!-- pageType= magazinesmall slug= ff_blodget section= techbiz subsection= people headline= Financial Industry Scapegoat Reinvents Himself as Financial Reporter authorName= Daniel Roth creditType= photo credit= Mike McGregor caption= Henry Blodgetis back, and his straight-talking analysis of the Web world is earning him new fans. -- pstrongHenry Blodget/strong has never gotten used to the chorus of hate that follows his every move. He's merely learned to live with it. When he started his personal blog in 2005, the comments a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/2005/10/welcomeand_than.html"dripped with disgust/a. "You are a boldface liar," a reader wrote. "Give me one reason why I should believe what you are writing," said another. And that was just in response to Blodget's innocuous first entry. /ppDuring his years as a star Wall Street analyst, his pronouncements were welcomed and celebrated; now he couldn't say hello without getting savaged. Just last August, TechCrunch mentioned that Blodget would be one of more than two dozen tech celebrities a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/15/4-new-experts-henry-blodget-josh-kopelman-tim-o%E2%80%99reilly-robert-scoble-join-techcrunch50/"judging a contest/a for startups. Blodget knew what was coming, even if his hosts didn't. "Blodget is scum.... He is no longer the arrogant prick we saw in the '90s, but he's still scum," someone wrote. "A lot of people lost money listening to this dirtbag." "Blodget is a Web 1.0, bubble-creating has-been." "He is unethical." "He's as crooked as they come."/p pI meet a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/henry_blodget.html"Blodget/a at the offices of his new business, a year-old site called a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/"Silicon Alley Insider/a, shortly after the TechCrunch beat-down. Alley Insider is one of many tech business blogs that feed news, earnings info, and rumors to investors and corporate insiders. But Alley Insider has one thing that others don't. Blodget. He's smart, he's skeptical, and he's got the kind of self-assured voice that sells well in the blogosphere. As the market sinks, his opinions are even more in demand, though he's still hated by a large portion of his prospective audience./p pThe site shares two floors of a Manhattan office building with programmers and business staff for some of Alley Insider's sister companies, all of which were started by former DoubleClick CEO a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/kevin_ryan"Kevin Ryan/a. Blodget works in a double-wide cubicle near a window, separated by a low wall from the site's two other editors. They spend their days crawling Twitter and RSS feeds, calling sources, and pumping out about a dozen daily takes on the business world, most with Digg-friendly headlines (no easy accomplishment with bone-dry business stories). "Is Facebook Distracting Us From Porn? No" is a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/is-facebook-distracting-us-from-porn-no"typical/a, or "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler"Google's Ginormous Food Budget/a: $7,530 Per Googler, $72 Million a Year." Blodget tells his team to think of the site as talk radio: He wants readers to feel compelled to check in several times a day to get the Alley Insider view on everything going on in their world./p pFor privacy, we duck into a small conference room, and Blodget, tall and skinny, sinks into a ridiculously deep leather chair. His floppy dirty-blond hair gives him a youthful, almost carefree air, but the deep circles that ring his eyes tell a different story. He's managing a 24-hour news startup. It's midday and he's been posting since 5 am. And then there's the burden that comes with being Henry Blodget, digital punching bag./p p"There are obviously a lot of folks who say, 'Now wait a minute, isn't that the guy who....'" He lets the thought trail off. He's legally barred from talking about the incidents that led to his vilification. "To them, I'm emthat/em Henry Blodget. There's not much more I can say. I still can't address specific points. So it's like, 'OK, here's my face. Throw the fruit. When you want to stop throwing the fruit, if you want to listen, great. If you don't, fine.'"/p pIt's been almost a decade since the impulse to greet him with rotten mangos first struck. Back in 1998, as a 32-year-old analyst with investment bank CIBC, he a href="http://www.thestreet.com/markets/analystrankings/977502.html"declared/a that the stock price of Amazon.com would nearly double to $400. Three weeks later it did, and Blodget was a hero. Soon he packed up his spreadsheets mdash; he's never more comfortable than when he is lining up numbers in rows and columns and teasing out their secrets mdash; and moved to Merrill Lynch./p pInvestors followed the new oracle's every utterance, and bankers wanted Blodget to bless the stocks of companies they were hoping to do business with. The lines on his graphs always seemed to point one way mdash; steeply up and to the right. He wasn't just predicting profits, he was selling a revolution: The old metrics didn't apply. Blodget may have counseled people to own only a small percentage of Internet stocks mdash; 10 percent at the most mdash; but nobody listened./p !-- pagebreak -- div id="embed" style="width:370px;" div id="pic" style="width:350px;" img style="width:350px;" src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget3_f.jpg" alt=""/ div id="caption" Launched in 2007, Silicon Alley Insider is gaining on some of its established rivals. br/ emSource: Compete/em /div /div /div pThen came the crash. Five trillion dollars in wealth vaporized in 24 months, leaving behind unquantifiable amounts of rage among the masses of day traders who had believed briefly that they, too, were market savants. When the bubble burst, so did Blodget's aura./p pStill, it wasn't the crash alone that crushed him. It took Eliot Spitzer to turn Henry Blodget into emthat/em Henry Blodget. Spitzer, then New York's crusading attorney general, investigated Merrill in 2001 for conflicts of interest. He discovered a clutch of emails from the young analyst showing that while talking up certain stocks to clients, he was trashing them internally. Companies like 24/7 Media, Excite@Home, and InfoSpace mdash; firms Merrill was publicly cheering mdash; in private were deemed by Blodget to be "shit," "crap," and "junk" (respectively). According to Spitzer's findings, Blodget would have pulled in $12 million in 2001 mdash; quadruple his earnings in 1999 mdash; if he hadn't accepted a buyout that year. In 2003, Merrill's boy genius agreed to pay a $4 million fine and accepted a lifetime ban from working in the securities industry./p pPublic disgrace usually drives a person into hiding, or at least into a different career. Jerry Levin, the brains behind the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger, today runs a href="http://moonviewsanctuary.com/staff"Moonview Sanctuary/a, his wife's spa; Spitzer, forced to resign as governor last summer, is currently discovering the