Anurag Dikshit, one of PartyGaming's founders, may have cut a deal with the U.S. government over online gambling, but that doesn't mean the rest of the industry is willing to roll over on the matter.
The Remote Gambling Association issued a press release on Wednesday in response to Dikshit's deal urging the European Commission to take steps to protect European Union interests from the "retroactive and discriminatory" enforcement by U.S. authorities in online gambling.
Dikshit pleaded guilty to illegal online gambling charges on Tuesday and agreed to pay $300 million to the U.S. government for PartyGaming's online poker and gambling business in the United States prior to the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
PartyGaming never offered sports betting, and ceased to accept U.S. customers for its poker and casino games when the UIGEA was passed.
"These events show that the outgoing U.S. administration and the Department of Justice have shown a total disrespect for the legal rights of European online gaming companies and those associated with them and a complete disregard for U.S. international commitments under GATS," said Clive Hawkswood, RGA chief executive.
In June, EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson wrote to the U.S. government requesting a freeze on all enforcement actions by U.S. authorities against European online gambling companies. Mandelson's reasoning was that the actions violate international trade rules set by the World Trade Organization.
Mandelson asked that prosecutions stop until a proper dialogue can take place, thereby avoiding unnecessary escalation of the dispute.
The EU had already launched an enquiry into U.S. actions following an RGA complaint made under EU Trade Barrier Regulations.
"Not only has that request remained unanswered, but now the U.S. authorities, it seems, have succeeded in pressuring a major shareholder into making a deal. A major line has been crossed, and it could set a very worrying precedent," Hawkswood said.
PartyGaming Plc., which operates PartyPoker, and its shareholders are not obvious targets for illegal online gambling enforcement action, according to the RGA.
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is fully licensed in an EU jurisdiction, was among the first to cease accepting U.S. customers once the UIGEA was passed, and has never offered sports betting in order to avoid violating the Wire Act. It does offer online poker and online casino games.
"It's amazing really that a company which has just been voted by the leading industry publication as 'responsible operator of the year' is the one that has been most targeted for this sort of enforcement activity while other businesses that are still active in the U.S. market, including notably U.S. operators, do not appear to be targeted in the same way," Hawkswood said.
He points out that while this is going on, the U.S. Internet gambling market continues to grow and is free to develop its businesses in Europe.
"In the circumstances it is not unreasonable for us once again to seek the support and protection of the European Commission," Hawkswood said. "We hope and believe that these continuing breaches of international law by the U.S. will serve to strengthen the Commission's resolve."
The EC started an investigation into the unfair prosecution of EU-based online gambling companies in March after the RGA brought the issue to the EU's attention.
"The U.S. has been given ample opportunity to respond to the legal and factual arguments presented in our complaint," said Lode Van Den Hende of Herbert Smith, the RGA's law firm in Brussels.
"However, we understand the U.S.' defense has been flimsy and that the Commission will, therefore, have to confirm the RGA's assessment of WTO unlawful, retroactive and discriminatory enforcement. The next question is what will be done about it, given the acceleration of events causing this dispute."
Professor Joseph Weiler, who directs the Jean Monnet Centre for International and European Economic Law and Justice at NYU School of Law, offered his comments as well.
"In this area, the U.S. has lost all its cases and appeals before the WTO's highest judicial authorities. And yet in what can only be described as puzzling and haughty contempt for the rule of law, it is acting as if it won those cases," Weiler said.
"The U.S. is pursuing European nationals and corporations and threatening them with lengthy jail time and punitive fines based on U.S. laws which have already been unequivocally held to be in violation of American WTO obligations. This is without precedent."
Weiler also pointed out that the issue deals a blow to the multilateral trade system at the "worst possible moment" for the world economy and to the Western economies which rely on services for their prosperity.
"It serves no discernable American national interest, and this is a bad day for the reputation of the U.S. in the area of international law," Weiler said.
Media Man Australia Profiles
PartyGaming
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
O.J. Simpson sentence: at least 9 years, by Melissa Arseniuk - Las Vegas Sun - 5th December 2008
NFL Hall of Famer could be in prison until age 94, if parole is denied
O.J. Simpson will spend at least nine years in a Nevada prison.
District Court Judge Jackie Glass handed the former NFL star his punishment, 33 years in prison without the possibility of parole for nine years, just after 10 a.m. this morning.
“The evidence in this case was overwhelming,” Glass said. “Overwhelming.”
Dressed in navy blue inmate attire, Simpson addressed the court before receiving his sentence.
“I stand before you today, sorry, somewhat confused,” he said, his voice unsteady as he spoke.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anybody and I didn’t mean to steal from anybody,“ he said. “I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal. I thought I was confronting friends and retrieving my property.”
The All-Star running back was facing a possible life sentence following a run-in with two memorabilia dealers in a Palace Station hotel room last year.
Though Glass declined to impose a life term, her sentence means the former football star could remain incarcerated until he is 94 years old if denied parole.
Simpson and his co-accused, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, were found guilty on Oct. 3 of allegedly robbing the collectibles dealers at gunpoint on Sept 13, 2007.
Simpson, 61, maintained that no guns were involved and that he and his five-man entourage were simply recovering personal items that had been stolen from him.
A secret audio recording of the six-minute altercation captured by the middleman who arranged the meeting, Thomas Ricco, was used as evidence against the accused during the trial.
Simpson and Stewart were convicted on all 12 counts they faced, including two counts of first-degree kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
The state had requested Simpson get at least 18 years behind bars while his attorneys asked he serve the minimum, six years.
Simpson’s attorney, Gabriel Grasso, said the defense was disappointed with Glass’s sentence.
“We were expecting less than that,” he said.
Grasso and Simpson’s other lawyer, Yale Galanter, will appeal the decision.
“We’ll file the notice of appeal as soon as we can,” Galanter said yesterday. He said he expected to file the necessary documents this afternoon or first thing Monday morning.
Simpson’s attorneys will ask their client serve his sentence at either the High Desert State Prison or Southern Desert Correctional Center, in Indian Springs.
Stewart was also sentenced today and will serve a lighter prison term than Simpson. Glass sentenced him to 27 years in jail with the possibility of parole until 2016.
His lawyers will also appeal the decision.
District Attorney David Roger offered plea bargains in return for the testimony of the five others who accompanied Simpson and Stewart during the raid.
The accomplices, Charles Cashmore, Charles “Charlie” Ehrlich, and the two who said Simpson asked them to bring guns that fateful day, Michael McClinton and Walter Alexander, testified against Simpson and Stewart. They will be sentenced Tuesday.
(Editor's Note: This story is developing and will be updated. An earlier story is below.)
----
O.J. Simpson’s lawyer, Yale Galanter, is hoping his client will receive the minimum sentence when District Court Judge Jackie Glass decides the former NFL star’s fate this morning – but the attorney isn’t kidding himself.
He said he doesn’t know what kind of prison term Simpson will receive.
“I can’t predict,” Galanter said Thursday afternoon.
Simpson, 61, is facing a possible sentence of six years to life behind bars following a confrontation with two memorabilia dealers in a Palace Station hotel room in the fall of 2007.
Regardless of the sentence, Galanter said he will begin the appeal process immediately following Friday’s proceedings. Stewart’s lawyers have also indicated that they will appeal.
“We’ll file the notice of appeal as soon as we can,” Galanter said, adding that he expected to file the necessary documents either Friday afternoon or first thing Monday morning.
The appeal would likely be heard within a year, if accepted.
Simpson was convicted on Oct. 3 of all 12 charges he faced related to the incident, including 11 felonies — two counts each of first degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon; robbery with use of a deadly weapon; assault with a deadly weapon; and coercion with use of a deadly weapon, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping; conspiracy to commit burglary; and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon — and one gross misdemeanor, conspiracy to commit a crime.
The State Parole and Probation Division has asked Glass to send the Heisman Trophy winner away for no less than 18 years but Galanter is hoping the judge will consider a lighter sentence.
Simpson will be transferred to a state penitentiary after receiving his sentence today. Galanter said he did not know which jail his client will be sent to but said the defense will request Simpson go to either the High Desert State Prison or Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs. Both are medium-security institutions located about 45 minutes from where he’s currently being held and are approximately 25 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Galanter hopes his client’s stay at the prison will be as short as possible.
“Obviously we think that the facts and the circumstances of this case really do call for the minimum sentence,” he said.
“We want (Judge Glass) to (assign the minimum sentence based) on the fact that a, he’s a first time offender … and b, that he did not have any … criminal intent,” Galanter said.
Criminal intent relates to whether or not Simpson knowingly intended to commit a crime. The defense maintained throughout the three-week long trial that Simpson was not simply trying to retrieve items that belonged to him.
“Everything that came into that room had the name O.J. Simpson on it,” Galanter said, referring to the range of Simpson memorabilia the two victims, collectibles dealers Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, had with them that day.
There were, however, items unrelated to Simpson in Palace Station hotel room 1203 on Sept. 13, 2007, including boxes of Joe Montana lithographs and two dozen baseballs autographed by MLB legends Pete Rose and Duke Snider. Still, the vast majority of memorabilia Fromong and Beardsley were hoping to sell that day was Simpson-related, including NFL game presentation footballs, his 1969 All-Star plaque, and numerous personal and family photos, including one of him with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Galanter and Simpson’s other lawyer, Gabriel Grasso, also said, repeatedly, during the trial that their client had no knowledge that any weapons were either planned to be or actually used during the six-minute confrontation.
Ganater suggested the predominantly white, predominantly female jury delivered the unanimous guilty verdict to punish his client over ill-feelings related to Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in the double murder trial of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The nine-women and three-man jury delivered their guilty verdict in Simpson’s latest case 13 years to the day after the another, predominantly black jury exonerated him of the murders.
The two complaining witnesses and victims, Fromong and Beardsley, will be called as witnesses during tomorrow’s sentencing hearing.
They are the only two witnesses that Glass has agreed to allow take the stand.
“We want to ask them their feelings on this and whether or not they feel crimes were committed,” Galanter said.
Beardsley made it clear when he testified during the trial that he did not want to see Simpson do any jail time. He initially refused to testify and only appeared before the court after being subpoenaed.
Fromong was also sympathetic to the accused and told the court that he felt "angry and hurt” after the incident.
"I was angry and hurt that my best friend had just robbed me at gunpoint," he told the court, noting that neither Simpson nor his co-accused, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, wielded weapons during the alleged robbery.
Simpson did not testify in his defense and has not talked to reporters since the verdict was delivered.
He and Stewart have been held at the Clark County Detention Center without bail for the past 62 days. (Stewart was also convicted on all 12 charges.)
