Summer Summary

So as the Summer fades away to Autumn I thought I would look back over the high profile stories that have occured over what is usually a  very quiet season newswise. A pity that so little of it was good.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Libyan Civil War



This has already been covered in this page, but as it was at the forefront of people's minds at the beginning of the summer, I'll go over it again.

Following the successful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the ousting of Presidents Ben-Ali and Mubarak, the people of Libya rose up in an effort to topple Colonel Gaddafi, leader of Libya for over forty years. Starting in the eastern city of Bengahzi, this gradually spread west ward, before stalling halfway towards Tripoli. However the intervention of the UN, helped the rebels get moving again and as of last week they are now in control of the capital.

Unfortunatly Gaddafi is still at large, possible holed up in his home town of Sirte. I don't know how this will end, with conflicting reports emerging stating that Gaddafi is either willing to talk about a hand over of power, willing to watch Libya collapse to the twin forces of fire and ice before the Western infidels can get their hands on it's oil, or possible both. At the same time.

What ever happens, it marks the beginning of change for Libya.

This was then replaced with the

Phone Hacking Scandal



This one had been brewing for a couple of months, running conncurently with News International's attempts to purchase of BSkyB and thus control the second biggest TV provider in the UK (after the BBC) and had already cost Andy "I swear I knew nothing" Coulson (above) his job as the PM's press officer. Just as we thought we weren't going to learn anything new, the news broke that the News of the World had not only hacked into the phones of celebrities but the phone of murdered school girl Milly Dowler and possible the families of 7/7 victims.

This as you may understand made people very unhappy.  Very Very unhappy.

In fairly short order, News International shut down the News of the World hoping that this would save their attempts to buy BSkyB - and incidently making several hard working journalists who's only crime was to work for News International redudant in the process.  It didn't. In a rare show of solidarity across the Commons benchs all MP's from every party came together to make it clear that Rupert "It's only 1% of the Company" Murdoch should drop the bid. Which he did some half an hour before the Commons debate began.

With investigations into Murdoch's activities going on both in his native Australia and in the US,  former NOTW editor Rebeka Brooks as well James and Rupert Murdoch were called before a Commons Subcommittee to answer questions about their company's behaviour. Apart from a brief fraca involing a shaving foam pie and Murdoch's head things went reasonably smoothly and to the great satisfaction of all those who dislike Murdoch and his strangle hold on the media it was proved almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that frankly he is both

A: Incompetant

and

B: Passed it with absolutly no clue what is going on within his own company.

 I thought this was going to be the end of big stories. At least until the unfortunate and catostrophic events in

Norway



On the 22nd of July Norway, one of the most peaceful countries on the planet, came under attack by one of it's own citizens. Anders Behring Breivik a right-wing extreamist committed two horrifc acts of terroism in the name of "protecting" his country and Europe.

After setting a car bomb outside the Prime Minister's office which killed eight and injured eleven, Breivik travelled to the island of Utoya the location of the ruling Labour Party's annual Youth camp and proceded to open fire on the assembled teenages resulting in a death toll of around eighty people. Eighty people who's only crime was to have an active interest in their countries politics.

As mentioned above Breivik did this in an attempt to "protect" his country from he thought were the twin evils of Islam and Marxism. He wished to create a strong, White, Christian Europe free from outside influence and was willing to commit violence to do this. He is currently in isolation.

I would go on, but this story upsets me so much that I can't.  I would point you towards this though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9547000/9547476.stm

Things quietened down a bit for a few weeks, and then we got this.

English Riots



This too has been covered in this blog, so I shan't go into any details and rather give a brief summary.

Following the shooting of a man named Mark Duggan in Tottenham by the police, peaceful protests over his death, spiralled into half a week of riots and looting across the capital and the country with hotspots including several London boroughers, Birmingham and Manchester.

While things have settled down since the courts still seem to be in overdrive as they sentence those involved in the looting sprees and the government are now having to think seriously about

A: What they can do to stop something like this from happening again

B: As mentioned in my previous blog post whether the activities of polticians may have helped spark this.

We will recover. We always do. And we did not suffer nearly as badly as Norway.

So that's the Summer's news. For a season where the main news is "Mrs Prentiss Budgie learns to Snowboard" it's been quite eventful.

Of course this would happen just as I go off to study Journalism wouldn't it?