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Remorselss psychopathic child killer Ian Brady: 'I killed for the existential experience'

Jonathan Brown
The Independent, UK
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 11:44 UTC
75-year-old breaks 47-year silence as he tells mental health tribunal of mixing with criminals from Krays to Great Train Robbers and IRA terrorists

Image

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of moors murderer Ian Brady appearing via video link at Manchester Civil Justice Centre
Moors murderer Ian Brady denied he was insane as he recalled cooking steaks with Ronnie Kray whilst mingling with some of Britain's most notorious criminals during his half century of incarceration.

In an extraordinary four-hour display which veered between vaunting self-aggrandisement and breath-taking callousness towards his victims and their relatives who were watching via video-link, the child killer failed to express any remorse for his crimes.

Throughout the long-awaited appearance at the mental health tribunal, which must decide whether the 75-year-old - now the UK's longest serving prisoner - be returned to a normal jail from the secure hospital where he is held, Brady repeatedly stonewalled at suggestions he had a personality disorder or that his five murders were evidence that he was "abnormal".

Speaking in a quiet, controlled voice, his Glaswegian accent still pronounced, he hit out at "media fascination" with his past complaining he was demonised and romanticised like Jack the Ripper and comparing reports of the shocking moorland killings to the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and the Gothic romance Wuthering Heights.

He passed judgment on politicians that had considered his case over the years - praising Labour's Roy Jenkins as the "greatest Home Secretary ever" and claimed to have once discussed Russian literature with James Callaghan.

Brady was particular scornful of Tony Blair who he accused of getting rich off his "war crimes" in Iraq whilst claiming he was effectively a political prisoner after Margaret Thatcher had intervened in his case. He said Britain was a "psychopathic country" that had been invading other nations for 300 years.

Comment: For the the full horrific story about the notorious Moors murders in 1960's Britain, see this documentary

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Palette

Charles Saatchi: art supremo with an image problem

Elizabeth Day
Guardian
Sat, 22 Jun 2013 09:28 UTC
Image
© Olivia Harris/Reuters
Charles Saatchi: 'He's like a kid in a sweet shop – he just wants it now.'
The enormously powerful collector has worked hard to guard his privacy. But last week's disturbing photographs of his 'playful tiff' with his wife, Nigella Lawson, have made him the object of relentless speculation and scrutiny

When the art collector Charles Saatchi wants something, he knows how to set about getting it. Gallerists and curators are full of stories about the way he walks into an exhibition, fixes on the single best work of art on show and rushes towards it - in the words of one acquaintance, "like a heat-seeking missile". Those who have seen him in action say that when he likes a piece of art, he will do everything he can to have it for himself. For Saatchi, worth a rumoured £135m, the price is irrelevant.

"He doesn't care whether it's worth £100 or £100m," says a friend. "It's all about the impact of the work when it is in front of him. When he wants something, he will pay on the day for it. More than that, he will have a truck waiting outside the door. It's a kid in a sweet shop and he just wants it now."

But what happens when he doesn't get what he wants? It's a question that many were asking after photographs emerged last weekend of Saatchi, 70, sitting at an outside table of his favourite restaurant, Scott's in Mayfair, with a hand around the throat of his 53-year-old wife, the television chef and former Observer columnist, Nigella Lawson.

In some respects, it was difficult to know what to make of the pictures: there was no context for them and no sense, either, of what might go on within their relationship. The next day, Saatchi dismissed the incident as "a playful tiff" and later accepted a police caution because, in his words: "I thought it was better than the alternative of this hanging over all of us for months."

Comment: Charles and his brother Maurice Saatchi were instrumental in selling Margaret 'The Witch' Thatcher to the people of Britain in 1979.

The toxic influence of such nasty people really does permeate everything:

The Plot Against Art

Spitting Mad Jews and Angry Artists

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Card - VISA

California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in chalk


RT
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 04:07 UTC
Bank of America
© AFP Photo / Mark Ralston
Jeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.

According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson's attorney from "mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial," Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism.

In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children's chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south.
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Newspaper

President al-Assad gives interview to the German newspaper


SANA
Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00 UTC
Assad
© Unknown
President Bashar al-Assad gave the following interview to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper:

Interviewer: Mr President, how do you view the situation in your country? The Syrian Army has lost control over large parts of Syria, in other words those areas are outside the control of central government. What's your take on the situation?

President Assad: Your question requires us to put things into their proper context: this is not a conventional war with two armies fighting to control or liberate particular areas or parts of land. What we are in fact dealing with is a form of guerrilla warfare.

As for the Syrian Army, there has not been any instance where our Armed Forces have planned to enter a particular location and have not succeeded. Having said this, the Army is not present - and should not be present - in every corner of Syria. What is more significant than controlling areas of land, is striking terrorists. We are confident that we can successfully fight terrorism in Syria, but the bigger issue is the ensuing damage and its cost. The crisis has already had a heavy toll but our biggest challenges will come once the crisis is over.
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Arrow Down

New Jersey hospital deports unconscious Polish stroke victim


RT.com
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:12 UTC
Stroke Victim
© Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP
A US hospital deported an unconscious stroke victim after noticing that the patient was an undocumented immigrant from Poland. Polish health officials are furious that the man was "dumped on their doorstep" before the transfer was approved.

"Imagine being carted around like a sack of potatoes," Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka told New York Daily News, describing the incident in which 69-year old Wladyslaw Haniszewski was unconsciously deported to his homeland.

