World News Blogspot

jueves, 30 de junio de 2011

Controversial British court ruling could play havoc with criminal investigations - Toronto Star

The Greater Manchester Police are appealing a recent court ruling involving bail that it believes could play havoc with criminal investigations, not only in Manchester, but right across England and Wales.

"This is an unprecedented police issue, the full implications of which are still being assessed," Greater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney wrote in a statement emailed to the Star.

"This ruling affects how police forces nationally deal with people in custody . . . We have made all our staff aware of the ruling and what impact, if any, it will have on their day-to-day duties."

The ruling, which was issued on May 19, puts an end to a British police practice of releasing suspects on "police bail" and then calling them back for further questioning weeks or in some cases months later. Police in England and Wales have bailed 80,000 suspects, some of whom are being investigated for "serious" crimes.

Previously, suspects were allowed to be kept in police custody for 24 hours, but when there was a more serious offence a police superintendent could extend the period by 12 more hours. And if more time was needed to investigate, the police could apply to a court to extend that for up to 96 hours.

In real terms, that has meant over the past 20 years that the clock on that 96 hours could be stopped by police at any time and a suspect could then be released.

If the police wanted to restart the clock and re-question the suspect, they could do so at any time – even weeks and months later, according to a spokesman in the British Home Office.

But the High Court ruling will mean that the police now have only four days in a row – or 96 hours consecutively – to investigate and charge a suspect, or that suspect must be released. They can only be re-arrested if new evidence becomes available.

The ruling has caused consternation and confusion among police ranks across Britain, report the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail.

For its part, Scotland Yard would not comment on the ruling, redirecting the Star's queries to the Home Office. In a statement emailed to the Star a Home Office spokesman said: "We are extremely disappointed by the High Court's ruling.

"We remain strongly of the view that the police need the appropriate powers to detain arrested persons in order to investigate crime and to protect the public.

"We will ensure all necessary measures are taken to ensure those powers are available."

The decision involves the case of Paul Hookway, a murder suspect who was arrested at 12:40 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2010. A police superintendent granted permission for him to be detained for up to 36 hours for questioning, but he was released on bail after about 28 hours.

Five months later, police applied to the courts to extend the period of detention from 36 hours to the maximum 96.

But a district judge refused the application, saying the 96 hours had expired several months before. That decision was upheld by the High Court.

To stem the outcries Britain's Home Secretary says she is now considering emergency legislation to deal with the controversial decision. The Home Office is now consulting legal experts and police on the full implications of the ruling in preparation for drafting legislation.

Computer games put on hold as tennis takes over - Herald Scotland

IT is one of the most eagerly awaited match-ups in world sport.

No, not Andy Murray versus Rafael Nadal at tennis on Centre Court, but Murray and his old Sanchez-Casal buddy Dani Vallverdu against Nadal and Juan Monaco on a football simulator the next time they are near a PlayStation.

The trash talking ahead of tomorrow's Wimbledon semi-final began in earnest when both men conceded that computer games had formed the basis of their friendship, but offered differing opinions about their respective abilities.

The world No.1 was first into the interview room, having shown little sign of his apparent foot problem in making short work of Mardy Fish by a 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 scoreline.

"Normally we play PlayStation when we are in the same hotels in a tournament," said Nadal, who was never in trouble against the American and has a 4-2 head-to-head record in grand slams against the Scot. "Now he really doesn't want to play more. He has lost the last few times. Seriously, that's true. He has lost almost every time. He played with his friend Dani against Monaco and me, and we won."

The Scot was having none of this and got some cyber sledging of his own in. "Rafa actually isn't very good at PlayStation," claimed Murray. "His partner is very good. He plays with Juan Monaco, and Juan Monaco is very good. As a team, they play very well.

"We always play with their rules," the Scot added. "We play with one camera view and they play with a different one. But we always play with their one. They play with Inter Milan, so we're not allowed to play with Inter Milan, even though they're the best team in the game. Once the game starts, you're not allowed to make substitutions.

