The National Union of Journalists and a respected media watchdog have criticised the questioning of a Guardian journalist in an inquiry into alleged leaks of information from Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.
It emerged on Wednesday that Amelia Hill, a reporter involved in a number of the Guardian's key phone-hacking revelations over recent weeks, was questioned under caution several days ago in a case that raises concerns about attempts to criminalise contact between journalists and off-the-record sources.
Last month a 51-year-old detective constable was arrested in connection with alleged leaks from the Scotland Yard phone-hacking investigation. At the time there were reports that the officer had passed information to the Guardian, but the newspaper said it had "no comment to make on the sources of our journalism".
Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said that there was "a vital journalistic principle at stake here" and that "it is outrageous that an allegation of off-the-record briefings is being treated as a criminal matter".
She added: "There is a clear distinction between legitimate off-the-record interviews and the illegitimate payment of bribes."
Martin Moore, the director of the media watchdog the Media Standards Trust, said that in the light of the phone-hacking scandal it was becoming "increasingly important to sustain and defend journalism in the public interest". He said that it was "not the time to be threatening public interest journalism" by the police moving to question reporters such as Hill.
The Guardian said in a statement: "We can confirm Amelia Hill has been questioned in connection with an investigation into alleged leaks." The newspaper argued that the case could have lasting repercussions for the way journalists deal with police officers. The statement added: "On a broader point, journalists would no doubt be concerned if the police sought to criminalise conversations between off-record sources and reporters."
Although the paper said it would not comment on any specific confidential source, a spokesman said Hill had never paid a police officer for information.
The police investigation into leaks from Operation Weeting has been going on for several weeks.
Meanwhile, Raoul Simons, 35, the deputy football editor of the Times, became the 16th person to be arrested as part of the phone hacking enquiry.
Simons, who had joined the Times from the Evening Standard in August 2009, is understood to have been arrested at 5.55am on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. He was released on police bail until a date in October.
He was not arrested by prior appointment. He was taken to a north London police station and questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages, contrary to Section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.
Hill's police interview comes amid growing pressure to clamp down on contacts between officers and journalists following the News of the World phone hacking scandal, which has spread out into wider allegations of police corruption.
Emails from News International allegedly imply that journalists on the now closed Sunday tabloid bought copies of Buckingham Palace's private phone directory from a royal protection officer.
Following those revelations, an inquiry by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary is examining "alleged corruption and abuse of power" in police relationships with the media, and Elizabeth Filkin, the former parliamentary commissioner for standards, heads a group drawing up a framework for how police officers handle their relationships with reporters. Both inquiries are considering whether communication between police officers should be officially monitored and recorded by a press officer.
The questioning of Hill has similarities to a case police mounted against Sally Murrer, a reporter on the Milton Keynes Citizen, and a former Thames Valley police detective, Mark Kearney, which was thrown out. Kearney had been accused of leaking information to Murrer. The collapse of the case was widely seen as a victory for journalistic freedom.
It was reported meanwhile that Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World and the prime minister's former personal communications director, is refusing to appear before a Commons select committee that is investigating phone-hacking.
His solicitors have written to the culture, media and sport committee declining an invitation to appear, citing "concerns" about "parallel inquiries and investigations and the publicity generated by them".
He has consistently denied knowing that phone hacking took place but last month a previously unseen letter from Goodman emerged that claimed phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial conferences until Coulson banned mentions of it. Goodman's letter also claimed that Coulson had offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when it came to court.
Coulson resigned from the News International paper in 2007 after its former royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed on phone-hacking offences.
It also emerged yesterday that MPs on another committee have been told that News International asked a technology firm, HCL, to delete emails and other documents 13 times since 2009.
Technology company HCL, which provides services under contract to News International, informed the Commons home affairs committee in August that it was aware of the deletion of hundreds of thousands of emails on nine occasions between April 2010 and July 2011, but said it did not know of anything "untoward" behind the requests. Yesterday, HCL's solicitor, Stuart Benson, contacted the committee again to say that a further four requests had come to light - one of which related to the deletion of emails from an inbox of a user who had not accessed his account for eight years.