Galanter visited Simpson at the Detention Center Thursday.
He said Simpson has adjusted well since having to trade his 4,200-square-foot Florida home for a 12 by 14-foot jail cell.
“He’s OK,” Galanter said. “Not great, but he’s OK.”
Galanter said Simpson has passed the last two months by doing the same sort of things others do while incarcerated: reading books and playing board games.
"He’s been reading books, playing checkers, playing chess," Galanter said.
Simpson is allowed two books or magazines in his cell at a time, and up to five religious books or articles.
Metro Police public information officer, Ramon Denby, said Simpson is classified as a "protective custody – isolation" inmate, meaning he is kept in strict solitary confinement.
His cell is closed off from the rest of the detention center’s 3,000 inmates and he spends most of his time within the four cinderblock walls of his cell with the door locked shut.
Simpson is allowed outside once a week for 60 minutes.
Denby described the outdoor recreation area as “basically four concrete walls with a mesh cage on top.”
After being sentenced and transferred to a state prison, Simpson will likely remain in protected custody because of his high profile.
(Credit: Las Vegas Sun)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Las Vegas
Crime News Media
O.J. Simpson will spend at least nine years in a Nevada prison.
District Court Judge Jackie Glass handed the former NFL star his punishment, 33 years in prison without the possibility of parole for nine years, just after 10 a.m. this morning.
“The evidence in this case was overwhelming,” Glass said. “Overwhelming.”
Dressed in navy blue inmate attire, Simpson addressed the court before receiving his sentence.
“I stand before you today, sorry, somewhat confused,” he said, his voice unsteady as he spoke.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anybody and I didn’t mean to steal from anybody,“ he said. “I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal. I thought I was confronting friends and retrieving my property.”
The All-Star running back was facing a possible life sentence following a run-in with two memorabilia dealers in a Palace Station hotel room last year.
Though Glass declined to impose a life term, her sentence means the former football star could remain incarcerated until he is 94 years old if denied parole.
Simpson and his co-accused, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, were found guilty on Oct. 3 of allegedly robbing the collectibles dealers at gunpoint on Sept 13, 2007.
Simpson, 61, maintained that no guns were involved and that he and his five-man entourage were simply recovering personal items that had been stolen from him.
A secret audio recording of the six-minute altercation captured by the middleman who arranged the meeting, Thomas Ricco, was used as evidence against the accused during the trial.
Simpson and Stewart were convicted on all 12 counts they faced, including two counts of first-degree kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
The state had requested Simpson get at least 18 years behind bars while his attorneys asked he serve the minimum, six years.
Simpson’s attorney, Gabriel Grasso, said the defense was disappointed with Glass’s sentence.
“We were expecting less than that,” he said.
Grasso and Simpson’s other lawyer, Yale Galanter, will appeal the decision.
“We’ll file the notice of appeal as soon as we can,” Galanter said yesterday. He said he expected to file the necessary documents this afternoon or first thing Monday morning.
Simpson’s attorneys will ask their client serve his sentence at either the High Desert State Prison or Southern Desert Correctional Center, in Indian Springs.
Stewart was also sentenced today and will serve a lighter prison term than Simpson. Glass sentenced him to 27 years in jail with the possibility of parole until 2016.
His lawyers will also appeal the decision.
District Attorney David Roger offered plea bargains in return for the testimony of the five others who accompanied Simpson and Stewart during the raid.
The accomplices, Charles Cashmore, Charles “Charlie” Ehrlich, and the two who said Simpson asked them to bring guns that fateful day, Michael McClinton and Walter Alexander, testified against Simpson and Stewart. They will be sentenced Tuesday.
(Editor's Note: This story is developing and will be updated. An earlier story is below.)
----
O.J. Simpson’s lawyer, Yale Galanter, is hoping his client will receive the minimum sentence when District Court Judge Jackie Glass decides the former NFL star’s fate this morning – but the attorney isn’t kidding himself.
He said he doesn’t know what kind of prison term Simpson will receive.
“I can’t predict,” Galanter said Thursday afternoon.
Simpson, 61, is facing a possible sentence of six years to life behind bars following a confrontation with two memorabilia dealers in a Palace Station hotel room in the fall of 2007.
Regardless of the sentence, Galanter said he will begin the appeal process immediately following Friday’s proceedings. Stewart’s lawyers have also indicated that they will appeal.
“We’ll file the notice of appeal as soon as we can,” Galanter said, adding that he expected to file the necessary documents either Friday afternoon or first thing Monday morning.
The appeal would likely be heard within a year, if accepted.
Simpson was convicted on Oct. 3 of all 12 charges he faced related to the incident, including 11 felonies — two counts each of first degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon; robbery with use of a deadly weapon; assault with a deadly weapon; and coercion with use of a deadly weapon, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping; conspiracy to commit burglary; and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon — and one gross misdemeanor, conspiracy to commit a crime.
The State Parole and Probation Division has asked Glass to send the Heisman Trophy winner away for no less than 18 years but Galanter is hoping the judge will consider a lighter sentence.
Simpson will be transferred to a state penitentiary after receiving his sentence today. Galanter said he did not know which jail his client will be sent to but said the defense will request Simpson go to either the High Desert State Prison or Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs. Both are medium-security institutions located about 45 minutes from where he’s currently being held and are approximately 25 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Galanter hopes his client’s stay at the prison will be as short as possible.
“Obviously we think that the facts and the circumstances of this case really do call for the minimum sentence,” he said.
“We want (Judge Glass) to (assign the minimum sentence based) on the fact that a, he’s a first time offender … and b, that he did not have any … criminal intent,” Galanter said.
Criminal intent relates to whether or not Simpson knowingly intended to commit a crime. The defense maintained throughout the three-week long trial that Simpson was not simply trying to retrieve items that belonged to him.
“Everything that came into that room had the name O.J. Simpson on it,” Galanter said, referring to the range of Simpson memorabilia the two victims, collectibles dealers Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, had with them that day.
There were, however, items unrelated to Simpson in Palace Station hotel room 1203 on Sept. 13, 2007, including boxes of Joe Montana lithographs and two dozen baseballs autographed by MLB legends Pete Rose and Duke Snider. Still, the vast majority of memorabilia Fromong and Beardsley were hoping to sell that day was Simpson-related, including NFL game presentation footballs, his 1969 All-Star plaque, and numerous personal and family photos, including one of him with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Galanter and Simpson’s other lawyer, Gabriel Grasso, also said, repeatedly, during the trial that their client had no knowledge that any weapons were either planned to be or actually used during the six-minute confrontation.
Ganater suggested the predominantly white, predominantly female jury delivered the unanimous guilty verdict to punish his client over ill-feelings related to Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in the double murder trial of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The nine-women and three-man jury delivered their guilty verdict in Simpson’s latest case 13 years to the day after the another, predominantly black jury exonerated him of the murders.
The two complaining witnesses and victims, Fromong and Beardsley, will be called as witnesses during tomorrow’s sentencing hearing.
They are the only two witnesses that Glass has agreed to allow take the stand.
“We want to ask them their feelings on this and whether or not they feel crimes were committed,” Galanter said.
Beardsley made it clear when he testified during the trial that he did not want to see Simpson do any jail time. He initially refused to testify and only appeared before the court after being subpoenaed.
Fromong was also sympathetic to the accused and told the court that he felt "angry and hurt” after the incident.
"I was angry and hurt that my best friend had just robbed me at gunpoint," he told the court, noting that neither Simpson nor his co-accused, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, wielded weapons during the alleged robbery.
Simpson did not testify in his defense and has not talked to reporters since the verdict was delivered.
He and Stewart have been held at the Clark County Detention Center without bail for the past 62 days. (Stewart was also convicted on all 12 charges.)
Galanter visited Simpson at the Detention Center Thursday.
He said Simpson has adjusted well since having to trade his 4,200-square-foot Florida home for a 12 by 14-foot jail cell.
“He’s OK,” Galanter said. “Not great, but he’s OK.”
Galanter said Simpson has passed the last two months by doing the same sort of things others do while incarcerated: reading books and playing board games.
"He’s been reading books, playing checkers, playing chess," Galanter said.
Simpson is allowed two books or magazines in his cell at a time, and up to five religious books or articles.
Metro Police public information officer, Ramon Denby, said Simpson is classified as a "protective custody – isolation" inmate, meaning he is kept in strict solitary confinement.
His cell is closed off from the rest of the detention center’s 3,000 inmates and he spends most of his time within the four cinderblock walls of his cell with the door locked shut.
Simpson is allowed outside once a week for 60 minutes.
Denby described the outdoor recreation area as “basically four concrete walls with a mesh cage on top.”
After being sentenced and transferred to a state prison, Simpson will likely remain in protected custody because of his high profile.
(Credit: Las Vegas Sun)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Las Vegas
Crime News Media
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Mug shots featured in new Japanese game - AP - 14th November 2008
TOKYO: A Japanese software maker says it's doing its part to help fight crime — by launching an online game featuring mug shots of Japan's most-wanted fugitives.
However, the country's police aren't so crazy about the game "Slot Detective," which has already been played by more than 100,000 people.
Software designer Famista Inc. said Friday that it introduced the free, slot-machine-style game to publicize photographs of suspects in high-profile murder cases, hoping to tap into Japan's obsession with games to help police catch killers.
The game is like a typical slot machine but with mug shots instead of cherries or lemons. When three of the same mug shot line up, the player wins. The jackpots bring details of the suspect and the crime, as well as how to give tips to police and the amount of any reward offered, company official Takashi Saito said.
"We thought this could be a way to contribute to society. If you play the game, you'll remember their faces," Saito said.
Players can access the online game via computers or mobile phones. Saito said an estimated 100,000 people had accessed the game site within hours of its launch, briefly stalling a server.
The National Police Agency said Friday that while authorities appreciate the sentiment, the game inappropriately uses police property for entertainment and could distress victims.
"The mug shots of the suspects should be used in a more socially acceptable manner," the agency said in a statement.
However, police stopped short of outlawing the game and Saito said he thought it might still help — and would also be a hit.
The only problem so far, he said, is that some users said they were "scared by the fierce look of the murder suspects."
"Pachinko" pinball games and a slot-machine-like variation called "pachi-slot" machines are popular in Japan and are played at tens of thousands of brightly lit and noisy parlors across the country.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Crime News Media
New Games
Casino News
However, the country's police aren't so crazy about the game "Slot Detective," which has already been played by more than 100,000 people.
