Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Media roundup

Bury St Edmonds today - Questions flood in for Cattle Market details
"Chief executive of the council, Deborah Cadman told Thursday's cabinet meeting that they were already being hit with detailed questions, particularly over the Cattle Market."We have had 29 request for information under the act so far and the majority of those are very complex," she said"

Daily Record 28th February - Gangster mcgraw got £218k of legal aid
"SCOTLAND'S richest gangster received £218,000 of legal aid when he was tried on drug-smuggling charges.Thomas 'The Licensee' McGraw - who is thought to have a £30million fortune - walked free from the 1998 trial after the jury returned a not proven verdict.The amount of taxpayers' money he received was revealed yesterday under the new Freedom of Information Act."

Spacereview - A different kind of openness
"By originally failing to make the report on the loss of Beagle 2 (above) publicly available, the usefulness of the report was greatly diminished. In January, the Beagle 2 investigation report was finally released. Unfortunately, the obfuscation did not stop then. At the time of the release, BNSC stated that “in view of the Committee’s strongly held view that the report should be published in full, we have discussed the issue again with ESA and have persuaded them that the report should be published.”

What BNSC left out of its statement was that it was actually the British magazine New Scientist that had forced their hand. New Scientist filed a request under the United Kingdom’s new Freedom of Information Act to force the document’s release. The magazine’s editors thought it was not a good idea to leave the dead dog alone."

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