a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/06/10/spitzers-next-act-distressed-real-estate/"joys of real estate management/a; Health South CEO Richard Scrushy, while on trial for accounting fraud, a href="http://www.richardmscrushy.com/biography.aspx"became a televangelist/a. Not Blodget./p pOne former colleague says Blodget spent the months when he was being investigated trying to grasp why he was singled out for something that was commonplace in the industry. He figured the controversy would blow over once the public realized his conduct was not unusual. "He was incredulous that the investigation got traction; he said it was silly," a friend says. But there was too much anger in the wake of the bubble, and Blodget's embarrassing emails made him an easy scapegoat. Later, when he was inclined to argue his case, the settlement terms prevented it./p pSo Blodget did what came naturally. He began writing about the companies he used to cover, a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2104656/"first for Slate/a, then on his own blog, a href="http://www.internetoutsider.com/"Internet Outsider/a. Was this journalism mdash; or was it therapy? Rather than hide, he started saying in public what he had once said only in private, using the same brutally frank voice that got him in trouble with Spitzer. He marketed his notoriety to a new Web readership hungry for smart, independent analysis./p pWhen Ryan, an Internet Outsider reader, approached him about starting an industry news site, Blodget jumped at the prospect of a bigger stage. Before working on Wall Street, he'd been a freelance writer; now he could combine the two vocations, borrowing freely from both journalism and equity research./p pThrough Alley Insider, Blodget is trying to erase, post by post, Spitzer's portrait of him as a duplicitous, money-grubbing shill for big business. Blodget has always believed that the Internet changed everything, so naturally he believes it has the power to change the world's perception of him. The venue offers all Henry, all the time (and even when his other writers are posting, it's clear they're channeling him). The result is a unique blend of x-ray analysis and tech evangelism./p pAs we talk, Blodget gets up from his chair, antsy to return to his laptop. I ask him if he understands what he's up against. If the hate has lasted this long, why expect it ever to fade away? "If all I knew about me was what I read during that period," he says, "I'd probably have the same reaction."/p pstrongOn a late summer morning/strong, Blodget waits in the lobby of the Nasdaq building in midtown Manhattan. He's all banker today: blue suit, red tie, black cap-toed Oxfords, his shirt so deeply pressed there are creases down the sleeves. It's 10 am and, ready for his second breakfast, he pries open the plastic case of a turkey and Swiss sandwich and starts wolfing it down. In a few minutes he is supposed to conduct a video interview for Yahoo's Tech Ticker finance site. As soon as Blodget started appearing as a regular host in February, the Furies a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/650/Jerry-Yang-Strikes-Back;-Here%27s-Microsoft%27s-Next-Move?tickers=yhoo,msft"reemerged/a. "Did you not find any other decent, credible guy than Henry Blodget?" one of the first comments read. "Why spoil this new feature with such a scum and spoil the Yahoo reputation?"/p pAs producers prepare to tape the show, Blodget wipes his crumbs off the table. He explains the guiding vision behind Alley Insider. "We don't want to do things we don't care about," he says. "It's nice to say theoretically we're the judge of what's important and what's not, but come on, give readers credit. They'll tell you immediately what they want, and that drives coverage. People are fanatically interested in Apple, Google, Microsoft. It wasn't a tough call to know what to write about."/p pBlodget's focus on content is matched by his apparent indifference to the look of the site. Alley Insider employs a cookie-cutter template of scrolling headlines and thumbnail photos dragged off the Web. But design limitations notwithstanding, by September the site was getting nearly 500,000 visitors a month, rivaling a href="http://allthingsd.com/"AllThingsDigital.com/a, the citeWall Street Journal/cite blog edited by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Since the beginning of the year, traffic to the site has more than doubled, and Blodget's words now carry surprising weight. When a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/apple-s-steve-jobs-rushed-to-er-after-heart-attack-says-cnn-citizen-journalist"he reported/a early this fall that Steve Jobs may have been rushed to the hospital after a heart attack mdash; citing an anonymous (and, as it turns out, fraudulent) post on a minor user-generated news site run by CNN called iReport mdash; Apple's a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/technology/apple/"stock dropped/a nearly 10 percent. Critics blamed Alley Insider./p p"I read citeThe New York Times/cite, citeThe Economist/cite, and Alley Insider," says a href="http://www.firebrandpartners.com/principals/index.html"Scott Galloway/a, head of investment equity firm Firebrand Partners, who is best known for his successful public fight to get on the board of citeThe New York Times/cite. "Henry takes a no-mercy, no-malice approach to Web business and media." Valleywag recently called him "the disgraced stock analyst everyone now listens to."/p !-- pagebreak -- div class="wide_img" img src="http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1612/ff_blodget2_f.jpg" alt="" div class="wide_caption" div class="wide_caption_txt" The team at Silicon Alley Insider (left to right): senior editor Dan Frommer, COO Julie Hansen, cofounder Kevin Ryan, and editor in chief Blodget. br/ emPhoto: Mike McGregor/em /div /div /div br/ br/ pFor all the success today, it took Blodget amp; Co. some time to figure out a winning formula. When Ryan, a New Yorker, launched the site in 2007, he wanted to cover the local startup and media scene. Blodget signed on as CEO and editor in chief, bought a minority stake, and hired citeForbes/cite journalists a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/peter_kafka"Peter Kafka/a and a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/dan_frommer"Dan Frommer/a to help him develop content (Kafka was later hired away by AllThingsD). The first few weeks, the site read like a tourist's guide to spotting B-list Internet companies in the big city, with each firm's location prominently announced: "NoHo-based Meetup has quietly launched a Facebook application"; "Flatiron-based YellowJacket Software has raised $1.25 million." Blodget branched out, taking on the bigger names himself mdash; Apple, Dow Jones, NBC, JP Morgan. It quickly became clear to him that New York's tech industry was too small an arena to contain the ambition of the site. And nearly half the readers were in California anyway./p pAlley Insider soon dropped its Silicon Alley focus but stuck with the moniker. And Blodget began to draw more heavily on his research experience. He created financial