"I did play them once with our camera view and we won, but that's the only time we got a chance to play them. But come Friday, obviously all that stuff is irrelevant. You just need to put friendships and stuff to one side and play."

That was certainly no problem for Novak Djokovic and Bernard Tomic out on Court No.1. The 18-year-old Tomic, who had 2001 finalists Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Rafter in his box as he attempted to become the youngest man since Boris Becker in 1986 to reach the semi-finals, has been a friend and practice partner of the Serbian ever since they played an exhibition match in Kooyong last year.

But this was hardly a training exercise for the world No.2, who raced away with the first set 6-2 but could not shake off the qualifier. Tomic levelled at one-set all and was a break to the good in the third before the Serb's superior fitness told. He would break twice more in the third and fourth sets, but Tomic had laid a marker down for the future.

Instead of Roger Federer – the only man to beat him this calendar year – Djokovic faces Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a man who has a winning 5-2 record against him. But the Serb is in another semi-finals and feels there is still more to come.

"I think I can play better than I did today," he said. "Lets say the performance against [Michael] Llodra was great, against [Marcos] Baghdatis not so great. I have been kind of up and down. Hopefully, now it is going to go back up."

After $35 million sale, MySpace is now an advertiser's space - Christian Science Monitor

Remember what Myspace used to be like back in the day? It was an insanely popular, extremely innovative social network, purchased for almost $600 million by Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the team over at News Corp. And then Facebook picked up some steam, gathered a membership of over 750 million, and generally left Myspace in a big cloud of dust.

Cue corporate shake-ups, lay-offs, and general discontent. (Cue, too, a name change: Eagle-eyed readers will remember that Myspace used to be MySpace – capital M, capital S.) Today comes the news – courtesy of Kara Swisher over at All Things D – that Myspace is being sold to Specific Media, an online ad firm, for a relatively paltry $35 million.

"The price is well below the $100 million that News Corp. had been hoping for and a chasm away from Myspace's one-time billion valuation," Swisher writes. "The deal includes a halfing of Myspace's staff of 400, as well as other cost cuts. It's likely Myspace CEO Mike Jones and other top staff will remain only for an interim period." So: more layoffs, more corporate shake-ups, and probably more general discontent.

So what went wrong? Well, a combination of things went wrong, the biggest of those things being Facebook. Facebook gained cache and MySpace lost it; Facebook proved more adept at evolving its infrastructure, and MySpace did not. For a while, it looked like MySpace might thrive as a music and concert site – in 2009, MySpace acquired music discovery tool iLike – but Facebook expanded into that arena, too, allowing bands to create big, dynamic pages.

MySpace has steadily lost users: According to ComScore, there were 157.2 million US visitors to Facebook in the month of May, compared to only 34.9 million for MySpace. In January of this year, MySpace announced that it would cut nearly half its staff in an effort to make the site profitable again. Those lay-offs came on top of the 420 MySpace employees laid off the year before.

Shadow play: Who's that Labour frontbencher? - The Independent

One in four people thinks Ed Miliband is his elder brother David. A similar proportion of voters believe that David is actually Ed. Nine months into his leadership of the Labour Party, the findings of the ComRes survey for The Independent do not paint a flattering picture for Ed Miliband, as he steps up his efforts to convince the people that he is a prime minister-in-waiting.

Click HERE to view Labour test graphic (118 kb)

Other members of his Shadow Cabinet are even more anonymous. The only good news is for Ed Balls, the combative shadow chancellor who stood against the Milibands for the Labour leadership last year, and who appears to have made more of an impact on the electorate than the two brothers. He was correctly identified by 68 per cent of the 2,000 voters who were shown photographs of eight senior Labour figures and asked to put one of five names to their face. Ed Miliband was named accurately by 64 per cent of those questioned but 23 per cent thought he was his brother David. David was identified by 61 per cent but 26 per cent thought he was his brother.

The other five Shadow Cabinet figures tested by ComRes were recognised by only three or four in 10 voters, suggesting that the Opposition team is struggling to be noticed and many Shadow Cabinet members remain in the shadows.

