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BNP snubbed by EU

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The British National Party’s first two Euro-MPs are finding it increasingly hard to win friends and influence people in Europe.

BNP leader Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons both won seats in the euro-elections — and so far they have chalked up three notable rebuffs.

First, they were unable to muster enough allies to form an official political grouping in the European Parliament, which begins work next week.

Then they were asked to leave one of the main drinking haunts of European Parliament staff and Euro-MPs in Brussels.

And now they find they are not on the Government’s guest list for a formal drinks party for British Euro-MPs in Strasbourg next week.

The news comes amid Mr Griffin’s revelation this week that the EU should sink all boats carrying illegal immigrants from Africa.

He added: “Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or it is simply going to be swamped by the Third World.”

The pair are still trying to form workable political alliances with other right-wing Euro-MPs, but they seem unlikely to muster the necessary minimum of 25 Euro-MPs from at least seven member states which would trigger substantial funding for staff, as well as improve prospects of influential committee seats and speaking time in the European Parliament chamber.

After one recent visit to the European Parliament’s Brussels headquarters searching for political bedfellows, Mr Griffin, Euro-MP for the North-West, went to near-by O’Farrell’s bar, where he sat at a table outside to be served.

Soon afterwards, he was asked to leave. According to another drinker on the premises at the time: “He was sitting quietly outside and then he was recognised and he was told he wasn’t welcome.”

The same bar is one of the regular watering holes of UK Independence Party leader and Euro-MP Nigel Farage, who is trying to put as much political distance between his party and the BNP as possible.

The third and latest snub for the democratically-elected BNP duo has come from the Government, which has left Mr Griffin and Mr Brons off the invitation list for a cocktail reception in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

A Government spokesman explained the decision was part of established policy towards elected extremists, even though they are accorded the same basic Government facilities as other elected individuals.

He said: “The same general principles governing official impartiality apply in the European Parliament as they do for Westminster groups and MPs.

“UK Government officials will provide all Euro-MPs with standard written briefings as appropriate from time to time, for example on the Euro-MPs’ Statute, with no differentiation.

“British and other MEPs can also be provided with factual written briefing on specific policy issues upon request, again with no differentiation.

“However, the long-standing policy of the Government is that officials will not engage in any other contact with elected representatives of any nationality who represent extremist or racist views, unless specific permission has been granted to do so on a particular occasion from the FCO Permanent Under-Secretary and the Minister for Europe.

“On the basis of this policy, Euro-MPs representing the British National Party are not invited to the reception on Wednesday. United Kingdom Independence Party Euro-MPs have been invited.”

The BNP advocates British withdrawal from the European Union and an end to all immigration to the UK.

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Girls sold into slavery for $2,000

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Two 22-year-old girls from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan who have been “prepared” to become prostitutes are now released from slavery in the Russian city of Novosibirsk.

According to the police the criminals were going to sell two 22-year-old girls on July 2. And the most disturbing fact was that the human trafficking was taking place not somewhere on the outskirts of the city, but in the centre of it, not far from the Karl Marx metro station.

“At about 7 p.m. a woman from Uzbekistan sold another woman from her country together with a woman from Kyrgyzstan for 2 thousand dollars. The criminals wanted to sell the girls into slavery as prostitutes. However the crime was prevented by the Siberian Federal police workers,” says Marina Kinzhalova, the senior media relations assistant of Novosibirsk investigation committee.

Police officers acted as clients who wanted to buy the girls. They paid the whole sum to the criminals.

After the money was handed to the woman she was immediately arrested. According to the Russian laws the woman may face about 10 years in prison.

Pravda.Ru has recently published an article about human trafficking and sex slavery.

About 12.3 million people have to work as slaves in the world today. Private companies use the labor of 9.8 million people from this number; over 12.4 million people are sold to slavery works.

About 2.5 million more people are forced to work as slaves on account of the pressure from the state or from armed rebel groups, a report from the International Labor Organization said.

The annual global profit from the use of coercive works exceeds $30 billion. As experience shows, exploiters remain unpunished.

According to statistics data from the above-mentioned report, the state and armed forces use about 20 percent of work captives. The remaining part works for a variety of business branches, which can be quite specific business indeed. About eleven percent of modern slaves are involved in prostitution and other fields of sex industry. Sixty-four percent of enslaved workers work in traditional and quite legal industrial branches: construction, commerce, agriculture, etc. It is almost impossible to formulate the activity of the remaining five percent of modern slaves.

