President turns to right-wing network Newsmax for support after Fox warned viewers Trump’s election victory claims were false
Donald Trump has unleashed a torrent of tweets denouncing Fox News, accusing the network of having forgotten “what made them successful, what got them there”.
“They forgot the Golden Goose,” Trump wrote in a tweet posted at midday on Thursday:
Continue reading...Exclusive: The Dalai Lama warns of terrible consequences of climate inaction
The Dalai Lama has appealed to world leaders to take urgent action against climate change, warning of ecological destruction affecting the lives of billions and ruining the planet, including his birth country, Tibet.
As a call to action he has brought out a new book declaring that if Buddha returned to this world, “Buddha would be green”.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic has left us living more and more of our lives online. But the place where we chat with friends, get our news and form our opinions is full of vile and dangerous conspiracy theories. Is the world’s biggest social network doing enough to combat them?
As with many others in Britain, lockdown hit Rachel and her husband, Philip, hard. Almost overnight, the couple, both in their early 50s, found themselves cut off from friends, family and colleagues. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, they had both been working every day; now Philip found himself furloughed, while Rachel was put on rotation with other essential staff, working fewer shifts at odd hours. They were unable to meet up with their four adult sons and daughters. They had to attend a family funeral while remaining socially distanced.
Initially, Rachel coped in the way many others did. She played more video games than normal, and felt stressed at work, but as far as possible she managed. Her husband didn’t. For him, it seemed there must be more to it than the authorities struggling to cope with a novel virus and evolving expert advice. “The regularly changing and conflicting information that was coming from the government added to the feeling in him that they were making things up or covering something up,” Rachel says now.
Continue reading...Virgilio Maganes shot outside his home in what NUJP says is 18th such killing under Duterte
A Filipino journalist who survived a previous attempt on his life by pretending to be dead has been killed outside his home, police have said..
Virgilio Maganes, 62, who was a commentator for DWPR radio station in the northern province of Pangasinan, died instantly after he was shot six times by motorcycle-riding gunmen, Major Christian Alucod told AFP.
Continue reading...Diana’s brother Earl Spencer claims journalist produced fake documents to win trust of family
The BBC has pledged to hold a full independent investigation into how Martin Bashir obtained his career-defining interview with Princess Diana in 1995, following fresh claims that he produced fake documents and used other deceitful tactics to win the trust of her family.
Tim Davie, the corporation’s director general, confirmed that the terms of the investigation would be announced in the coming days: “The BBC is taking this very seriously and we want to get to the truth. We are in the process of commissioning a robust and independent investigation.”
Continue reading...Journalists call for removal of clause that would ban footage disseminated ‘with intent to harm’ officers
A proposed bill in France that would make it illegal to disseminate photographs or videos identifying police and gendarmes “with intent to harm” is a danger to press freedom, critics have warned.
The measure comes amid growing concern about allegations of police violence in the country. It is outlined in draft global security legislation to be presented to the Assemblée Nationale next week.
Continue reading...Diana’s revelations to Panorama 25 years ago rocked the royal family. Now the BBC is being accused of setting her up
Confidence is crucial. It has to be established to entice a big name to give a candid TV interview. It is also, of course, the basis of many a scam. Pulling off a confidence trick commonly involves first offering your “mark”, or target, something useful, in an open-handed way, to build up trust, before going in for the kill.
The BBC and its journalist Martin Bashir now both stand accused, once again, of perpetrating this kind of con on Diana, Princess of Wales and her brother, Charles Spencer, to set up Bashir’s sensational Panorama interview in 1995: the programme that fully exposed the discord at the heart of the most famous marriage in the world.
Continue reading...The American people have disavowed four years of a thuggish presidency. But now the real work begins
Joe Biden is the next president of the United States – and Kamala Harris has made history, becoming the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be elected vice-president. The pair shattered previous records, winning more votes in the presidential race than any candidates in American history.
Related: 'You're fired!': New York, Trump's home town, celebrates his election defeat
Continue reading...After the tortuous last few days, Joe Biden’s election has been welcomed by leaders keen to renew relations with the US
Fiji’s prime minister got in first, gambling on congratulating Joe Biden before the presidential election had been called, slipping in a plea for action on climate change.
But once the result was official, congratulations came pouring in from around the world. Donald Trump’s allies, critics and reluctant partners had all been following the vote counting, weighing up the impact of a radical change of direction expected from Washington under Biden.
Continue reading...TV pundit moved to tears by election result and says: ‘This is vindication for a lot of people who have really suffered’
One of the most emotive responses to the announcement of Joe Biden becoming the new US president came from CNN political correspondent Van Jones. CNN was the first of the TV networks to call the election for Biden and moments after they did so the anchor, Anderson Cooper, asked Jones for his thoughts.