The poll was taken after Ed Miliband announced his intention to scrap the elections to the Shadow Cabinet among Labour MPs held every two years. If approved, his shake-up will allow him to appoint whoever he wants to his top team rather than be made to work with those MPs who have lobbied for support among the party's backbenchers.

His allies hope that the change will sharpen the Shadow Cabinet's performance by allowing him to include Labour's "new generation" so frontbenchers can spend their time attacking the government rather than currying favour with Labour backbenchers in the hope of winning votes in the open popularity contest.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, may be seen as a possible leader in Labour circles but the public does not yet view her in the same light. Unlike her husband Mr Balls, only one in three (33 per cent) voters polled could identify her from her photograph.

Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, regarded by Labour colleagues as one of the party's best performers since last year's election, appears to be even less well-known. Only 30 per cent recognised him. Sadiq Khan, the shadow justice secretary, fared a little better, being recognised by four in 10 (40 per cent) of those questioned.

The poll was less encouraging for the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy. More people (30 per cent) named him as Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, than himself (25 per cent) and 19 per cent thought he was John Healey, Labour's health spokesman.

Meg Hillier, the shadow energy and climate change secretary, suffered a similar fate: 30 per cent thought she was Caroline Flint, the party's local government spokeswoman, and only 19 per cent identified her accurately. The same proportion thought she was Angela Eagle, a Labour Treasury spokeswoman, 17 per cent thought she was Ms Cooper and 15 per cent Tessa Jowell, the party's spokeswoman on Cabinet Office matters.

Surprisingly, Conservative supporters seem more aware of Labour frontbenchers than Labour's own supporters. Of the eight Labour faces shown to voters by ComRes, only Mr Khan was better known among Labour than Tory voters.

Ed Miliband was named accurately by 64 per cent of Tory voters and 63 per cent of Labour supporters; the figures for his brother were 70 per cent and 66 per cent respectively. Mr Balls was recognised by 78 per cent of Tory voters and 70 per cent of Labour backers.

Labour MPs will vote on Ed Miliband's plans to scrap the Shadow Cabinet elections next Tuesday. Some MPs have accused him of returning to the control freakery associated with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown but the move is likely to be approve. It would then need the go-ahead by Labour's national executive committee and its annual conference in September.

The change would allow Ed Miliband to recall his brother to the Shadow Cabinet if David decided to return to frontline politics before the next general election. But allies say David believes he made the right decision by returning to the backbenches after his narrow defeat by his younger brother last September. If the ComRes findings are right, a return to the Shadow Cabinet by David might only add to the confusion in the voters' minds about which Miliband is running the party.

ComRes interviewed 2,059 GB adults online between 24-26 June. Data were weighted by past vote recall. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Full tables at www.comres.co.uk

Anything you can do, Sis: Pippa now rivals Kate in selling power as £129 red ... - Daily Mail

By Tamara Abraham

Last updated at 2:07 AM on 30th June 2011

Pippa Middleton loves her favourite red dress so much, she's worn it two days running. And it seems we love it too, as it has now sold out across the UK.

Hobbs NW3's Wyldes shift was a bargain at just 89, reduced in the summer sales from 129, but once the Duchess of Cambridge's sister was seen wearing it for both a shopping trip on Tuesday and Wimbledon yesterday, the retailer's website was slammed with orders.

For the lucky few that managed to get their hands on one of the frocks, which has military-style buttons at the shoulders and pocket, it promises to serve them well.

Retail royalty: Pippa Middleton's Hobbs NW3 dress sold out after she wore it twice in the past two days - for a shopping trip on Tuesday (left), and again for Wimbledon yesterday with boyfriend Alex Loudon (right)

The 27-year-old proved just how versatile the dress is, teaming it with flats for a trip to Russell & Bromley on the King's Road, then ramping up the style factor the following day with tan espadrille wedges and sunglasses.

Versatile: The bright red shift, which was on sale for 89, can be dressed up or down

With such a bright hue, it is important to keep the accessories simple, and Miss Middleton did just that.

