The British high court has ruled that 161 killings by the British military should be subject to hearings modeled on a coroner’s inquest. The ground breaking judgment may decide how the British military is able to carry out operations in the future.

In practice a series of hearings, possibly amounting to more than 100, are likely to be held as a result of the judgment; the consequence of a three year legal battle by the families of dead Iraqis.

The court ruled that each hearing must involve a “full, fair and fearless investigation accessible to the victim’s families and to the public” and must not only involve the immediate circumstances surrounding each death but other circumstances.

The court ruled that the defense secretary, Phillip Hammond, must announce within six weeks if any of the 161 deaths will result in prosecutions.

After years of judicial review proceedings the court concluded that coroner’s inquests were the best way for the British authorities to meet their obligations under Article 2 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects the right to life.

Throughout the proceedings the Ministry of Defense appeared anxious to control any investigative process, it was reported by the Guardian.

However, the court also rejected calls for a single public inquiry to look at interrogation practices during British military detention over the six year-long occupation of south east Iraq. It ruled that such an inquiry would take too long and cost too much.

11 cases will be heard in the first of the public hearings where civilians died in military custody. These will then be followed by public examinations of other incidents where civilians died in unclear or disputed circumstances where British personal allegedly used unlawful force.

British troops race to secure the area in the southern city of Basra, 550 kms south of Baghdad. (AFP Photo / Essam Al-Sudani)

Once Article 2 hearings are completed – the court ruled – further hearings should be established to meet the UK’s obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR. Article 3 will look into allegations of torture and other mistreatment of individuals who were detained by British soldiers in Iraq. There are 700 cases in which such allegations have been made.

14 million in compensation was paid out by the MoD to 205 Iraqis who alleged unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment in past trials.

Court stops short of ordering public inquiry

The new hearings are expected to shed light on the Joint Forward Interrogation Team, whose personnel appear to have actually received training in the abuse of prisoners, including teenagers who allegedly drowned after being pushed into canals, according to the Guardian.

The newspaper’s investigation found that the MoD may have interfered with a probe by the Royal Air Force (RAF) police into a man who was a allegedly kicked to death while on an RAF helicopter and a number of other prisoners who were taken to a secret interrogation center, which was concealed from both the Red Cross and British army lawyers.

Iraqis bury one of the body of people killed in an alleged US and Britain attack in the village of Tel Afr, 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Mosul. (AFP Photo / Azdin Hussein)

The judgment from Sir John Thomas the President of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice and Mr Justice Silber, the high court judges who presided over the hearings, said that there was evidence that some of the abuse had been systematic and also highlighted poor training and a failure to promptly investigate by senior officers and the government.

In another case, a woman was shot in November 2006 when troops raided her home; her body was then dumped on the side of the road in a British army body bag.

Other victims died after being interrogated and are alleged to have been beaten to death in the same way that Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist from Basra was murdered by British soldiers in September 2006. Baha Mousa’s death was subject to a separate public inquiry, which ruled that in future detainees must be handled more humanely.

The allegations involved “murder, manslaughter, the infliction of serious bodily injury, sexual indignities, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and large scale violation of international humanitarian law,” the court ruled.

The body which investigated the cases is known as the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT). It is regarded as independent and is made up of civilian detectives and service police, which then answered to an MoD panel. However, the court ruled that IHAT was not capable of examining how troops were trained, instructed and supervised.

A lawyer for the Iraqis, Phil Shiner, said that he hoped these cases will lead to reform in the UK military.

“My clients welcome, at last, the opportunities for accountability flowing from the judgment. The secretary of state must ensure that UK forces abroad respect and apply the rule of law”, he said in a statement.

A spokesman from the Ministry of Defense said: “We welcome the courts finding that IHAT is independent and carries out its duties with competence and integrity. We are also pleased that the secretary of state was justified in concluding that a single comprehensive public inquiry into allegations of abuse in Iraq should not be established.”

