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Exclusive: New evidence links the murders of Stephen Lawrence and a private investigator

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© IndependentAmid police denials, documents show both botched original murder investigations were connected by one officer.
Explosive new evidence linking the two darkest chapters in Scotland Yard's modern history can be revealed today by The Independent on Sunday, heaping fresh pressure on the position of the current Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

Leaked documents reveal a police officer accused of corruption in the Stephen Lawrence case has also been closely linked to one of the prime suspects in the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator found with an axe embedded in his skull in 1987.

Use of covert police listening devices suggests that a suspect in Morgan's murder knew John Davidson, a detective sergeant who is alleged to have confessed to a corrupt relationship with the father of David Norris, one of the racist gang who stabbed Lawrence to death in 1993.

Under Sir Bernard's leadership, the Metropolitan Police appears to be playing down links between the Morgan case and the murder of the aspiring black architect in 1993 - a position that has been called into question by both the Home Secretary, Theresa May, and Mark Ellison QC, who published a withering review of the Lawrence police investigation last week.

Only last month, Scotland Yard insisted to Mr Ellison's team that the then DS Davidson did not work on the original investigation into the murder of Morgan, who was killed in a south London car park 27 years ago amid claims he was about to blow the whistle on police corruption.

Rose

Armed gang murdered pro-government journalist next to Maidan Square, Kiev during sniper attacks

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© Image from FacebookVyacheslav Veremyi
A Ukrainian reporter has died of a gunshot wound after masked men attacked him on the way home in central Kiev. His colleagues suspect the attack was not accidental.

The journalist, Vyacheslav Veremyi, of the local "Vremya" ("Time") pro-government newspaper died early on Wednesday morning of a gunshot to the chest while doctors were trying to save him.

"Early this morning, Kiev correspondent, Vyacheslav Veremyi, died in hospital," said Vesti, a Russian-language daily, in the statement. "Vyacheslav received a bullet wound to the chest. He succumbed to his injuries due to blood loss."

The reporter and his colleague, IT specialist Aleksey Lymarenko were in a taxi on their way home. As the taxi driver stopped at traffic lights, a group of "unknown men with bats and weapons, in hard hats, camouflage and black masks" ambushed the car.

They pulled the reporter, his colleague and the driver from the car and beat them up, the paper said. The latter two sustained severe injuries, with Aleksey Lymarenko's face being seriously maimed.

Attention

Neo-Nazis in Kiev seized over 1,500 guns and 100,000 bullets during Ukraine mayhem

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© Reuters/Vasily FedosenkoAnti-government rioters take cover behind a temporary barricade during clashes with riot police at Independence Square in Kiev February 18, 2014.
Ukraine's security service has announced it is launching a counter-terror operation. Radicals have seized over 1,500 firing arms and 100,000 bullets in the last 24 hours, the service said.

The recent events in Ukraine have shown "the escalation of violence and a massive use of firearms by the extremist groups. In many parts of the country, public authorities, military installations and depots with munitions are being seized. Court buildings are burning, the vandals are destroying private property and killing peaceful civilians," the Ukrainian Security Service head, Aleksandr Yakimenko, said in a statement.

According to Yakimenko, "over the last day more than 1,500 firearms and 100,000 rounds of ammunition have come into the hands of criminals."

Reacting to the "conscious, purposeful use of force by means of arson, killings, kidnapping and terrorizing people," which Yakimenko treats as "terrorist acts," the Security Service and Anti-terrorist center of Ukraine have decided to launch a counter-terrorist operation.

The Security Service head then urged all Ukrainians to stay calm and maintain peace and order. Special measures to reinforce public security and border security are being taken.

Chess

EU tells Russia: Start Ukraine talks or face sanctions

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© Bulent Doruk/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesThe Crimean people and the supporters of Russia gather in front of the Parliament building in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea’s capital Simferopol, Ukraine, on February 26, 2014.
Sanctions, including asset freeze and travel ban on military and officials, could be imposed day after Crimea referendum

The European Union is on course to impose travel bans and to freeze the assets of Russian officials and military officers involved in the occupation of Crimea by next Monday if Moscow declines to accept the formation of a "contact group" to establish a dialogue with Ukraine.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday is being seen as an unofficial deadline for the introduction of the sanctions, which would exempt the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as the EU tries to keep open lines of communication.

The sanctions could be imposed a day after Sunday's referendum in Crimea to allow the Black Sea peninsula to join the Russian Federation.

Ukraine's parliament warned the regional assembly in Crimea on Tuesday that it faces dissolution unless it cancels the referendum, which has been condemned by the EU and the US as illegal. But the Russian foreign ministry said it would respect the result of the vote.

Comment: Wonder if they've considered Russian sanctions on the EU, like cutting off the oil and gas?

Germans, Czechs, Greeks, Cypriots oppose sanctions against Russia
Russian sanctions? You Must be Joking! Russia Holds All the Cards!


