World of the News

Beleaguered UK Tabloid: The Sun is of course still all over the news, ironicaly for a tabloid – for all the right reasons, bad behaviour. A British police chief has detailed allegations that journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper cultivated a network of corrupt officials who received illegal payments in return for story tip-offs.

ABC Cameraman Louie Eroglu: has won the prestigious White House News Photographers Association’s video photographer of the year award for the second year running.

The Behemoth that is Google: is overhauling its privacy policy despite opposition from various consumer and privacy advocates. In the past, data collected in the course of a web search would be kept separate from your YouTube viewing activity or your Google email usage and map queries.

The Guardian Runs “Three Little Pigs” Open Journalism Advertisement: To demonstrate how the news organization covers stories from all angles while opening up the conversation for reader engagement, The Guardian published a video advertisement today that imagines news coverage around the classic fable about the Three Little Pigs.

Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists: is currently accepting applications for their 2012 United Nations Journalism Fellowship program. The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists has awarded fellowships to journalists since 1962. For the United Nations Journalism Fellowship, four journalists are selected and are given the opportunity to report on international affairs during the UN’s annual General Assembly.

WikiLeaks Dumping Top Secret Intelligence Emails: Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun publishing more than 5 million confidential emails from Texas-based intelligence firm Stratfor. WikiLeaks says it has proof of the firm’s confidential links to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co and Lockheed Martin, as well as government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Read the full article »»»»

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Virus Dismissed

UPDATED: The theory that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by a virus has been killed off. It is just two years since researchers gave hope to sufferers that a cure may be on the horizon. In late December 2011 two of the global giants of science publishing from the United States, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, withdrew published papers which claimed sufferers carried a virus. Over the past three decades chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), has lost the dismissive tag of “yuppie disease” and is no longer thought to be only a psychiatric condition. It may affect 17 million people around the world, but there is no agreed cause or cure. Yet the studies caused blood banks, including the Red Cross, to ban blood donations from people who had suffered CFS. A medical science professor at the University of New South Wales, Andrew Lloyd, says fundamental steps to good science and clinical care were by-passed. He says it is understandable that CFS sufferers jump on any new discovery.

The prominent journal Science has retracted a 2009 report linking a mouse retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome after it was disproved by researchers earlier this year. The 2009 study led by Dr Judy Mikovits, the director of the Whittemore Peterson Institute, found that the retrovirus XMRV was frequently present in the blood of chronic fatigue sufferers, without establishing a causal link. The Journal Science said it had “lost confidence in the report and the validity of its conclusions” after multiple laboratories, including those of the original authors, failed to detect the virus in chronic fatigue patients. Read the full article »»»»

2011 Mexican Drug War – 33 Deaths Per Day

Over 12,000 people died in drug-related violence in 2011 in Mexico, and about 50,000 have been killed since the start of president Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug gangs in 2006, media reported on Monday.

The reports came out as brutal violence continued to rock parts of Mexico amid a military crackdown on organised crime involving tens of thousands of troops.

Reforma daily counted 12,539 drug-related killings in 2011, which it said was a 6.3 per cent increase on the previous year. The government has said 15,273 people were killed in 2010, without offering specifics on its count, making it the deadliest year since Mr Calderon launched his crackdown, in an election year in which drug violence is a key concern. Read the full article »»»»

World of the News: Hard Pill to Swallow

“We live in strange times” a quote that has truly lived through the test of time, each generation seems to have blurted this almost useless phrase since pelt clad artists scribbled on the walls of caves in Lascaux.

What’s changed, clearly quite a lot, but not so much! “News travels fast” now there’s a quote we can stick with, that along with Hard Pill to Swallow and you’ve pretty much got a round-up on what news is . . .

Week 1, November 2011

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Cult of Elizabeth Olsen: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Olsens latest film is the first feature film from young writer/director Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene is certainly a stylistically assured debut, mysterious, moody, unbearably tense…

One of the benefits of a large family is that, of several children, your more likely to turn out at least one normal adult. A point in case are the Olsen sisters. Elizabeth Olsen is a commandingly lovely actress, wistful, with soulful eyes and a gracefilled figure, Elizabeth cuts a fine figure on the screen.

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LiLo Breaches Probation

With Lindsay Lohan the news just seems to go round and round and round. Lindsay Lohan appeared in court today -  looking her usual mess -and had her probation revoked,  it’s now likely she will go back to jail.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner, today and revoked Lindsay Lohan’s probation, saying the actress has blown off her court-ordered community service and even questioning the starlet’s commitments to her acting career.

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