The man who many believed was killed by a heart attack during the anti-G20 protests in London a few weeks ago turned out to be treated aggressively by the police. The Guardian has released a video where a London Metropolitan Police officer appears to have pushed - with a stick - the street-newspaper-seller on the back while he was not facing the police but walking calmly away from it.
According to the Guardian, Ian Tomlinson, who was happily married and had a son was discovered to not have been drunk when the attack occurred and although his death was diagnosed by official coroners to have died from a heart attack, both coroners and doctors (interviewed by the BBC News Channel) have speculated that Mr. Tomlinson's heart attack might have been caused by the push he received from the police officer shown on the video above.
The BBC News Channel reported that Mr. Tomlinson's death might have caused the protesters to increase their aggressive behavior. The BBC News Channel also reported how Mr. Tomlinson fell over minutes after he was attacked by the police. A G20 protester left a comment on News In-Depth Blog saying: "I was there and the police were swinging at anyone who came near regardless of gender, age or threat."
Although it is not possible to see Mr. Tomlinson's head hitting the ground when he is pushed by the police officer, it is very clear that such an aggressive push would have caused harm to a 47-year-old man like Mr. Tomlinson. To my point of view, that must have been the action that caused Mr. Tomlinson's death.
However, due to the fact that the video scooped by the Guardian shows one police officer pushing Mr. Tomlinson, it is unfair to blame the whole London Metropolitan Police for the action. I do believe though, that justice must be applied on the police officer guilty for this crime.
The 73-year-old man who died during the anti-G20 protest on Wednesday was discovered to have died not by an abuse from the London Metropolitan Police forces nor was he killed by manifestations carried out by the protesters at that particular moment, but rather by a heart-attack, it was reported by the London Lite today (Friday).
The anti-G20-protest's only fatality is believed to have happened when the man was going home from work and sadly happened to have a heart-attack during the protest. According to the London Lite, the man lived alone in a hostel due to a divorced that took most of his money and it is believed that the man did not take care of his diet and consumed large quantities of alcohol a day.
The London Lite reported that someone who knew the 73-year-old man described him as "a lovely bloke." There are still speculation of why people around the man did not help him when he fell on the floor during the time he was having the heart-attack.
It is very interesting to notice that the only newspaper that published details about the death of this lonely 73-year-old man who died during the G20 protest on Wednesday was such a low-quality newspaper like the London Lite - a free evening newspaper owned by the same family that owns the Daily Mail - and that none of the so-called quality newspapers or broadsheets such as the Guardian or the Times Online weren't interested in this type of story. I guess they thought they would not get any profits from it. After all, the newspaper business is all about money.
When a countless number of people gather together to protest against something as powerful as the G20, disasters happen. Such is the case of the anti-G20 protest that took place in London today (Wednesday), where one person was killed and many others have been injured. It has not yet been identified whether the fatality was caused by the police or by fellow protesters, but it is speculated that the police might have applied too much force on the victim.
So far, according to the Mail Online more than 30 people have been taken into custody, and although today's results were far from peaceful, the big day for protest is believed to take place at the same time in the same place tomorrow, at the exact same time the G20 summit - the event for which many have been waiting - will take place in London.
But what started out as a peaceful protest became a nightmare for the police when the protesters started to get out of control. As early as 13:00 the situation started to get more and more difficult as the adrenaline grew among the protesters and chaos among the city of London, the whole event was soon broadcasted by many national and international TV channels.
According to the BBC News channel - as it was broadcasted live-in-London - the protesters started to get more and more aggressive and took the opportunity of being pushed back by the police to start breaking windows of key economic buildings, including the RBS' main headquarters in London. Protesters started to climb the roofs of many building around.
It is believed that the protesters wanted to throw objects to the police, and that is the reason why the police decided to arrest some of them. It is also believed that the police might have applied too much force against the protesters. It was broadcasted by the BBC News Channel that the protester's purposes was to burn the headquarter building of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Meanwhile thousands of people were protesting and being injured, the heavy weigh economic and political leaders of the world gathered together with Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip - as it was broadcasted by the BBC News Channel - to discuss matters concerning the economic crisis and other serious and yet delicate issues.