Haniszewski, who suffers from a blood disease, lived in Perth Amboy, N.J., for 30 years. He recently lost his job, apartment, and health insurance, and was forced to move into a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports.

After the man suffered a dangerous stroke, a friend named Jerzy Jedra took him to the New Jersey hospital for treatment. When officials at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital noticed that the patient had no health insurance and lived in the US without documentation, they sent the comatose man to Poland. US hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, but are allowed to deport stabilized undocumented immigrants.

But in order to deport someone, a US hospital must first get consent from either the patient, a family member, or a court guardian. Officials at the Polish consulate claim that no one was contacted, and that Haniszewski's family was never informed that the man was deported.
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Pistol

5-year-old U.S. girl fatally shoots herself


New Zealand Herald
Mon, 24 Jun 2013 16:25 UTC
Image
Police say a 5-year-old girl fatally shot herself when her mother locked her inside their home and went to the store.

The New Orleans Police Department said in a news release the girl was home alone Sunday, somehow found her mother's revolver, and accidentally shot herself in the head.
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Bizarro Earth

Woman driver kills her husband AND herself in freak car parking accident as she practiced reversing with six-year-old daughter in car


Dailymail.co.uk
Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:23 UTC
A six-year-old girl witnessed the horrific moment both her parents were accidentally killed as her mother tried to reverse into a car-parking space.

The 41-year-old mother was being directed by her husband when the tragedy happened, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.

According to Qianjiang Evening News, the newly-qualified driver was practicing the manoeuvre in her Lexus RX270 SUV when she accidentally backed up too far, pinning he husband against the wall.

Image
© Weibo
Tragedy: The 41-year-old mother was being directed by her husband when the tragedy happened, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.
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Megaphone

Michael Hastings was not working on Jill Kelley story, wife says

Andrew Blankstein
LATimes.com
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 07:19 UTC
Image
© Paul Morigi / AFP/Getty Images / May 1, 2012
Journalist Michael Hastings in Washington in May. He died last week in a one-car crash in Los Angeles.
Journalist Michael Hastings, who died last week in a fiery single-car crash in Hancock Park, was not working on a story about Florida socialite Jill Kelley, his wife said.

Elise Jordan posted a message on Twitter on Tuesday morning: "To correct the record, since I've seen it erroneously reported a few times: @mmhastings was not working on a story about Jill Kelley."
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People 2

Social media sparks riot at Lauderhill Mall

Keith Jones
nbcmiami.com
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 05:04 UTC
SWAT was also at the mall, located at 1267 NW 40th Avenue.

Image

The scene at Lauderhill Mall on Tuesday.
Authorities said two people were transported to the hospital with minor injuries after a fight at the Lauderhill Mall Tuesday.

Hundreds of people, mostly teens, swarmed the mall at 1267 NW 40th Ave. and created a chaotic scene, and police from Lauderhill, Plantation and Sunrise as well as the Broward Sheriff's Office responded to break up the crowd.

Lauderhill Police Lt. Mike Butkus said the incident was the result of a social media message.

"What that message was, we don't know. Essentially that's what was used and we believe it was to fight somewhere in the mall, over what, we do not know," Butkus said.

The power and reach of social media was evident as police estimate 200-300 kids showed up. Some of them made it inside the mall, where police quickly broke up fights.

One of the two people hurt was taken to the hospital for treatment for a punch to the head, according to police.

While police and heavily armed SWAT members helped disperse the crowd, a young man who wanted to be called "D" explained to NBC 6 that he heard it started with two girls fighting. Others showed up to settle a "beef" or argument with other kids.

"Whatever pressure you had against anybody, you had to come out today," D said.

While police made no arrests, they didn't take any chances of amped-up teens sparking a new brawl. Two officers remained on scene to show a presence into the night.
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Bad Guys

Himalayan massacre spells end for Pakistan mountaineering

Frank Jack Daniel
Reuters
Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:01 UTC
Hospital staff and rescue workers
© Reuters/Mian Khursheed
Hospital staff and rescue workers move the body of one of the nine foreign tourists killed by unidentified gunmen near the Nanga Parbat peak, from an ambulance to a hospital morgue in Islamabad June 23, 2013.
Islamabad - Pakistan's once thriving mountaineering industry is reeling from the killing by militants of 10 foreign climbers, a massacre likely to drive away all but the hardiest adventurers from some of the world's tallest and most pristine peaks.

A tour company present during the attack said gunmen dressed as police ordered tourists out of tents at the 4,200-meter (13,860-foot) base camp of Nanga Parbat, the country's second highest peak, late on Saturday night, then shot them and a Pakistani guide.

The attack on the last peak over 8,000 meters (26,400 feet) in the western Himalayas has been claimed by both the Pakistani Taliban and a smaller radical Islamist group.

The foreign victims included two citizens from China, one from Lithuania, one from Nepal, two from Slovakia, three Ukrainians, and one person with joint U.S.-Chinese citizenship.

Manzoor Hussain, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said at least 40 foreigners including citizens from Serbia, Italy, Ireland, Denmark and the United States, among several other nationalities, were evacuated from a higher camp.

A group of Romanians is believed to be scaling the mountain from another side. Some other groups booked for climbs this summer have already cancelled, one company said.

Hussain said the attack was a "fatal blow" for his efforts to attract more climbers to the Hindu Khush, Karakoram and western Himalayan ranges, home to many unexplored summits.
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