On both occasions she wore simple gold hoop earrings and carried one of her trusty Modalu bags - which, incidentally, also sold out when she was spotted carrying one after the Royal Wedding.

The consumer reaction to Pippa's clothing is beginning to mirror that of her sister's.

Almost everything Catherine has worn since her engagement has sparked a similar response, and Reiss has even had to reissue old stock due to customer demand.

But while the High Street's mass-market appeal helps us identify with the glamorous siblings, they are wise to use high-end designers from time-to-time as well.

Alice Temperley, who designed the emerald green gown that Miss Middleton wore to her sister's evening wedding reception, has said that despite customer demand, it was a one-off piece and she will not be making replicas.

She told the Daily Telegraph: 'We'd made it specifically for her and I wasn't going to start trying to capitalise on that.'

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

I'm stunned that women rush to buy anything that Kate wears. I'm stunned and shocked that women rush to buy anything her sister wears as well. I simply can't believe it......

- Annie, Jasper Alberta, 30/6/2011 06:37

Great thanks a lot. Reiss and Hobbs have been favourites of mine for years. They make stylish, well cut, good value, durable clothes that can be worn in the office or whilst out socialising. I am now going to have find an alternative, lest people think I am a trying to be a Middleton sister. No offence to either of these ladies who both appear very nice, but I don't want anyone to think I am a clone!

- Melanie, ME, 30/6/2011 06:10

Boring girl. Boring dress. Boring sheep with no fashion sense

- Sheeple Hater, Telford, 30/6/2011 06:09

Average-looking over-priced dress on hard-faced social-climbing female, and worn two days running without being washed or cleaned - yuk!. "Pippa" gives me the pip.

- Kate Evans, Nottingham,England, 30/6/2011 05:53

Sigh! I wish my sister married a Prince too. I would be getting so much attention without doing anything in life!

- sam, liverpool, 30/6/2011 05:34

This girl is average. Why the big fuss?

- Jools, escaped the uk, Australia, 30/6/2011 04:59

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT STRIKE DAY - WalesOnline

Who is striking today and why?

Members of the Association of Teachers & Lecturers (ATL), the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the Public & Commercial Services union (PCS) and the University & College Union (UCU) will be on strike today. They claim the UK Government wants their members to "pay more, work longer and get less in retirement".

How big an impact will this have?

Schools and colleges will either shut or have to cope with a minimum of staff as teachers and lecturers head for the picket line. But anywhere that civil servants work will be affected, such as JobCentres, tax and benefit offices, the Newport passport office and many other Government operations.

Why is there such anger?

Unions are unhappy the Government has changed the way pensions are increased in line with inflation each year so that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is used and not the Retail Price Index (RPI).

What's the difference?

The CPI excludes housing costs and the unions claim this means "pensions would be worth less and members losing tens of thousands of pounds in retirement". A judicial review is due to be heard on the switch in the autumn.

Are the changes that bad?

The unions say the new arrangements will deliver "20%-50% less than the current pension scheme for a full career in public service".

Plus, they claim that workers will have to pay more to get a worse deal, arguing that a headteacher might have to pay an extra £164 a month. They loathe the ending of final salary schemes and also fear that the pension age will climb to 68.

Is the Westminster coalition rattled?

The Prime Minister claims there are widespread misconceptions.

He said yesterday in the Commons: "Just to put this beyond doubt, when people who are currently in a final salary scheme get the accrued benefits, they will be based on their final salary; not their final salary now or when the reforms go through, but the final salary when they retire. As so much myth and misinformation has been put around by some in the trade unions, it is important to put that on the record here in the House."

This is a moment in the spotlight for union leaders, but do the rank and file members support going on strike?

Among those who took part in the ballots, there is overwhelming support. It is backed by 61% of PCS workers, 83% of those in the ATL, 92% of NUT members, and 72% of UCU members in FE colleges and 76% at "post-1992" universities.

I can understand why the unions are upset and members are so annoyed, but do they have any positive ideas about how Britain can climb out of its financial hole?