Software designer Famista Inc. said Friday that it introduced the free, slot-machine-style game to publicize photographs of suspects in high-profile murder cases, hoping to tap into Japan's obsession with games to help police catch killers.
The game is like a typical slot machine but with mug shots instead of cherries or lemons. When three of the same mug shot line up, the player wins. The jackpots bring details of the suspect and the crime, as well as how to give tips to police and the amount of any reward offered, company official Takashi Saito said.
"We thought this could be a way to contribute to society. If you play the game, you'll remember their faces," Saito said.
Players can access the online game via computers or mobile phones. Saito said an estimated 100,000 people had accessed the game site within hours of its launch, briefly stalling a server.
The National Police Agency said Friday that while authorities appreciate the sentiment, the game inappropriately uses police property for entertainment and could distress victims.
"The mug shots of the suspects should be used in a more socially acceptable manner," the agency said in a statement.
However, police stopped short of outlawing the game and Saito said he thought it might still help — and would also be a hit.
The only problem so far, he said, is that some users said they were "scared by the fierce look of the murder suspects."
"Pachinko" pinball games and a slot-machine-like variation called "pachi-slot" machines are popular in Japan and are played at tens of thousands of brightly lit and noisy parlors across the country.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Crime News Media
New Games
Casino News
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Vegas bids to cash in with plan for $50m Mob museum, by Kevin Mitchell - The Guardian - 23rd November 2008
Defiant mayor hopes to rejuvenate his ailing city by celebrating the Mafia's role in its creation
Las Vegas, the desert city with an insatiable thirst for reinvention, is turning to some old friends to reboot its faltering economy: the Mob.
Building projects have stalled up and down the Strip, unheard of in a town where the sound of explosions on worn-out casino sites was as commonplace as gunfire, when the old constantly made way for the new. Now, as credit and the gambling nerve of the hotel bosses dry up simultaneously, the town invented by Bugsy Siegel in the Forties is going back to its dubious past for inspiration.
Work has started on a $50m museum that will open in the spring of 2010 celebrating the Mafia's links with the gambling capital of the world. It is an initiative that excites the mayor, Oscar Goodman, but dismays others weary of the city's historical association with organised crime.
Goodman is more than a mayor. He is a celebrity in a city that lives and dies on fame. He knew Frank Sinatra. He knew John F Kennedy. He knew Marilyn Monroe. This is a town and a civic administration that was as comfortable with the Mob and its attendant guest list as it was with the certainty of another sunny day.
Goodman told The Observer the project was 'as cool as it gets', dismissing suggestions that it might not be universally popular, given the nature of the Mob's activities.
The museum has been the subject of controversy since it was announced in October. 'The Mob museum and media try to romanticise these monsters for money,' wrote a blogger on the Las Vegas Review Journal's website. 'These romantic characters are really just lunatics and degenerates who preyed off society. If Las Vegas wants a museum, build one to commemorate the victims, not the criminals.' There is no denying, though, that exploiting the fascination with gangsters here is a profitable exercise. On a two-and-half-hour, $70 'Mob Tour of Las Vegas' last week, Vinny the guide said that even real-life hoodlums come to have a look.
'Three weeks ago,' he said, 'we had Henry Hill, who is in and out of witness protection, and was played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. He was pretty stewed. But he loved it.'
Goodman said: 'Nobody's given me an opinion other than they like it. You want a watercolour museum? You want a porcelain museum?' A robust populist who mines his colourful past as a prop in his political shtick, Goodman is in his third and final term, a Democrat approved by eight out of 10 voters in a city that is an unashamed cathedral to capitalism.
Goodman is no ordinary civic leader. As he is occasionally reminded, over three decades he acted as counsel for some of the country's most notorious mobsters, men who built and ran Las Vegas. His clients included Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal and Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro, whose barely disguised doppelgangers were portrayed by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in the eerily accurate 1995 movie Casino (in which Goodman had a walk-on part).
And, no, he did not find his own 'Mob history' an embarrassment. 'What? To defend people, and protect their constitutional rights, and make sure that the government doesn't take advantage of them? You find that offensive? That's the reason we left England. OK?
'I don't care whether it is or it isn't [popular]. I care that there are people going in there and spending a lot of money and the city of Las Vegas is getting the fees and the concession money and making a fortune. It's going to be phenomenal. It's going to bring hundreds of thousands of people into our downtown.'
It might be stretching it to say Goodman 'knows where the bodies are buried' in anything other than a metaphorical sense, but he does know how to generate money. And the city that has been his home since he moved to Nevada from Philadelphia in the Sixties as a public defender has rarely needed his entrepreneurial instincts more than now.
Statistics released last week make grim reading: visitor numbers are down 10 per cent, year on year, to 2.9 million in September; room rates have been slashed by 21 per cent as tou6rist numbers dwindle; hotel occupancy is 84.3 per cent, down 7 per cent; across Nevada, gambling revenue dropped 5.4 per cent to just over $1bn; and on the Strip the take was a mere $525.5m for the month, down 5.17 per cent.
Those are numbers of dollars lost by Mr and Mrs Wisconsin at the slot machines, as well as the high-rollers at the baccarat tables. Las Vegas wins because it is full of losers. 'Life is a risk,' said Goodman. 'When I have my drink tonight, I'm risking it may be my last.'
The Mob Museum has been his pet project since he was elected in 1999. He got the idea from an unusual source: the old Post Office down the street from City Hall. It was in that building in 1950 that Senator Estes Kefauver conducted the Nevada leg of his famous inquiry into organised crime, butting up against the intransigence of witnesses unbothered by official scrutiny.
'We hired the folks who are doing the Spy Museum in Washington DC,' Goodman said. 'When you go in there you're going to be mugged, you're going to be booked, you're going to have your Miranda rights [the 'right to remain silent' legislation] given to you. And who knows if you'll ever get out? Because we're going to have machine-guns there, which will be provided by the FBI.'
(Credit: The Guardian)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Las Vegas
Casino Travel and Tourism
Casino
Casino News
Las Vegas, the desert city with an insatiable thirst for reinvention, is turning to some old friends to reboot its faltering economy: the Mob.
Building projects have stalled up and down the Strip, unheard of in a town where the sound of explosions on worn-out casino sites was as commonplace as gunfire, when the old constantly made way for the new. Now, as credit and the gambling nerve of the hotel bosses dry up simultaneously, the town invented by Bugsy Siegel in the Forties is going back to its dubious past for inspiration.
Work has started on a $50m museum that will open in the spring of 2010 celebrating the Mafia's links with the gambling capital of the world. It is an initiative that excites the mayor, Oscar Goodman, but dismays others weary of the city's historical association with organised crime.
Goodman is more than a mayor. He is a celebrity in a city that lives and dies on fame. He knew Frank Sinatra. He knew John F Kennedy. He knew Marilyn Monroe. This is a town and a civic administration that was as comfortable with the Mob and its attendant guest list as it was with the certainty of another sunny day.
Goodman told The Observer the project was 'as cool as it gets', dismissing suggestions that it might not be universally popular, given the nature of the Mob's activities.
The museum has been the subject of controversy since it was announced in October. 'The Mob museum and media try to romanticise these monsters for money,' wrote a blogger on the Las Vegas Review Journal's website. 'These romantic characters are really just lunatics and degenerates who preyed off society. If Las Vegas wants a museum, build one to commemorate the victims, not the criminals.' There is no denying, though, that exploiting the fascination with gangsters here is a profitable exercise. On a two-and-half-hour, $70 'Mob Tour of Las Vegas' last week, Vinny the guide said that even real-life hoodlums come to have a look.
'Three weeks ago,' he said, 'we had Henry Hill, who is in and out of witness protection, and was played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. He was pretty stewed. But he loved it.'
Goodman said: 'Nobody's given me an opinion other than they like it. You want a watercolour museum? You want a porcelain museum?' A robust populist who mines his colourful past as a prop in his political shtick, Goodman is in his third and final term, a Democrat approved by eight out of 10 voters in a city that is an unashamed cathedral to capitalism.
Goodman is no ordinary civic leader. As he is occasionally reminded, over three decades he acted as counsel for some of the country's most notorious mobsters, men who built and ran Las Vegas. His clients included Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal and Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro, whose barely disguised doppelgangers were portrayed by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in the eerily accurate 1995 movie Casino (in which Goodman had a walk-on part).
And, no, he did not find his own 'Mob history' an embarrassment. 'What? To defend people, and protect their constitutional rights, and make sure that the government doesn't take advantage of them? You find that offensive? That's the reason we left England. OK?
'I don't care whether it is or it isn't [popular]. I care that there are people going in there and spending a lot of money and the city of Las Vegas is getting the fees and the concession money and making a fortune. It's going to be phenomenal. It's going to bring hundreds of thousands of people into our downtown.'
It might be stretching it to say Goodman 'knows where the bodies are buried' in anything other than a metaphorical sense, but he does know how to generate money. And the city that has been his home since he moved to Nevada from Philadelphia in the Sixties as a public defender has rarely needed his entrepreneurial instincts more than now.
Statistics released last week make grim reading: visitor numbers are down 10 per cent, year on year, to 2.9 million in September; room rates have been slashed by 21 per cent as tou6rist numbers dwindle; hotel occupancy is 84.3 per cent, down 7 per cent; across Nevada, gambling revenue dropped 5.4 per cent to just over $1bn; and on the Strip the take was a mere $525.5m for the month, down 5.17 per cent.
Those are numbers of dollars lost by Mr and Mrs Wisconsin at the slot machines, as well as the high-rollers at the baccarat tables. Las Vegas wins because it is full of losers. 'Life is a risk,' said Goodman. 'When I have my drink tonight, I'm risking it may be my last.'
The Mob Museum has been his pet project since he was elected in 1999. He got the idea from an unusual source: the old Post Office down the street from City Hall. It was in that building in 1950 that Senator Estes Kefauver conducted the Nevada leg of his famous inquiry into organised crime, butting up against the intransigence of witnesses unbothered by official scrutiny.
'We hired the folks who are doing the Spy Museum in Washington DC,' Goodman said. 'When you go in there you're going to be mugged, you're going to be booked, you're going to have your Miranda rights [the 'right to remain silent' legislation] given to you. And who knows if you'll ever get out? Because we're going to have machine-guns there, which will be provided by the FBI.'
(Credit: The Guardian)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Las Vegas
Casino Travel and Tourism
Casino
Casino News
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bond lads dine for a song, by Emily Dunn and Kelsey Munro - The Sydney Morning Herald - 18th November 2008
In what is unlikely to shake the confidence of Daniel Craig, branded the "best Bond ever" by some critics, Sydney is hosting another legendary James Bond this week.