Swiss bank UBS on Sunday increased the amount it said it had lost on rogue equity trades to $2.3 billion and alleged a trader concealed his risky deals by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems. UBS stunned markets on Thursday when it announced unauthorised trades had lost it some $2 billion. London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. "The loss resulted from unauthorised speculative trading in various S&P 500, DAX, and EuroStoxx index futures over the last three months," UBS said in a brief statement. "The loss arising from this matter is $2.3 billion. As previously stated, no client positions were affected." Global stock markets have been extremely volatile in recent months, plunging on concerns over euro zone and U.S. debt crises and then rebounding on hopes for their resolution. The loss is a disaster for the reputation of Switzerland's biggest bank, which had just started to recover after it almost collapsed during the financial crisis and faced a damaging U.S. investigation into aiding wealthy Americans to dodge taxes. "Loss even more. Reads like they're making excuses," said Helvea analyst Peter Thorne of the UBS statement. The new scandal has prompted calls for its top managers to step down and for its investment bank to be split into a separate unit from its core wealth management business. Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel, who was brought out of retirement in 2009 to turn the bank around, was quoted in a newspaper on Sunday as saying he is not considering quitting over the crisis, but said it was up to the board to decide. In a memo to staff on Sunday, he said: "Ultimately, the buck stops with me. I and the rest of senior management are responsible for dealing with wrongdoing." Swiss newspapers quoted unnamed insiders as saying the UBS board and important shareholders such as the Singapore sovereign wealth fund were still backing Gruebel, with immediate changes at the top the last thing the bank needed. Gruebel is widely expected to present plans to drastically cut back the investment bank at an investor day in November. INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION The bank, whose three keys logo symbolise "confidence, security, discretion," has pulled its "We will not rest" global advertising campaign for now, that was designed by advertising agency Publicis to try to rebuild its image. Meanwhile, UBS client advisers have been writing to customers to reassure them of the underlying financial strength of the bank despite the trading loss, a spokesman said. "That we now suffer this setback at this point in our efforts to improve our reputation is very disappointing. This incident also sets us back somewhat in our capital-building efforts," Gruebel said in his memo. "However, I wish to remind you that our fundamental strengths as a firm remain intact... we remain one of the best capitalized banks in the industry. UBS said its board of directors had set up a committee chaired by independent director David Sidwell, former chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, to conduct an independent investigation into the trades and the bank's control systems. The bank said it had covered the risk resulting from the unauthorised trades, and its equities business was again operating normally within previously defined risk limits. It said the trader had allegedly concealed the fact his trades violated UBS risk limits by executing fake exchange-traded fund (ETFs) positions. "Following inquiries directed to him by UBS control functions that were reviewing his positions, the trader revealed his unauthorised activity," the bank said. "The positions taken were within the normal business flow of a large global equity trading house as part of a properly hedged portfolio," UBS said. "However, the true magnitude of the risk exposure was distorted because the positions had been offset in our systems with fictitious, forward-settling, cash ETF positions." The Sunday Times cited unnamed insiders saying the trader placed bets worth $10 billion before his losses were detected. ETFs are index funds listed on an exchange and can be traded just like regular stocks. They try to replicate index performances and offer lower costs than actively managed funds, but regulators have warned about risks from some complex ETFs. In the past three months, DAX futures have fallen 22 percent, Eurostoxx 50 futures have dropped 20 percent and S&P 500 futures have dipped 4 percent. The instruments involved in the UBS case are similar to those that Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader at Societe Generale, traded when he racked up a $6.7 billion loss in unauthorised deals in 2008. Christoph Blocher, vice-president of the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) -- the country's biggest -- renewed his calls for a splitting off of the investment bank. "One has to seriously examine a ban on investment banking for commercial banks," he told the SonntagsZeitung, adding his party might team up with the center-left Social Democrats to push for such a move.
The plane, a P-51 Mustang, dubbed the "Galloping Ghost" that was being flown by Jimmy Leeward, 74, crashed at 4.30pm local time (11.30pm GMT) into a box seat area in front of the main grandstand at the Reno Air Races,. "I heard his engine and looked up. He was within 100 feet. He was coming right down on top of us," witness Fred Scholz told CNN, adding that the plane had first flown closer to the stands than allowed. "It just happened very quick." The Federal Aviation Administration halted the air race after the crash, and was investigating the incident alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, an FAA official said. Video apparently taken from the stands and posted on YouTube showed a plane plunging nose-down into the tarmac as spectators were heard gasping: "Oh, my God." Debris billowed near the crash site, and officials then told spectators to remain where they were so emergency workers could get to the scene. The FAA official, spokesman Ian Gregor, said that multiple spectator fatalities and critical injuries were reported. FAA inspectors had been observing the race at the time of the crash, he said. The head of the Reno Air Racing Association, Michael Houghton, put the number of injured at 54 people and said the 74-year-old pilot was among those killed. He said that there appeared to be a "problem with the aircraft that caused it to go out of control". At least 15 people were in a critical condition after the crash, which a spokesman for the event called a "mass casualty situation" in a written statement. Mark Hasara of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a veteran of the Air Force who attended the race and witnessed the crash. "As soon as I saw his nose pointed at the ground, I knew he wasn't going to recover," Mr Hasara told Reuters. The Reno Air Races, which began in the mid-1960s and is an event that is held annually, feature planes facing off in multi-lap races at an airfield north of Reno. Renown Regional Medical Center spokesman Dan Davis said that at least two people were killed, a man and a woman, but they were not identified. Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the regional emergency medical service authority, said 15 of the injured were in a critical condition. "This is a very large incident, probably one of the largest this community has seen in decades," Ms Kruse told the Associated Press. "The community is pulling together to try to deal with the scope of it. The hospitals have certainly geared up and staffed up to deal with it." Mr Houghton said that Mr Leeward, from Ocala, Florida, was a real estate developer who had been racing planes since the mid-1970s. He added that most of Leeward's family had been at Friday's event. Ronald Sargis, a witness who was sitting in the box-seat area, said spectators could tell the plane was in trouble before it crashed. "About six or seven boxes down from us, it impacted into the front row," Mr Sargis told KCRA-TV in Sacramento. He added: "It appeared to be just pulverised." Another eyewitness, Maureen Higgins of Alabama, told the Associated Press that the pilot was on his third lap when he lost control. "I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn't believe it. I'm talking an arm, a leg," Ms Higgins said.
Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office has announced that three smoke shops in New Brunswick and a gas station in East Brunswick were raided and charged in the sale of illegal drugs. According to the Prosecutor's Office, the raids began on Aug. 2 after four months of investigative work and netted the following arrests: Jarnail Sandhu, 25, of Sayreville, owner of the Shell gas station located at 1010 Route 18 in East Brunswick, was arrested and charged with distribution of bath salts and synthetic marijuana; possession of bath salts and synthetic marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was jailed with bail set at $100,000, with no 10 percent option. Sandhu's mother, Charanjit K. Sandhu, 56, of Nanuet, N.Y., was also arrested and released on her own recognizance. She faces the same charges as her son. Ayman S. Al-Nsairat, 40, of East Brunswick, owner of the Amsterdam Smoke Shop, 29 Easton Ave. in New Brunswick. He was charged with possession of toxic chemicals and possession of drug paraphernalia, and was released on his own recognizance. Maria M. Almanzar, 20, of Union City at the Amsterdam Smoke Shop. She was charged with possession of toxic chemicals and possession of drug paraphernalia, and distribution of toxic chemicals, and was released on her own recognizance. Lukasz M. Poplawski, 21, of Staten Island, N.Y. at the Amsterdam Smoke Shop. He was charged with possession of toxic chemicals and possession of drug paraphernalia, and distribution of toxic chemicals, and was released on his own recognizance. Ranmanjeet K. Dhillon, 24, of Woodbridge, at the Jamaican Discount Smoke Shop at 38-A Easton Ave. in New Brunswick. Dhillon was charged with possession and distribution of toxic chemicals and possession of drug paraphernalia, and was released on her own recognizance. Additionally, the Jamaican Smoke Shop at 40 Easton Ave. in New Brunswick was also raided, and "Some illegal substances and drug paraphernalia were seized," according to the Prosecutor's office. No arrests were made at that location. Bath Salts are mix of chemicals that mimic the effects of cocaine and methamphetamines and were banned earlier this year. 6,547 bags, jars and vials containing synthetic marijuana and bath salts were also seized by police during the investigation, marked for sale for between $20 to $30 each, according to the Prosecutor's Office. Police also seized 2,914 pipes, bongs and hookahs, 193 digital scales, 357 canisters containing nitrous oxide, 13 imitation handguns used to fire blanks, and 46 containers designed to conceal illicit drugs, according to the Prosecutor's Office. Packaging material, grinders, cigars and rolling papers, "All identified as products used to prepare and help sell the illicit drugs," according to the Prosecutor's Office. $25,145 in cash from the sales of the illegal drugs was also seized. More than $163,000 in synthetic Marijuana and bath salts were seized. Members of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Gangs, Guns and Drugs Task Force are handling the investigation, assisted by police in New Brunswick, East Brunswick and Sayreville, according to the Prosecutor's Office
A community with a voracious appetite for scandal, it does appear we are experiencing Murdoch news fatigue. Like frogs in boiling water, we are losing sensitivity to the barrage of sensational News Corp instalments flowing from the phone hacking affair. On Tuesday, two former News International managers - head of legal affairs Tom Crone and News of the World editor Colin Myler - told a British parliamentary committee that James Murdoch had been made aware of widespread phone hacking despite his written statement to the contrary. The testimony was another milestone in the series of explosive revelations of systemic criminal phone hacking which had been going on for years but allegedly covered up by a corporate and police conspiracy. Advertisement: Story continues below Since the hacking affair was blown open, there has been a myriad of developments from the company, government and police - many of them astonishing. Much of this is highly significant to the Murdoch empire, and the ramifications have been difficult to digest. This shameful episode has changed the News Corp organisation and Rupert Murdoch's management style. In a corporate sense, the decision by Murdoch to undertake a $US5 billion ($4.7 billion) share buyback is, on its own, momentous. Aggressive expansion of the News Corp empire has been a hallmark of Murdoch's modus operandi. The decision to undertake a capital management program that allocated cash to shareholders rather than to acquisitions marks a major departure. The focus of News Corp's strategy in the past has been on raising funds and using available cash to expand, and avoiding the dilution of Murdoch family control. This was never more evident than in the creation of News Corp non-voting stock and the move to domicile the company in the lax regulatory jurisdiction of Delaware. The only other incidence of Rupert Murdoch bowing to outside pressure was in the early 1990s, when the Pittsburgh Bank famously forced News Corp to the brink of bankruptcy by threatening to block the rollover to a new debt package. News Corp has otherwise been run by Rupert Murdoch and in his way. The notion of appeasing minority shareholders is new to Murdoch, as is divorcing the hard-wired nepotism.