As it happens, Andy Richards, President of the Welsh TUC and Welsh regional secretary of Unite, the country's largest trade union, is expected to unveil an alternative economic programme in Cardiff today.

What will this involve?

It's expected the measures will include collecting the "missing tax billions" from the banks, multinational companies, and rich individuals by closing the "loopholes and avoidance scams".

Anger may be focused on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in London, but will things get hairy for Labour's Carwyn Jones as First Minister?

The Welsh Government is so keen to avoid this it uses capital letters in its most recent statement on the subject: "Let's be clear, the unions are NOT in dispute with the Welsh Government – it is a UK-wide pay dispute over pension arrangements."

So are Labour ministers in Cardiff on the side of the strikers?

They are certainly not on the side of the UK Government.

A spokesman said: "With a two-year pay freeze, rising fuel costs, inflation at 5%, the threat of redundancy, it's clear that public sector workers are facing a particularly tough time at the moment. It is also clear that these proposals will have a particular impact on women, who make up the majority of low-paid public sector workers. It's fair to say that the UK Government's response last week was provocative and unhelpful."

Do strikes have a place in the modern world of work?

This is a matter of debate, but Fabio Grech, partner at the Welsh law firm Berry Smith, said: "There has been much debate over whether the right to strike should or should not be removed, certainly as far as essential services are concerned. Leaving aside that such proposals wouldn't fly without industrial action of an unprecedented scale, many would argue that there's no more persuasive means of bringing the parties to the negotiating table."

Will this be the end of the strikes or can we expect more action?

Picket lines could become a much more familiar sight across Wales. Larger unions, which have millions of members, are planning to strike in October.

Margaret Thatcher came into power in 1979 after the Labour Government was hit by repeated strikes. Will this dash Ed Miliband's chances of election?

The Labour leader was accused by the Prime Minister of being in the "pocket of the unions" – but middle-cass public sector workers were at the heart of the New Labour revolution in the 1990s and many of them may be alarmed by the cuts and swing behind Mr Miliband in 2015.

He is no supporter of today's action and said the strikes were a "mistake" and a "sign of failure on both sides". He urged both sides to get around the negotiating table.

Is the UK getting more militant as it tires of austerity?

Today's strikes have become a lightning rod for disaffection. Lindsey German, national convener for the Stop the War group, said: "The same people who tell us that the country 'can't afford' to pay pensions or provide public services have now entered into their third major war in 10 years – with no end in sight."

Is this a good day to pop to the Assembly in Cardiff Bay and have a look around?

No. For health and safety reasons, the Senedd and the Pierhead will be closed all day.

So are AMs having a day off?

Not officially. T Hywel, the big red brick building next door to the Senedd where AMs have their offices, will remain open.

How many people be able to attend the protest rallies if they have to look after children who would normally be in school?

The unions aim to make these family-friendly affairs.

There will be refreshments and face- painting in Cardiff; a picnic in the park with music and children's games and more face-painting in Llandrindod Wells, and balloons and even a brass band in Merthyr Tydfil.

Google+ Users Want App Store, Facebook Data Imports - PC Magazine

What's next for the new Google+ social network? If Google acts on its users' requests, the ability to export data from Facebook to Google+ might be one, as well as an app store.

And one user already acted on his own request: a Chrome extension to export Google+ Stream posts to Facebook and Twitter.

Announced Tuesday, Google's Google+ takes on Facebook in form and function. With LinkedIn serving as a social network for jobs, PCMag.com's hands-on found Google+ to be a social network for geeks, chock full of new features and social options.

Even Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has joined Google+, although his profile page has just one update: a change to his profile picture. Larry Page also has a single public post, but Sergey Brin has yet to publicly announce himself on Google+.

Within Google+, any comments attached to a public post are themselves public, and early users attached enthusiastic comments to two posts from Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering, with congratulations and feature requests. Google currently is conducting a "field trial" of the service, with a full rollout at a future date.

Until then, users posted a number of questions and feature requests.

Facebookoff tool?

Perhaps the most interesting suggestion was offered by Mehdi Sharifzadeh, who said, "I want my facebookOff tool NOW!"