Among the many leaders and political figures of the world only one president was able to have a private meeting with Her Majesty the Queen. U.S. President Barack Obama and her wife Michelle met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on a private meeting before they went to meet the other leaders.
As strange and harsh as it might sound, the Against-G20 protesters are only wasting their time, and not because the leaders adopting the G20 summit lack of interest towards the economic crisis or climate changes, the reason why these so-called 'protests' are a big wast of time and money - the London Metropolitan Police has had to spend 7.2 Million on security operations - is because protesters will not change anything by protesting. On the contrary, they are only making the government loose money that could be used for more useful things.
Honestly, to me at least, these protesters are just trying to boycott the G20 summit - an attempt to make the world a better place - and whether protesters like it or not, the G20 is actually trying to solve the global economic crisis. Whether it will work or not is yet to be seen, but I assure the readers of this blog that trying to solve the global economic crisis by talking is better than protesting for nothing.
The BBC News Channel broadcasted a protester saying: "Our bank, our rules." My respond to that is that it isn't the way it works, and one thing is certain, protesting rarely works, and it certainly does not work when the protests are drawn by the wrong reasons.
In this case, sadly, one of the main reasons why people are protesting is because they can't take that bankers get paid so much, and that they get paid seven figure pensions. People seem to forget that not all bankers are like Sir Fred Goodwin and that some bankers do deserve that much money, due to the among of time and effort they apply to their work.
This morning more than five UK national newspapers reported what is believed by many, the biggest political scandal of the year. Jacqui Smith, UK's Home Secretary's husband Richard Timney who also works for the government as his wife's parliamentary aide was yesterday (Sunday) discovered to have added two pornographic films to his home internet connection, the BBC News website reported.
Mr. Timney has publicly apologised for the embarrassment he has caused his wife and has also declared that he had 'mistakenly' chosen those adult films and that neither him or any member of his family was willing to add any pornographic material to their TV or internet connection.
This scandal has caused lots of rumours both among PMs and in Downing Street. This scandal has drawn Miss. Smith to be under investigation by the UK parliamentarian authorities for misusage of her second home allowance.
This is a perfect example of how the media can cause damage to an important person. No one can escape from the media. If this story had never gotten to the newspapers, Miss. Smith would have never gone through this embarrassing moment. First of all, why does it mater that Jacqui Smith's husband rented two pornographic movies? After all he has declared that he did not rent them on purpose.
The answer is this, because the media, and special the tabloid press, injected in the mind of the readers that Jacqui Smith's husband uses tax payers' money to buy pornographic material, which is - in a way - out of proportion. Considering that part of the tax payers' money is dedicated for those who work for the government, such as Miss. Smith and her husband, once the money arrives to them, it no longer belongs to the tax payers' but it belongs to the proprietor. As long as the money isn't used for illegal purposes, they can use their money for whatever they want to spend it on.
I'm not saying that it is right to rent such dirty and tasteless movies. To be totally clear, the porn industry is a dirty business that only causes harm to our society by injecting shameful sex acts - that must be personal and not publicised - to youngsters and adults who simply are affected psychologically after using such materials. But I do believe that a free person, in a free society such as the one we live in, should be allowed to use such materials and it should be kept private. No one, not even the press should be allowed to publicise anything about someone's private life and activities.
I also believe that there are more important things to publish out there in the world, and newspapers are wasting their time and money on a story that is simply not of interest to anyone - at least it is not of interest to me and to many people I know - and that is simply not educative. Newspapers should be there to publish educative topics and to inform the public about the many important events that take place in the UK and the world. Why didn't those newspapers - the ones that dedicated their front pages to the Jacqui Smith scandal - dedicate their front pages to the war-on-drugs that is currently taking place in Mexico? Because these types of stories simply don't sell newspapers and scandals do.