A full scale public inquiry was not opened because of the expense and the delay in reaching a verdict, the high court said. However unlike a public inquiry inquests do not include written recommendations, which often demand certain practices be changed.

Source: RT

March Against Monsanto in South Africa (Image credit: @OrganicLiveFood on Twitter)

Protesters across the US are joining the worldwide rally against biotech giant Monsanto and genetically engineered crops. The mass protest comes shortly after the Senate turned down a bill that would allow states to require the labeling of GM foods.

Organizers of the major rally that swept through dozens of nations around the globe on Saturday, urge a repeal of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, and call for a boycott of Monsanto products.

Participants in the March Against Monsanto were also demanding the right to know what they’re paying for and what their children eat. The protesters called for labeling of GM foods, which they say could pose a danger to human health, and demand further scientific research of such products.

Follow RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the March Against Monsanto campaign

RT covers the protest which is getting a mainstream media blackout, with RT’s Anastasia Churkina – who as at the heart of the protest march in New York City – one of dozens of American cities that are staging protests against Monsanto.

“According to our estimates there are over 2,000 here,” she said. “All these people have gathered here today to speak out against this giant biotech corporation that for years has been accused of manipulating and corrupting farmers throughout the world and monopolizing the agriculture industry.”

In Washington DC, a crowd of marchers gathered in front of the White House waving banners and posters.

A crowd of marchers gathered in front of the White House. (Image from twitter user@@gmo917)

Meanwhile, the US-based seed giant maintains that its seeds improve agriculture since it helps farmers to produce more from their land while saving resources such as water and energy. At the same time, Monsanto said on Saturday, they respect people’s rights to express their opinion on the matter, AP reported.

Initially a small movement, the March Against Monsanto campaign turned into a global event with an estimated 200,000 participants in over 40 countries thanks to the efforts of activists and social networking services.

We got RT America here outside of the WhiteHouse. (Image from twitter user@@gmo917)

Source: RT

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Editor of End the Lie

Michael Adebolajo (Image credit: End the Lie compilation from video)

Before Michael Adebolajo was caught on camera with blood-soaked hands wielding knives after allegedly beheading British soldier Lee Rigby in South East London, British intelligence agents attempted to recruit him according to a friend.

Abedolajo, a 28-year-old British national of Nigerian descent, was identified by friends, acquaintances and British media as the man seen in the video of the aftermath of the Woolwich murder.

The BBC reported that Adebolajo and 22-year-old Michael Adebowale were both known to MI5 for eight years, citing anonymous Whitehall sources.

According to the New York Times, Adebowale was born in Nigeria and immigrated to the UK as a child. Adebolajo was born in Britain to a Christian family that moved from Nigeria. Adebolajo reportedly converted to Islam after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

MI5 allegedly attempted to recruit Adebolajo

According to Adebolajo’s friend Abu Nusaybah, MI5 agents attempted to recruit Adebolajo six months ago.

Interestingly, Nusaybah was arrested immediately after he made the statements to the BBC in an interview.

Nusaybah was arrested by British counter-terrorism police on suspected terrorism offenses, according to CNN. The arrest was not connected to the Woolwich killing, according to a Scotland Yard spokesman who talked to CNN.

According to an unnamed BBC employee, British police waited inside the BBC studios in London while the interview was conducted and waited for it to conclude before making the arrest.

Police confirmed that Nusaybah, 31, had been arrested in relation to suspected terrorism offenses, according to the BBC. Police added that search warrants were being executed at two east London homes.

Adebolajo in Kenya

In the interview, Nusaybah said that he believed “a change” took place in Adebolajo after he returned from a trip to Kenya last year.

According to Nusaybah, Adebolajo went to Kenya “to study” but was rounded up by “Kenyan troops,” interrogated and “beaten quite badly.”

Nusaybah said that in his opinion Adebolajo had been sexually abused though Adebolajo was too “ashamed” to say what happened.

