Key Posts Category
Wikileaks And Madeleine McCann: Spinning A Story From A Thin Cable
MADELEINE McCann is back on the front pages. The missing child is on the front page of the Guardian. Having encouraged readers to suggest which search terms would be useful to browse the Wiikleaks cables for, the Guardian settled on Our Maddie keywords.
Can it create a story from the cables? Well, it tries to. The paper duly leads with:
“UK police ‘developed’ case against McCanns”
The cables are those of Britain’s ambassador to Portugal, Alexander Wykeham Ellis. On September 21, 2007 – two weeks after Portuguese police named Gerry and Kate McCann as arguidos – he commented on the happening in a memo to Washington, US Ambassador Al Hoffman. He wrote:
“Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in the south of Portugal in May 2007 has generated international media attention with controversy surrounding the Portuguese-led police investigation and the actions of Madeleine’s parents.”
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Posted: 14th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann | Comments (3)
Wikileaks: Is Secretive Julian Assange An Enemy To Openness?
WIKILEAKS: Those secrets in the leaked cables are Pobitch for the diplomats. They reveal information. But all information is open to interpretation. And millions of people have seen these cables – even a lowly tech like Bradley Manning could read them at will.
Sam Roggeveen writes:
Just because information is classified, does not mean it is valuable. Politicians are often seduced by the aura of clandestine information-gathering… the diplomats have not been able to convince their political masters that information gathered openly through diplomatic exchanges can be just as important as that which is gathered covertly.
The same principle holds good for the latest Wikileaks revelations.
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Posted: 13th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly: A Life In Photos
WHAT do we know about Taimour Abdulwahab al- Abdaly, the man who blew himself up in a terrorist attack on Stockholm? The Iraqi-born bomber set fire to his car. He then strapped a bomb and nails to his body and went for walk in Stockholm. His bomb blew up before he could immerse himself in a big crowd.
He was born in Baghdad, Iraq.
He was 28, although some source say he was 29.
He moved to Tranås, Sweden in 1992.
Tranås resident Jean Jalabian tells Expressen:
“He drank alcohol and had girlfriends. It’s really strange that he would do something like that.”
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Posted: 13th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Male Model Charlie Gilmour And The Top Shop Boot: A Pink Floyd Video
CHARLIE Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour, and budding male model, has been arrested for his role in the student protests. He’s been pinched on suspicion of criminal damage, violent disorder and, allegedly, stealing a shoe from the Oxford Street branch of Top Shop.
Top Shop has been targeted by protesters over its tax burden (more on that here). Top Shop is billed as bad for Britain. But Gilmour is on the books of Select Model Management who have supplied bodies and faces for Top Shop campaigns. Has he featured in one? Is that boot a portfolio shot, allegedly?
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Posted: 13th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Julian Assange Is Harry Harrison On Dating Site: Asian Teengirl Stalkers Welcome
DOES Julian Assange, head of Wikileaks go by the name Harry Harrison? Was Assange looking for love and good times on a dating website in 2007, posting under the name Harry Harrison on OKCupid? Assange is beleaguered by an unusual rape allegation, and would be forgiven for hankering for those simple days when he was most “often carrying mystery brown paper packages tied up with strings” and had “Asian teengirl stalkers?”
Is this account a fake to discredit Assange, and further reduce his allure, to traduce his name and make a intriguing character less so? Look through his profile in our gallery and tell us what you know:
Posted: 13th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Balaclavas: Crossover Student Demo Fashion (A Gallery)
BALACLAVAS. Do you take a view? The item of clothing was once the reserve of Arctic explorers, men busting through patio doors to interrupt scenes of domestic bliss, boys whose mums worried about face chill and the Provisional IRA. Then Lewis Hamilton started to wear one beneath his helmet and they got trendy.
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Posted: 13th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
Wikileaks Is Killed: Openleaks.Org Is The Future
ALL hail Openleaks.org. It’s been set up by Wikileaks insiders unhappy with Julian Assange. They say Assange “has weakened the organization”.
As we asked in September: Has Julian Assange’s Fame Wrecked Wikileaks?
Daniel Domscheit-Berg says Wikileaks is “too much focused on one person, and one person is always much weaker than an organization“.
Will he now turn whistleblower and expose Wikileaks? Looks like it. He is publish a book called “Inside WikiLeaks: My Time at the World’s Most Dangerous Website” in Germany in January.