Newspapers treat and develop these kinds of stories in such a way that people have no other choice but to look at them. Unfortunately, the times when we could find a good documentary on TV or a good exclusive in the newspapers, are simply falling apart and the media in general is everyday moving more and more towards scandals because they simple want to make money.
An estimated number of up to 3,500,000 people protested against the G20 yesterday (Saturday) in the streets of London, in what is believed to be the biggest mass-manifestation in more than a year, the Guardian reported yesterday.
According to the Guardian, the protest 'jobs, justice and climate' was organised by some of the most remarkable peace organizations in the UK, beginning with the socialist organization Put People First and the Rainbow Alliance, to charities such as Action Aid and the green organization Friends of Earth. All of these organizations and many other unionists managed to gather more than 35,000,000 people and are willing to to gather more people for the coming days.
The protests will take place in London for the rest of the weekend and through the next week, and will finish on thursday when all the members of the G20 will gather together in London. The London Metropolitan Police is expecting things to get dangerous and have invested up to £7.2 millions on security.
It is very ironic that such a group of people can gather together to supposedly protest against the corruption of the world, and to – as many people assumed – make the world a better place.
But isn't ‘making the world a better place’ what the G20 is trying to do? Or isn't ‘gathering a bunch of heavy-weigh international economists to solve problems such as Global Warming and Global Economic Crisis’ considered trying to save to world?
Considering that the London Metropolitan Police is spending £7.2 millions to prevent any misbehaving from the protesters, the only people misbehaving and making the world a worse place are those protesters who believe that they are making a difference while protesting against a good cause. If they are protesting against Global free-trade, then they will be ignoring the many millions of poor people that have been benefited because of global free-trade through the years.
I was invited by one of the members of the Socialist Movement of the university I attend to (London Metropolitan University) and I was told to 'please' come to protest against "theses stupid - stupid was not the word used, it was a much harder word - people who have ruined the world." Well, my response to that person was: "I got better things to do."
But now what I say to that person is that if she was referring to the bankers, well, they made a huge mistake, and now the economists that are part of the G20 are only trying to make things better and to improve the situation in the world. What is so wrong about that?
Yesterday a merge between two very different Italian political parties: the Left-Wing Italian opposition, Alleanza Nazionale, and the Right-Wing party, Forza Italia, were yesterday merged by the 73-year-old Italian PM and leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi, the Times Online reported yesterday.
A merge that seemed like a far away dream for many, and an impossible dream for many others, became a reality when Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi launched what is considered by him - as he has stated in the new party's website - the future of the people of Italy, the new democratic party il Polopo Della Liberta.
Many Italians were delighted by the merge and have considered it a big step in Italy's stressful and deadly political world. But many others are worried that Mr. Berlusconi will take advantage of the new party to take care of his own personal businesses, as he is accused of having done with his own party Forza Italia for many years. But some others believe that Mr. Berlusconi's Centre-Right-wing party, Forza Italia is only supported by one man - Mr. Berlusconi himself - and that once he is out of politics the left-wing power will take over again.
Silvio Berlusconi got to power for the first time in 1994 when he won the elections by winning more than 70% of the votes, thing that no Italian politician had done after the Second World War. Mr. Berlusconi is believed to have fulfilled a hole created by the one party that ruled Italians ever since the collapsed of the fascist regime as the end of the Second World War approached and the death of Benito Mussolini took place in Milan; the Centre-Right-wing party, la Democrazia Critiana (Christian Democracy), which collapsed because of corruption accusations and misbelief of the Italian people.
Mr. Berlusconi - the man that was discovered to be the second richest person in Italy last year - have been involved in corruption many times since he got to power. He attended to court sessions for more than two years when he was accused of sending money to Swiss bank accounts which presumably belonged to him. This happened before he conveniently launched a law powerful enough to dissolve court cases that had been considered by a Jury for more than one year.
