche activists, defendants enjoy fewer due process safeguards and face possible jail sentences between five and 20 years.
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Coffee

US: Taibbi - Montana decision 'just the start' of fight against 'Citizens United'

Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:23 UTC
Keith Olbermann Matt Taibbi.
© via Current TV.Current TV host Keith Olbermann talks to Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi.
Appearing on Current TV's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Thursday night, Rolling Stone political contributor Matt Taibbi suggested that a recent decision by the Montana Supreme Court will be seen as the start of a long fight against corporate money in American elections.

The highest court in Montana recently struck down a lower court's ruling which said the state's ban on corporate spending to influence elections was illegal due to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the controversial "Citizens United" decision.

Critics say that "Citizens United" will allow unlimited corporate money to pour into U.S. elections thanks to the Supreme Court finding that money in politics is the same as speech and should not be restricted.
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Chess

Election Time Again: Obama to let some undocumented immigrants remain in U.S.: report

Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:14 UTC
protest immigration
© Flickr user JacobRuff.A protester demonstrates against Arizona's controversial immigration laws, July 2010.
President Barack Obama will propose a new immigration rule aimed at letting the undocumented children or spouses of U.S. citizens remain in the country while their residency application is considered, an unnamed administration source told The Associated Press on Friday.

The rule would not require action by Congress, and would provide waivers to some undocumented immigrants who travel outside of the country to apply for residency, letting them return to their families in the U.S. within days instead of years.

Current rules ban undocumented immigrants from returning to the U.S. for three to 10 years, depending on how long they were living in the U.S. illegally. Hardship waivers can presently be requested, but they typically take more than six months before being approved.
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Eagle

Can the 'Indefinite Detention' Bill Send Americans to Military Prison Without Trial?

Buck Sexton
The Blaze
Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:45 UTC
Guantanamo Bay
© unknown
U.S. Citizens suspected of terrorism and caught on U.S. soil forfeit their rights to due process and the presumption of innocence underlying the Constitution.

That appears to be the current position of the Senate, according to many legal analysts and some in Congress, unless President Obama vetoes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed on Tuesday.

Two provisions that have survived heated debate in the massive NDAA, also called Senate Bill 1867, are causing these concerns. Once the House and Senate bills are reconciled, they will head to the President's desk to be signed into law, or struck down with the veto pen.


Comment: For readers who don't know, Obama did not veto the NDAA and signed it on New Years Eve.

The NDAA bill, which passed 97-3 in the Senate, would fund a huge swathe of military operations for 2012. But tucked into the bill are provisions dealing with detention of terrorism suspects that cut deeply into the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of U.S. citizens in the post-9/11 era. Now referred to by some as the "indefinite detention bill," it has caused a firestorm of controversy from disparate corners of government and American society.
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Rocket

Iran Plans New Maneuvers in Hormuz Strait in February


Reuters
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:15 UTC
Iran announced plans on Friday to hold new naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz next month, the latest in a series of forceful gestures in the world's most important oil shipping lane at a time when new sanctions threaten Tehran's exports.
Image
© Reuters/Hamed Jafarnejad/Fars NewsIran's Navy Commander Habibulah Sayari points at a map during a news conference in Tehran December 22, 2011.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, naval commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, said the exercises in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz in February would be different from previous exercises, but gave no further details, according to remarks reported by the semi-official Fars news agency.

"Today the Islamic Republic of Iran has full domination over the region and controls all movements within it," he said.

Iran held a 10-day drill which ended on Monday in the strait, which leads out of the Gulf and provides the main export route for the Middle East's oil.

Iranian officials have threatened in recent weeks to block the strait if new sanctions harm Tehran's oil exports, and this week threatened to take action if the United States sails an aircraft carrier through it.
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