Slavery or coercive labor is currently used on all continents of the globe, in almost all countries, regardless of their economic grounds. Specialists distinguish traditional forms of coercive works, presumably in South Asia, Latin America and West Africa, where people often become slaves because of their debts. The state can also use slavery in its political and economic needs nowadays. Forced labor becomes a part of present-day reality for many immigrants.

Pravda

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Met to probe torture collusion claims

Friday, July 10th, 2009

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Activists Sound the Alarm on Obama’s Budget

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Over two dozen AIDS activists were arrested just outside the U.S. Capitol building yesterday while protesting President Barack Obama’s failure to honor his campaign promises of increased funding for AIDS programs.

 

During the election, Obama pledged to spend over $1 billion a year on global AIDS and to fully fund housing for HIV-positive people in need. Activists say the administration’s 2010 budget proposal does not live up to these promises. (See the full statement from the Health Global Access Project below.)

 

The Obama administration has also failed to meet another campaign promise — to lift a federal funding ban on syringe exchange, a policy that allows intravenous drug users to swap used needles for clean ones.

 

“Providing clean syringes is proven to be one of the most effective public health interventions since the polio vaccine,” said Jennifer Flynn, managing director of Health GAP. “It is clear that it works, but yet, we now have to wait for Congress to act to have the freedom to use every possible resource to make it widely available.”

 

Before Obama was inaugurated in January, AIDS advocates had high hopes for a renewed U.S. commitment to fighting the disease both at home and abroad. According to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, however, Obama’s first official plan to fight domestic HIV/AIDS “falls far short” of what is needed to confront the growing epidemic. The government’s $45 million media campaign, launched in early April, aims to raise awareness about domestic HIV/AIDS over the next five years.

 

“There are approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. living with HIV/AIDS today. More than 300,000 of these individuals have never had an HIV test and therefore do not know their HIV status. A $45 million communications plan no matter how well intended will do little to help identify those 300,000 infected individuals who may unknowingly be infecting others,” said Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “If this proposal is any indication of how President Obama and his Administration intend to address the AIDS epidemic domestically or globally, we are deeply disappointed.”

 

Overall, U.S. health advocates were extremely disappointed by the health provisions in the president’s 2010 budget, reported the humanitarian Inter Press Service (IPS). “This proposal is even worse than we had feared,” said Christine Lubinski, director of the Center for Global Health Policy. “With this spending request, Obama has broken his campaign promise to provide 1 billion dollars a year in new money for global AIDS, and he has overlooked the growing threat of tuberculosis.”

 

The budget “essentially flat-lines support for global health,” added Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. This seemingly confirms the health community’s fears that Obama would come short of meeting his global health campaign pledges due to the government’s growing financial deficit, notes IPS.

 

 

27 AIDS Activists Arrested in Capitol Building Demanding Promised Funding & Policy Changes

 

From: Health GAP

 

With a new HIV infection every 9 ½ minutes in the US, why are we bailing out the bankers and leaving people with HIV without?

 

7/9/09

 

Washington, DC- Dozens of AIDS activists from across the Northeast U.S. risked arrest today, staging a loud demonstration inside the Capitol Rotunda on the eve of key Congressional votes on appropriations for life-saving programs and one day before President Obama’s first trip to Africa since his election.

 

The activists decried the Obama administration’s failure to make good on a range of AIDS campaign promises including his pledge: to lift the federal ban on funding syringe exchange, to fully fund lifesaving global AIDS programs, and to fully fund AIDS housing programs in this year’s budget. The activists demanded Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Congressional leadership fix President Obama’s flawed budget proposal.

 

“HIV is not in recession,” said Omolola Adele-Oso of DC Fights Back. “So why are we bailing out the bankers with $9 trillion, but breaking promises to fund life-saving AIDS programs in the US and around the world at a fraction of that cost?”

 

Activists noted that despite campaign pledges to increase bilateral global AIDS (PEPFAR) funding by $1 billion a year and fully fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Administration’s budget proposal essentially flat-lines global AIDS funding. Unless President Obama and Congress keep their promise to fund their fair share of the Global Fund’s needed, for example, the Global Fund will have to cut billions of dollars worth of life saving grants.