Related: US election live: Joe Biden wins and says 'It’s time for America to unite'
Continue reading...Donald Trump refused to formally concede the US election on Saturday, even as senior Republicans began to distance themselves from him, and as recriminations were reported among aides to a man doomed to go down as an impeached, one-term president.
Before the race was called, Trump continued to tweet his defiance and to attract censure for making baseless claims about voter fraud and his supposed victory. He also went to his course in Virginia to play golf. While he played, a defiant statement was issued in his name.
Continue reading...The controversial messaging app has moved huge crowds on the streets of Belarus. But who is its secretive puppet master?
One Sunday in August, two weeks after Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko declared an implausibly decisive victory in presidential elections, I joined a crowd of around 100,000 people as it moved through central Minsk. Protest in Belarus was no longer the domain of a few hundred hardy opposition figures, and the homemade placards many people carried illustrated how broad the coalition had become: “Let’s drink to love, from the bartenders of Belarus”; “Teachers against violence”; “Working class, go on strike!”
The previous fortnight had been a time of national awakening, as the country united around the goal of ending Lukashenko’s 26 years in charge. As grim footage of police violence circulated on the messenger app Telegram, large numbers came out to demand that their voices be heard.
Continue reading...Police showed ‘disregard of the the principles of a free media’, says Society of Editors
Scotland Yard has apologised after journalists and photographers covering an anti-lockdown protest were told to leave and threatened with arrest.
Journalists at the demonstration protesting the new national lockdown in England in Trafalgar Square on Thursday were reportedly told by officers they were not seen as essential workers and needed special permission from the Metropolitan police service (MPS) to be present.
Continue reading...Story of BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s dealings with Princess of Wales is of searing public interest
It was just six days before transmission that Buckingham Palace learned that the BBC’s Panorama programme was to broadcast Martin Bashir’s compelling, explosive – and now highly controversial – interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.
In the palace press office, there was dismay and resignation. “Then everybody looked at each other and said: ‘Martin who?’” recalled Dickie Arbiter, then an assistant palace press secretary.
Continue reading...Former Trump adviser falls foul of Twitter rules with ‘heads on pikes’ comments
Twitter has banned the account of the former Donald Trump adviser and surrogate Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.
Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.
Continue reading...I had the tubes of moisturiser and foundation, the mirror with lights around it and, most importantly, a professional to guide me
I’ve always taken the view with makeup that it’s a bit like football refereeing: if you notice it, that’s a sure sign a bad job’s being made of it. By that measure, the many television makeup artists who have worked their magic on me over the years have done a fine job, because I’ve never really seen any difference. Sometimes they ask me what I “normally have” – a question for which I never have an answer. My only advice to them is to not bother doing anything with my hair, all attempts to adjust it being in vain.
This week, in the interests of Covid-compliant TV production, I lost my makeup-applying virginity. I had all the gear – the brushes, the tubes, the mirror with the lights around it – and I even had a nice masked and visored makeup artist. But she was only allowed to supervise; no touching permitted.
Continue reading...Abused women expected to be ‘meek and subservient’ to receive public sympathy, says QC
Amber Heard’s stand against Johnny Depp’s assaults should not have deprived her of public sympathy for suffering the ordeal of domestic violence, a leading human rights lawyer has said.
Heard was subjected to death threats and misogynistic attacks on social media during the libel trial that left her feeling “down and beleaguered”, according to Helena Kennedy QC, who met Heard while the case was before the high court.
Continue reading...Robert Fisk would have been amused, if unsurprised, by the plethora of reactions, from the adulatory to the sharply critical, prompted by the news of his death, at the age of 74. As a journalist, commentator and author, in a five-decade career that focused overwhelmingly on the Middle East, Fisk expressed strong views about who was responsible for the region’s agonies, and provoked equally strong responses.
Even a partial list of his postings and assignments reads like the battle roll of the post-colonial wars he despised: post-revolution Lisbon, Belfast, Tehran, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Algiers, Kabul, Sarajevo.
Continue reading...Choy Yuk-ling reportedly held over film about claims of police collusion with armed thugs
Hong Kong police have arrested a journalist at a public broadcaster, reportedly in relation to a documentary about the 2019 Yuen Long incident, when police were accused of standing by as armed thugs attacked commuters.
RTHK confirmed the arrest of Choy Yuk-ling, one of the producers of Hong Kong Connection. The respected current affairs programme investigated the police response to the attack, which left 45 people needing treatment in hospital.
Continue reading...Charles Spencer says BBC used ‘sheer dishonesty’ to secure interview with princess
Princess Diana’s brother has accused the BBC of a “whitewash” over faked bank statements that allegedly helped to secure a historic Panorama interview with his sister, and called on the corporation to carry out a formal inquiry.
Charles Spencer said the BBC had used “sheer dishonesty” to win the trust of Diana, Princess of Wales, for the interview with Martin Bashir.
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