Daily News Roundup - Friday 4th January 2008
A later - and more idiosyncratic - roundup today. I have been busy this morning. Here we go.
On this occasion I provide no guarantee of the verity of the Daily Mail (the written edition of Popbitch) stories, but the first may explain why Iain Dale was late for lunch.
The reason for the busyness is that I will be launching (OK, relaunching in a couple of cases) several resource websites for bloggers this evening. These will be the first batch of results from my efforts over the break.
News
Daily Mail (Daily Mail) - Gay men are as bad at navigating as women
Gay men are as bad as women at navigating, research has shown.
Both share the same poor sense of direction and rely on local landmarks to get around, a study suggests.
Daily Mail (Daily Mail) - Wealthy businessman burns £12,000 of his wifes clothes and shoes in revenge for her selling his beloved Ferrari number plate
Neil and Jane Medley seemed to have it all. Two children, a luxury lifestyle, expensive holidays and the inevitable Ferrari in the drive.
Adrian Blomfield in Kisumu (Telegraph) - Rape, the mobs latest weapon in Kenya.
Hundreds of women and children, including boys as young as five, have been gang-raped in a wave of sexual violence that has swept Kenya in the aftermath of last week’s disputed presidential election.
Phillip Inman and Ashley Seager (Guardian) - FSA to get power to shut failing banks
The main City regulator will be given powers to shut down and restructure failing banks as part of a wide-ranging package of measures designed to avert a repeat of the Northern Rock debacle.
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor (Times Online) - Jungle tribal leader Kelesau Naan took on the loggers. It may have cost him his life
Kelesau Naan never went to school. He signed his name with a thumb print and spent his entire life living in the jungles of Borneo. But among his tribe, the Penan, he was a visionary and an inspiration.
David Caruso (Independent) - Man who survived 47-storey fall from skyscraper wakes
A window-washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again.
Alcides Moreno, 37, fell almost 152 metres when scaffolding collapsed on 7 December, killing his brother. Somehow, Mr Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center said yesterday that his recovery has been astonishing.
BBC (BBC) - Crime scene clean up bill ‘crazy’
The families of murder victims should not have to pay for the crime scene to be cleaned up, an MSP has said.
Lib Dem justice spokeswoman Margaret Smith said it could cost thousands of pounds to have a home cleaned after the police investigation had ended.
She said the expense seemed crazy as it added to the agony of grieving relatives and called for a government fund to be set up to meet the cost.
One woman had to wash her dead father’s blood off his kitchen walls.
Martin Arnold in London, Henny Sender in New York and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing (Financial Times) - Sovereign funds boost pay to lure executives
(Free Reg) Sovereign wealth funds are struggling to attract top-notch executives to help deploy their investments and are having to offer more generous remuneration and hire headhunters to remedy the problem.
Financial sector specialists believe the more aggressive tactics will help SWFs poach some of the most talented executives from western private equity and investment firms.
BBC (BBC) - Tories urge Salmond to quit as MP
First Minister Alex Salmond should quit as an MP as his voting record shows he treats constituents with contempt, say the Scottish Conservatives.
Mr Salmond is a member of both the Scottish and UK Parliaments and says he will remain so until the next election.
The Tories point out that since the SNP won power last May, he has taken part in four of 149 Westminster votes.
Comment
Shashi Tharoor (Comment is Free) - Bhutto’s death has averted a mullah-military Pakistan
Her greatest legacy may be that the Islamists suspected of her killing will be further isolated from the army and power.
- Why Huckabee won
US elections 2008: The Southerner began as a long-shot, but his Iowa victory shows the vacuum that born-again Republicans want to fill.
Michael Tomasky (Comment is Free)
- Obama’s big moment
US elections 2008: By offering Democrats a fresh start, Barack Obama triumphed in Iowa. Hillary Clinton needs a new message if she is to recover.
- Political Challenges for David Cameron in 2008
The late Alan Clark once said that it is important to differentiate between what he called the stupid Right and the intelligent Right. One of David Cameron’s achievements in 2007 was to do just that.
Obituary
The Economist (The Economist) - Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani politician, was killed on December 27th, aged 54
Erstwhile democrat or ersatz democrat, she embodied the failed ideals of her country’s elite.
Tags: daily roundup, the skinny, matt wardman, wardman wire, mattwardman
[tags]daily roundup, the skinny, matt wardman, wardman wire, mattwardman[/tags]
