The Labour MP Tom Watson, who believed he was on a News International 'enemies list' at the time. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images The News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood commissioned surveillance on its chief phone-hacking critic, the Labour politician Tom Watson, in the hope of finding him having an affair, according to email evidence Watson has obtained.News International's internal investigating group, the management and standards committee, belatedly turned over the emails to a parliamentary committee of which Watson was a member. They implicate Mahmood and two former NoW executives, the assistant editor Ian Edmondson and news editor James Mellor.This latest revelation of methods at the now closed NoW will present difficulties for John Witherow, the editor of the Sunday Times. Mahmood, the so-called "fake ... Continue reading →
The Labour MP Tom Watson, who believed he was on a News International 'enemies list' at the time. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images The News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood commissioned surveillance on its chief phone-hacking critic, the Labour politician Tom Watson, in the hope of finding him having an affair, according to email evidence Watson has obtained.News International's internal investigating group, the management and standards committee, belatedly turned over the emails to a parliamentary committee of which Watson was a member. They implicate Mahmood and two former NoW executives, the assistant editor Ian Edmondson and news editor James Mellor.This latest revelation of methods at the now closed NoW will present difficulties for John Witherow, the editor of the Sunday Times. Mahmood, the so-called "fake ... Continue reading →
The Labour MP Tom Watson, who believed he was on a News International 'enemies list' at the time. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images The News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood commissioned surveillance on its chief phone-hacking critic, the Labour politician Tom Watson, in the hope of finding him having an affair, according to email evidence Watson has obtained.News International's internal investigating group, the management and standards committee, belatedly turned over the emails to a parliamentary committee of which Watson was a member. They implicate Mahmood and two former NoW executives, the assistant editor Ian Edmondson and news editor James Mellor.This latest revelation of methods at the now closed NoW will present difficulties for John Witherow, the editor of the Sunday Times. Mahmood, the so-called "fake ... Continue reading →
Phone hacking: 7/7 victim professor John Tulloch is to sue the former publisher of teh News of the World. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images A victim of the 7/7 London bombings is suing the publisher of the News of the World after police said his voicemails were targeted by the now-closed Sunday tabloid.Professor John Tulloch, one of the most high-profile survivors of the terror attacks in 2006, is the second 7/7 victim to take legal action against News International over phone hacking.Tulloch filed his legal claim at the high court last Tuesday against News International and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator formerly employed by the News of the World.The professor, a former sociology lecturer at Brunel University, became the public face for many 7/7 victims in ... Continue reading →
A detail from The Spear by the artist Brett Murray. If the subject was a white South African the reaction would be different, says the ANC. Photograph: Denis Farrell/AP It began with an impression of a man's penis in an art gallery where only a tiny fraction of the population would normally set foot. Now it has become a national debate running the gamut from freedom of expression to the right to privacy, from the nature of racism to "what is art?", and is being seen as nothing less than a test of South Africa's constitutional democracy.On Wednesday the president, Jacob Zuma, will bring a court action to argue that a painting showing him with exposed genitalia should be removed because it violates his right ... Continue reading →
Brother confirms Megrahi's death Link to this video Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, has died, his brother has said.Abdelbaset's brother, Abdelnasser al-Megrahi, confirmed reports that he had died aged 60 after a long battle with cancer. Abdelnasser, who was at the house in Tripoli where his dead brother lay on Sunday, told the Guardian: "I don't want to talk right now, I am very upset, I don't really feel like talking. He's dead, that's it, what more do you have to know?"In an interview with the Guardian earlier this year, Abdelnasser said that his brother, who had moved to the secret address from his large home in Tripoli, was innocent. "He really is ... Continue reading →
Guto Harri, Boris Johnson's former director of external affairs, has taken a job as head on News International's communications team. Photograph: David Hartley/Rex Features A key former aide to Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has been appointed as head of News International's communications team to help the beleaguered media company restore its reputation in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.The decision to appoint Guto Harri, a former BBC political correspondent who had served as Johnson's director of external affairs for four years until less than two weeks ago and was widely seen as the Tory mayor's most trusted adviser, will surprise many at a time when evidence of links between senior Conservatives and News International revealed during the Leveson inquiry has raised eyebrows.Harri confirmed that ... Continue reading →
It doesn't take long. Several minutes into their first meeting, the director of Crown Intelligence offers an undercover reporter a broad range of highly sensitive and potentially illegal personal data.A hidden camera monitors Stephen Anderson leaning across his desk in a plush office near Hyde Park, central London, saying: "I could go through his criminal history, his financial history, bank accounts, loans, medical history."It is 5 May 2011, two months before David Cameron announced the Leveson inquiry into press ethics and the media's use of private investigators to access personal data. At a time when broader debate over privacy, data protection and press intrusion is raging, Anderson confirms that the most sensitive of personal information is easily available so long as you are prepared to ... Continue reading →