Adebolajo became “less talkative – he wasn’t his bubbly self,” according to Nusaybah, and “his mind was somewhere else.”

When Adebolajo returned from Kenya to the UK, he was stopped and later “followed up by MI5” who were “knocking on his door.”

Adebolajo was “basically being harassed,” according to Nusaybah.

“His wording was, ‘They are bugging me – they won’t leave me alone,’” Nusaybah said of Adebolajo.

“Initially they wanted to ask him if he knew certain individuals. But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals, what he said was they asked him if he would be interested in working for them,” Nusaybah said. “He was explicit in that he refused to work for them but he did confirm he didn’t know the individuals.”

CNN, however, cited Kenyan counter-terrorism sources who said that “Adebolajo traveled to Kenya in November 2010 and was arrested in the coastal town of Lamu for trying to cross illegally into Somalia.”

Some refuse to condemn the attack

A friend of Adebolajo, Abu Baraa, refused to condemn the killing and called Adebolajo “very caring” in an interview with CNN.

Similarly, Omar Bakri, a Syrian-born Islamist who reportedly once taught Adebolajo, said he was surprised by Adebolajo.

“When I saw that, honestly I was very surprised – standing firm, courageous, brave. Not running away. Rather, he said why he carried (it out) and he wanted the whole world to hear it,” Bakri said.

Bakri, along with Shah Jalal Hussain, who was convicted of fundraising for terrorists in a UK court, debated Christian apologists Sam Shamoun of Answering Islam and David Wood of Answering Muslims in 2011.

Anjem Choudary, who previously protested with Adebolajo, similarly praised the attack in an interview on the BBC.

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Thousands of activists around the world are rallying against Monsanto, the biotechnology giant accused of genetically engineering agriculture and food while turning a blind eye to their potentially deadly health ramifications.

Follow RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the March Against Monsanto campaign

Organized by the ‘March Against Monsanto’ movement, about 200,000 are expected to participate in the massive event on Saturday spanning six continents, 40 nations, and at least 48 US states.

The march is already gathering pace in Europe, where thousands of activists in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, France, Malta and elsewhere are taking to the streets to protest against Monsanto abuses.

This #MarchAgainstMonsanto makes me happy. This is a huge issue that directly affects EVERYONE!

— Stanimal032 (@Stanimal032) May 25, 2013

Earlier in the day, hundreds of demonstrators in Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia and across Japan and South Africa took to the streets to protest against the multi-national corporation and to demand a ban on Genetically Engineered and Genetically Modified Organisms (GE/GMOs).

Angered by the lack of action from governments on the issue, activists in the western part of the globe – in North and South America – are also gearing up for the global march.

These folks NEED to be told WE THE PEOPLE won’t accept your frankenfood #marchagainstmonsanto

— Sarah D. Zimmerman (@SarahDZimmerman) May 25, 2013

The organizers of the May 25 rally call for labeling of GM foods and further scientific research on the health effects of GE/GMOs. They also urge supporters to “vote with their dollar” by buying only organic products and boycotting Monsanto-owned companies. Besides that, they are urging a repeal of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act and that the company’s executives and politicians who back them are held to account through “through direct communication, grassroots journalism, and social media.”

image by @mkimpo_kid

Initially a small, grassroots event, the march became a globe-spanning movement through the efforts of local activists and environmentalists. The protest is being organized on Facebook and Google Documents, where users can find a list of events near their location.

Activists of the global environmental watchdog Greenpeace demonstrate against US biotech giant Monsanto and the commercial sowing of transgenic corn, at “Parque de los Venados” in Mexico City (AFP Photo)

March Against Monsanto Director Nick Bernabe told the Natural Society that genetically engineered food could affect everyone, even the apathetic: “What we’re trying to do is bring awareness to GMOs and the health effects that they’re causing and bring about some solutions about what people can do to take back their food supply,” he said. “They’re expecting more than 15,000 people in San Francisco alone… We want to get people working together in their communities.”