models of the companies he was talking about and posted the spreadsheets as Google docs so anyone could download and toy with them. He analyzed the potential revenue YouTube could bring to Google, mapping out his assumptions about viewership and ads watched, and offering a clear bottom-line conclusion. Readers weighed in with their critiques, which Blodget used to sharpen the model. He figured he wouldn't just write about Wall Street, he would also usurp part of Wall Street's business by providing high-quality research, the kind brokerage customers used to prize./p pBut visitors to the site wanted more than analytics. They also craved the edgier Henry of the Spitzer emails. Blodget obliged. In one post, a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/ben_stein_is_an_idiot"Blodget declares/a citeNew York Times/cite economics columnist Ben Stein to be either "an idiot" or possibly just "delusional." He suggests that the anonymous sources cited by archrival TechCrunch in its reporting on Microsoft's attempt to purchase Yahoo "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/yahoo_stock_fades_as_techcrunch_microsoft_takeover_sources_sober_up"must have been drunk/a." And in November 2007, when E-Trade lost $9 billion in value as its risky mortgage bets turned to dust, Blodget offered only one piece of advice to the company's shareholders: "a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/11/etrade_etfc_total_cost_of_screwup_9_billion"Cry/a."/p p"On Wall Street, I'd consistently submit a report that would say, 'This is going to be roadkill,' and it would come back rewritten as 'We see some weakness,'" Blodget says. "Now I can say, 'It's going to be roadkill.' That's very satisfying."/p pBut even as he delights in railing against corporate giants, he's still disciplined enough to run the underlying numbers mdash; Blodget loves the drama, but he loves the spreadsheets just as much. One post about craigslist should have been something only an accountant could love: a complex set of assumptions and analyses to determine what the company might be worth. Yet Blodget wrote the whole exercise as if it were a mystery plot, parceling out details and stringing the reader along until the very end./p pWhen Yahoo announced this summer that it had hired Bain amp; Co., a consulting firm usually brought in when a company is about to start swinging the ax, Blodget a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/yahoo-fat-farm-how-many-people-does-yahoo-need-to-fire-to-get-fit-"sharpened his own pencil/a. "We're mad as hell ... especially now that Yahoo's wasting millions on Bain." He offered his own, free advice (spreadsheet attached) cataloging how many people Yahoo should fire in each division mdash; 1,804 from its "positively obese" sales and marketing arm alone mdash; in order to goose operating margins to a "more respectable" 20 percent from its current 7 percent. "He pushed us early on to ask, 'What does this mean for profits? How does any news affect a company's numbers?'" Frommer says. "It's great if it makes a company look bad or look good, but is this really going to affect the numbers?"/p pBlodget is also trying things that no mainstream-journalism-trained blogger like Swisher or GigaOm's a href="http://gigaom.com/"Om Malik/a would ever dare. He makes serious-sounding offers to buy companies that he wants to demonstrate are significantly undervalued. It's pure showmanship, but with Blodget's background in finance and his ties to folks up and down Wall Street, no one knows just how far he will take the joke./p pHis first target was CNET. With the a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/12/announcing_our_friendly_takeover_offer_for_cnet"slightest of winks/a, he wrote a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/1/cnet_update_on_our_offer_and_restructuring_plan_part_1"post after post/a explaining how he'd a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/jana_here_s_our_plan_for_cnet"purchase the company/a. At first he proposed a sort of reverse merger, with CNET buying Alley Insider for $50 million in stock, at which point Blodget's team would take over every aspect of the company. Then he detailed the operational changes he would make./p !-- pagebreak -- pRyan got nervous about Blodget's new direction. Blodget's deal with the government forbade him from giving individual research advice, but it didn't say anything about jumping into the private-equity space. Still, there might be legal issues. "Look, why don't we run this by a lawyer just to make sure, because we're getting into securities stuff here," he said to Blodget. When the lawyer asked them "Is this a real offer?" there was a brief silence. For the first time the two really thought about it./p p"You know, yes," Ryan replied. "If they said yes, we would accept $50 million at that time to buy them. So it is a real offer. But we're actually asking them to buy us." The lawyer signed off on the convoluted reasoning./p pAfter Blodget's taunting posts went up, investment firm JANA Partners announced a hostile takeover attempt of CNET. It failed, but by spring 2008 CBS a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/cbs_buying_cnet_for_1_8_billion"stepped in to buy/a the company for $1.8 billion./p pFor one CNET executive, memories of Blodget's unwanted attentions still rankle. "The way you make a big name for yourself on the Web today is to make, for lack of a better word, ridiculous statements," says Zander Lurie, former senior VP of strategy and development at CNET and now CFO of CBS Interactive. Lurie found himself reassuring employees who sent him Blodget's postings and wondered whether their company was at risk. "Everyone knew there was nothing in the offering: He didn't have the capital, the expertise, or any specific insight into our business," Lurie says. "He makes the ridiculous statement and it gets sent all around, and then he claims credit when there's an event the following year, which obviously he had nothing to do with. Less than zero to do with. We all have reputations. And his track record is well known."/p pBlodget has been a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/how-the-new-york-times-nyt-can-save-itself"waging another/a half-serious acquisition fight, this time for the New York Times Company. All he wants is the Web site mdash; the print side is dead, he says. He thinks the paper needs to cut about 80 percent of its costs, at which point it would be the perfect size to be the digital paper of record for a long time to come. "It's a serious offer from our perspective, but it hasn't been taken seriously," Blodget says./p pstrongIn the wake of Wall Street's latest meltdown/strong, Blodget finds himself in even greater demand. He's doing regular TV appearances and is posting again on Slate. When NPR wanted someone to talk about the Wall Street culture of greed, they a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94667073"brought in Blodget/a. The reporter introduced him by pointing out that Merrill is now gone, "and Henry Blodget is gone, too; he's banned from Wall Street after being charged with fraud."