Radar

Man-portable air defense systems could be stolen in Ukraine amid turmoil

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© Ria Novosti/Sergey Pyatakov
Highly dangerous type of weaponry - man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs) - have gone missing from two Ukrainian military units, according to a high-ranking official in Kiev.

Several, and maybe even several dozen 9K38 Igla (Needle) air defense systems (SA-18 Grouse in NATO's classification) have been stolen, a Ukrainian military official, who wished to remain anonymous, told RIA Novosti.

The shortage was, according to him, registered in Ukraine's 80th airmobile regiment, which had 54 MANPADs, and the 27th airmobile brigade, stationed 45 km away from Lvov, which possessed 90 Iglas.

The new leadership of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is, according to the RIA source, taking measures to "camouflage the grave situation" by adding old and experimental items of the weapon to the stockpile.

Red Flag

Ukraine far-right leader demands govt open arsenals for radical groups

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© UnknownDmitry Yaroch
The leader of the Ukrainian radical group Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, has reportedly demanded the country's authorities open military arsenals for the group's fighters.

This is according to an unknown source in Ukraine's military department, as cited by ITAR-TASS.

The source also quoted Yarosh as saying the "conservative approach" of the security agencies' chiefs doesn't allow for order to be restored by precluding anti-Maidan rallies in eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.

In an ultimatum, Yarosh demanded that the government gives to his group the access to a part of weapons and military equipment, as well as several military training centers "for quality training for Right Sector fighters."

"Yarosh doesn't rule out more decisive action on Ukraine, if the government doesn't comply with these demands," the source indicated to ITAR-TASS.

However, Right Sector denounced the report as false.

"It's only an attempt to discredit out organization," the group's press secretary, Artyom Skoropadsky, told Slon web portal.

Airplane

Iranian lawmaker blames U.S. for plane 'kidnapping'

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© BBCPouria Nour Mehrdad and Delavar Mohammadreza, the two Iranian men allegedly travelling using stolen passports on Flight 370
With the fate and location of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet still unexplained on Tuesday, the police were investigating the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage and possible psychological or personal problems among the crew and passengers, while other agencies in Malaysia continued to investigate noncriminal explanations, as Thomas Fuller, Jane Perlez and Alan Cowell reported.

On Tuesday, an influential Iranian lawmaker accused the United States of having "kidnapped" Flight 370, saying it was an attempt to "sabotage the relationship between Iran and China and South East Asia."

Chess

Edward Snowden: 'I would do it again'

Edward Snowden talks NSA and internet surveillance at SXSW


Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower whose unprecedented leak of top-secret documents led to a worldwide debate about the nature of surveillance, insisted on Monday that his actions had improved the national security of the United States rather than undermined it, and declared that he would do it all again despite the personal sacrifices he had endured.

In remarks to the SXSW culture and technology conference in Texas, delivered by video link from his exile in Russia, Snowden took issue with claims by senior officials that he had placed the US in danger. He also rejected as demonstrably false the suggestions by some members of Congress that his files had found their way into the hands of the intelligence agencies of China or Russia.

Snowden spoke against the backdrop of an image of the US constitution, which he said he had taken an oath to protect but had seen "violated on a mass scale" while working for the US government. He accepted praise from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, accorded the first question via Twitter, who described him as "acting profoundly in the public interest".

Bad Guys

Give and take in the EU-US trade deal? Sure. We give, the corporations take

EU US illustration
© Daniel Pudles
I have three challenges for the architects of a proposed transatlantic trade deal. If they reject them, they reject democracy

Nothing threatens democracy as much as corporate power. Nowhere do corporations operate with greater freedom than between nations, for here there is no competition. With the exception of the European parliament, there is no transnational democracy, anywhere. All other supranational bodies - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, trade organisations and the rest - work on the principle of photocopy democracy (presumed consent is transferred, copy by copy, to ever-greyer and more remote institutions) or no democracy at all.

When everything has been globalised except our consent, corporations fill the void. In a system that governments have shown no interest in reforming, global power is often scarcely distinguishable from corporate power. It is exercised through backroom deals between bureaucrats and lobbyists.

Calendar

Ukraine crisis: Russia drafting counter-offer to nonsensical U.S. demands

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© Zurab Kurtsikedze/EPARussian ships in the bay of Sevastopol, Crimea.
Kremlin says Washington's stance on negotiations unacceptable because it accepts ouster of Yanukovych as fait accompli

Russia has said it is drafting counterproposals to a US plan for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine crisis. The Kremlin denounced the new western-backed government as an unacceptable "fait accompli" and claimed Russian-leaning parts of the country had been plunged into lawlessness.

The Kremlin moves came as Russian forces strengthened their control over Crimea, less than a week before the strategic region is to hold a contentious referendum on whether to split off and become part of Russia.

In a televised briefing with President Vladimir Putin, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said proposals made by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, were "not suitable" because they took the situation created by the coup as a starting point, referring to the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Kremlin president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Referring to a document he received from Kerry explaining the US view of the situation in Ukraine, Lavrov said: "To be frank it raises many questions on our side ... Everything was stated in terms of allegedly having a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and in terms of accepting the fait accompli."