Monsanto has described current research into GMO crops as “inconclusive,” and has lobbied hard in Washington and around the globe to continue manufacturing lab-made foods without the oversight demanded by activists.

In March, Congress passed a biotech rider dubbed the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ that effectively allows Monsanto and other companies that use GMOs to plant and sell genetically altered products even if legal action is taken against them.

Up until it was signed, “the USDA [US Department of Agriculture] oversaw and approved (or denied) the testing of genetically modified seeds, while the federal courts retained the authority to halt the testing or sale of these plants if it felt that public health was being jeopardized. With HR 933 now a law, however, the court system no longer has the right to step in and protect the consumer,” explained James Brumley, a reporter for Investor Place.

“They own the largest share of the agribusiness, pesticides and seeds,” Joanne Montana, who organized a protest in Florida, told the Gainesville Sun. “They’re transnational, in food behind the scenes and a big conglomerate.”

Protesters against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are chained to a vehicle as they block a delivery entrance to a Monsanto seed distribution facility in Oxnard, California (Reuters / Mario Anzuoni)

The ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ was co-authored by a senator who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the company — a revelation that did not surprise many, given that another important figure in Washington, Justice Clarence Thomas, served as an attorney for the corporation before he was nominated to the Supreme Court, only to eventually preside over a case involving his former employer.

But according to Food & Water Watch, the relationship between Monsanto and the government extends beyond Congress and the Supreme Court. In a statement accompanying a health report, Food & Water Watch wrote that communications uncovered by WikiLeaks detailed how “the US State Department lobbies foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operates a rigorous public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology and challenges commonsense biotechnology safeguards and rules – including opposing genetically engineered (GE) food labeling laws.”

Consumer rights group the Food and Water Watch disseminated a report highlighting how “the State Department strategy sought to foist pro-biotech policies on foreign governments.”

The report describes a four-prong approach: promote biotech business interests; lobby foreign governments to weaken biotech rules; protect US biotech exports and press developing world to adopt biotech crops.

With the protest approaching, organizers have accused Monsanto of going on the offensive and wrote on the event’s Facebook page that the mass rallies had not been cancelled, debunking a false rumor they accused Monsanto sympathizers of spreading.

“Events are disappearing, posts are being put on city event pages that say events are being cancelled,” said Tom Canal, an administrator for the March Against Monsanto Facebook page, according to the Organic Prepper blog. “In no way, shape or form, has any event been cancelled. I believe Monsanto is behind this. Some of the people on the page that are commenting have newly made profiles and seemingly those profiles were made strictly to cause problems and get a rise out of our participants on the page.”

Jane Michalek (R) drinks soup during an eat-in protest in front of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Maryland (Reuters / Gary Cameron)

In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant portrayed those who do not agree with his business tactics as snobs: “There is this strange kind of reverse elitism: If I’m going to do this, then everything else shouldn’t exist,” he said. “In the US, we’ve got a system that works.”

In their ongoing struggle to reach a wider audience through the mainstream media, anti-GMO activists have outlined a number of solutions and goals for which they are advocating, including the “labeling of GE/GMOs so that consumers can make those informed decisions easier,” “further scientific research on the health effects of GE/GMOs,” and, perhaps most importantly, “taking to the streets to show the world and Monsanto that we won’t take these injustices quietly.”

Check back with RT throughout the weekend for the most extensive up-to-the-minute coverage on the global demonstrations.

Activists of the online network “Campact” protest outside the administrative court in Braunschweig, northern Germany (AFP Photo)

Source: RT

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At least 28 people were killed and 250 wounded in weeklong clashes between Sunni and Alawite Muslims in Tripoli, Lebanon, according to security officials. The violence is another sign of the Syrian conflict spilling over to Lebanon.

Last night, four Sunnis and one Alawite died in clashes, the Daily Star reported. The casualties raised this week’s death toll to 28.