With tough-guy Craig in town to promote the new Bond flick Quantum Of Solace, Sir Roger Moore, who followed Sean Connery as the suave British spy in seven films from 1973's Live And Let Die to 1985's A View To A Kill, arrived yesterday to spruik his autobiography My Word Is My Bond. Knighted in 2003 for his work as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, the urbane Sir Roger was booked to have dinner at ARIA tonight, 24 hours after Craig dined there with 007 producer Barbara Broccoli. Now there's a missed photo opportunity.
Perhaps it's for the best: Moore, now 81, made headlines last week when he told reporters he was "sad" that the new Bond movies were so violent. He, of course, preferred to play up to Bond's womanising ways.
Stay in Touch's mole at ARIA confirmed, disappointingly, that no martinis were ordered by the current Bond's table.
SURPRISE ROLE
The filmmaker Marc Forster admitted yesterday he was surprised when the producers of the James Bond franchise invited him to direct Quantum Of Solace.
"I was a little surprised, I was not so sure I wanted to do a Bond movie," said Forster, best known for films with the "critically acclaimed" tag, included the Academy Award-winning Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland and last year's adaptation of the Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner. Forster's interpretation of the superspy is grittier than most. Following on from where Casino Royale left off, Bond is still heartbroken after and looking to avenge the death of his love interest Vesper and, in the meantime, destroy a crime syndicate seeking to control the water supply of Bolivia.
Forster said some of the crew were none too happy when he chose to film a large part of the production in the streets of Panama City, along with desertscape sequences in Mexico. "I don't think it was as glamorous as what they had in mind," Forster told SiT.
ALL HARD WORK
One cast member who wasn't expecting cocktails in the Caribbean on the set of Bond was the star of the film, Daniel Craig. "That's not really what a Bond film is about," the shoot-'em-up Craig told SiT yesterday.
He said making Quantum of Solace was a natural progression. Casino Royale "felt like the beginning of a story rather than the ending of a story", he said.
And while in Casino Royale he broke the rules by falling in love, this time Craig again snubbed Bond conventions by not going to bed with the leading lady, Camille, played by the Ukrainian-born actress Olga Kurylenko. "It would have been wrong if he had jumped into bed with her … he tends to fall in love a lot in the books, where he meets somebody and there is a passionate connection."
Craig, who is signed for a third Bond film, also denied reports he hoped the next Bond would be played by a black actor. "I never said that … James Bond is a white Etonian … [but] whoever does take it on, however, you want to say to them to have the best time they can because it is an extraordinary thing to do."
(Credit: Fairfax)
Media Man Australia Profiles
James Bond
With tough-guy Craig in town to promote the new Bond flick Quantum Of Solace, Sir Roger Moore, who followed Sean Connery as the suave British spy in seven films from 1973's Live And Let Die to 1985's A View To A Kill, arrived yesterday to spruik his autobiography My Word Is My Bond. Knighted in 2003 for his work as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, the urbane Sir Roger was booked to have dinner at ARIA tonight, 24 hours after Craig dined there with 007 producer Barbara Broccoli. Now there's a missed photo opportunity.
Perhaps it's for the best: Moore, now 81, made headlines last week when he told reporters he was "sad" that the new Bond movies were so violent. He, of course, preferred to play up to Bond's womanising ways.
Stay in Touch's mole at ARIA confirmed, disappointingly, that no martinis were ordered by the current Bond's table.
SURPRISE ROLE
The filmmaker Marc Forster admitted yesterday he was surprised when the producers of the James Bond franchise invited him to direct Quantum Of Solace.
"I was a little surprised, I was not so sure I wanted to do a Bond movie," said Forster, best known for films with the "critically acclaimed" tag, included the Academy Award-winning Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland and last year's adaptation of the Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner. Forster's interpretation of the superspy is grittier than most. Following on from where Casino Royale left off, Bond is still heartbroken after and looking to avenge the death of his love interest Vesper and, in the meantime, destroy a crime syndicate seeking to control the water supply of Bolivia.
Forster said some of the crew were none too happy when he chose to film a large part of the production in the streets of Panama City, along with desertscape sequences in Mexico. "I don't think it was as glamorous as what they had in mind," Forster told SiT.
ALL HARD WORK
One cast member who wasn't expecting cocktails in the Caribbean on the set of Bond was the star of the film, Daniel Craig. "That's not really what a Bond film is about," the shoot-'em-up Craig told SiT yesterday.
He said making Quantum of Solace was a natural progression. Casino Royale "felt like the beginning of a story rather than the ending of a story", he said.
And while in Casino Royale he broke the rules by falling in love, this time Craig again snubbed Bond conventions by not going to bed with the leading lady, Camille, played by the Ukrainian-born actress Olga Kurylenko. "It would have been wrong if he had jumped into bed with her … he tends to fall in love a lot in the books, where he meets somebody and there is a passionate connection."
Craig, who is signed for a third Bond film, also denied reports he hoped the next Bond would be played by a black actor. "I never said that … James Bond is a white Etonian … [but] whoever does take it on, however, you want to say to them to have the best time they can because it is an extraordinary thing to do."
(Credit: Fairfax)
Media Man Australia Profiles
James Bond
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Gatto, Williams hit with casino, racetrack ban, by Michael Warner - Herald Sun - 27th June 2008
* Gangsters, thugs, dealers banned from casino
* They've also been blacklisted from racetracks
* Gatto and Williams among those banned
A ROGUES' gallery of gangsters, thugs, drug dealers and loan sharks is among a secret group of Victorians banned from Crown casino and 67 racetracks.
The Herald Sun can reveal 33 "undesirables" have been slapped with lifetime bans by police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.
But in a challenge to her powers, at least two have vowed to fight the bans in the Supreme Court.
Those banned include underworld identity Mick Gatto, alleged Carlton Crew associate Steve Kaya and gangland figure Michael "Eyes" Pastras.
Jailed gangland figure Carl Williams is also blacklisted along with his father George.
Others include convicted money launderer Fadi Sarkis, high-roller Rob Karam and Leanne Allmark, a pathological gambler who stole $1 million to feed a casino pokies addiction.
Photographs have been circulated to police, casino surveillance officers and racing stewards.
Those banned cannot set foot within Melbourne's Southbank casino complex, including restaurants, or any Victorian racetrack.
But the Herald Sun cannot reveal the identity of all 33 individuals because of court proceedings.
The group includes notorious bikies, members of powerful Asian crime gangs and loan sharks caught preying on desperate punters.
Eight of the 33 are women.
The oldest on the list is a grandfather in his 80s.
Section 74 of the Casino Control Act (1991) allows Ms Nixon to "prohibit a person from entering or remaining in a casino".
Most of the bans extend to Victoria's 67 thoroughbred, harness and greyhound tracks, including Flemington, Caulfield and Moonee Valley.
Crown has been a favourite haunt of some of Melbourne's most notorious underworld figures.
Slain Carlton Crew figure Mario Condello was one of the first to be banned. He once pulled a 30cm knife on a fellow gambler in the Mahogany Room toilets, demanding he hand over cash. (Credit: News.com.au)
* They've also been blacklisted from racetracks
* Gatto and Williams among those banned
A ROGUES' gallery of gangsters, thugs, drug dealers and loan sharks is among a secret group of Victorians banned from Crown casino and 67 racetracks.
The Herald Sun can reveal 33 "undesirables" have been slapped with lifetime bans by police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.
But in a challenge to her powers, at least two have vowed to fight the bans in the Supreme Court.
Those banned include underworld identity Mick Gatto, alleged Carlton Crew associate Steve Kaya and gangland figure Michael "Eyes" Pastras.
Jailed gangland figure Carl Williams is also blacklisted along with his father George.
Others include convicted money launderer Fadi Sarkis, high-roller Rob Karam and Leanne Allmark, a pathological gambler who stole $1 million to feed a casino pokies addiction.
Photographs have been circulated to police, casino surveillance officers and racing stewards.
Those banned cannot set foot within Melbourne's Southbank casino complex, including restaurants, or any Victorian racetrack.
But the Herald Sun cannot reveal the identity of all 33 individuals because of court proceedings.
The group includes notorious bikies, members of powerful Asian crime gangs and loan sharks caught preying on desperate punters.
Eight of the 33 are women.
The oldest on the list is a grandfather in his 80s.
Section 74 of the Casino Control Act (1991) allows Ms Nixon to "prohibit a person from entering or remaining in a casino".
Most of the bans extend to Victoria's 67 thoroughbred, harness and greyhound tracks, including Flemington, Caulfield and Moonee Valley.
Crown has been a favourite haunt of some of Melbourne's most notorious underworld figures.
Slain Carlton Crew figure Mario Condello was one of the first to be banned. He once pulled a 30cm knife on a fellow gambler in the Mahogany Room toilets, demanding he hand over cash. (Credit: News.com.au)
Friday, October 31, 2008
Gangland war survivor Wrout faces jail term, by Steve Butcher - The Age - 31st October 2008
One of the few and very lucky survivors of Melbourne's gangland war is fighting a new battle - for his liberty.
With most of the war's players dead or in jail or still looking over their shoulders, Bert Wrout now stares down the barrel of an immediate prison sentence.
Wrout, 66, was shot and seriously wounded when two gunmen burst into the Brunswick club in March 2004.
He was blasted by a man who cannot be named while Wrout's friend and drinking companion, crime figure Lewis Moran, was shot and killed.
Evangelous Goussis, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted earlier this year of the murder and of causing Wrout serious injury.
Wrout lost his spleen, suffered damage to his liver and kidney and has pulmonary tract problems.
Wrout was excused from giving evidence at Goussis' trial, and today in Melbourne Magistrates Court, claimed he was unfit to answer a series of serious driving charges.
If the charges are heard and Wrout is convicted, he faces an immediate four-month term from a suspended sentence in March, which has allegedly been breached by further offending.
His lawyer, Jim Buchecker, said Wrout had been found unfit to plead by a pyschologist in September.
He tendered a series of medical reports including one that found Wrout could not give meaningful legal instructions.
Wrout was found to be mentally fragile, confused, incoherent, anxious and stressed.
But police prosecutor, Senior Constable Clive Dutton, argued that Wrout's fears of being murdered, as expressed by psychologist Bernard Healy, have now passed and were irrelevant to the driving charges.
Magistrate Simon Garnett said Wrout's application to be declared mentally unfit to plead required a full, proper and independent investigation.
He adjourned the hearing until February for Wrout to be assessed by a forensic psychologist.