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Alfie Meadows: Kettling, Police With No ID And Stupidity At Work
ALFIE Meadows has been injured at the anti-student fees demo on the day the MPs voted. He is 20. He was struck on the head? By what? Some voices claim it was a police truncheon. But we do not know for certain. Who did it? We do not know? If it was a protestor, we may get to know their name. We may see a photo of their face distributed by the police. If it was a copper, we may not get a photo.
This video shows us that police were not all wearing identification. Their faces are obscured by helmets and masks. They wear a uniform.
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Police Hunt 14 Student Fee Protesters Who Proved Kettling Fails: Photos
POLICE have issued the photos of 14 demonstrators they want to question and kettle in a small room back at the station. This what happens after protests that turn ugly: the police use technology and the media to get their message across. They do not listen. They cannot listen. Says Detective Chief Superintendent Matthew Horn:
“The vast majority of the people we are seeking are suspected of committing serious offences of violent disorder and criminal damage.”
Criminal damage is a “serious offence”. Violent disorder is a “serious offence”. Kettling – curtailing someone’s freedom and placing them in temporary prison – is merely operational.
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment
Harvey Wants To Rape Katie Price Because He’s Black And She’s White: Frankie Boyle Joke Explained
FRANKIE Boyle versus Katie Price is a nasty row that shows what prejudices Channel 4 likes. Boyle’s gag is that Katie Price’s handicapped son Harvey Price is trying to rape her.
Says Price:
“They are saying it is ok to ridicule people – even children – for disability in a way they would not dare over race or sexual orientation.”
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (4)
Man Tattoos ‘DOG’ On Face Of Victim Who Slept With His Ex: Photo
JASON Allen Tattersall tattooed the word “DOG” on the forehead of Steven Jiminez and beat him with baseball bat because he was “a bit upset”. Tattersall was miffed that while he was prison an ex-girlfriend had slept with the other man.
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (2)
Liz Hurley And Shane Warne: Secrets And Photos
LIZ Hurley is cheating on her husband with Shane Warne? Maybe. But, then, she did split from her husband four months ago.
The News of the World’s Stephen Moyes and Tina Campanella are pretty adamant:
LIZ Hurley has been caught in a steamy affair behind her husband’s back with cricket legend Shane Warne.
Anorak readers will recalls Liz’s wedding to Arun Nayar. The do began in 2007 and seems to have ended a few short weeks ago. Hello! magazine invested £2 million to secure the rights to broadcast the wedding.
We salivated over a 53-page album of “non-stop festivities”, “Bollywood dancing” and “spectacular fireworks”.
There was a meal of curry and, in clear tribute to Arun’s roots and glamour, spiced peas.
We chortled and begged for more when Liz’s father-in-law told us in his wedding speech:
“I once thought Liz was a lovely, unspoiled woman, but now I see that she is a very hard person. It was important for her to get celebrity faces there. That’s what the Hello! deal was about. She was fulfilling her contractual obligation. I knew she was very ambitious, but I never realised just how desperate she is for fame and attention.”
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (2)
X Factor: Cher Lloyd Is A Children’s TV Star And Matt Cardle’s Dead Mum Lobbies For Votes
CHER Lloyd is no longer on the X Factor. Dot Cotton’s Team America action figure was once a shoo-in for the title. The show would progress and Cheryl Cole, that “nation’s sweetheart”, would carry her abbreviated mini me to victory on a wave of mojo, hair extension, a sweet right hook and weepy Girl Power.
Then on the final Cher sang a children’s song and looked like a stroppy youth worker with a dream at a Coventry kidz ‘n’ dadz social club. The X Factor is a TV show – if the wannabes want to get on after it’s over they need to continue their career on the magic box. Cher would make a decent character on Balamory or a big sister for Horrid Henry.
Matt Cardle, Rebecca Ferguson and One Direction march on. And Cher strops off. And she sounds horrible, threatening, even:
“You haven’t seen the last of me, definitely not. I’m going to use this as my platform and I’m going to make sure I’m the biggest goddamn thing to ever come out of The X Factor.”
What bigger than Simon Cowell’s ego. The planet is no big enough, Cher.
“That’s not being cocky, it’s just being very, very, very committed to what I do.”
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Posted: 12th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
X Factor 2012 Final Live Blog: One Direction To Win…
X FACTOR LIVE BLOG: 2010 Final.
Matt Cardle wins. As we, er, told you he would.
Day 2: 20:30 – One Direction are out. Now they can ditch the three that can’t sing.
