Why should foreign news organizations have to abide by reporting restrictions on UK court cases?

Earlier this week, the New York Times had to block British readers from a story on its website about the British men charged in this month’s suspected bomb plot.

Personally, I prefer the UK approach to media coverage of court cases, in which strict reporting restrictions are in place before and during a trial.

But in an Internet age where readers can find out all the information they need at the click of a mouse, why should one foreign news organization have to abide by those rules?

I’m sure all of the information they printed is available on other blogs and news sites—a good deal of it probably via the original New York Times story.

Police responding to a report of a large group of men fighting Sunday evening found dozens of cars and people gathered in an empty field on the outskirts of Rostov-on-Don, and what appeared to be a fight between criminal gang members.

More than 70 officers detained some 100 people before determining that they were playing rugby instead of brawling, releasing them several hours later after scolding them for not alerting authorities ahead of time.

Unfortunately the article fails to answer the most important question: League or Union? Read on here. (Via Private Eye.)

“If any foreign soldiers are sent to the Syrian border it will mean war,” Galloway warned.

“Syria is not at war with Lebanon, Israel is at war with Lebanon. If European governments allow their soldiers to be sent to the border they will enter a conflict that they will lose.”

(Via Socialist Worker Online.)

Sorry about this morning. The server was down. I’m already a little behind on work. More tomorrow.

Karol at Alarming News is worried about what she sees as a growing schism between America and Europe:

I hate terrorists for killing innocent people and I hate them for forcing us to live a life where you can’t take pictures where you please, you can’t carry certain things onto airplanes, etc. But I really hate them for the divide they’ve caused in the western world. I hate hating France and being suspicious of Europe. I don’t see them as the enemy, but I do see them as turning a blind eye to this growing, immediate problem. And I know they see us in the same way–as this bumbling superpower who just can’t get things right. We yell at them for not doing enough, they yell at us for doing too much. It’s every Islamofascists dream. We are completely divided to where I expect a certain amount of hostility from Europeans, not even for being rightwingish, but just for being American. And I assume they’ll all be leftists, more concerned with pc-ness and intellectualism than doing what they must to survive. Even the ones I like and respect.

I don’t know how to get around this, exactly. But if we don’t thaw relations, and soon, then the cliche is true, the terrorists will have won.

Interesting thoughts. But if we all thought the same way, I’d be a lot more concerned.

Is someone having a laugh? Why is there a George Galloway Close in Coventry?

I was invited for a trip aboard an 80-year-old schooner called the Shearwater last night. Lots of fun. And the chance to meet some New York bloggers, including Danny Schechter of News Dissector, Alex of travel blog Jaunted, and my old pal Nosher of NYCnosh (or was it HungryMan? I always get confused).

Unfortunately there was no wind at all last night, so there was no chance to raise the sails. Instead, we drifted with the current along the west side of Manhattan and then headed out for a quick peek at the Statue of Liberty, which I’d never seen at night before.

Thanks to Jasmine of Glamourite for arranging. And to Tom for being such a gracious host.

I am close to the Muslim community in Britain 2 million strong. And there is undoubtedly a huge radicalization going on amongst British Muslims including in my own area. We try to be the democratic antidote to those siren voices in the Muslim community preaching isolationism, separatism, extremism and violence.

Galloway, Dubai Eye radio program, August, 20, 2006.

The invasion of Lebanon by Israel, for that’s what it is, is a monstrous injustice.

I side with the resistance to that injustice. Hizbollah is leading that resistance. I do not hesitate to say, and Blair and his law officers may take note, that I glorify that resistance.

I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

George Galloway, Socialist Worker Online, July 29, 2005.

They can control the skies, but only if they don’t come within range of an RPG, but they can’t control one single street in any part of occupied Iraq. Not one street. Not one street anywhere. These poor Iraqis – ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons – are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it.

George Galloway, Al-Jazeera TV, July 31, 2005