 

The activists also denounced the administration’s failure to lift the ban on syringe exchange funding. “Thousands of people have died in the past decade because clean syringes aren’t available,” said Jose De Marco, an HIV+ member of ACT UP Philadelphia and Proyecto Sol Filadelphia. “President Obama, who many of us worked to elect, promised to follow the science and lift the federal funding ban on needle exchange, but his budget explicitly included the ban. Now it’s up to Congress to show real courage where the President has not.”

 

“We are here because we know that our friends, families, and communities are still dying,” said Larry Bryant of Housing Works. “From DC to California to Zambia people living with AIDS need Congress to act this week and need the administration to make good on its promises.”

Gustavo Pedroza, of the New York City AIDS Housing Network commented: “Housing is one of our most basic needs and a critical part of HIV treatment, care and prevention - without it, other strategies to fight HIV simply don’t work. Given the rising cost of housing, President Obama’s proposal to flat-fund federal AIDS housing programs will mean low-income people with HIV will lose their housing, not to mention longer waiting lists for a life-saving home.”

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USA license plate cameras

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Welcome to Tiburon.

Click.

Your presence has been noted.

The posh and picturesque town that juts into San Francisco Bay is poised to do something unprecedented: use cameras to record the license plate number of every vehicle that crosses city limits.

Some residents describe the plan as a commonsense way to thwart thieves, most of whom come from out of town. Others see an electronic border gate and worry that the project will only reinforce Tiburon’s image of exclusivity and snootiness.

“I personally don’t see too much harm in it, because I have nothing to hide,” commodities broker Paul Lambert, 64, said after a trip to Boardwalk Market in downtown Tiburon on a recent afternoon.

“Yet,” he said, “it still has the taint of Big Brother.”

Tiburon’s camera idea is a marriage of technology, policing and distinct geography.

Situated on a peninsula, Tiburon’s hillside homes and waterfront shops are accessible by only two roads, allowing police to point the special cameras known as license plate readers at every lane that leads into and out of the town of 8,800.

The readers, which use character recognition software, can compare plates to databases of cars that have been stolen or linked to crimes, then immediately notify police of matches, said Police Chief Michael Cronin.

If someone burglarized a Tiburon home at 3 a.m. one morning, he said, detectives could consult the devices and find out who came to town in the hours before - and who rolled out soon after.

‘Very low-key’

“It’s very low-key,” said Town Manager Peggy Curran. “The whole point of license plates is that people can be identified by them.”

If the Town Council gives final approval, Curran said, officials hope to install the readers on Tiburon Boulevard and Paradise Drive by late fall.

Tiburon plans to spend grant funds on the project and ask two other governments that could benefit from it to contribute to an expected price tag of $100,000 - the city of Belvedere, a bump of land on the southeastern edge of Tiburon, and Marin County.

Cronin called it a sound investment. He pointed to a frustrating twist in Tiburon crime: Residents feel so safe that they don’t lock their cars and homes.

In all of 2007 and 2008, Tiburon recorded 196 thefts, 37 burglaries and a dozen stolen cars. The chief said every alleged thief who was arrested in those years was from outside Tiburon.

Finding suspects

Once the street cameras are installed, Cronin said, hunting a burglary suspect could be easier. “We’ll look for a plate that came and went,” he said. “That’s going to give us a very short list to work on.”

Detectives could then check to see if any of the cars has been linked with crimes in the past. Between 300 and 400 cars use Tiburon Boulevard to travel in or out of the town from midnight to 6 a.m. on weekdays.

“It’s much more efficient than having an officer sit on the boulevard, watch passing cars and guess who might be a burglar,” Cronin said.

Nicole Ozer, who directs policy on technology for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, isn’t as supportive. She called the cameras a “needle in a haystack” approach that may waste money, invade privacy and invite unfair profiling.

“To be under investigation simply because you entered or left Tiburon at a certain time is incredibly intrusive,” Ozer said. “Innocent people should be able to go about their daily lives without being tracked and monitored.”

City leaders promise to prevent abuses. Information on which cars enter and leave town will not be available to the public, they said, and will be erased within 60 days. Police officers will be granted access to the information only during an investigation.