/p p"Thanks," Blodget said, stuttering for a second, "especially for that horrific introduction." They both laughed. But by the end, the host was treating Blodget like an elder statesman./p pRecently Blodget has been expanding his franchise. He and Ryan have launched two sister sites: a href="http://www.clusterstock.com/"Clusterstock/a, which will compile and analyze Wall Street research on a much wider range of industries, and a href="http://www.businesssheet.com/"the Business Sheet/a, which will focus on corporate scandals. A third is in the works. For each new site, Blodget provides the bulk of the early posts, seeding the new enterprise with the Blodget touch./p pBlodget is broadening beyond tech to get ready for what he sees as a coming shakeout in the news-blog industry. He says he might even start making acquisitions if the price is right. Ryan's suite of companies has raised $50 million in the past few years, possibly enough to buy out some other interesting small blogs. The winning formula for this new kind of business remains elusive: It's a matter of finding the balance between gossip and analysis, between aggregating news from other sources and doing original reporting. Revenue models that go beyond basic advertising have also been slow in coming. "If you look at the development of every new medium, there's been a new form of journalism that has been made possible by it, and there has always been this period of transition," Blodget says. "There is collective experimentation as people figure out what works and what doesn't, and usually you have some very important publications that are built."/p pAnother way to expand is to sell to a larger media company. Blodget says he'd consider an offer, but Alley Insider is still defined almost entirely by one man. If he left, the value would plummet. Also, some media institutions mdash; the grayer, stodgier ones mdash; may find Blodget's unique baggage unacceptable. The endless barrage of comments, the angry mob that seems to follow him everywhere, may be too much for the sensitivities of some management teams, even in these freewheeling days of media transformation. When Blodget wrote a few small items for citeThe New York Times/cite, the newspaper's a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11pubed.html"ombudsman went haywire/a. "The citeTimes/cite luster may help Blodget," he wrote last year, "but some of his taint rubs off on the citeTimes/cite."/p pIt's just the sort of comment Blodget has come to expect from, well, everyone. That may change, but only if this latest reinvention succeeds in burying his past forever. In which case, he will have been right: The Internet really does change everything./p pemSenior writer Daniel Roth /em(a href="mailto:daniel_roth@wired.com"daniel_roth@wired.com/a) emwrote about the a href="/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi"future of the electric car/a in issue 16.09./em/pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:e5509a1338aa2d046a0f36f53c86fd46:KTSfKmr30cBfHohgGm6zBCE5aLDI579Ry5%2FoG9QrW9e1KIT2xpDAJhCNE%2FP6%2BodTaIRTxDwhJCc5xg%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:85af8ef1f22075639f5e1be7151d039b:KjXRBL7FimCdPfkcPkDUOZbe%2BR8tiL4gaeJxl%2FnucFQ8UL28mzRmZSeHpMqoJwFUINppaALMULUa'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:db4d557cf92ff9467e13e01b1aee6530:PWDj6Lri2aPp2F0l1o37LwimABRJS%2Bw%2FOQMMPSWuRMZRLZhLRGI4Q9jz2JLAIoyYna2BguNYIBWs'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:064842e7a9d26f4e96559df7ad75369c:Ri7lRQ2YuIojw9J42qFhanIkt9g%2B2lNj7ky0mPfhji4DJCDrd66IrgRLO78oVkOke9RGBuQDA3ra'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c54405cdda6d6c80dfe38fdee8a0c2a5" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=V04TVZ"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=V04TVZ" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/474334201" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/33001?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Pakistan+snubs+India+over+terrorist+%27suspects%27ch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Mumbai+terror+attacks+%28News%29%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CWorld+news%2CIndia+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CUS+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Vikram+Doddc7=2008_12_04c8=1128422c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Mumbai+terror+attacksc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FMumbai+terror+attacks" width="1" height="1" //divpPakistan's president yesterday rebuffed India's key demand that he hand over 20 alleged terrorists, as the US intensified its efforts to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai./ppSpeaking from Delhi, the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told Pakistan it had a "special responsibility" to help India's investigation into the terrorist attacks. Washington also sent its most senior military official to Islamabad to hammer home the same message./ppWestern powers, led by the US, are trying to stop tensions between the two countries spilling over after last week's attacks in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had numerous skirmishes in the past 60 years. /ppIndia has demanded that Pakistan stop providing sanctuary to 20 people it alleges are linked to violence against it. But Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, yesterday appeared to reject this demand, saying the 20 would be tried in Pakistan if there was evidence to charge them./ppZardari's comments are likely to anger India's government, which is under sustained pressure from its people to take strong action in the wake of the attacks./ppDelhi says all 10 terrorists in Mumbai were Pakistani, and had received training there for a terrorist plot controlled from Pakistan that subjected India to a four-day national nightmare. /ppZardari told CNN: "If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would sentence them." He said he doubted that the only terrorist captured alive was a Pakistani citizen, as India alleges. "We have not been given any tangible proof that he is definitely a Pakistani."/ppYesterday Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, arrived in Pakistan. Mullen urged Pakistan to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups in Pakistan" and "take more and more concerted action against militant extremists in the country"./ppMost analysts, though, believe the eight-month-old Zardari presidency has limited room for manoeuvre, even if it wants to help India's investigation. Zardari's civilian government faces pressure from hardline groups not only to resist Indian demands, but over the help provided to the west's war against al-Qaida and Taliban elements in its border region with Afghanistan./ppBut in Delhi, Rice said: "This is the time for everybody to cooperate and do so transparently ... Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency. That message has been delivered to Pakistan."