(Credit: The Age)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
With most of the war's players dead or in jail or still looking over their shoulders, Bert Wrout now stares down the barrel of an immediate prison sentence.
Wrout, 66, was shot and seriously wounded when two gunmen burst into the Brunswick club in March 2004.
He was blasted by a man who cannot be named while Wrout's friend and drinking companion, crime figure Lewis Moran, was shot and killed.
Evangelous Goussis, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted earlier this year of the murder and of causing Wrout serious injury.
Wrout lost his spleen, suffered damage to his liver and kidney and has pulmonary tract problems.
Wrout was excused from giving evidence at Goussis' trial, and today in Melbourne Magistrates Court, claimed he was unfit to answer a series of serious driving charges.
If the charges are heard and Wrout is convicted, he faces an immediate four-month term from a suspended sentence in March, which has allegedly been breached by further offending.
His lawyer, Jim Buchecker, said Wrout had been found unfit to plead by a pyschologist in September.
He tendered a series of medical reports including one that found Wrout could not give meaningful legal instructions.
Wrout was found to be mentally fragile, confused, incoherent, anxious and stressed.
But police prosecutor, Senior Constable Clive Dutton, argued that Wrout's fears of being murdered, as expressed by psychologist Bernard Healy, have now passed and were irrelevant to the driving charges.
Magistrate Simon Garnett said Wrout's application to be declared mentally unfit to plead required a full, proper and independent investigation.
He adjourned the hearing until February for Wrout to be assessed by a forensic psychologist.
(Credit: The Age)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Film Review: Quantum of Solace , by Ray Bennett - The Hollywood Reporter - 24th October 2008
Bottom Line: All-out thriller with few Bond touches but plenty of high-octane action.
Opens: Friday, Oct. 31 (U.K.); Friday, Nov. 14 (U.S.)
LONDON -- The meanest and leanest James Bond film yet, "Quantum of Solace" is a breathless splash of high-speed action that hurtles from one reckless chase to another.
There's not much solace and few words as the British secret agent exercises his license to kill in dispatching one bad guy after another in the attempt to avenge the death of the lover who died in "Casino Royale."
Fans of that boxoffice smash and the earlier films might be disappointed that the new picture allows hardly any flourishes of style and character in the 007 tradition, but moviegoers seeking an adrenaline rush will be well pleased. Running almost 40 minutes shorter than the bloated "Casino Royale," the film should do bristling business around the world.
So much of the movie comprises furious pursuits in boats, planes and racing automobiles that director Marc Forster owes huge thanks to his talented technical crew. Second unit director Dan Bradley and stunt coordinator Gary Powell, both "Bourne" veterans, must take a large chunk of the credit for all the thrilling encounters that leave credibility in the dust.
Forster's regular cinematographer Robert Schaefer and Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner ("Bugsy") contribute fine work and the intricate assembly by editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson is staggeringly effective. A gunfight cut against a lavish performance of "Tosca" is an action triumph.
Jack White's title song passes without notice, but composer David Arnold provides a top-flight action score, keeping the familiar themes to a minimum as they hardly suit Daniel Craig's Bond.
Craig looks incredibly fit, and his manner suggests someone capable of surviving everything that's thrown at him. This Bond is more invincible than ever and shares with Jason Bourne and the kite runner the unerring ability to know exactly where the object of his chase will end up.
Judi Dench has a few good scenes tearing a strip off her favorite agent, and Olga Kurylenko has some serious action of her own, which she renders in high style. Gemma Arterton, however, is a mere bedroom dalliance, and Mathieu Amalric ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") tends to let his character's madness show too much with bulging eyes, one of which threatens to start blinking at any moment.
There are the usual lavish locales, and the film is as efficient as its supercomputers and high-powered weaponry and as sleek as the glamorous settings where Bond catches his breath. There is a danger in this version of Ian Fleming's hero, however. A killer in the movies needs something redeeming about him. Bourne had presumed innocence, and Sean Connery's Bond, while nasty, had ironic wit. Craig's humorless Bond is in danger of becoming simply a very well-dressed but murderous thug.
Production companies: Danjaq, United Artists, Columbia Pictures.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright; Director: Marc Forster; Screenwriters: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade; Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson; Executive producers: Callum McDougall, Anthony Waye; Director of photography: Roberto Schaefer; Production designer: Dennis Gassner; Music: David Arnold; Costume designer: Louise Frogley; Editors: Matt Chesse, Richard Pearson.
Rated PG-13, running time 106 minutes.
Media Man Australia Profiles
James Bond
Opens: Friday, Oct. 31 (U.K.); Friday, Nov. 14 (U.S.)
LONDON -- The meanest and leanest James Bond film yet, "Quantum of Solace" is a breathless splash of high-speed action that hurtles from one reckless chase to another.
There's not much solace and few words as the British secret agent exercises his license to kill in dispatching one bad guy after another in the attempt to avenge the death of the lover who died in "Casino Royale."
Fans of that boxoffice smash and the earlier films might be disappointed that the new picture allows hardly any flourishes of style and character in the 007 tradition, but moviegoers seeking an adrenaline rush will be well pleased. Running almost 40 minutes shorter than the bloated "Casino Royale," the film should do bristling business around the world.
So much of the movie comprises furious pursuits in boats, planes and racing automobiles that director Marc Forster owes huge thanks to his talented technical crew. Second unit director Dan Bradley and stunt coordinator Gary Powell, both "Bourne" veterans, must take a large chunk of the credit for all the thrilling encounters that leave credibility in the dust.
Forster's regular cinematographer Robert Schaefer and Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner ("Bugsy") contribute fine work and the intricate assembly by editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson is staggeringly effective. A gunfight cut against a lavish performance of "Tosca" is an action triumph.
Jack White's title song passes without notice, but composer David Arnold provides a top-flight action score, keeping the familiar themes to a minimum as they hardly suit Daniel Craig's Bond.
Craig looks incredibly fit, and his manner suggests someone capable of surviving everything that's thrown at him. This Bond is more invincible than ever and shares with Jason Bourne and the kite runner the unerring ability to know exactly where the object of his chase will end up.
Judi Dench has a few good scenes tearing a strip off her favorite agent, and Olga Kurylenko has some serious action of her own, which she renders in high style. Gemma Arterton, however, is a mere bedroom dalliance, and Mathieu Amalric ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") tends to let his character's madness show too much with bulging eyes, one of which threatens to start blinking at any moment.
There are the usual lavish locales, and the film is as efficient as its supercomputers and high-powered weaponry and as sleek as the glamorous settings where Bond catches his breath. There is a danger in this version of Ian Fleming's hero, however. A killer in the movies needs something redeeming about him. Bourne had presumed innocence, and Sean Connery's Bond, while nasty, had ironic wit. Craig's humorless Bond is in danger of becoming simply a very well-dressed but murderous thug.
Production companies: Danjaq, United Artists, Columbia Pictures.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright; Director: Marc Forster; Screenwriters: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade; Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson; Executive producers: Callum McDougall, Anthony Waye; Director of photography: Roberto Schaefer; Production designer: Dennis Gassner; Music: David Arnold; Costume designer: Louise Frogley; Editors: Matt Chesse, Richard Pearson.
Rated PG-13, running time 106 minutes.
Media Man Australia Profiles
James Bond
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
CBS "60 Minutes" Segment On Online Poker Cheating Scandals To Air Soon!
In addition to the buzz around the seizure of 141 internet gambling domains by the Governor of Kentucky, an upcoming story by CBS’ “60 Minutes” has also been the center of discussion at the CAP Euro Barcelona event. Poker News Daily has learned that the story by “60 Minutes” should air on Sunday, October 26th, just days before the general elections in the United States. The program will likely cover the user scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, which have made headlines across the poker world in recent months.
The story by the longstanding news magazine will focus on the scandals that have rocked Ultimate Bet and may include the POTRIPPER issues at its sister site, Absolute Poker. In addition, the rumor around the industry is that “60 Minutes” is teaming up with a major newspaper for the story, which may be just weeks from airing. In its last update on the NioNio scandal that rocked the online poker site, Ultimate Bet listed additional user names that were involved: Crackcorn55, WhakMe, GrabBag123, gravitation, Bgroup, H_Curtis, Twenty 1, WacoManiac, Broke_In_L_A, ShaqTack, BlueBerry101, HolyMucker, 55WasHere, Xnomas, dannyboy55, Indy05, and SlimPikins2.
The cheating on Ultimate Bet began back in 2005, one year before its current ownership group, Tokwiro, purchased the site. Also in June, Ultimate Bet was scheduled to begin the refund process for players who were affected by the abuse. The transgressions surrounded the exploitation of an auditing tool which enabled its users to view the hole cards of every player at an online poker table.
In May, Ultimate Bet’s parent company released a statement that included the following: “We would like to thank our customers for their patience, loyalty, and support, as well as for their understanding that we are doing everything we can to correct this situation. The staff and management of Ultimate Bet are fully committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our players and we want to assure customers of our unwavering resolve to monitor site security with every resource at our disposal.”
Since then, one of the accounts in question was linked to a Las Vegas owned home of Russ Hamilton, one of the former owners of the site. However, no admission has been given publicly by Hamilton. Over the summer, Team PokerStars Pro member Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok traveled to Hamilton’s residence. Greenstein came away from the interview feeling as if, by the time the truth was known, Hamilton would not be one of those indicted.
A $75 million claim filed against a software manufacturer was the subject of an article by MSNBC with the title “Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit.” The article, which was published last week, seemed to trump any momentum “60 Minutes” would have had, although the television station’s program is likely to be more visible.
The latest move in the Ultimate Bet investigation was the Kahnawake Gaming Commission naming Frank Catania, a former gaming regulator in the state of New Jersey, to lead a formal inquiry into the matter. His website, CataniaConsulting.com, states that he “serves as one of three independent directors of eCOGRA. He served as the first president of the International Masters of Gaming Law, a non-profit association dedicated to the education and advancement of gaming law, vice chair and chair, respectively, of the International Association of Gaming Regulators and past chairman of the Forum of American Casino Regulators.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Casino News
60 Minutes
Poker and Casino News
The story by the longstanding news magazine will focus on the scandals that have rocked Ultimate Bet and may include the POTRIPPER issues at its sister site, Absolute Poker. In addition, the rumor around the industry is that “60 Minutes” is teaming up with a major newspaper for the story, which may be just weeks from airing. In its last update on the NioNio scandal that rocked the online poker site, Ultimate Bet listed additional user names that were involved: Crackcorn55, WhakMe, GrabBag123, gravitation, Bgroup, H_Curtis, Twenty 1, WacoManiac, Broke_In_L_A, ShaqTack, BlueBerry101, HolyMucker, 55WasHere, Xnomas, dannyboy55, Indy05, and SlimPikins2.