License plate readers have exploded in popularity in recent years, but Tiburon would be one of the first to mount them at fixed locations - and perhaps the very first to record every car coming or going.

California Highway Patrol officials have put the readers on 18 cruisers and at four fixed locations. CHP officers have seen a huge increase in recoveries of stolen cars since the devices were installed starting in August 2005, the agency said.

Devices help CHP

Through December, officials said, the CHP had used the devices to recover 1,739 cars and arrest 675 people.

San Francisco gave the devices to police as well as parking control officers, allowing them to track cars parked for too long in one spot. Some cities use the cameras to assess anti-congestion tolls on motorists, while casino bosses get an alert when a high roller - or a cheater - pulls in.

Outside Tiburon’s Boardwalk Market, where a flyer in the window offered a $2,000 reward for the return of a stolen Pomeranian, residents seemed split on the plan.

Robin Pryor, 66, of Belvedere said the most important issue was whether the cameras made people safer.

“It’s just like locking your door,” Pryor said. “If they have reason for it to bother them, they shouldn’t be coming in.”

But Fred Mayo, 62, who lives in Tiburon and owns a travel agency in Mill Valley, said the cameras would invade privacy. “Where does it end?” Mayo asked.

He referred to the crime blotter in the local newspaper, which listed two incidents recently of kids tossing water balloons at cars, and noted, “It’s not like Tiburon’s a high-crime area.”

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

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Bombings Across Iraq as Violence Continues to Soar

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The death toll in a series of bombings today continued to rise, as Iraq faced the deadliest day since its celebration of “National Sovereignty Day” marked the formal pullback of US troops from the nations cities. Nearly 90 Iraqis have been killed in the past 48 hours, and over 250 wounded.

The biggest single incident was the bombing in Tal Afar, in which bombers dressed in police uniforms attacked a residential neighborhood, killing at least 36 and wounding 84 others. Other bombings today hit Sadr City and Kirkuk.

373 civilians were killed in Iraq in June, nearly triple the number killed in the comparatively quiet month of May. Most of the June deaths came in the second half of the month, and those hoping the spate of high profile bombings in late June were an aberration need only look at the last two days to see the violence is enduring.

Despite the rising death toll, US officials continue to maintain that there is significant progress in Iraq’s security situation. It is never explained, however, how the security situation has managed to become so disconnected with the civilian body count.

Jason Ditz

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Secret Program Fuels CIA-Congress Dispute

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill.

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UN human rights chief says reports suggest possible war crimes in Somalia

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said Friday it is clear that grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law – possibly amounting to war crimes – are being committed in Somalia, as fighting continues to ravage the capital Mogadishu, and the situation in South Central Somalia remains extremely precarious.

Pillay said that attacks against civilians have been one of the main features of the conflicts that have engulfed Somalia since 1991. “In this new wave of attacks, it is clear that civilians – especially women and children – are bearing the brunt of the violence,” she said. “There needs to be a much greater effort to protect civilians. Displaced people and human rights defenders, aid workers and journalists are among those most exposed, and in some cases are being directly targeted.”

Pillay said UN human rights officers have been interviewing refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) who fled after the recent upsurge in violence in Mogadishu and south and central areas of the country which began in early May.

Witnesses have told UN investigators that the so-called Al Shabaab groups fighting to topple the Transitional Government have carried out extrajudicial executions, planted mines, bombs and other explosive devices in civilian areas, and used civilians as human shields. Fighters from both sides are reported to have used torture, and fired mortars indiscriminately into areas populated or frequented by civilians. There has also been increasing evidence in recent months concerning the scale and nature of child recruitment by various forces fighting inside Somalia, which is also a serious violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. The majority of these children are aged 14 to 18.

“Some of these acts might amount to war crimes,” Pillay said.

The work of human rights defenders and journalists in Mogadishu has become extremely precarious. Since the beginning of the year, six journalists have been killed in Mogadishu, four of them apparently victims of targeted assassinations, while the others were killed in cross fire.

The High Commissioner urged all parties to the conflict to abide by the provisions of international human rights and humanitarian law. “It is vital that the fighting and violence stop as soon as possible,” she said. “It is difficult to influence the combatants in an anarchic situation like that affecting much of Somalia, but essential that efforts continue at both the domestic and international levels.”