/ppIn Mumbai, public confidence in India's authorities suffered another blow after it emerged that bombs lay undiscovered for a week at the city's main rail station attacked by terrorists last Wednesday. Police found explosives hidden in a bag among abandoned luggage./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mumbai-terror-attacks"Mumbai terror attacks/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/37781?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Terrorists+could+mount+nuclear+or+biological+attack+within+5+years%2C+warns+Congress+inquirych=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Terrorism+-+international%2CAl-Qaida+%28News%29%2CUS+news%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CNuclear+issues+%28non-military%29%2CUS+Congress%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Ewen+MacAskillc7=2008_12_04c8=1128370c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Global+terrorismc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGlobal+terrorism" width="1" height="1" //divpAn investigation by the US Congress into weapons of mass destruction published yesterday made a chilling prediction of terrorists mounting an attack using biological or nuclear weapons within the next five years./ppThe six-month inquiry mentioned Pakistan as one of the likeliest sources of such an attack. The target could be the US or some other part of the world./ppThe report, by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, said "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013". /pp"Terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon," it said. /ppGeorge Bush said the report highlighted the greatest threat facing the US and was "dangerously real". He said that after the 9/11 attacks he had put in place policies tackling the threat and he was leaving a good foundation for his successor./ppBarack Obama's incoming administration, which is to prioritise tackling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, was briefed on Capitol Hill yesterday about the findings in the 132-page report./ppThe commission, led by former Democratic senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, was given six months to complete the report. It followed on from the work of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks./ppGraham told reporters that a biological or nuclear attack within the next five years was not inevitable and the commission's reports included a series of recommendations which, if implemented, could diminish the threat. The recommendations included the creation of a White House post focusing on proliferation and more emphasis on diplomatic efforts. /ppThe team's remit ranged from lack of security at biological labs in the US to the safety of nuclear stockpiles in Russia. It conducted 250 interviews with scientists, analysts, intelligence agencies and the military./ppThe report concluded that the risk from biological or nuclear weapons was higher than sceptical foreign policy and defence analysts have so far suggested. Those analysts had pointed to the complexity of transporting such weapons and the limitations of a nuclear "dirty" bomb, whose radius of damage is minimal compared with missile-delivered warheads./ppThe report disagreed, saying: "No mission could be timelier. The simple reality is that the risks that confront us today are evolving faster than our multi-layered responses./pp"Many thousands of dedicated people across all agencies of our government are working hard to protect this country, and their efforts have had a positive impact. But the terrorists have been active, too - and in our judgment America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing." /ppIt added that much dangerous biological and nuclear material around the globe was "poorly secured - and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists". /ppAs well as the threat from stateless militant groups, the commission expressed concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons in countries such as Iran, saying the Obama administration must stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability./ppIt pointed to Pakistan, both at state level and among stateless groups, as one of the areas of most concern. "Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan," the report said./ppTalent told journalists: "It is the epicentre of a lot of these dangers." He said the report had been drawn up before the Mumbai attacks. The commission recommended that Pakistan be top priority for the Obama administration in terms of terrorism and proliferation. /ppProposals include eliminating terrorist safe havens through military, economic, and diplomatic means, securing nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan, countering and defeating extremist ideology, and constraining a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia. /ppOther recommendations include strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and other international safeguards, creating a US national security force appropriate to the 21st century and developing a more coherent strategy for countering ideologies that lead to terrorism./ppAt home, the commission was disturbed by the apparent lack of security at laboratories dealing with dangerous biological materials./ppGovernment investigators sent to check on the vulnerability of such research sites were able gain access to the outside of these buildings and then observe work inside. /ppIt was fortunate that they were from the government and not al-Qaida as these were precisely the lethal trove that the terrorists have been seeking for years, the report said. /ppThe investigators watched a pedestrian simply stroll into one of the buildings through an unguarded loading bay./ppThe commission recommended tighter oversight of the 400 research facilities and 15,000 staff engaged in such work./ppAnother recommendation was for the establishment of an anthrax preparedness strategy./ph2Findings/h2pstrongThe congressional inquiry:/strong/pp· Predicts there is likely to be an attack on American soil or elsewhere in the world in the next five years by a terrorist group using biological or nuclear weapons/pp· Concludes the margin of safety for the US, in spite of the growth of counter-terrorist efforts, is shrinking, not growing/pp· Singles out Pakistan as one of the main sources of danger, saying all roads involving terrorism and weapons of mass destruction intersect the country/pp· Expresses concern at the lack of security at laboratories in America handling some of the most deadly biological material in the world and called for increased oversight of the 400 research facilities in the US engaged in such work/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/alqaida"Al-Qaida/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nuclear"Nuclear issues/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/congress"US Congress/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_hgaMCvUxXykVuKhrufRgvrhcY4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_hgaMCvUxXykVuKhrufRgvrhcY4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Serious Fraud Office suffered a huge defeat yesterday with the collapse of its £25 million, six-year investigation into alleged price fixing among drugs manufacturers.

