Threatened by more than terror
The News Review:
- Threatened by more than terror
- Jeremy Warner’s Outlook: Duds, gaffes, scandal, foul language and…
- Home is where the heart is for Saffire
- ‘Good year’ for terrorists
- Peers and players
Threatened by more than terror
Al-Ahram Weekly – Dec 29, 2005
Blair, however, did not listen, blaming terrorism on "extremism" rather than his own foreign policy. He moved swiftly to convince parliament and the people that an anti- terrorism bill would protect Britain from further attacks. The 7 July bombings on three London underground stations and a London bus left 56 dead, including the four "home grown" suicide bombers. A failed copycat attack two weeks later left no casualties. The most controversial point in the bill was extending the period of detention without charge for terrorist suspects from 14 to 90 days. Police claimed that they needed more time to deal with such cases, examine the evidence and contact overseas intelligence agencies if need be. However, in what was described as the hardest blow to Blair, the extension proposal was defeated in the House of Commons.
Jeremy Warner’s Outlook: Duds, gaffes, scandal, foul language and…
The Independent – Independent – Dec 29, 2005
Better luck next time. In the absence of home-grown talent, the judges were forced to go abroad. Yet the sacking of Werner Seifert as chief executive of Deutsche Börse, is up there with the best of them. Under Mr Seifert, Deutsche Börse had become one of the best performing shares in the Dax 30, but he hadn’t realised how much the world had changed. When he bid for the London Stock Exchange, it should have been the crowning glory of his career. Instead, shareholders, led by Anglo-Saxon hedge funds, turned on him and demanded the money be handed back rather than spent on the LSE.
Home is where the heart is for Saffire
fredericksburg.com – Dec 29, 2005
Acoustic blues group Saffire–the Uppity Blues Women is opting to stay close to home and perform during Fredericksburg’s First Night event. “All of us love being with our loved ones on New Year’s, so to play here in town, we can do both,” Saffire guitarist, harmonica player and vocalist Gaye Adegbalola said in a phone interview last week. ” And I just love having an opportunity to share our music with the hometown crowd. While Saffire is known for its bawdy blues, Saturday’s performances will be “G-rated,” Adegbalola said. The group is sure to play songs that will appear on its new CD, “Deluxe Edition,” a compilation of favorites that will be released Jan. 31, as well as selections from various solo projects by Adegbalola, by Saffire pianist, guitarist and vocalist Ann Rabson, and by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Andra Faye. Saffire plays around the area only two or three times a year, Adegbalola said, “because you use up your audience, so to speak… “It’s a thrill to have a stage like that and a setting like that and have home folks there,” Adegbalola said. First Night gives people who don’t want to travel or who can’t afford other shows an opportunity to see Saffire, she added. “We are home-grown,” Adegbalola said. “We definitely cut our teeth at home, and home supported us in such a way that gave us the impetus to jump out there. Saffire began to take the blues world by storm with its first album on a national label in 1990, and the group has performed all over the world. Each Saffire member considers Barcelona her favorite place, but even after traveling so much, Adegbalola said, “I love Fredericksburg.
‘Good year’ for terrorists
Melbourne Herald Sun – Dec 29, 2005
The relative serenity was shattered on July 7 in London when four presumed Islamist suicide bombers blew up rucksacks packed with explosives on three rush-hour subway trains and a bus killing themselves and 52 other people. Hundreds more commuters were injured, some horrifically, in Britain’s deadliest terrorist strike and the first suicide bombing in western Europe. Two weeks later, a second band of four would-be bombers failed in an attempt to repeat the July 7 carnage. The alleged attackers and a number of presumed accomplices have been arrested, charged and are awaiting trial. But questions remain about whether the two strikes were linked and if a mastermind is still roaming free. The Al-Qaeda network, headed by the world’s most wanted man Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the London blasts as well as a string of others. Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was ripped apart on July 23 when three suicide bombers unleased a trail of destruction that left some 70 people dead, including more than a dozen foreign tourists… “I think it is a win for the terrorists,” Mr Ayers said. “We are seeing democratic governments becoming increasingly non-democratic with regard to their people and their response to terrorism,” he said. Following the London bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government compiled tough new laws to crack down on Islamic extremism in the country after it emerged that the July 7 attackers were home-grown Islamists. However, Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at St Andrews University in Scotland, noted that the government had to water down its proposals because of opposition to their impact on human rights. He said the authorities this year, particularly in Britain, learned a lot about how to handle Islamic extremism. “While it was a good year for the terrorists it was also a good year for the authorities,” Mr Ranstorp said. Britain’s counter-terrorism policies following July 7 had become a model for the rest of the world, he said.
Peers and players
BBC News – Dec 29, 2005
And then there was the small matter of developing the main body of News Online’s AV-offering as a priority. But by February we were ready to unleash the live stream of the channel in a specially crafted BBC Parliament console, incorporating broadband – as well as narrowband – versions in both Real and Windows media formats. And we filled in the gaps with some of the channel’s home-grown, backgrounder documentaries, also in four flavours. Six months later we were able to show more of Parliament at work than ever before. A first
In the same week that Radio 4’s legendary Today in Parliament celebrated 60 years of reporting from the Palace of Westminster, BBC Parliament took Parliamentary broadcasting into the future, with two new live web streams in broadband. This is the first BBC channel to have its own online media player, enabling the live broadcast of the Lords and committees and other political events around Westminster and beyond. With the help of News Interactive we have had several key moments promoted on the front page of the BBC news website.