In a country where there are more than six democratic political parties, and countless illegal political parties, this merge will calm down the thirst of political power for many Italian politicians. But, it won't be long before someone wants to take Mr. Berlusconi's position and that will then represent, the end of il Popolo Della Liberta. As it has happened before, the formation of this new political party will draw people - once Mr. Berlusconi is out of power - to be separated again, forming more than one political party, and this of course will leave Italy with a hole of uncertainty.
In Italy, the party you represent does not only define the political party you support, it defines your personal views as well as the people you interact with, and the difference between Italian Left-wing and Italian Right-wing is from heaven to earth. If I had to express my personal opinion, this merge will give Mr. Berlusconi the power he desires to take care of his personal businesses, and it will mean the decrease of the left-wing parties for a long time, until Mr. Berlusconi dies of leaves power, whatever comes first.
Gordon Brown spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the debts the UK treasury is facing and how his government - the Labour Party - is taking actions to decrease the amount of money that will need to be paid in the future.
Mr. Brown also answered to the accusations that the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King made yesterday, the BBC News website has reported today.
Mr. Brown referred to the accusations made by Mr. King saying that he and his government would do whatever it takes to push the UK out of crisis and recession. Saying this, Mr. Brown made clear that he would take more budgets if necessary.
Mr. Brown is on a tour in the American continent, talking to top economic leaders trying to get to agreements to help the UK and the many American countries get out of the global crisis they are going through. Mr. Brown will visit other South American countries such as Chili and Brazil.
The BBC News website reported: "Mr. Brown, who dismissed claims that the UK's central Bank was at odds with him over a further stimulus package, said there was a 'determination' among world leaders to do 'whatever it takes to make sure we can restore the economy to growth'."
Yesterday the governor of the Bank of EnglandMervyn King said that the UK does not need to adopt many more budgets simply because it would harm the UK's economy. Mr. King made clear that the UK need not get in deeper debts. This accusation hit the British PM on a very delicate time due to the fact that Mr. Brown was at a European Union meeting at the time Mr. King spoke about this matter.
The Conservative Party have many times before stated that taking more budgets is not a solution to the economic crisis, but at the same time they have failed to express one. Yesterday they congratulated the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, for the declarations he made to Gordon Brown yesterday.
The Mail Online reported today: "The Tories, who have repeatedly warned about the size of the national debt, called Mr. King's intervention a 'defining moment in the political argument on the recession'."
It is very brave to tell the leader of such a country like the UK what he (Mr. Brown) should and shouldn't do when you are not his position. But it is a totally different thing when you tell the leader of a country what he shouldn't do and at the same time you show him and his party the solution, and this is where Mr. King and the whole conservative party are failing.
The conservative party congratulated Mr. King when he said yesterday that the UK need not need more budgets because the country would dramatically go on deeper debts. Even the conservative party itself have declared the same thing many times before, but what do they have to say to solve the problem?
The UK is passing through a very difficult time and a very strong crisis and Mr. Brown knows that the UK needs another budget and believes that the UK will be able to get out of this crisis and pay back the debts once the situation gets better. There is no other way, the budget needs to be taken, and as long as the UK does not rely on budgets, the debt will not be that hard to pay back afterwards.
Monday 06, April, 2009. A 6.4 earthquake has struck the central Italian town of L'Aquila today at early hours destroying many old as well as modern buildings and leaving at least 100 people dead and 1500 injured.
Monday 06, April, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama was applauded today in the Turkish parliament after saying "the U.S. is not, and will never be at war with Islam." Mr. Obama visited Turkey today in what is his first official visit to a Muslim country as U.S. president. To find out more click here.
News must be the one topic that I'm most passionate about.
I love waking up in the morning and with a cup of coffee in hand read and analyse the latest news.
That's why I've decided to maintain and update this blog as many times a week as I can. My purpose is to give you a bit of information of how I believe the press treats every bit of information in every main story published by the biggest British newspapers.