Boris Johnson was accused yesterday of undermining the investigation into Home Office leaks when he declared that he did not think there would be any charges.

pFor years, doctors didnt bother to reveal profitable ties to drug and device makers: either no one questioned them or the relationships were hush-hush. But now that those financial arrangements are the subject of a congressional investigation and debate among medical journal editors and patients, some physicians are voluntarily cutting their pharma ties, and one of the countryrsquo;s top medical centers has vowed to come clean by disclosing the names of their docs doctors on drug company payrolls. The goal: to avoid charges of masking potential conflicts of interest. a href=http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=cleveland-clinic-to-reveal-docs-wit-2008-12-03[More]/a

In a strange neuroscience experiment, researchers determined that and individual wearing virtual reality goggles showing video streaming from another person's body can have the sensation that the other body is his or her own. The results of the experiments, conducted at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, were published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. From the abstract: The concept of an individual swapping his or her body with that of another person has captured the imagination of writers and artists for decades. Although this topic has not been the subject of investigation in science, it exemplifies the fundamental question of why we have an ongoing experience of being located inside our bodies. Here we report a perceptual illusion of body-swapping that addresses directly this issue. Manipulation of the visual perspective, in combination with the receipt of correlated multisensory information from the body was sufficient to trigger the illusion that another person's body or an artificial body was one's own. This effect was so strong that people could experience being in another person's body when facing their own body and shaking hands with it. Our results are of fundamental importance because they identify the perceptual processes that produce the feeling of ownership of one's body. "If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping" (PLoS ONE), "How To Use Neuroscience to Become Your Avatar" (Wired)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=45747936f83f596fa512cec569d00d44p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=45747936f83f596fa512cec569d00d44p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=45747936f83f596fa512cec569d00d44" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/18937?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+US+report+predicts+nuclear+or+biological+attack+by+2013ch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Terrorism+-+international%2CAl-Qaida+%28News%29%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CUS+news%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Ewen+MacAskillc7=2008_12_03c8=1128278c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Global+terrorismc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGlobal+terrorism" width="1" height="1" //divpA congressional investigation into weapons of mass destruction today offered a chilling prediction of terrorists mounting an attack using biological or nuclear weapons within the next five years./ppThe six-month inquiry singles out Pakistan as one of the likeliest sources of such an attack. The target could be the US or some other part of the world./ppThe report, by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, concludes that "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013"./ppIt adds that "terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon"./ppPresident George Bush welcomed the report, saying the threat posed was the greatest facing the US and was "dangerously real". He said that after the 9/11 attacks, he had put in place policies tackling the threat and he was leaving a good foundation for his successor./ppThe incoming Barack Obama administration, which is to make proliferation of weapons of mass destruction a priority, was briefed on Capitol Hill today about the findings in the 132-page report./ppThe commission, which was led by the former Democratic senator Bob Graham and by former Democratic senator Jim Talent, was given six months to complete the report. It follows on from the work of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attack./ppGraham told reporters at the press conference that a biological or nuclear attack within the next five years was not inevitable and the commission's reports included a series of recommendations, that if implemented, could diminish the threat. Recommendations include creation of a White House post focusing on proliferation and more emphasis on diplomatic efforts./ppThe team's remit ranged from lack of security at biological labs in the US to the safety of nuclear stockpiles in Russia. It conducted 250 interviews with scientists, analysts, intelligence agencies and the military./ppThe report concludes the risk from biological or nuclear weapons is higher than sceptical foreign policy and defence analysts have suggested. Those analysts had pointed to the complexity of transporting biological or nuclear weapons and the limitations of a nuclear "dirty" bomb, whose radius of damage is minimal compared with missile-delivered warheads./ppThe report disagrees, saying: "No mission could be timelier. The simple reality is that the risks that confront us today are evolving faster than our multilayered responses. Many thousands of dedicated people across all agencies of our government are working hard to protect this country, and their efforts have had a positive impact. But the terrorists have been active, too and in our judgment America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."/ppIt adds that much dangerous biological and nuclear material around the globe is "poorly secured and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists."/ppAs well as the threat from stateless militant groups, the commission expresses concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons to states such as Iran, saying the Obama administration must stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability./ppIt points to Pakistan, both at the state level and among stateless groups, as one of the areas of most concern. "Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan," the report says./ppTalent told the press conference in Washington today: "It is the epicentre of a lot of these dangers." He said the report had been drawn up before the Mumbai attacks./ppThe commission recommends that Pakistan be top priority for the Obama administration in terms of terrorism and proliferation. Proposals include eliminating terrorist safe havens through military, economic, and diplomatic means, securing nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan, countering and defeating extremist ideology, and constraining a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia./ppOther recommendations include strengthening the non-proliferation treaty and other international safeguards, creating a US national security force appropriate to the 21st century and developing a more coherent strategy for countering ideologies that leads to terrorism./ppAt home, the commission was disturbed at the apparent lack of security at laboratories dealing with dangerous biological materials. Government investigators, sent to check on the vulnerability of such sites were able gain access to the outside of these buildings and observe work inside./ppIt was lucky that they were from the government and not al-Qaida operatives as these were precisely the lethal trove that the terrorists have been seeking for years, the report says./ppThe government investigators watched a pedestrian simply stroll into one of the buildings through an unguarded loading bay./ppThe commission recommended tighter oversight of the 400 research facilities and 15,000 staff engaged in such work. Another recommendation is the establishment of an anthrax preparedness strategy./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/alqaida"Al-Qaida/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5ayVmDk13JpnMX1fJUUSKCdWnYI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5ayVmDk13JpnMX1fJUUSKCdWnYI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Jason Nelson’s new game is called “i made this. you play this. we are enemies.”

