SAOIRSE32

Richard Norton-Taylor
Guardian
Monday 26 January 2009

The former head of the inquiry into the Omagh bombing has claimed that elements within the intelligence services might have “effectively sabotaged” the investigation which failed to convict anyone for the worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland conflict, it emerged last night.

The disclosure, in an email from Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter, follows last week’s publication of a report by the Intelligence Services Commissioner and appeal court judge, Sir Peter Gibson, into some of the circumstances surrounding the bombing.

The email was sent last summer to the BBC Panorama reporter John Ware after he told Baxter he believed GCHQ had been monitoring up to five mobiles linked to the bombing during the bomb run itself.

Ware said that in his email, Baxter wrote that intercepts “would have created immediate opportunities for executive police action to bring the culprits to justice, to search their homes and to recover vital evidence. This opportunity did not arise for many weeks and in the case of two key witnesses nine months.”

indymedia.org.uk

On 22 January 2009 an Indymedia server was seized by the Police in Manchester. This was related to postings about the recent Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) trial.

Kent Police had e-mailed imc-uk-contact in the morning requesting that personal information about the Judge from the recent SHAC trial in the UK be removed from the site. However this information had already been quickly removed in line with IMC UK policy. The e-mail also requested information relating to the poster be retained. Indymedia as an open posting news service does not log such information about its sources.

The machine was handed to the Police by the management of UK Grid, a Manchester based colocation facility, without a warrant being shown. It is believed that a warrant for this one server may exist and have been issued by a Chief Inspector. As the server was a mirror of the site, it can be concluded that the validity of the seizure wasn’t checked, and the police attacked Indymedia infrastructure in the UK.

Other sites that have been affected as a result of this seizure include London Indymedia, the global Indymedia documentation project server, la Soja Mata – an anti-GM soya campaign focusing on South American development, Transition Sheffield and a Canadian campaign against the 2010 olympics.

For details see Indymedia Uk Server Seizure Info Page and Press Release #1

News Letter
26 January 2009

ADVANCE briefings on the Eames-Bradley report is continuing to cause concern among unionist representatives.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds echoed comments made on Friday by his party leader, First Minister Peter Robinson, saying unionist people are “outraged” by the proposal to pay £12,000 to terrorists and victims alike.

“To suggest that the Shankill Butchers and the Shankill bomber should be treated the same as their victims is insensitive and wrong,” said Mr Dodds. “The DUP will not support this immoral proposal. The Government should place it in its rightful place – the bin. We have consistently said that there can be no equation between the innocent victim and the perpetrator.”

He said his party will use “every mechanism available” to ensure that the scheme does not proceed.

Mr Dodds claimed the report is aimed at strengthening the current “flawed” definition of a victim which makes “no distinction between the terrorist and those being terrorised”. He added that the DUP is working at Stormont to overturn the definition established by direct rule ministers.

“We recognise the difficult task in bringing forward a suitable package to help innocent victims, but a one-size-fits-all approach is not acceptable. The only common ground with all victims is that they long for justice to be served on the perpetrators. Money will not quell the pain but justice enables some degree of closure which has been missing in so many cases.”

Lord Trimble denounced as “offensive” the proposal to offer one-off payments to all.

The former First Minister said he could understand the reasoning, as it was clear the innocent wives and children of terrorists had suffered financially as a result of their family members’ deaths while involved in paramilitary crimes. But he objected to the idea that money could make up for the loss of a loved one.

“What the victims of the Troubles want is, first of all, to be remembered and secondly they want to feel that what they suffered was not in vain – that their sacrifice helped to build a better, safer, more democratic future for the people of Northern Ireland. To come forward first with money is offensive,” he said.

Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, firmly rejected the idea that terrorists could be given equal compensation to their victims.

“I look forward to reading the full report but I could not support this particular proposal to reward all victims indiscriminately,” he said.

“Those people who carried out vicious acts of violence against innocent civilians and members of the legally established security forces cannot be put on the same level as their victims. Any attempt to do so would be repugnant.”

Jeffrey Peel, spokesperson for the Conservatives in Northern Ireland, agreed: “This body was set up to focus on how we should build a shared future but is so fixated on even-handedness it has lost all sense of decency.

To make payments to the families of bombers who killed themselves is morally deranged.”

However, SDLP leader Mark Durkan called for open minds ahead of the report’s publication on Wednesday.

“We called for a proper, considered approach to the past to take account of the needs of victims for truth, recognition and remembrance and also of the wider community and future generations,” he said.

News Letter
26 January 2009

BELFAST is one of a number of UK cities which will be hit harder than expected by the recession, with regions outside the South East of England likely to suffer the most, according to a new report.

A study by research group Centre for Cities placed a number of cities on “red” alert for being exposed the most to the impact of the downturn, including Belfast, Liverpool, Wigan and Hull, because of the number of residents who were unemployed or had no qualifications.

Assemblyman Robin Newton sits on Stormont committees for both enterprise and employment and said local ministers were well aware of the problem.

“One of the benefits of Belfast and Northern Ireland is that our workforce is well educated at the top end which should mean we will produce value-added goods and services in the future,” he said.

“There are a considerable number of people with no qualifications, which will take years rather than months to address. There are concerns in the Executive about this, but our ministers for enterprise and employment are working together to address this.”

Cities on “amber” alert, according to the report, included Bristol, London and Edinburgh, which all had strengths such as skilled populations and diverse industries but also weaknesses including exposure to vulnerable financial services.

Some cities were on “green”, mainly in the South East, a region said to be better placed to recover more quickly from the effects of the recession.

Oxford, Reading and Cambridge were among those singled out for entering the recession in a stronger position than other parts of the country.

Dermot Finch, director of the Centre for Cities, said: “UK cities will be hit harder than they think by this recession. Nearly all say they are well-placed to weather the storm – but they can’t all be right. The recession will hit our cities in different ways – and some will be hit worse than others.

“Cambridge is comparatively well-placed, with its highly skilled workforce and global links. Bristol will lose a lot of financial services jobs, but many of its workers are highly-skilled and adaptable. Hull looks vulnerable because many of its residents are relatively under-skilled and may find it hard to adjust.

“Cities will lead us out of recession – but they can’t just rely on action from Whitehall. Each city needs its own front-line action plan, to keep jobs and retrain workers – and more powers over economic development.”

Sir Jeremy Beecham, vice-chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “The recession is going to hit different parts of the country in very different ways and even within individual regions there are marked differences as to how local areas could fare. It is clear that a national, one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with the recession simply isn’t going to work.

“The fastest way to get out of recession is for more decisions about the economy to be taken at local level, which means councils and other local bodies continuing to work together with local people and businesses.”