Former DPP Starmer tried to send head of News UK Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking 10 years ago
Ten years ago Keir Starmer attempted to send Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking.
Now Starmer could cause another headache for the boss of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire. She has to work out how her Tory-backing newspapers – which include the Sun and the Times – handle the growing popularity of the man who is favourite to become the next prime minister.
Continue reading...EU commissioner says Elon Musk’s platform must ‘fly by our rules’ as UK minister raises concerns over content moderation
Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition has been polarizing, sparking reactions from politicians, regulators and non-profits across different continents.
Some have expressed concerns about potential changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies now that it’s in the hands of the Tesla billionaire, while others celebrated how they expect the platform’s newly minted leader will handle content and speech on Twitter.
Continue reading...UK front pages offer their assessments of the prime minister’s new cabinet and outline the scale of the challenges ahead
Rishi Sunak’s sudden return to the top of British politics and the unveiling of his new cabinet dominates the UK front pages on Wednesday.
The Guardian headlines “PM’s reshuffle gamble on first day in charge” and leads with an image of Rishi Sunak meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Show portrays adventures of agent who wakes from cryogenic sleep to find himself in modern Spain
Three years after the remains of Francisco Franco were finally removed from the granite chambers of the Valley of the Fallen, another relic of the dictatorial regime is stirring from a long slumber deep inside the monument’s damp and bone-stacked caverns.
Fortunately, the relic in question is not a long-dead falangista but rather a fictional Francoist secret agent whose adventures in contemporary Spain have moved from the pages of three graphic novels to the small screen.
Continue reading...Police say Arshad Sharif was shot after his car failed to stop at a roadblock near Nairobi
Kenya’s national police service has said it regretted the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had been living in hiding in the country and was shot dead in Nairobi in an incident it described as a case of mistaken identity.
Officers opened fire on Arshad Sharif, 50, and a friend on Sunday after they allegedly drove through a security roadblock outside the Kenyan capital.
Continue reading...The UK newspaper front pages cover the latest in twist in the Tory leadership battle
Boris Johnson’s sudden exit from the Tory leadership race fills the UK front pages on Monday.
The Guardian goes with, “‘Not the right time’: Johnson out of race to lead the Tories”. The paper writes that the “Former PM struggled for backing” and that his “withdrawal leaves Sunak as frontrunner in battle for No 10”.
Continue reading...Rightwing networks says war correspondent turned pundit will not be invited back in view of ‘reprehensible statements’
The rightwing US TV network Newsmax said it had no plans to interview Lara Logan again, after the award-winning war correspondent turned rightwing pundit launched a QAnon-tinged tirade on air.
Speaking to host Eric Bolling, Logan said “the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and claimed world leaders drank children’s blood.
Continue reading...Families struggle to contact relatives as opposition calls for movement to focus on plight of thousands in jail
Almost 12,500 people have been arrested and nearly 250 killed since the street protests began in Iran, according to a prominent human rights group, with thousands of anxious families struggling to make contact with loved ones who have gone missing and presumed to be in jail.
The news came as the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, said security forces were close to snuffing out the remaining protests. He said: “Sedition is going through its last moments.”
Continue reading...Weekly newspaper describes Britaly as ‘country of political instability, low growth and subordination to markets’
Italy’s ambassador to the UK has criticised the Economist for rehashing old stereotypes after featuring Liz Truss dressed as a centurion and holding a fork of spaghetti under the headline “Welcome to Britaly” on the cover of its latest edition, which focuses on Britain’s political mayhem.
Truss, who resigned as prime minister on Thursday after just 45 days in office, is also holding a pizza-shaped shield, with a union jack design and one slice eaten.
Continue reading...Outgoing PM won Tory leadership after weeks of supportive stories in the Daily Mail and other outlets
Liz Truss’s hopes of becoming prime minister looked thin in early July. The then-foreign secretary was running a distant third in the Conservative leadership election, with Rishi Sunak and a surging Penny Mordaunt on track to make the final ballot that would be sent to Tory party members.
Supporters of Boris Johnson were not happy. They believed this outcome would pave the way for the coronation of Sunak, the same man who had dethroned Johnson by resigning as chancellor. Interested parties included Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor who had been promised a peerage by Johnson, which he is still hoping to secure.