In Oct. 2010, Facebook offered a tool to offload data from its site, called Download My Data. An analysis of the feature by InsideFacebook.com notes that it includes wall posts, photos, movies, and names of contacts (without their contact information), all contained within a ZIP file and matched against an index file. Theoretically, the data could be matched and uploaded to Google+. However, commenters also claimed that the feature either didn't work or was incredibly slow, requiring days to process.

Invites, invites, invites

Not surprisingly, Google+ users wanted to add their friends as well. But they also realized that a social network doesn't just need users, it needs their digital lives, as well: photos, videos, and opinions stored on Facebook and elsewhere.

"Very cool product, but the content is all still on other networks... please open up invites soon so we can spread them around and get our near and dear ones signed on here!" Hrishikesh Diwan wrote.

"I second the invite thing," Alejandro Nijamkin, a software engineer at Google working on the Google+ Android app. "People will probably stop visiting after a while if they can't have more people to share with."

An app store

It's hard to believe that Google wouldn't have something in the works here, although it's difficult to know if this would something along the lines of a Google Chrome extension or a more formal app store. Keep in mind that although Google has a Chrome Web Store, but that marketplace seems to have much more of a lowe profile than, say, the Android Market, where apps are much more central to the mobile experience.

"Hope you'll put in some OpenSocial goodness in the future," Sebastian Mauer wrote. "Extendability via apps is crucial if you're really trying to compete with the 'ol fb ;)"

And then, of course, there's something like Zynga. Farmville on Google+? It's a long way off, even if it's technically feasible.

What's the fate of Google Buzz?

François Bacconnet posted an as-yet unanswered question: "But how Google+ and Buzz stay side by side? Will they be merged?"

It seems likely that Google Buzz, which was immediately criticized for privacy missteps, will end up being folded into Google+. On the other hand, as other commenters pointed out, those that adopted Google Buzz should be rewarded.

"Yeah, it was a successful roll out anyway you look at it - because you invited people like me who would have told you in no uncertain terms if it wasn't," Rob Gordon, an app developer, wrote. "Now go invite everyone who has been active on Buzz - they suffered more then you could possibly know, and are your most loyal users."

Integration across other Google properties

Yang Guo chimed in with some additional thoughts.

"Think about all the stuff that can be integrated!
- Calendar: event hosting
- Translate: auto translate posts from your foreign-language friends (though probably won't happen that much, with circles and all)
- Mail: connect mail to posts on Google+ limited to only one person?
- Reader: I can already follow people that keep Google+ updated with their blog entries. Would be cool to have reader content flow into my Google+ stream"

An API

This suggestion, from Karl Asman, is undoubtedly in the works.

Downvoting

We may have already seen this. Pull out a contact from your Circle, and a red "-1" icon appears. But the ability to "dis-" or "un-" like a person or post has been missing from Facebook, and it may or may not show up on Google+.

Data granularity

So far, as some have noted, Google+ is more of a one-way street, where people can be followed without their explicit permission. It's a different relationship than Facebook, where "friends" are accepted by both parties.

"It seems a shame there's no way to post messages so they are categorised, but ALSO public," Oliver Comes noted. "I tweet in 3 main subject areas, but no-one is interested in all of them, so I have three Twitter accounts so people can choose which "part" of me to follow. It seems Google+ doesn't solve this problem :( i.e. posts have to be public and seen by everyone, or to circles and only visible to people I have added (like Facebook does)."

Iterate, iterate, iterate

Google's new unofficial mantra of late (like Microsoft's use of innovation) seems to be "iterate," or the ability to quickly roll out updates and new versions of existing code. Several Google engineers expressed enthusiasm for Google+ (G+), and rolled up their sleeves.

"I second Bin's comment," Balaji Srinivasan wrote. "Best day since I joined Google. I am thrilled at all the progress we have made and am looking forward to some kick-ass quick iterations in the coming weeks."

For more from Mark, follow him on Twitter @MarkHachman.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

jueves, 30 de junio de 2011

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