Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, allegedly bugged Britain's most senior Asian policeman, according to leaked Scotland Yard documents.

The papers allege Tarique Ghaffur, an assistant commissioner, had more than 300 of his telephone calls tapped in an elaborate operation overseen directly by Blair.

He was also photographed and taped attending more than 30 meetings with a fellow officer at restaurants and cafes in west London.

Ghaffur's lawyers are preparing this week to announce formal legal proceedings for race discrimination against Blair, who was placed under formal investigation by the Home Office this month.

Blair is under investigation over £3 million worth of police work awarded to close friend Andy Miller.

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Commissioner Ray Kelly said New York could learn from London's so-called "ring of steel", a security and surveillance cordon which surrounds the city with concrete barriers, checkpoints and thousands of video cameras.

The NYPD wants to track every vehicle that enters Manhattan to strengthen New York's protection against a potential terror attack and officers have travelled to London to see the security measures in place there.

"We've asked them to look at the so-called ring of steel and we can learn from that," Mr Kelly said.

Best news I've had all day...


Independent.co.uk

By Michael Savage

Tuesday, 12 August 2008

London's only Jewish community radio station has been forced to cease broadcasting after losing a High Court libel case brought against it by the Respect MP George Galloway.

Jcom, a non-profit station which broadcast online and to a small area in north-west London, was wound up after it was told to pay the MP damages of £15,000.

Mr Galloway sued the station after one of its presenters played a spoof character based on the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, and implied he was anti-Semitic. It was also ordered to pay Mr Galloway's court costs, thought to be £5,000. Mr Galloway said that the judgment had "categorically crushed the slur of anti-Semitism".

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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

Last update - 20:34 26/06/2008

By Yossi Melman

Several weeks ago, historian Dr. Aharon Bregman was summoned by the London Police's special investigations department to give testimony. Bregman is one of the last people who spoke to Egyptian businessman Dr. Ashraf Marwan, a Mossad agent who died in a mysterious fall from the balcony of his London home almost exactly a year ago, on June 27, 2007.

Bregman, who teaches at a London university, presented the British investigators with, among other things, copies of recordings from his home answering machine, where Marwan left several short messages. In them, Marwan tries to arrange a meeting between the two that day, which of course did not take place. The contents of the recordings were first published in Haaretz shortly after the news of Marwan's death became known.

Another subject raised while the police were taking Bregman's testimony is the manuscript that Marwan wrote and planned to publish as a book. After Marwan's death, it turned out that the material (recordings and a manuscript) he collected for the book, which was to have dealt with the Yom Kippur War, had disappeared from the safe in his home. This increased the mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death. 

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Added: May 10, 2008

Al Jazeera's Mark Seddon reports on the Palestinian rally held in central London.

Thousands of people marched through the streets of London, to show their support for the Palestinian cause.

The demonstrators were calling for an end to the siege on Gaza, the right of return for Palestinians, and an end to Israeli occupation.