The cheating on Ultimate Bet began back in 2005, one year before its current ownership group, Tokwiro, purchased the site. Also in June, Ultimate Bet was scheduled to begin the refund process for players who were affected by the abuse. The transgressions surrounded the exploitation of an auditing tool which enabled its users to view the hole cards of every player at an online poker table.
In May, Ultimate Bet’s parent company released a statement that included the following: “We would like to thank our customers for their patience, loyalty, and support, as well as for their understanding that we are doing everything we can to correct this situation. The staff and management of Ultimate Bet are fully committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our players and we want to assure customers of our unwavering resolve to monitor site security with every resource at our disposal.”
Since then, one of the accounts in question was linked to a Las Vegas owned home of Russ Hamilton, one of the former owners of the site. However, no admission has been given publicly by Hamilton. Over the summer, Team PokerStars Pro member Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok traveled to Hamilton’s residence. Greenstein came away from the interview feeling as if, by the time the truth was known, Hamilton would not be one of those indicted.
A $75 million claim filed against a software manufacturer was the subject of an article by MSNBC with the title “Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit.” The article, which was published last week, seemed to trump any momentum “60 Minutes” would have had, although the television station’s program is likely to be more visible.
The latest move in the Ultimate Bet investigation was the Kahnawake Gaming Commission naming Frank Catania, a former gaming regulator in the state of New Jersey, to lead a formal inquiry into the matter. His website, CataniaConsulting.com, states that he “serves as one of three independent directors of eCOGRA. He served as the first president of the International Masters of Gaming Law, a non-profit association dedicated to the education and advancement of gaming law, vice chair and chair, respectively, of the International Association of Gaming Regulators and past chairman of the Forum of American Casino Regulators.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Casino News
60 Minutes
Poker and Casino News
Monday, October 20, 2008
Shooting starts for second Underbelly series - The Australian - 17th October 2008
A second series of the acclaimed Underbelly TV drama went into production today dogged by the question of whether it would it be as good as the original. Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities will focus on the illegal drug trade in the 1970s, a long way from the more recent Melbourne drug wars portrayed in the hit series which aired on Nine this year. Instead of Carl and Roberta Williams the villains will be Aussie “Bob” Trimbole and Terry “Mr Asia” Clark.
Announcing the start of start of production in Sydney and Melbourne, the head of drama for the Nine Network Jo Horsburgh said “the series is proving to be as rich and exciting as the first series”. Nine is desperate to make Underbelly 2 the hit it was the first time around. Other Nine dramas this year, including Canal Road and The Strip have not fared so well. It wasn’t screened in Victoria until recently because it may have influenced the outcome of a trial.
Comparisons between Underbelly 1 and 2 are inevitable. Producers Screentime have been under pressure to come up with a prequel or a sequel ever since Nine attracted big audiences for Underbelly earlier this year. Should it be a prequel looking at the same Melbourne criminals when they were younger or a sequel now they’re all dead or in jail?
Eventually, producers decided to go right back to another rich period in Australia’s criminal history between 1976 and 1986 - but many younger viewers were not alive when anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay was a household name.
Screentime’s executive producer Des Monaghan emphasised the series would be an improvement and not a disappointment: “We are very excited about Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities - which promises to be even bigger and better than the first series”.
Actors Roy Billing (Trimbole), Andrew McFarlane (anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay) Matthew Newton (Terry Clark) and Peter O’Brien (George Freeman) have already been cast.
(Credit: The Australian)
Greg Tingle comment
I think the second series is likely to be as good, but not quite as popular as the original. There’s only even one first and the massive media and public buzz, fueled by then current criminal proceedings, backed up by frequent reference to Network Nine in the courts and the papers, all point to that equation. David Gyngell at the team at Nine have hit the jackpot with Underbelly, and let’s hope it doesn’t get prostituted to Crocodile Dundee III depths, where it makes money (again) at expense to its legacy and overall high production standards. Great to see Matthew Newton cast this time around (as everyone knows its going to be a winner, as opposed to an unknown quantity last time the cattle call was done), and it would be something to see Newton right there in the mix with Reb, Gyton Grantly (Carl), Westaway (Gatto) and the crew. I wonder if there’s going to do much with the storyline on my old mate Bert Wrout, who teases that he knows where a number of the bodies are buried! Sometimes the real news doesn’t make the news, as in some matters revolving around Wrout, however Australia eagerly awaits the next installments of prime time gangsters and mobsters Aussie style down under. Not sure what its going to do for Australia’s image on the tourism front, but that’s another story. I don’t foresee Baz getting dragged into advertising or PR scenarios for this portray of some of Australia’s society happenings. Maybe we can expect to see a dash of product placement re Packer’s Crown Casino, or maybe they don’t want to get quite that real to the true story of Melbourne’s underworld? If this show doesn’t fire up James’ passion for Australian television, nothing will. It’s all good fodder for the papers and should keep Nine out of the doldrums it was in a few years ago.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Announcing the start of start of production in Sydney and Melbourne, the head of drama for the Nine Network Jo Horsburgh said “the series is proving to be as rich and exciting as the first series”. Nine is desperate to make Underbelly 2 the hit it was the first time around. Other Nine dramas this year, including Canal Road and The Strip have not fared so well. It wasn’t screened in Victoria until recently because it may have influenced the outcome of a trial.
Comparisons between Underbelly 1 and 2 are inevitable. Producers Screentime have been under pressure to come up with a prequel or a sequel ever since Nine attracted big audiences for Underbelly earlier this year. Should it be a prequel looking at the same Melbourne criminals when they were younger or a sequel now they’re all dead or in jail?
Eventually, producers decided to go right back to another rich period in Australia’s criminal history between 1976 and 1986 - but many younger viewers were not alive when anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay was a household name.
Screentime’s executive producer Des Monaghan emphasised the series would be an improvement and not a disappointment: “We are very excited about Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities - which promises to be even bigger and better than the first series”.
Actors Roy Billing (Trimbole), Andrew McFarlane (anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay) Matthew Newton (Terry Clark) and Peter O’Brien (George Freeman) have already been cast.
(Credit: The Australian)
Greg Tingle comment
I think the second series is likely to be as good, but not quite as popular as the original. There’s only even one first and the massive media and public buzz, fueled by then current criminal proceedings, backed up by frequent reference to Network Nine in the courts and the papers, all point to that equation. David Gyngell at the team at Nine have hit the jackpot with Underbelly, and let’s hope it doesn’t get prostituted to Crocodile Dundee III depths, where it makes money (again) at expense to its legacy and overall high production standards. Great to see Matthew Newton cast this time around (as everyone knows its going to be a winner, as opposed to an unknown quantity last time the cattle call was done), and it would be something to see Newton right there in the mix with Reb, Gyton Grantly (Carl), Westaway (Gatto) and the crew. I wonder if there’s going to do much with the storyline on my old mate Bert Wrout, who teases that he knows where a number of the bodies are buried! Sometimes the real news doesn’t make the news, as in some matters revolving around Wrout, however Australia eagerly awaits the next installments of prime time gangsters and mobsters Aussie style down under. Not sure what its going to do for Australia’s image on the tourism front, but that’s another story. I don’t foresee Baz getting dragged into advertising or PR scenarios for this portray of some of Australia’s society happenings. Maybe we can expect to see a dash of product placement re Packer’s Crown Casino, or maybe they don’t want to get quite that real to the true story of Melbourne’s underworld? If this show doesn’t fire up James’ passion for Australian television, nothing will. It’s all good fodder for the papers and should keep Nine out of the doldrums it was in a few years ago.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Saturday, October 04, 2008
O. J. Simpson Found Guilty in Robbery Trial, By Steve Friess - The New York Times - 4th October 2008
LAS VEGAS — A jury here Friday night found O. J. Simpson guilty on all counts in his robbery and kidnapping trial, a verdict that came 13 years to the day after Mr. Simpson was acquitted in the highly publicized murders of his ex-wife and her friend.
The 12 charges that Mr. Simpson faced stemmed from a September 2007 confrontation in a casino hotel room in which he and five cohorts departed with hundreds of items of sports memorabilia.
In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Mr. Simpson showed no emotions. He was led away in handcuffs and taken into custody. His sister, Carmelita, who was sitting in the front row, broke down in tears.
The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe a prospective buyer was coming to browse the goods. Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room and, according to several witnesses, at least one gun was brandished.
The jury of nine women and three men, who deliberated for 13 hours, mulled weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.
Mr. Simpson, 61, and a co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, 54, are facing 15 years to life on the kidnapping charge.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.
Mr. Simpson has said he was seeking to retrieve only personal keepsakes like ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photos of his family that years ago were taken from his home; the prosecutors said he should have filed a civil lawsuit to regain the items if they were, in fact, stolen from him.
“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” said David Roger, the Clark County district attorney who led the prosecution. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”
Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who accompanied with Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of those men, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.
Mr. Simpson said he did not know the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident.
The proceedings failed to capture the intense public interest that turned Mr. Simpson’s 1995 trial into the so-called Trial of the Century. That spectacle became a racial touchstone and turned a list of legal analysts including Greta Van Sustern, Jeffrey Toobin and Star Jones into television stars. Few of the news media stars involved in that case flocked to this one, although Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair was a notable exception. Marcia Clark, the former prosecutor who failed to convict Mr. Simpson in 1995 did not appear despite securing media credentials to report for Entertainment Tonight.
The case played out against the backdrop of a nation more interested in the presidential election campaign and the nation’s economic crisis. It also featured victims who were far less sympathetic: two middle-aged memorabilia dealers who tried to profit from their roles in this case by trying to sell their stories to the tabloid media.
The defense focused much of its efforts on discrediting Mr. Fromong, Mr. Beardsley and the four men who assisted Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart in the alleged robbery. On several occasions, Simpson attorneys Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso caught those witnesses in apparent contradictions, as when Mr. Fromong insisted he did not try to sell his story despite audio recordings immediately after the incident in which Mr. Fromong is heard saying: “I’ll have ‘Inside Edition’ down here tomorrow. I told them I want big money.”
A measure of the limited public interest in the case may be that Frederic Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, admitted he followed the proceedings “only generally” from his home in Phoenix. Still, with a verdict coming he sharpened his focus.
“At the absolute least, I’d like to see him in jail,” Mr. Goldman said Friday of Mr. Simpson. “He’s not going to get the punishment for Ron’s murder that he deserved, but at least he should be in jail for as long as they can put him there.”