The documents revealing the cosy relationship between top British and Libyan intelligence officials are embarrassing not just because they confirm Britain's rendition of Islamist terror suspects, including Abdel Hakim Belhadj, the Transitional National Council's new security commander in Tripoli, but also because they lend credence to Britain's reputation as a slippery operator in the Middle East. David Cameron's support for the TNC was meant to gain souk cred by tying Britain's banner to the spirit of the Arab Spring. Cameron has said the new documents should be examined by the independent Detainee Inquiry, chaired by Sir Peter Gibson. They show how keen Tony Blair was to bring Gaddafi into the fold following Saddam Hussein's fall in April 2003 and to trade an end to Libya's pariah status in return for help in the war against terrorism. There was little wrong with that. What is sickening is the extent to which Britain sought to ingratiate itself by delivering up Gaddafi's opponents. No less disturbing is the manner in which Britain's cosying up to Gaddafi has been represented as a mistake by misguided individuals, for which institutions such as the London School of Economics have suffered. Perhaps the most fascinating new document was sent on March 18, 2004 to Musa Kusa, head of Libyan intelligence, by Mark Allen, MI6's director of counter-terrorism, who crowed about Belhadj's rendition while arranging a forthcoming visit by Blair to Libya. A week later Gaddafi welcomed the British PM in his Tripoli tent (as requested by Allen for publicity reasons). It is difficult to say who was the greater showman: the unctuous Blair or Gaddafi joking how his Third Universal Theory, the basis of his Green Book, paved the way for Blair's Third Way politics. Within two months, Allen was pipped as the next MI6 head by John Scarlett, who, two years earlier, as chief of the Joint Intelligence Committee, had backed Blair's argument that Saddam had dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Allen left the SIS shortly afterwards. For Middle East watchers, an interesting outcome has been these glimpses of intelligence machinations in this most secretive of regions. A Le Carré of the al Qaeda conflict will surely follow. It is Cameron who now has to deal with the practical consequences. The ultimate fate of Gaddafi and his family is out of his hands. But Britain has tough decisions to make about other players, including Musa Kusa, who defected from Libya in March, came to Britain, and was last heard of in a Qatar hotel. In 1980 he was expelled from Britain for advocating the murder of Libyan dissidents. For this and his wider role in Libyan terrorism, many powerful voices argue that he should be tried in Britain. But, even at this stage, it may be that he has too much to reveal. More immediately, the Prime Minister needs to assess the role of former Islamists such as Belhadj in the new regime and take appropriate measures. It will not be enough to kick the rendition issue into the long grass by referring it to the Gibson inquiry, which has yet to begin its work. If David Cameron hoped for an easy ride in post-Gaddafi Libya, these papers have disabused him of that notion.
The News International chairman has reportedly cancelled a trip to Asia to monitor first-hand what is said at the select committee hearing. When James Murdoch appeared with his father Rupert before the Culture, Media and Sport committee in July, he was asked if he knew about a document known as the "for Neville" email. This email has been seen as critical to the hacking inquiry. It indicates that the practice of hacking was more widespread than News International originally admitted. James Murdoch said he was unaware of the document at the time he sanctioned a payout to the Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor, whose phone was hacked by the News of The World. His denial of knowledge of the email was subsequently contradicted by Colin Myler, the NOTW's last editor, and the paper's former lawyer Tom Crone, both of whom will give their side of the story to the committee. Daniel Cloke, ex-HR director at NI, and Jon Chapman, NI's former head of corporate and legal affairs, are also due to appear. Mark Lewis, who represented Mr Taylor when he won his payout from the NOTW, said if today's evidence finds James Murdoch knew about the email it could be the end of him.