“Once order has been restored – and one day order will be restored – those responsible for human rights violations and abuses should, and I hope will, be brought to justice,” she said. “The gathering of evidence, by all who are in a position to do so, has to continue so that those committing these terrible crimes in Somalia will one day receive their due punishment before a court of law, and their victims will finally see justice being done.”

For the time being, however, in Mogadishu and southern and central regions, regular judicial institutions have ceased to function. UN human rights staff have received credible reports that in areas controlled by insurgent groups, ad hoc tribunals are judging and sentencing civilians without due process and in violation of Somali as well as international law.

The punishment handed down by these tribunals include death sentences by stoning or decapitation, as well as amputation of limbs and other forms of corporal punishment. Places of religious significance and cemeteries are also reported to have been destroyed by the so-called Al Shabaab groups.

More than 200,000 people have been displaced in the past two months alone, and hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed and wounded. The total number of people displaced inside Somalia from this and earlier conflicts is now believed to be around 1.2 million. Aid agencies’ efforts to provide assistance to the displaced are being seriously constrained by security conditions.

The situation in Somalia is also affecting neighboring countries, especially Kenya, which is housing a total of 280,000 refugees, mostly Somalis, in Dadaab – which is one of the biggest, oldest and most congested refugee camps in the world. Since the beginning of the year, some 36,000 new refugees from Somalia have arrived at Dadaab, with a noticeable increase in arrivals in June.

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DNA of thousands of innocent people held by police

Friday, July 10th, 2009

MORE than ten people have their DNA recorded and stored by Redbridge Police every day, the Guardian can reveal.

A total of 3,654 samples of genetic material were taken in the borough last year - with only 368 of these subsequently being destroyed, a Freedom of Information request as found.

And 2,201 samples have been taken on under-18s since the beginning of 2006 – the vast majority of whom innocent of any crime - prompting fierce complaints from parents.

Elizabeth Canavan, 39, of Merlin Road, Aldersbrook, said she would not want any of her children’s DNA on record.

The mum-of-four said: “I think it’s a bit intrusive and there’s sort of the assumption of guilt there.

“It’s a bit Big Brother when the Government knows even your children’s intricate body chemistry.”

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last December that all DNA samples of innocent people held by police must be destroyed as holding such information “could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.

However, the British Government has since been fighting this ruling.

Paul Donovan, of Dangan Road, Wanstead, told the Guardian that readers were right to be concerned.

The 46-year-old said: “It seems rather worrying as it seems like they are trying to build up some sort of database of youth in the area.

“If a person is convicted of a crime then the police should be able to keep their DNA on record for a specific time but if the charges are dropped or they are found innocent in a court of law then these records must be destroyed.

“Again, it’s the creeping hand of the Big Brother state. We all want to be safer but it’s the old equation of give us your liberty and we’ll give you security and it depends how much liberty we are willing to part with.

“The basic assumption in this country is that you are innocent until proven guilty and this is heading towards the other way around. We shouldn’t be lying back and taking it.”

Borough Commander Chief Supt Peter Terry said: “Since its introduction DNA has provided the police with approximately 400,000 leads to the possible identity of offenders.

“In 2007 – 2008 over 17,000 crimes were detected in which a DNA match was available.

“People cannot be arrested purely to obtain DNA and although samples obtained following arrest can help detect crimes, we do not actively seek to obtain DNA for this purpose.

“These figures relate to all DNA that has been taken on the borough, not just from Redbridge residents or indeed for Redbridge crimes.”

Charlie Campbell

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Government replies to EU legal challenge on Phorm

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The government has replied to a legal challenge from the European Commission (EC) over the online advertising technology Phorm.

Phorm provides a model that allows advertising to be targeted at users online.

In April the EC told the UK to ensure there were procedures in place to ensure clear consent from the user that his or her private data is being used in this way.

“Technologies like internet behavioural advertising can be useful for businesses and consumers but they must be used in a way that complies with EU rules,” EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said at the time.

Two ISPs – BT and TalkTalk – have since dropped plans to use Phorm.

Although the government did not disclose the text of its response to the EC, David Hanson, a junior minister in the Home Office, wrote to Parliament this week.