20:58: Cher Lloyd slings her ring-a-ding-ding. If she wants to be famous she must now carve out a TV career.
Odd thing is that she was the most memorable singer on the night. Although Rihanna’s Nation Of Islam dry hump was a pretty close second.
14:39: Playlist leaked:
One Direction go for ballads and love. They are going to win.
14: 27: Chloe Mafia arrives. She is with Princess Beatrice’s missing sister.
X Factor 2011 Final Photos: Chloe Mafia And Christina Aguilera Separated At Birth
X Factor 2011 Final Photos: Chloe Mafia And Christina Aguilera Separated At Bi
AFTER months of Gamugate, rigged votes, fixes, Shirleena Johnson, Wagner, and cynical manipulation, the X Factor reaches its final. One Direction (aka one Haircut – it’s Justin Bieber’s), Rebecca Ferguson (slightly less animated than a stick of rock), Cher Lloyd (Junior Dot Cotton) and Matt Cardle (styled by Joe Cocker; auto-tuned by Kenwood) are the final four acts looking to be the next Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein, Leon Jackson or Leona Lewis.
After the telly is over, the chances of music success are not guaranteed. Because – get his – the X Factor is not a singing contest. It is a TV show. Witness Stacey Solomon’s victory on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. She is good on the telly, the medium that spawned her.
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Posted: 11th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Wikileaks: Madeleine McCann Helps Lazy Guardian Hacks Hit Those Keywords
THE Guardian has obtained the Wikileaks leaks – did it pay for them with a donation or sign the confidentiality agreement for, er, free speech and transparency in all things?
The paper’s editor Alan Rusbridger issue a call to arms. Wikileaks is news for lazy hacks. So lazy are they that rather than just publish the entire raft of 250,000 cables on a news dump with a search engine attached and let readers see them for themselves, the Guardian wants you readers to suggest what its expert should look for.
Journalism just got lazier:
We’re now around 10 days into coverage of the embassy cables. We’ve done a thorough job of searching for themes, people and issues, but we know we’ll have missed many intriguing and important stories. What have we missed? What would you be searching for if you were sitting in front of the database?
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Posted: 11th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Miley Cyrus Marijuana Video Hits The Web: Billy Ray Cyrus Hits Twitter
MILEY Cyrus has smoked a bong of weed. Smiley Miley is now Highly Miley. The video of Hannah Montana smoking some weed has hit the web.
Because when you are a child star growing up and looking to empathise with the cool kids who buy records, you make sure your antics are not filmed. Your reputation is all. What went wrong? WHAT!?
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Posted: 11th, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Shrien Dewani And The Murder Of Dr Pox Raghavjee
SHRIEN Dewani: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the murder of Anni Dewani in the news – Mr Dewani has been released on £250,000 bail.
South African prosecutor Ben Watson tells the High Court, “the net was closing in.” He lobbied against bail “even on the most stringent conditions“.
Zola Tongo, the taxi driver already jailed, claims in his statement (read it in full here), that Dewani paid him to arrange the murder. His claim has seen seven years knocked off a 25 year sentence,
The claim states that he got the impression Mr Dewani has done similar before. No proof. Not a shred of evidence. But, still, IOL, a South African site, introduces the name Dr Pox Raghavjee, a Port Elizabeth doctor murdered in October 2007.
No motive for the murder was ever established as his cellphone, watch and wallet with R500 were found on the scene.
A “source” tells us:
“Soon after the murder of Dr Pox, his wife went and stayed in Cape Town where she was said to be grieving and it is understood that she had visited the mother city before the murder as well.”
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Posted: 11th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (7)
Video Of Prince Charles And Camilla Being Attacked In Regent Street
HERE’S a video of Prince Charles and his fragrant wife Camilla being attacked by student fees protesters as they motor down Regent Street – their street – in central London.
Charles and Camilla are making their serene way to the theater, where they will watch the Royal Variety Show. (They missed Corrie live – and failed to see Molly (based on Camilla) telling her lover’s wife Sally (Diana) that she’d been shagging Kevin (Charles). Still, good night out – memorable, even…
Photos:
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Posted: 11th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Royal Family | Comments (8)
Wikileaks And Assange’s Anonymous Army Kill The Old Media New Media Debate: Hackers Are Today’s Intrepid Reporters
DO hackers approve of the action of the meme Anonymous that calls for Julian Assange’s supporters to bring down Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, Paypal and anyone who declines to do business with Wikileaks?
