Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone account

Scotland Yard detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World are examining the call records of four newly discovered Apple iPhones issued to senior executives at News International. The smartphones, issued by O2 in a contract beginning in October 2009, included a handset given to James Murdoch, the former chairman and chief executive of News Corp Europe. Despite billing for the phones totalling nearly £12,000 between June last year and May this year, neither Operation Weeting nor the Leveson Inquiry was told of the existence of the smartphone accounts. Phone text messages and emails sent and received by News International executives and advisers have provided some of the most controversial evidence heard by Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into press practices and ethics....

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shooting a cop dead is now legal in the state of Indiana.

Governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican, has authorized changes to a 2006 legislation that legalizes the use of deadly force on a public servant — including an officer of the law — in cases of “unlawful intrusion.” Proponents of both the Second and Fourth Amendments — those that allow for the ownership of firearms and the security against unlawful searches, respectively — are celebrating the update by saying it ensures that residents are protected from authorities that abuse the powers of the badge. Others, however, fear that the alleged threat of a police state emergence will be replaced by an all-out warzone in Indiana. Under the latest changes of the so-called Castle Doctrine, state lawmakers agree “people have a right to defend themselves and third parties from physical harm and crime.” Rather...

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Cambodia and Ecstasy Illegal factories in the deep jungle forests of Cambodia

Cambodia and Ecstasy Illegal factories in the deep jungle forests of Cambodia are increasingly important in the illicit production of precursor chemicals used to manufacture MDMA or ecstasy. The critically rare tree, Mreah Prew Phnom, contains relatively high levels of the safrole oil which is used in ecstasy manufacture. Although safrole oil has many legal applications such as for insecticides, cosmetics and fragrances, the Cambodian Government took steps to ban the use of the trees in 2004 as numbers were dwindling and illegal trade was increasing. As with other illegal drug manufacturing such as cocaine or opium, farmers, landholders, workers and manufacturers who are involved in the extraction of safrole oil consider the risks outweigh the potential rewards that can be made from being...

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