It was the kind of tip-off that Andy Coulson would have appreciated in his days at the News of the World. As news broke that the title was to close, a source told the Guardian that the former editor of the tabloid was to be arrested by police investigating allegations of hacking and reports that the News of the World made hefty—and …
Europe
U.K. Hacking Scandal! Read All About It! (But Not in the News of the World)
UPDATE: Andy Coulson, former communications director for British Prime Minister David Cameron, is to be arrested Friday over his alleged involvement in the hacking of mobile phones while editor of the News of the World, according to the Guardian.
The end, when it came, was quick and brutal—not unlike the punchy stories about the …
What Tristane Banon’s Novels Tell Us About DSK’s French Accuser
As the battle between New York prosecutors and Dominique Strauss-Kahn continues to disintegrate into what increasingly looks like a legal paintball war using bazookas and rotten fruit (seemingly paralyzing hits of semi-gelatinous melon and fungoid kumquat being regularly scored by both sides), the French are taking closer look at the …
Will New Evidence of War Crimes Tip the Scales Against the Sri Lankan Government
On June 14, the British television network Channel 4 broadcast a stunning hour-long documentary presenting footage of horrific abuses allegedly committed by Sri Lankan troops during the last months of the country’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The images are graphic and profoundly disturbing. They include the …
One New Message: Press and Police Shamed by U.K. Phone Hacking Scandal
If you didn’t cry, you’d laugh. There are elements of farce to the saga gripping Britain—a tangled tale of criminality and corruption, of phone-hacking, glad-handing and back-slapping, of politicians in thrall to the power of the press and of police in the pay of the press. But for some it has been a tragedy compounded. Take Graham …
Clashing Op-eds: Recommended (Perhaps Even Required) DSK Reading
Well-deserved props to both the New York Times and Washington Post (What? I can do more than criticize!) , whose op-ed writers today contributed interesting observations and arguments about where the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case should go from here—and how the next steps taken in it will reflect upon the American …
As One Alleged Strauss-Kahn Rape Case Cools Off, Another Heats Up
The legal travails of Dominique Strauss-Kahn seem to get messier as the days go by. As noted in our story yesterday, even as Strauss-Kahn’s troubles in New York seem to have dissipated with the prosecution’s case against him appearing to crumble, new charges of criminal sexual misconduct have surfaced back in Paris. On Tuesday, …
Macabre Tabloid Hacking Scandal May Finally Force British Newsrooms to Come Clean
UPDATE: Car manufacturer Ford has suspended its advertising with the News of the World pending the outcome of an inquiry into the latest hacking allegations.
They moralize endlessly, but Britain’s tabloid newspapers are notoriously relaxed when it comes to their own moral code. Even so, claims that Glenn Mulcaire, a private …
The Dominique Strauss-Kahn Story: A Cottage Industry For Theme-Seeking Journalists
Though it wasn’t deafening enough to mark the official opening of journalism’s summer Silly Season, a recent chorus of articles improvising on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn topic does merit the momentary elevation of the discerning reader’s eyebrow. Come on colleagues: this caper is sensational and dramatic enough on its own to …
With NY Case In Doubt, Strauss-Kahn Faces Attempted Rape Charges In France
Just as the legal outlook for ex-International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn started looking brighter in the U.S. with news prosecutors’ case against him for sexual assault may not get to a court, DSK’s horizon seriously darkened back in France. On Monday, as various signs accumulated suggesting his political career …
The Flotilla Sequel: This Time with Diplomacy
For a while there it was looking like Rocky II. Same story, much less reason to watch. A year after Israel shot itself in the foot by killing nine Turkish activists on the high sea off Gaza, everyone had taken their places and appeared intent on reprising familiar roles. The Israel Defense Forces was talking tough: “We’ve got some …
Legal Holes Develop In the DSK Case, But Will Women Care?
News of the prosecution’s weakening sex assault case against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn–and the consequential court decision Friday morning to lift his house arrest awaiting trial–have added a new jolt of drama to what already had been a sensational story followed closely on both sides of the …
Early French Reaction To News That DSK Case May Collapse
(UPDATED: 11:50 a.m. EDT)
Reaction in France to the bombshell news from U.S. that prosecutors’ case against former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape and sexual assault was nearing collapse has thus far been muted—though that’s certain to change when the nation’s talking heads awake …