While Mr. Simpson’s acquittal in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, was never discussed during the trial, it hung over the proceedings. Jurors were quizzed extensively before their selection about their views of that trial, and references were made in some of the audio recordings to the fact that Mr. Simpson owes the estate of Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman $33.5 million because in 1997 he was held liable in a civil lawsuit for the deaths.
Mr. Galanter attacked that issue in his closing, noting that Mr. Riccio’s recorder picked up police officers at the crime scene seeming to exult in their chance to prosecute Mr. Simpson. He also noted that Mr. Riccio testified he had made more than $200,000 in fees from the news media in exchange for interviews and rights to his recordings.
“This case has never been about a search for the true facts,” Mr. Galanter said. “This case has taken on a life of its own because Mr. Simpson’s involved. You know that, I know that, every cooperator, every person with a gun, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money, the police, the district attorney’s office, was only interested in one thing: Mr. Simpson.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Sports News
Casino News Media
The 12 charges that Mr. Simpson faced stemmed from a September 2007 confrontation in a casino hotel room in which he and five cohorts departed with hundreds of items of sports memorabilia.
In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Mr. Simpson showed no emotions. He was led away in handcuffs and taken into custody. His sister, Carmelita, who was sitting in the front row, broke down in tears.
The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe a prospective buyer was coming to browse the goods. Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room and, according to several witnesses, at least one gun was brandished.
The jury of nine women and three men, who deliberated for 13 hours, mulled weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.
Mr. Simpson, 61, and a co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, 54, are facing 15 years to life on the kidnapping charge.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.
Mr. Simpson has said he was seeking to retrieve only personal keepsakes like ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photos of his family that years ago were taken from his home; the prosecutors said he should have filed a civil lawsuit to regain the items if they were, in fact, stolen from him.
“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” said David Roger, the Clark County district attorney who led the prosecution. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”
Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who accompanied with Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of those men, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.
Mr. Simpson said he did not know the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident.
The proceedings failed to capture the intense public interest that turned Mr. Simpson’s 1995 trial into the so-called Trial of the Century. That spectacle became a racial touchstone and turned a list of legal analysts including Greta Van Sustern, Jeffrey Toobin and Star Jones into television stars. Few of the news media stars involved in that case flocked to this one, although Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair was a notable exception. Marcia Clark, the former prosecutor who failed to convict Mr. Simpson in 1995 did not appear despite securing media credentials to report for Entertainment Tonight.
The case played out against the backdrop of a nation more interested in the presidential election campaign and the nation’s economic crisis. It also featured victims who were far less sympathetic: two middle-aged memorabilia dealers who tried to profit from their roles in this case by trying to sell their stories to the tabloid media.
The defense focused much of its efforts on discrediting Mr. Fromong, Mr. Beardsley and the four men who assisted Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart in the alleged robbery. On several occasions, Simpson attorneys Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso caught those witnesses in apparent contradictions, as when Mr. Fromong insisted he did not try to sell his story despite audio recordings immediately after the incident in which Mr. Fromong is heard saying: “I’ll have ‘Inside Edition’ down here tomorrow. I told them I want big money.”
A measure of the limited public interest in the case may be that Frederic Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, admitted he followed the proceedings “only generally” from his home in Phoenix. Still, with a verdict coming he sharpened his focus.
“At the absolute least, I’d like to see him in jail,” Mr. Goldman said Friday of Mr. Simpson. “He’s not going to get the punishment for Ron’s murder that he deserved, but at least he should be in jail for as long as they can put him there.”
While Mr. Simpson’s acquittal in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, was never discussed during the trial, it hung over the proceedings. Jurors were quizzed extensively before their selection about their views of that trial, and references were made in some of the audio recordings to the fact that Mr. Simpson owes the estate of Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman $33.5 million because in 1997 he was held liable in a civil lawsuit for the deaths.
Mr. Galanter attacked that issue in his closing, noting that Mr. Riccio’s recorder picked up police officers at the crime scene seeming to exult in their chance to prosecute Mr. Simpson. He also noted that Mr. Riccio testified he had made more than $200,000 in fees from the news media in exchange for interviews and rights to his recordings.
“This case has never been about a search for the true facts,” Mr. Galanter said. “This case has taken on a life of its own because Mr. Simpson’s involved. You know that, I know that, every cooperator, every person with a gun, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money, the police, the district attorney’s office, was only interested in one thing: Mr. Simpson.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Sports News
Casino News Media
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Bana rejects Underbelly role - The Age - 12th September 2008
Eric Bana has rejected an offer to appear in the second series of the hit TV gangland crime drama Underbelly.
The A-list Australian actor, who is a fan of the TV show, has been approached by the Nine Network for the upcoming prequel but is unavailable, his manager said today.
Bana is currently filming for the comedy Funny People with Adam Sandler, while Underbelly 2 is due to start shooting in Sydney next month.
"Eric was grateful to be approached but is focusing on various film commitments," his manager Lauren Bergman said today.
Earlier in the year, the Chopper actor said he was disappointed he hadn't been approached for the first series.
While casting for the much anticipated show has not been finalised, a number of well-known actors had been approached, a Nine Network spokeswoman said.
Nine is keeping secret many of the details but the spokeswoman said the cast and content would be vastly different from the first hit series. It centred on Victoria's infamous underworld wars, which raged from 1995 to 2004, leaving 27 people dead.
The prequel will be set in the '70s and '80s and based mainly in Sydney, in King's Cross, and partly in Melbourne.
"It's going to be a whole new set of characters based on real life people," the spokeswoman said.
She also confirmed that actors from the first series like Les Hill, who played Jason Moran, Callan Mulvey, who starred as Mark Moran, and Damian Walshe-Howling, who played Andrew 'Benji' Veniamin, would not be in the production.
"Due to the era, those characters would've been teenagers, hence why the actors can't play them," the spokeswoman said.
The network could not confirm rumours that the show will focus on the background of Vince Colosimo's character Alphonse Gangitano - known as the Black Prince Of Lygon Street.
Nine chief executive David Gyngell previously said he expected the show to air from February next year.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
The A-list Australian actor, who is a fan of the TV show, has been approached by the Nine Network for the upcoming prequel but is unavailable, his manager said today.
Bana is currently filming for the comedy Funny People with Adam Sandler, while Underbelly 2 is due to start shooting in Sydney next month.
"Eric was grateful to be approached but is focusing on various film commitments," his manager Lauren Bergman said today.
Earlier in the year, the Chopper actor said he was disappointed he hadn't been approached for the first series.
While casting for the much anticipated show has not been finalised, a number of well-known actors had been approached, a Nine Network spokeswoman said.
Nine is keeping secret many of the details but the spokeswoman said the cast and content would be vastly different from the first hit series. It centred on Victoria's infamous underworld wars, which raged from 1995 to 2004, leaving 27 people dead.
The prequel will be set in the '70s and '80s and based mainly in Sydney, in King's Cross, and partly in Melbourne.
"It's going to be a whole new set of characters based on real life people," the spokeswoman said.
She also confirmed that actors from the first series like Les Hill, who played Jason Moran, Callan Mulvey, who starred as Mark Moran, and Damian Walshe-Howling, who played Andrew 'Benji' Veniamin, would not be in the production.
"Due to the era, those characters would've been teenagers, hence why the actors can't play them," the spokeswoman said.
The network could not confirm rumours that the show will focus on the background of Vince Colosimo's character Alphonse Gangitano - known as the Black Prince Of Lygon Street.
Nine chief executive David Gyngell previously said he expected the show to air from February next year.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Underwhelming Underbelly, by Debi Enker - The Age - 25th September 2008
The gripping dramatised account of Melbourne's gangland wars made a delayed debut on its home turf last week, following a seven-month legal ban on its screening. The Nine Network's crime series Underbelly launched with a double episode on Sunday, followed by a Tuesday night screening against Seven's thriving local drama, Packed to the Rafters.
Underbelly's Victorian launch was halted at the last minute in February when Supreme Court Justice Betty King ruled that its airing could affect cases still before the courts. It screened in the other mainland capitals, drawing solid audiences of about 1.25 million viewers.
At the time, it was estimated that Melbourne, arguably the 13-part drama's major market, would have added about 800,000 viewers to that tally. If the series had screened then and those estimates had proved accurate, Underbelly would be vying with Packed to the Rafters for the title of Australia's most popular drama series in 2008.
Earlier this month, Supreme Court judge Peter Vickery ruled that Nine could screen edited versions of the first five episodes in Melbourne. Some dialogue was altered, a few scenes trimmed and one actor's face pixelated.
It's fair to assume that at least some of those who would've been sitting eagerly in front of their tellys in February might have managed to see the drama before it made its debut here. Although not for sale in Victoria, 265,000 copies of the DVD set of the series have sold elsewhere since May and it's reasonable to assume that some of them have made their away over the border. It's also impossible to estimate how many people had already seen pirated episodes or those downloaded from the internet, although anecdotal evidence suggests it might be a fair few.
Those factors affected the numbers that Nine did achieve. Averaging a healthy 593,000 viewers for its second hour and 578,000 for the first, it was the top-rating show in Melbourne on Sunday night and a drawcard for Nine. But the figures were much lower than those anticipated earlier in the year and Tuesday night's episode (429,000) was soundly beaten by Packed to the Rafters (589,000).
There's been no word yet on when, or if, the remaining episodes will screen here. However, Nine has commissioned Underbelly2, to be shot in Sydney and Melbourne later this year and expected on air early in 2009.
In addition to Underbelly, Sunday night was interesting for a number of reasons.
Nine's new home show, Battlefronts, hosted by Gian Rooney, made a solid debut, attracting 1.28 million viewers, although it wasn't quite as strong in that slot as its predecessor, Domestic Blitz.
60 Minutes presented its much-touted interview between former federal treasurer and recent author, Peter Costello, and Ray Martin, who was inducted back into the show for the occasion. With 1.68 million viewers, it was the top-rating program of the night nationally, trouncing the ailing Dancing with the Stars.
Attracting 1.16 million viewers (No.31 nationally), the dance contest is a pale shadow of its once-robust self in ratings terms. Yes, it's continuing to perform for Seven by drawing more than a million people to a key timeslot. But in its heyday, Dancing was a Top5 performer and could be counted on to attract around 1.8 million viewers.