The game deals with the difficult issue of his current residence in Australia. It is an investigation of the link, and of corporations and communities on the Web. There are video snippets with unusual stories or story-like discourses (about potatoes, a jar of hands, and so on) embedded within the game. There are screenshots and things to read - or not read, which might be more typical of the Web experience. Figure and ground are constantly at play, unless you are better than I am at discerning what parts of the image are background and what parts are the platforms and walls and such. And it looks pretty much like this:

To all appearances, Jason Nelson did actually make this. He is not, however, actually your enemy. This is merely a conceit that allows him to devise a clever, fun game which you can then play. As to whether or not you do play - that, my friend, is up to you.

Boris Johnson was at loggerheads with the new acting head of the Metropolitan Police today after apparently pre-judging a police investigation into the conduct of a Conservative MP.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/23800?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+A+lawless+outcome+to+a+lawless+warch=Comment+is+freec3=guardian.co.ukc4=George+Bush+%28News%29%2CUS+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Martin+Kettlec7=2008_12_03c8=1128059c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpIs George Bush preparing to give himself a presidential pardon? On first hearing, the idea sounds utterly incredible and outrageous. How can the head of a state in which respect for the law remains an active part of the national DNA even contemplate such an arbitrary and shameless act of apparent lawlessness? Amnesties and pardons of this kind are the stock-in-trade of tinpot dictators, not constitutional leaders. And yet .../ppA Bush pardon would be a sensational final act to the most divisive presidency in modern America. But he certainly has the power to grant it. Article 2 section 2 of the US constitution gives the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons. The US courts have traditionally interpreted this power widely, to include amnesties, conditional pardons and blanket pardons. And all presidents have used the power – Harry Truman's 1,913 pardons is the postwar record./ppAnd these final weeks of a presidency have become, by convention, a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/nov/26/bush-administration-presidential-pardons"the pardoning season/a. Compared with Truman, Bill Clinton was a light pardoner. He awarded just 396 of them in his eight years as president. But as many as 218 of Clinton's pardons were issued during his final month in office in 2001 – beneficiaries included his brother Roger Clinton and his longtime Arkansas politicial ally Susan MacDougall. This settling of accounts could be the pattern which Bush is about to follow./ppAs of now, Bush has issued just 157 presidential pardons in nearly eight years in the White House. They have covered crimes from the manufacture of untaxed whiskey to the sale of migratory bird parts. Most of the Bush pardons involve drugs, gambling and frauds. But Bush has not issued a pardon since March 24 – when the beneficiary was a South Dakota native American called Lonnie Two Eagle who was pardoned for an assault on a reservation. But in just under seven weeks Bush's power to pardon will expire./ppNot even Richard Nixon pardoned himself. It fell to his hapless successor Gerald Ford to announce, a month after Nixon's resignation in August 1974, that it was time to draw the line. Nixon had been at the centre of "an American tragedy in which we all have played a part", Ford announced in a broadcast. "It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."/ppBut can Bush rely on a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a to be so magnanimous? And can Obama be relied on to grant the wide-ranging executive pardons to the whole range of Bush administration officials that the outgoing White House may wish to protect? Maybe – but no, in the end, I don't think so either. Magnanimity is all very well when it comes to your defeated Democratic opponents. But it is a whole other ballgame when the petitioner is the outgoing president himself. /ppBe clear that this issue is without question in Bush's rapidly diminishing intray. Be clear too that Bush is fully prepared to protect his political allies and hitmen. He has, after all, made his own stance clear by using his powers to commute Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby's prison sentence for obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame affair in 2007. So, if the matter is on Bush's agenda then it is also, in some way, on Obama's too./ppThe possibility of a Bush pardon is not a conspiracy theorist's fantasy. It is a real and present political possibility – and Americans are beginning to wake up to it. This week, Human Rights Watch and eight other organisations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and the Open Society Policy Centre, wrote a public letter urging Bush not to issue a preemptive pardon of past or present officials implicated in torture or other abuses related to the "war on terror". The groups pointed out that formal legal investigations into US torture, rendition and other abuses have so far been only patchy – a reflection of the Bush administration's determination over several years to handle detainees outside the legal process. There is a very serious possibility that dozens of cases will make their way through the US courts in the coming months and years – and it is therefore possible that hundreds of administration officials will ultimately be forced to answer for their conduct./ppI do not know for certain that Bush is considering a comprehensive pre-emptive pardon for officials right through to his own Oval Office. Nor do I know for certain that the matter has been discussed with the Obama team. But common sense says these things must be taking place in some form or other. It says, moreover, that Bush and Obama may have a common interest in such an outcome. Bush wants it because it protects him and his lieutenants. Obama may want it too, because he wants a clean slate and does not want to have his presidency blighted by the legal cleaning-up operation that might ensue./ppIf that analysis is correct, then prepare for an unprecedented act of self-pardon by Bush that extends to dozens – perhaps hundreds – of civilian and military officials. It would be a stunning challenge to America's self-image as the upholder of law and freedom in the world. It would be a lawless outcome to a lawless war. For Bush, it would be a climactic act of the untramelled presidential authority that he and Cheney have so determinedly forged. It would send waves of outrage through America and the world. And yet, for Obama, it might nevertheless be the cleaner outcome./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/georgebush"George Bush/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HkalzxwJtbYROwRX_YlCrr-hALk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HkalzxwJtbYROwRX_YlCrr-hALk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/32642?