New Europol chief says he’s working on Russia pact
[pr-inside.com] THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – The new director of Europol says the European Union crime fighting agency is negotiating a cooperation agreement with Russia to help crack down on organized crime. Robert Wainwright says the pact will allow Russian police and Europol to share information and coordinate investigations. Russian mobsters are believed to beinvolved […]
French police arrest 200 migrants in Calais
French police arrested up to 200 migrants on Tuesday in a major swoop in the Channel port of Calais, from where thousands try to cross to Britain every year. By Henry Samuel in Paris Around 300 French officers cordoned off a wooded area known as "the jungle", home to hundreds of migrants, mostly from […]
Police must be ’servants not masters‘ says head of watchdog
New Met chief could lose support of rank and file if he begins a ‚witch hunt‘ By Kunal Dutta [independent.co.uk] Police officers must remember they are "the servants and not the masters" of the people, the head of the police watchdog said yesterday as he condemned the practice of concealing shoulder numbers as "unacceptable". Nick […]
Norwegian firm testing what may be ‚world’s smallest‘ helicopter
by Mark Rutherford [news.cnet.com] Don’t confuse this with what the hucksters are flogging at your local mall. This 15-gram "nano" copter goes where it’s told and back again, indoor or out. Prox Dynamics of Asker, Norway, has developed what it says may be one of the world’s smallest unmanned helicopters. Now on its fifth prototype, […]
Apple’s New Weapon
To help soldiers make sense of data from drones, satellites and ground sensors, the U.S. military now issues the iPod Touch. [newsweek.com] Tying the hands of a person who is speaking, the Arab proverb goes, is akin to "tying his tongue." Western soldiers in Iraq know how important gestures can be when communicating with […]
Malta: Police gets EU funds to improve border controls
[di-ve.com] The Police Department has been given funds amounting to €56,000 by the European Commission to increase its capabilities in the effective border control at the external borders of the EU, in line with the parameters stipulated in the Schengen Convention. The eight month project has seen a number of experts from the Italian SIRENE […]
Specialist protest squads at centre of investigations into G20 police violence
Police territorial support teams, used at demonstrations and marches, involved in previous controversy [guardian.co.uk] Officers from the Metropolitan police’s specialist territorial support teams are at the centre of investigations over the use of unprovoked violence during the G20 protests. Both of the officers who have been suspended in the last week were part of the […]
G20 protest videos: Growing catalogue of evidence against police
Watch a collection of videos passed to the Guardian that appear to show police using excessive force against G20 protesters [guardian.co.uk] In the fortnight since the G20 protests in London, the Guardian has received video footage from a number of people that appears to show police using excessive force or questionable tactics in dealing with […]
Critical Legal Thinking
[criticallegalthinking.com] Setting up this website in the week of the G20 meeting and the protests that welcomed it to London is symbolic. It marks the beginning of a critical (legal) thinking fight-back. Neoliberalism is not just a pernicious economic model but an integrated worldview. It became the way we live, the institutional framework of our […]
No riot in Latvia?
[axisglobe.com] Recurrence of the Latvian script, mass disorders caused by discontent of the population due to economic situation in the country, is hardly possible in Estonia, according to the General Director of the Security Police (KaPo) of Estonia Raivo Aeg, ERR Novosti reports. "If our politicians will suffice wisdom as it has been before, it […]
Policing: prevent and cure
[guardian.co.uk] Prevention is better than cure. Innocent until proven guilty. Two adages so familiar that any squeak of dissent from either can sound outright unreasonable, yet the reality is that, when it comes to criminal justice, there is great tension between them. It falls to the police to reconcile the two, and the last few […]
G20 woman protester shocked by policeman’s ’slap‘
[guardian.co.uk] The woman who a police sergeant apparently slapped in the face and hit with a baton at the vigil of Ian Tomlinson who died in the G20 protests, has said she was "shocked" by the attack which left her covered in bruises. The Metropolitan police last night suspended the sergeant involved in the incident, […]
Soldiers as street fighters
France’s urban war games more frequent and realistic [mondediplo.com] When war became urban (Berlin in 1945, or more recently Chechnya) cities and people were ravaged. Now, given the rise in population of towns and cities, the French army must familiarise itself with more subtle warfare where all-out destruction is not an option by Philippe Leymarie […]
G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police?
At the G20 protests in London only one group appears to be looking for violent confrontation – and it’s not the protesters [guardian.co.uk] The trouble-makers are out in force again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It’s almost as if they are deliberately […]
Security conferences in Stockholm in September-October 2009
[easc09.se] The Swedish governmental agency “Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency” in cooperation with the US Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate invite you to the first Euro-Atlantic Stakeholder Conference (EASC09), which will be held in Stockholm 1-2 October 2009. The goal of the conference is to advance societies´ preparedness and resiliency against a broad […]
G20 protesters face police with Tasers
David Leppard and Steven Swinford [timesonline.co.uk] SCOTLAND YARD is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week’s G20 summit in London. The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with […]
Economist Intelligence Unit: Manning the Barricades
[akamai.net] This special report is the third by the Economist Intelligence Unit since the credit crisis erupted in August 2007. In the first report, we looked at the implications of a financial meltdown on the global economy. In the second, we considered the wider economic effects, including the risk of a 1990s, Japan-style collapse in […]
French plan for EU armed police in Afghanistan
[eubusiness.com] Several EU nations have concerns about a French scheme to send European armed police into Afghanistan, officials admitted during a foreign ministers meeting. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner launched the idea at an EU summit last week. He made the case again at two days of talks with his European Union counterparts at Hluboka […]
Social network sites ‚monitored‘
Details could be leaked, said one Lib Dem MP [bbc.co.uk] Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users‘ contacts. The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not […]
Second public procurement for vehicles for Bulgarian border police to start
[sofiaecho.com] In the first public procurement for vehicles for Bulgarian border police none of the offers qualified. Bulgarian Finance Ministry has not opened a second procurement procedure, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik said. The new procurement has a total value of 4.58 million euro and consists of a procurement for all-terrain vehicles and one for buses. The […]