Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Six Britons arrested on Mallorca for making threats, extortion and drug trafficking

The Guardia Civil in Palmanova, Mallorca, has arrested six Britons in connection with the crimes of making threats, extortion and drug trafficking. After passing through the court, the judge on Monday ordered the imprisonment of two of the men. In the early hours of June 22 several Guardia went to Calle Punta Ballena after hearing of threats made against several workers in the leisure industry in the nightlife area of Magaluf by a group of English individuals. After being identified by their victims several were detained. Their intention...

Monday, 14 May 2012

complaint was filed May 8, against Carlos Divar, President of the Supreme Court of Spain, on the grounds of having paid out of public funds, luxury travel.

The daily El Mundo and El Pais, in their editions of Wednesday, May 9, 2012, reveal that a complaint was filed May 8, against Carlos Divar, President of the Supreme Court of Spain, on the grounds of having paid out of public funds, luxury travel.  The representative of the Higher Judicial Council, Jose Manuel Gomez Benitez, filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office against the President of the Supreme Court, Carlos Divar, for...

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Marbella Police Commissioner moved to Madrid

 The Police Commissioner in Marbella, Agapito Hermés de Dios, is to be disciplined for spying on the Vice President of the Madrid region, Ignacio González, in what is now considered to have been an ‘illegal’ investigation according to the Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz. Agapito Hermés has presented his resignation from the Marbella Police Station and will now be destined to a district of Madrid. He was subjected to an internal investigation regarding how he dealt with an enquiry into an attic which Ignacio Gonzalez enjoyed...

Saturday, 10 March 2012

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has earned one of the highest rates of police killings in the world

 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous published The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism. That book contained their now-famous 'Twelve-Step Programme' for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioural problems, which has been applied to issues other than alcohol addiction. The first of the 12 steps towards rehabilitation is to admit that you have a problem; denial that there is a difficulty will almost guarantee that the problem will not go away. On the other hand, admitting that we have a problem is to...

Family alcoholism linked to kid risks

 A family history of alcoholism might be a factor in risky choices by teens regarding alcohol use. According to a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, brain scans of ages 13 to 15 with family histories of alcoholism showed a weaker response in the process of making risky decisions compared to teens without such history. Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging on 31 teens’ brains while they played a game akin to the TV show “Wheel of Fortune.” Of these teens, 18 had family histories of alcoholism....

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Paul Conroy claimed to be 'safe' in Lebanon after being smuggled out of Homs

 Conroy, a British photographer working for the Sunday Times, and Bouvier, a French correspondent for Le Figaro, were reported to have travelled safely out of Syria overnight and were in Lebanon on Tuesday morning. "We've just had word from Beirut," said Mr Conroy's father, Les, on Tuesday morning. They are understood to have been smuggled out of a besieged enclave of Homs by the Syrian opposition. However, there were conflicting reports over whether they had been successfully evacuated. Miles Amoore, Sunday Times correspondent in Afghanistan,...

Barclays Bank told by Treasury to pay £500m avoided tax

 Barclays Bank has been ordered by the Treasury to pay half-a-billion pounds in tax which it had tried to avoid. Barclays was accused by HM Revenue and Customs of designing and using two schemes that were intended to avoid substantial amounts of tax. The government has taken the unusual step of introducing retrospective legislation to end such "aggressive tax avoidance" by financial institutions. Tax rules forced the bank to tell the authorities about its plans. The government has closed the schemes to retrieve £500m of lost tax and safeguard...

UK photographer Paul Conroy out of Homs

 British Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy has been evacuated from the besieged Syrian city of Homs and is in neighbouring Lebanon. He was smuggled out of the Baba Amr district on Monday with help from the Syrian opposition and Free Syria Army fighters, diplomats told the BBC. The whereabouts of the French Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier remain unclear. The two were wounded in an attack on a makeshift media centre last Wednesday. American Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed. The...

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin killed in Homs

 Marie Colvin, the respected Sunday Times journalist, was killed today alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik in Syria. The veteran correspondents were killed by a rocket as they fled the house they were staying in, which was hit during shelling in Homs, a witness told Reuters. Colvin, the only journalist from a British newspaper in the besieged city, had covered conflict for The Sunday Times for the past two decades.  French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse confirmed the deaths. At least two other Western journalists,...

Monday, 20 February 2012

500,000 passengers allowed to enter Britain on Eurostar without border checks

 Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons that border security checks at ports had been suspended regularly and applied inconsistently for more than four years. Mrs May also said students from low risk countries had been allowed to enter Britain even when they did not have visa clearance. She said the practice was unlawful and discriminatory. John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, launched an investigation after it emerged the UK's border checks were being relaxed at ports and airports without ministerial...