“The Home Office expressed an informal view about targeted online advertising and RIPA [Regulatory of Investigatory Powers Act] in response to a number of requests. That note concludes that targeted online advertising systems might be lawful if consent was expressed appropriately,” he wrote.

The Information Commissioner has said that the technology does not infringe privacy as long as consent is given on the basis of an opt-in system – which means that people must agree to use it.

The EC is now considering the government’s reply.

The European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications requires member states to ensure the confidentiality of communications and related traffic data. States must, it says, prohibit interception and surveillance unless the users concerned have given their consent.

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Scrap The National Identity Register

Friday, July 10th, 2009

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IBM to build UK fingerprints database

Friday, July 10th, 2009

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has contracted IBM to build a database to support the Government’s switch to biometric passports.IBM will also provide a replacement for the UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System (IAFS) which holds biometrics collected from visa applicants under a 7 year contract.

The projects will lay the foundations for the UK ID card programme.

James Hall, Chief Executive of the Identity and Passport Service, said, “This contract will provide a secure database for storing facial and fingerprint images for the next generation of biometric passports and will support the delivery of the National Identity card.”

As Computer Weekly has previously reported, the UK passport and national identity card programmes have effectively been merged. Passport application fees could rise to as much as £200 to support the project.

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Proecutors review phone-hacking claims

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Prosecutors are to look again at claims of alleged phone hacking by the News of the World, it was announced tonight.

 

Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, said he had ordered an “urgent examination” of material provided by the police three years ago.

The annoucement came as police said they would not be mounting a new investigation into claims thousands of public figures had their phones hacked.

 

 

Mr Starmer said he wanted to reassure himself and the public that “appropriate actions” were taken over the material.

He said he expected to make a further statement on the allegations in “coming days”.

 

He added: “I have no reason to consider that there was anything inappropriate in the prosecutions that were undertaken in this case.

 

“In the light of the fresh allegations that have been made, some preliminary inquiries have been undertaken and I have now ordered an urgent examination of the material that was supplied to the CPS by the police three years ago.

 

“I am taking this action to satisfy myself and assure the public that the appropriate actions were taken in relation to that material.

 

“Given the nature of the offences, the amount of material is, of course, extensive and complex, but it has all been located and a small team is now rapidly working through it.

 

“This process will need to be thorough, so it will necessarily take some time.

 

“I am only too aware of the need for urgency and I will issue a further statement as soon as this work has been completed.

 

“I anticipate being in a position to do so in coming days.”

 

 

Earlier, Scotland Yard ruled out a fresh probe into the allegations, after new claims were made in The Guardian newspaper today.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates said police had seen no additional evidence since its last investigation, which ended with the jailing of News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman in 2007.

 

Mr Yates also said detectives had found no evidence that former deputy prime minister John Prescott’s phone was tapped.

 

But he said police would now inform any potential victims that their phone may have been hacked where there was any suspicion.

 

He said: “No additional evidence has come to light since this case has concluded.

 

“I therefore consider that no further investigation is required.

 

“However, I do recognise the very real concerns, expressed today by a number of people, who believe that their privacy may have been intruded upon.

 

“I therefore need to ensure that we have been diligent, reasonable and sensible, and taken all proper steps to ensure that where we have evidence that people have been the subject of any form of phone tapping, or that there is any suspicion that they might have been, that they have been informed.”

 

Goodman was jailed for four months and private investigator Glen Mulcaire for six months after they were found guilty of phone hacking.

The scandal led to the resignation of then News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who is now the Tories’ PR chief.

 

Conservative leader David Cameron has defended his director of communications as Labour MPs lined up to demand his sacking.

 

The cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee announced this morning that it was reopening an inquiry it held after Goodman was jailed.

 

The committee’s chairman, Tory MP John Whittingdale, said it would be asking former News International chief Les Hinton whether he wished to amend his previous assertion that no other journalists knew of Mr Goodman’s activities.

 

He said the committee may also call Mr Coulson to give evidence, among several present and former News International executives.

 

Those allegedly targeted by the News of the World included former deputy prime minister John Prescott, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and celebrities including actress Gwyneth Paltrow and celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

 

Mr Yates said the inquiry had not uncovered any evidence to suggest that Mr Prescott’s phone had been tapped.

Press Association

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