Fierce fighting has raged in Tripoli since last Sunday, with assailants firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns. The violence is seen as a spillover from the recently intensified fighting between rebels and government forces in Qusayr, Syria, near the border with Lebanon.

Most of the clashes in Tripoli were between residents of the Sunni-majority Bab el-Tebbaneh district and the Alawite-majority Jabal Mohsen district. A third party in the conflict is the Lebanese Army, which has so far failed to quell the unrest.

Although the clashes subsided in the morning, the area is still reportedly controlled by snipers.

The week-long conflict brought life to a halt in Tripoli, home to 500,000 residents, with schools and shops closed because of the violence.

This is not the first time Tripoli has witnessed an outbreak of violence between Sunnis supporting the Syrian rebels and pro-regime Alawites, the religious branch of Shia Islam to which Syrian President Bashar Assad belongs. The Lebanese Army deployed in the city last October to broker a ceasefire.

A Lebanese gunmen stands guard behind a barricade in the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh following overnight clashes with the Alawite neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, on May 25, 2013 (AFP Photo / Ghassan Sweidan)

People inspect the damage after overnight clashes in Al-Koubbeh, in Tripoli May 23, 2013 (Reuters / Omar Ibrahim)

Lebanese army soldiers patrol the Sunni Muslim Bab al-Tebbaneh neighbourhood after being deployed to tighten security, following clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the port city of Tripoli, northern Lebanon May 21, 2013 (Reuters / Omar Ibrahim)

A Lebanese army soldier walks with his weapon on a patrol after being deployed to tighten security, following clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the northern port city of Tripoli May 21, 2013 (Reuters / Omar Ibrahim)

Source: RT

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The number and value of overdue student loans has reached an all-time high in the US as nearly a third of 20- to 24-year-olds are currently unemployed, according to a report by the Department of Education.

With continued concern regarding rising college costs, the amount of outstanding student loans has now reached $1 trillion, making that the largest category of consumer debt in the US aside from home mortgages.

According to the new report, eleven per cent of school loans – one hundred and ten billion dollars’ worth – are now seriously delinquent, meaning at least 90 days past due. That is a sharp increase from the 6 per cent reported in the first quarter of 2003.

The long-term consequences of the school loan repayment burden can include a graduate’s choice of jobs, as well as the ability to buy a home.

A tight job market and a continued increase in the cost of higher education leave many to question the very value of obtaining a college degree, as opposed to more vocationally oriented training.

“Today’s economy puts young graduates in a difficult position,” Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which published the report, said in a statement.

“A college diploma no longer guarantees a direct pathway to the middle class, making it harder to justify the expense of a degree.”

Still, as Bloomberg reports, the employment rate for college graduates in the US is 87 per cent, as compared with 64 per cent for those with only a high school school diploma.

One item which seems to have been eclipsed in recent partisan wrangling in Congress is a looming rate increase in federal student loans, which is set to double to 6.8 per cent on July 1 assuming there is no intervention. That rate increase would impact the more than 7.4 million students who can currently apply for a 3.4 interest loan.

On Thursday, the House voted along party lines to push forward a Republican initiative to intervene in the interest rate increase, though the specifics of the plan is sure to have the student loan debate take center stage in coming weeks.

The new bill would allow student lending rates to reset every year, tied to the interest rate of a 10-year US Treasury note, plus 2.5 percentage points for federal Stafford loans. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that means that the projected rate increase on those loans would rise to 5 per cent in 2014, and 7.7 per cent in 2023.

“Who’s going to set interest rates, politicians here or the markets?” asked Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota.

The legislation would cap Stafford loans at 8.5 per cent, with a higher maximum of 10.5 per cent for graduate loans.

Democrats, who are thus far opposing the Republican plan, prefer to extend the current Stafford subsidized rate – subsidized meaning that interest is not accrued while a student is enrolled – at a cost of $8.3 billion to the federal government, which would in theory be paid for by closing tax loopholes.