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Report+on+Damian+Green+arrest+sent+to+CPSch=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Damian+Green%2CConservatives%2CHouse+of+Commons%2CPolice+%28politics%29%2CLondon+politics%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CPolitics%2CWhitehall%2CUK+newsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CLocal+Government+Society%2CUnclassifed+Contributorsc6=Andrew+Sparrow%2CHelene+Mulhollandc7=2008_12_03c8=1128029c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Damian+Greenc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FDamian+Green" width="1" height="1" //divpA report on the Damian Green affair has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service "for consultation", the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Paul Stephenson, said today./ppIn an appearance at the London assembly, Stephenson also insisted that the police had permission to search Green's office in the House of Commons, that he had not been under political pressure to order the investigation, and that the police had not sought to bug Green's office./ppStephenson, who was flanked by Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor and chair of the Metropolitan police authority, did not refer to Green by name as he briefed the assembly and he said that he was reluctant to give details of an ongoing investigation. But he said, in view of the public interest in the affair, he wanted to set some facts straight./ppHe said that the Metropolitan police were called in after concerns were raised about a series of leaks from the Home Office. He said that the decision to arrest Green was only taken after the arrest and questioning of the civil servant allegedly involved, Christopher Galley./ppStephenson said that three premises associated with Green were searched with the authority of a warrant. And Green's office in the Commons was searched "after authority for a consensual search was obtained from the serjeant at arms", Stephenson said./ppHe went on: "Officers have an obligation to locate and secure evidence to avoid any circumstances where potential evidence could be lost," he said./ppStephenson said Green had been released on bail until February./pp"An initial report on evidence has been given to the CPS for consultation on the next steps of this inquiry," he said./ppStephenson told the assembly that he wanted to correct some of the claims made about the inquiry in the press./ppTories have revealed that Green had his offices searched for bugs after they were raided by the police because he was concerned that electronic listening devices could have been planted. Stephenson said Green's fears were untrue./ppStephenson also said that the idea that the police tried to use Galley to "entrap" Green in telephone calls after Galley's arrest and release was untrue. He pointed out that Galley had denied this himself earlier this week./ppAnd Stephenson insisted that Green had not been arrested using anti-terrorism powers, in connection with terrorist offences. He was arrested by counter-terrorism officers because special branch, which used to deal with cases like this, has merged with the counter-terrorism command./ppStephenson went on: "The decisions taken by officers will be judged through the criminal justice system and any other mechanism that the appropriate authorities deem necessary."/ppHe said: "Clearly this was going to be a sensitive investigation and it is right we should be held to account at the appropriate time ... at issue in this investigation, and the work of the service as a whole, is our ability to maintain operational independence. The police must be able to act without fear or favour in any investigation, whomsoever may be involved, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they may have committed criminal offences." /ppAnd he stressed that ministers had not been involved. "I would strongly refute that I or any senior officer under my command have or would allow any improper influence on operational actions for political purposes," he said./ppStephenson outlined the investigation conducted since the arrest of a junior civil servant on November 19 by officers from counter-terrorism command. /ppHe said that officers from this branch of the force were involved because they include former special branch officers whose responsibilities include official leaks. /ppStephenson said: "It is our duty to follow the evidence wherever that may take us. It was as a result of the initial investigation and arrest that the decision was made by officers under the command of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick to arrest an MP and to search three addresses connected with him under authority of warrants." br / br /Johnson was grilled over his decision to make public a private meeting with Stephenson after the arrest of Green was revealed./ppLen Duvall ,the Labour assembly member who was ousted as MPA chair by Johnson in October, asked the mayor why he had leaked the details of his conversation with Stephenson to the press./ppJohnson insisted he had not sought to bring to bear political influence on police operations involving a Tory colleague./ppHe said it was "entirely right" for him in his capacity as chair of the MPA and as a "layman" to raise with Stephenson the likely political consequences of the arrest of an MP in a leak inquiry./ppJohnson said he had only sought to "warn and counsel" Stephenson./pp"Nothing I said turned the course of that inquiry," said Johnson. /ppHe added: "Perhaps I should be arrested for leaking the details of my own conversations."/ppJohnson told the assembly that the police should be left to get on with the inquiry. "It has just got to run its course and after that time it may be that within the MPA we should look at what went on and whether anything went wrong."/ppHe resisted suggestions that the MPA should "countermand" police operations./ppDetails of Johnson's row with Stephenson were released by his office to the press last week./ppAs news of the arrest of Green emerged, Johnson told Stephenson he found it "hard to believe" that anti-terrorism police had been used to "target an elected representative of parliament for no greater crime than allegedly receiving leaked documents./ppThe Tory mayor told the new acting commissioner that he would need to see convincing evidence that this action was necessary and proportionate. He suggested that this was not the common-sense policing that people wanted when London faces a real terror threat./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/damian-green"Damian Green/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/houseofcommons"House of Commons/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/london"London politics/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/whitehall"Whitehall/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/bZQTWvANhZSe09sfvF1jhr7UuXE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/bZQTWvANhZSe09sfvF1jhr7UuXE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p