LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron abruptly ended cross-party talks on regulating Britain’s famously aggressive newspapers yesterday and tabled a vote on light-touch rules instead, prompting allegations he is in thrall to the press barons. Victims of scandal-hungry tabloids who have had their phones hacked and life stories misreported have pressed Cameron to implement the findings of a judge-led inquiry that recommended the creation of a tough press regulator backed by legislation. It is a stance that has been broadly backed by the opposition Labour party and the Liberal Democrats, the junior party in Cameron’s two-party coalition government, but one which has been fiercely resisted by newspaper owners who argue such statutory legislation would imperil press freedom. Cameron sided with the newspapers yesterday and put himself at odds - not for the first time - with the LibDems, telling a news conference that putting detailed legislation on the statute book was “fundamentally wrong in principle”. “It is wrong to cross that Rubicon by writing key elements of press regulation into the law of the land,” he said. “It is wrong to create a vehicle whereby politicians could in future impose regulations and obligations on the free press.” Under Cameron’s proposals, newspapers could be fined up to 1m pounds ($1.5m), be obliged to print apologies, and face exemplary damages if they did not opt in.
Police kill suspect in NY shooting spree
NEW YORK: Police yesterday shot and killed a 64-year-old man suspected of killing four people and wounding two others in back-to-back shootings in upstate New York. The man, identified as Kurt Myers, had been holed up since Wednesday evening in an abandoned building in the small town of Herkimer, about 360km north-west of New York City. “This morning law enforcement officials entered the building and, after being fired upon, shot and killed the suspect,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement, adding that no officers were injured in the altercation. The incident began Wednesday morning, when Myers set fire to his apartment, in the small town of Mohawk, which neighbors Herkimer, police said. He then went to a nearby hair salon, where he killed two customers, one aged 68 and the other aged 57, and wounded two more, before driving to Herkimer, where he killed two patrons at a car wash, according to the police. He fled the scene, but ultimately abandoned his car and took refuge in the abandoned building, where he was killed.
Bulgarian protester sets self on fire
SOFIA: A 51-year-old Bulgarian was in critical condition yesterday after he set himself on fire, the fourth self-immolation in protests against poverty and corruption that have brought down the government. All the other protesters who set themselves on fire over recent weeks have died, in the most graphic expression of the public anger that is now aimed against a day-old caretaker administration. “The cup of people’s anger overflowed. There is nothing to wait for and we will start new protests,” the leader of one protest movement, Yanaki Ganchev, said at a protesters’ encampment near parliament. The latest self-immolation happened outside the president’s offices on Wednesday as career diplomat Marin Raikov took over as interim Prime Minister, appointed by the head of state to guide Bulgaria into elections in May.
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents face eviction
JOHANNESBURG: The parents of Oscar Pistorius’s slain girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp are being evicted from their home, a month after their daughter’s death, the family said yesterday. “They have been given notice on their home by the owners,” Reeva’s uncle Michael Steenkamp said. “They are going to be vacating that house soon.” Since their daughter was shot dead at Pistorius’s Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day, Steenkamp’s parents have retreated to their home in the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth. Agencies