The think irony that a bank and credit card companies would make stand on ethics is not lost on many. But is attacking them damaging to Wikileaks in the long run?
Operation Payback will right wrongs and make the companies think again. Right? Chris “Coldblood” Wood is the group’s human face (albeit blurred when he’s on the telly). But is it a group? And what good does it do attacking companies that surely are free to choose whom they work with?
And what is the good of being a skilled hacker if you are going to make yourself known? Jester, the US patriots, State Department wonks or whoever is the individual or group that brought down the Wikileaks site have made no telly appearances.
Is that more terrifying and worrisome than Chris Coldblood and the 16-year-old nicked in Holland for his involvement in Operation Payback?
Anorak is big fan of 4Chan. At its best it a tool for radicalism and an outlet for talent. This is its call to arms on Wikielaks.
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Posted: 10th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Wikileaks: Julian Assange, Old Media Bias And Sydney’s Anti-Free Speech Rally
JULIAN Assange is not Wikileaks. Of course, the conspiracy is that if he is undone in Sweden for that alleged rape he will soon be passed to the US for further examinations. To Sydney, then, where there is a rally in support of Assange. The WikiLeaks rally is about free speech – so long as everyone agrees with the thoughts express:
During the speeches an elderly man made his way on to the town hall’s steps and held up a series of signs in support of free speech.
However, he drifted off topic with one anti-gay sign sparking an angry response from one member of the crowd who tore the placard off him and ripped it up.
What is the campaign for if it’s not for free speech?
What Wikileaks has done is show us that the old media might not be up to the job of speaking truth to power. Jay Rosen recalls the notorious NY Times episode in which Michael Gordon and Judith Miller wrote that Saddam Hussein was buying aluminium tubes for a nuclear campaign:
Hard-liners are alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the pace and scale of Iraq’s nuclear program before Baghdad’s defeat in the gulf war. Conscious of this lapse in the past, they argue that Washington dare not wait until analysts have found hard evidence that Mr. Hussein has acquired a nuclear weapon. The first sign of a ”smoking gun,” they argue, may be a mushroom cloud. (italics added)
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Posted: 10th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Coronation Street Live: Peter Finally Dies From Smoke Inhalation
CORONATION Street Live is gone. And with it go are Ashley Peacock, Peter Barlow and Molly Dobbs.
Peter was always going to die from smoke inhalation. But with his death, and those of Ashe and Molly, the average height of the Coronation Street case has raised a full half-inch to five-feet 2.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Rioting Youths Make It A Good Day To Bury Bad News For Students: Photos
THANKS to the students (?) smashing the police, breaking into the Treasury and attacking a car carrying Prince Charles to the London Palladium for tonight’s Royal Variety Performance, it was good day to buy news that university tuition fees are rise.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Sharm el-Sheikh Shark Attack: Egypt Blames The Jews
THE shark attack that killed a German tourist and hurt three Russians and a Ukrainian in Sharm el-Sheikh was the work of those pesky Israeli Jews. South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha knows who to blame:
“What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm”.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (4)
Students Smash The Police In London (Photos)
THE students are not the miners. The clashes are not so desperate nor bloody as when the miners striked. But there is deep anger. The anger is not at lives and livelihoods lost; it is about the future. University tuition fees are big deal. But if you want to see someone killed right now, look to Nick Clegg and the LibDems. From being all thing to all people. He has now been forced to decide. And he is a Tory.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comments (4)
Wikileaks: Lockerbie Dead Sold Out For Weapons And Oil
WIKILEAKS and Lockerbie: Three years ago and a lifetime away Anorak readers were asked the question:
“The name Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi ring any bells?”
It soon did. Anorak had foreseen the bomber’s release which came on August 20, 2009 and this is the last clear photograph taken of him as he boarded a Libyan jet at Glasgow airport.
The man remains Britain’s worst ever convicted mass murder and as a prostate cancer victim he will die with that tag around his metaphorical big toe. He did not die in the three months predicted before the release “on compassionate grounds” and there is no real sign of him turning up his toes in the Tripoli home provided for him by a grateful Libyan state leader
His daughter, right on cue, has today told the BBC the bomber is now in “a coma” and has no real knowledge of anyone around him.
There are those would breathe a sigh of relief at that news since when the Scottish Courts were set up to try him and another at Camp Zeist in Holland the belief was he may have been killed by assassins for what he could tell rather than the Lockerbie Bombing.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)