According to The New York Times, some Democrats want to take things even further. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has proposed locking in a 4 per cent rate for all student loans, and allowing graduates with higher interest rate loans to refinance at that rate.

President Obama has already put forth his own proposal, which, like the Republican plan would tie student loan rates to the Treasury’s borrowing costs, but would then fix that rate for the life of the loan, rather than resetting each year. The administration’s plan would also cap loan repayments at 10 per cent of a student’s income.

Delinquency rates on existing student loan debt suggests that, whatever solution Congress ultimately selects to follow, it will have to make loan repayments feasible as higher education costs continue to increase while wages have stayed roughly the same for several decades.

In addition to the Republican-sponsored bill HR1911, there are at least eight other bills aimed at modifying or freezing interest rates on federal school loans before the July 1 deadline.

The White House on Wednesday threatened to veto the Republican bill, arguing that it would not guarantee low rates due to its yearly reset.

Meanwhile, Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com, says the fight over subsidized loan rates “is a distraction from the real problem, which is the amount of debt, not the cost of debt.”

Kantrowitz may well have a point. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a recent study from Fidelity found that “70 per cent of the class of 2013 is graduating with college-related debt – averaging $35,200 – including federal, state and private loans, as well as debt owed to family and accumulated through credit cards.”

Source: RT

Editor of End the Lie

Rand Paul in 2011 (Image credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has introduced legislation that seeks to extend Fourth Amendment protection to electronic communications, which if successful would be a major move to protect online privacy.

This comes after it was revealed that both the IRS and the FBI claimed they did not need a warrant to spy on the electronic communications of Americans.

However, some might be skeptical given Paul’s much-criticized apparent flip-flop on the drone issue.

Nonetheless, Paul has made some much needed statements about the lack of protection given to the private electronic communications of the American people.

“In today’s high-tech world, we must ensure that all forms of communication are protected,” Paul said in a press release. “Yet government has eroded protecting the Fourth Amendment over the past few decades, especially when applied to electronic communications and third party providers.”

The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect the American people from unreasonable search and seizure, though that has been undermined quite a bit.

The Fourth Amendment usually requires warrants to be issued based on probable cause, but that too has been increasingly eroded under the guise of fighting terrorism.

“Congress has passed a variety of laws that decimate our Fourth Amendment protections,” Paul said. “In effect, it means that Americans can only count on Fourth Amendment protections if they don’t use email, cellphones, the Internet, credit cards, libraries, banks or other forms of modern finance and communications.”

Paul’s legislation, the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act, or S. 1037, would require law enforcement to obtain warrants when seeking access to personal data online including emails, chat logs, online banking records and more.

“Basic constitutional rights should not be invalidated by carrying out basic, day-to-day functions in a technologically advanced world, and this bill will provide much needed clarity and reassert Fourth Amendment protections for records held by third parties,” he said.

As WebProNews points out, Paul’s legislation was introduced only a month after the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2013, introduced Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Unlike Leahy’s bill, however, Paul’s bill would ensure all online data held by third parties is protected by the Fourth Amendment,” according to Zach Walton of WebProNews.

This type of reform seems to be gaining steam, with Attorney General Eric Holder even supporting an update of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Paul also introduced the Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act of 2013, a bill that aims to “protect an individual’s right to privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones.”

Such legislation seems to be increasingly palatable in Washington, at least to a degree, and has gained traction in state legislatures around the nation.

It will be interesting to see how these bills fare in a climate that remains hostile to limiting government power.

I’d love to hear your opinion, take a look at your story tips and even your original writing if you would like to get it published. Please email me at Admin@EndtheLie.com

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UK’s elite school asked 13-year old boys to pretend to be Prime Minister and justify the army shooting dead 25 protesters in a speech to win a scholarship it is revealed.

The question, which was put to students applying for the King’s Scholarship, worth one tenth of Eton’s £32,000 a year fees, is entitled “Concerning Cruelty, Clemency and Whether It Is better To Be Loved than Feared”, and follows a passage from Machiavelli.