Continue reading...Streaming service adds 2.4m subscribers in past three months to comfortably beat forecasts after ‘challenging’ first half of year
Netflix added 2.4m new subscribers in the last three months, more than twice what had been expected and reversing back-to-back quarters of decline, the company announced on Tuesday.
The streaming company had been expected to add 1m new subscribers over the latest quarter, which included the release of hit shows including the latest series of Stranger Things, Sandman and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
Continue reading...Bid follows national broadcaster being turned down last election by Scott Morrison to appear in leaders’ debate despite its broad reach
The ABC has called for legislation to ensure it hosts and broadcasts at least one leaders’ debate during a federal election campaign.
The public broadcaster made the case for a mandated ABC election debate in a submission to the inquiry into the 2022 federal election, which continues its public hearings in Canberra on Tuesday.
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Continue reading...Marina Ovsyannikova ‘in Europe’ after leaving country with daughter after being placed on wanted list
A former Russian state television journalist who protested against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine during a live broadcast has fled the country after being put on a wanted list.
“[Marina] Ovsyannikova and her daughter left Russia a few hours after departing from the address where she was under house arrest. They are in Europe now,” Ovsyannikova’s lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, said.
Continue reading...Former PM angered by fictitious storyline in which Charles seeks his help in getting the Queen to abdicate
As Netflix prepares to release its fifth season of big budget royal drama The Crown it has rejected criticism of the latest season after former prime minster Sir John Major described it as a “barrel load of nonsense”.
Major’s comments were made after concerns arose that a storyline in the hit programme could damage King Charles’s reputation.
Continue reading...Independent media and human rights groups report arrests and physical assault as authorities try to suppress news of protests
As nationwide protests enter their fourth week in Iran, the government is increasing its crackdown on activists and journalists. On 22 September Niloofar Hamedi, an Iranian journalist, was arrested after posting a picture she took of the parents of Mahsa Amini hugging each other in a Tehran hospital on the day of their daughter’s death.
Amini, 22, died in police custody on 16 September after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, which sparked the protests that then spread across the country.
Continue reading...Rules ban BBC, ITV and other broadcasters from filming near government buildings and migrant workers’ accommodation
International television crews in Qatar for the Fifa World Cup will be banned from interviewing people in their own homes as part of sweeping reporting restrictions that could have a “severe chilling effect” on media coverage.
Broadcasters, such as the BBC and ITV, will also be forbidden from filming at accommodation sites, like those housing migrant workers, under the terms of filming permits issued by the Qatari government.
Continue reading...George and Alfred Degiorgio both given 40-year sentences for killing of Maltese journalist in 2017 car bombing
Two brothers charged with the car-bomb assassination of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia have both been sentenced to 40 years in prison, after dramatically pleading guilty to her murder on the first day of their trial.
Caruana Galizia, who had investigated political corruption in the European Union’s smallest member state, died in an explosion that destroyed her car as she drove away from home on 16 October 2017.
Continue reading...Ian Katz says new show, Art Trouble, celebrates the channel’s tradition of ‘iconoclasm and irreverence’
Channel 4 has bought a painting by Adolf Hitler and will allow a studio audience to decide whether Jimmy Carr should burn it with a flamethrower.
As part of its latest season of programmes, the TV channel has bought artworks by a range of “problematic” artists, including Pablo Picasso, as well as convicted paedophile Rolf Harris and sexual abuser Eric Gill.
Continue reading...DJ and presenter will take over when the reality TV show returns for ninth series early next year
Maya Jama is to succeed Laura Whitmore as the host of Love Island, it has been announced. ITV said Jama would take over when the reality TV show returns for its ninth series early next year.
“I’ve always been such a massive Love Island fan and I’m so excited to be hosting one of the nation’s favourite shows,” Jama said. “I can’t wait to get into the villa to meet all of the islanders.”
Continue reading...News broadcaster’s footage of building’s blood-stained floor sparked police investigation
CNN has said it deeply regrets any distress caused by its report on the nursery killings in north-east Thailand, after its footage of the building’s blood-stained floor sparked a police investigation and a debate over how the media should cover such tragedies.
The US network’s report, which has since been pulled, was condemned by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and the Thai Journalists Association, while police launched an inquiry over allegations the crew entered the crime scene without authorisation.
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