“The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East. Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the government has deployed the army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have stopped but 25 protestors have been killed by the army,” the question reads.

Candidates are then asked to imagine that they were the Prime Minister and to write a speech for broadcast to the nation on why the decision to deploy the army against violent protests was both necessary and morally right.

The paper was set in April 2011, just after the student riots in which the headquarters of the Conservative Party and the treasury were hit and, by coincidence, just before the August 2011 riots, which injured many and caused millions of pounds of damage. At the time David Cameron warned that the army might be deployed.

The question caused uproar, with many taking to twitter to express their disagreement.

Damian Walter tweeted sarcastically, “having been born into a council estate single parent family, I would never question the superiority of Eton boys with millionaire parents.”

Seriously, that Eton scholarship exam question is spectacular: etoncollege.com/userfiles/file… twitter.com/flashboy/statu…

— Tom Phillips (@flashboy) May 23, 2013

This leaked scholarship exam paper from Eton is beyond parody & v revealing about Cameron’s Britain lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/05/2…

— Johann Hari (@johannhari101) May 24, 2013

Huh, my tweet about burning Eton to the ground didn’t seem to lose me any followers. Seems you lot are the right sort.

— Michael Richmond (@Sisyphusa) May 24, 2013

The headmaster of Eton College, Tony Little, emailed the US paper the Huffington Post saying the question has been taken out of context and that Eton School does not favor any particular political viewpoint.

“We are looking for candidates who can see both sides of an idea and express them clearly. High ability candidates at this level are often asked to put themselves in someone else’s shoes,” he wrote.

He then compared the question to a GCSE level English question, which is sat by all secondary school 16-year olds in England and Wales as well as those from fee paying public schools, in which he imagined a question, “Imagine you are Lady Macbeth, write a diary entry to express your feelings on receiving your husband’s letter.”

He added that a similar question in this year’s paper was about a community without any government.
Both the current British Prime Minister David Cameron and the London Mayor Boris Johnson went to Eton, Boris was also a King’s Scholar.

Source: RT

A law enforcement official says US Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the warrant that gave the Justice Department access to Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private e-mails.

President Barack Obama on Thursday said that Holder would review Justice Department guidelines on dealing with journalism investigations. The government has been accused of violating journalists’ constitutional rights by secretly obtaining Associated Press phone records and Rosen’s personal e-mails to find the sources of information leaks.

James Rosen

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said during his speech on counter-terrorism policy on Thursday. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

But while the president announced that Holder would look into the Justice Department’s policies regarding the matter, a law enforcement official told NBC News that Holder was personally responsible for signing off on the 44-page warrant that gave the department access to Rosen’s e-mail account.

This warrant called Rosen a “co-conspirator” in a leak investigation from June 2009, which revealed North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test despite US sanctions. The warrant also allowed the Justice Department to track Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department and all communications with his source, security adviser Stephen Jin-woo Kim.

Justice Department regulations usually require the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas of journalists’ phone records and warrants for arrests or interrogations, but that rule does not apply to email records.

Last week, Holder told NPR that he is “not sure” how many times he has authorized obtaining journalists’ records, thereby saving himself in the AP case. He also told the House Judiciary Committee that he was not the person involved in the decision to pursue the source of information leaks in the AP investigation. But if the law enforcement official’s claim about Holder signing off on the Fox investigation is true, he may not be able to rescue himself again.

Roger Ailes (Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images / AFP)

Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente called the Justice Department investigation “downright chilling”, and numerous media outlets have published editorials and op-eds condemning the department for criminalizing journalism.

Fox News President Roger Ailes on Thursday responded to the Obama administration’s “attempt to intimidate Fox News”. In a memo that he sent to the network’s employees, he condemned the federal government for violating journalists’ constitutional rights, rejected the characterization of Rosen as a “co-conspirator” in a crime, and expressed the pride he has for his staff.

“The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth,” Ailes wrote. “…To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high crime.”

Source: RT