Seven did, though, have the top six programs nationally, a tally headed for the third consecutive week by Packed to the Rafters. In Melbourne, Seven won the week with a 29.2% audience share, ahead of Nine (26.7%), Ten(22.7%), ABC1 (16.6%) and SBS (4.8%).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Underbelly's Victorian launch was halted at the last minute in February when Supreme Court Justice Betty King ruled that its airing could affect cases still before the courts. It screened in the other mainland capitals, drawing solid audiences of about 1.25 million viewers.
At the time, it was estimated that Melbourne, arguably the 13-part drama's major market, would have added about 800,000 viewers to that tally. If the series had screened then and those estimates had proved accurate, Underbelly would be vying with Packed to the Rafters for the title of Australia's most popular drama series in 2008.
Earlier this month, Supreme Court judge Peter Vickery ruled that Nine could screen edited versions of the first five episodes in Melbourne. Some dialogue was altered, a few scenes trimmed and one actor's face pixelated.
It's fair to assume that at least some of those who would've been sitting eagerly in front of their tellys in February might have managed to see the drama before it made its debut here. Although not for sale in Victoria, 265,000 copies of the DVD set of the series have sold elsewhere since May and it's reasonable to assume that some of them have made their away over the border. It's also impossible to estimate how many people had already seen pirated episodes or those downloaded from the internet, although anecdotal evidence suggests it might be a fair few.
Those factors affected the numbers that Nine did achieve. Averaging a healthy 593,000 viewers for its second hour and 578,000 for the first, it was the top-rating show in Melbourne on Sunday night and a drawcard for Nine. But the figures were much lower than those anticipated earlier in the year and Tuesday night's episode (429,000) was soundly beaten by Packed to the Rafters (589,000).
There's been no word yet on when, or if, the remaining episodes will screen here. However, Nine has commissioned Underbelly2, to be shot in Sydney and Melbourne later this year and expected on air early in 2009.
In addition to Underbelly, Sunday night was interesting for a number of reasons.
Nine's new home show, Battlefronts, hosted by Gian Rooney, made a solid debut, attracting 1.28 million viewers, although it wasn't quite as strong in that slot as its predecessor, Domestic Blitz.
60 Minutes presented its much-touted interview between former federal treasurer and recent author, Peter Costello, and Ray Martin, who was inducted back into the show for the occasion. With 1.68 million viewers, it was the top-rating program of the night nationally, trouncing the ailing Dancing with the Stars.
Attracting 1.16 million viewers (No.31 nationally), the dance contest is a pale shadow of its once-robust self in ratings terms. Yes, it's continuing to perform for Seven by drawing more than a million people to a key timeslot. But in its heyday, Dancing was a Top5 performer and could be counted on to attract around 1.8 million viewers.
Seven did, though, have the top six programs nationally, a tally headed for the third consecutive week by Packed to the Rafters. In Melbourne, Seven won the week with a 29.2% audience share, ahead of Nine (26.7%), Ten(22.7%), ABC1 (16.6%) and SBS (4.8%).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Saturday, September 13, 2008
The company he keeps, by Adele Ferguson and Gary Hughes - The Australian - 13th September 2008
Tom Karas has come a long way from the days when he was chased down the street on Nine's A Current Affair in 1995 over allegations he had cheated customers in a $3 million basketball cards vending machine scam.
And he has moved on considerably from financial problems that saw him declared bankrupt in 1997. Perched in his ninth floor office overlooking Melbourne's old police complex, he talks about his humble beginnings in inner Melbourne as the son of Greek migrants and his battle to start again and build his own successful finance and mortgage business, State Securities Group.
In fact Karas, 44, could pass for just another self-made success story were it not for his colourful clients and associates, which has seen him accused in court of money laundering for a notorious Melbourne crime family.
Denying such allegations, he readily admits to having among his customers, associates and friends the likes of Mick Gatto, the head of the Carlton Crew who was acquitted of murdering underworld hit man Andrew "Benji" Veniamin on the grounds of self-defence; members of a prominent Melbourne crime family; and John Khoury, a Gatto business associate who police alleged in court was also part of a money-laundering ring.
"I have a business relationship with Mick Gatto. I have lent him money as well as members of his family, and he refers a lot of business my way," Karas says.
Khoury, explains Karas, is also a friend and leases office space from State Securities to run a business involved in hotels.
The pair turned a quick profit after buying and quickly reselling Melbourne's Metro nightclub, although Karas denies he was acting as a front for Gatto in the deal. He says that is just one of many damaging rumours spread about him by his enemies.
He and Khoury often go on trips together to casinos in places such as Macau, although Karas insists he's just along for the ride. "I'm not a gambler, but John is a higher roller so you get comp everything," he explains.
When Gatto flew to Singapore in April with Khoury chasing the missing millions from the collapse of stockbroker Opes Prime earlier this year, he gave out the telephone number of Karas's State Securities on radio for people wanting to contact him to help recover their money. Gatto and Khoury were close enough for Karas to invite them to the christenings of both his children, one in 2006 and the second in May this year. On the second occasion Karas took guests on a cruise down the Yarra River while singer Vanessa Amorosi kept them entertained.
Karas also mixes with some of Melbourne's highest flyers. In 2005 he joined a group of others, including one of Australia's richest men, Bruno Grollo, on a visit to China to undergo stem cell treatment that promised to make them live longer. The treatment reportedly cost up to $40,000 a session and involved a series of injections with secret stem-cell activation material.
Then there is multimillionaire day share trader and car enthusiast Leo Khouri, claimed to be one of Opes Prime's biggest accounts, with shares worth $50 million tied up in the crash. Karas and Khouri were friends until reportedly falling out in December over a controversial deal over a Melbourne quarry and waste tip last year that is being investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Karas says there is no magic formula to his financial success but hard work.
"It is hard work and a lot of luck," he says. "It's a family business."
His biggest break, he explains, came about because his parents were too poor to join the exodus out of the inner working class suburb Fitzroy in the 1960s and '70s, when many migrant families moved to new housing developments on Melbourne's outskirts.
Instead the family stayed put and later Karas began buying Fitzroy properties while they were still cheap.
The gentrification of Fitzroy and spiralling property prices meant he could then borrow against those assets to add to his property holdings and later build his State Securities loans business. "I managed to buy three houses cheap and they went up with the property boom. I then used that as equity to buy other properties," he says.
He now owns houses, a retail complex and nightclub in the inner Melbourne suburb of Thornbury, and the floor of the LaTrobe Street office building where he runs State Securities.
His business acumen -- he boasts of having pulled his money out of Opes Prime just a week before it collapsed after a tip-off -- has earned Karas a regular seat at Gatto's table at Bourke Street restaurant Society, where the colourful identity can be found on most days.
Karas also admits he has done well on the share market, often investing in the same small resources companies as Khouri. He also owns a stake in the broking company Findlay & Co, which operated at one time out of State Securities' office and was coincidentally involved in many of the companies in which Karas and Khouri traded shares.
The charming and fast-talking Karas enjoyed relative anonymity until October last year, when Purana gangland taskforce detectives went to Victoria's Supreme Court to seize control of an up-and-coming racehorse under proceeds of crime laws, alleging the animal was really owned by a member of a Melbourne crime family.
The horse was three-quarters owned by Karas's wife, Irene Meletsis, despite Karas telling detectives neither he nor his wife had ever been to a racetrack.
In an affidavit filed with the court, detectives said they believed the horse and a number of loans organised through Karas's State Securities Group for the crime family member and his wife were "part of a large-scale money laundering operation" involving profits from alleged drug trafficking.
Records seized by the police in a raid on Karas's office showed one of the loans to the crime family for $100,000 supposedly came from a company called United Hotel Group Ltd, of which the sole director and shareholder is Khoury. The ownership of the horse was frozen, although a judge later allowed it to be auctioned for $1.8 million, with Karas's share of the money being held by the court.
Karas says he does not know when he will return to court to fight the legal battle to get the money. He strenuously denies the racehorse or the loans to the crime family were part of any money-laundering scheme. The horse came into his ownership, says Karas, simply because a borrower defaulted on a loan.
Karas says he can do without the publicity and attention he gets, in particular from Purana, ASIC and the Australian Taxation Office, which are all investigating his business deals. "I just want to be left alone," he pleads. (Credit: The Australian).
And he has moved on considerably from financial problems that saw him declared bankrupt in 1997. Perched in his ninth floor office overlooking Melbourne's old police complex, he talks about his humble beginnings in inner Melbourne as the son of Greek migrants and his battle to start again and build his own successful finance and mortgage business, State Securities Group.
In fact Karas, 44, could pass for just another self-made success story were it not for his colourful clients and associates, which has seen him accused in court of money laundering for a notorious Melbourne crime family.
Denying such allegations, he readily admits to having among his customers, associates and friends the likes of Mick Gatto, the head of the Carlton Crew who was acquitted of murdering underworld hit man Andrew "Benji" Veniamin on the grounds of self-defence; members of a prominent Melbourne crime family; and John Khoury, a Gatto business associate who police alleged in court was also part of a money-laundering ring.
"I have a business relationship with Mick Gatto. I have lent him money as well as members of his family, and he refers a lot of business my way," Karas says.
Khoury, explains Karas, is also a friend and leases office space from State Securities to run a business involved in hotels.
The pair turned a quick profit after buying and quickly reselling Melbourne's Metro nightclub, although Karas denies he was acting as a front for Gatto in the deal. He says that is just one of many damaging rumours spread about him by his enemies.
He and Khoury often go on trips together to casinos in places such as Macau, although Karas insists he's just along for the ride. "I'm not a gambler, but John is a higher roller so you get comp everything," he explains.
When Gatto flew to Singapore in April with Khoury chasing the missing millions from the collapse of stockbroker Opes Prime earlier this year, he gave out the telephone number of Karas's State Securities on radio for people wanting to contact him to help recover their money. Gatto and Khoury were close enough for Karas to invite them to the christenings of both his children, one in 2006 and the second in May this year. On the second occasion Karas took guests on a cruise down the Yarra River while singer Vanessa Amorosi kept them entertained.
Karas also mixes with some of Melbourne's highest flyers. In 2005 he joined a group of others, including one of Australia's richest men, Bruno Grollo, on a visit to China to undergo stem cell treatment that promised to make them live longer. The treatment reportedly cost up to $40,000 a session and involved a series of injections with secret stem-cell activation material.
Then there is multimillionaire day share trader and car enthusiast Leo Khouri, claimed to be one of Opes Prime's biggest accounts, with shares worth $50 million tied up in the crash. Karas and Khouri were friends until reportedly falling out in December over a controversial deal over a Melbourne quarry and waste tip last year that is being investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Karas says there is no magic formula to his financial success but hard work.
"It is hard work and a lot of luck," he says. "It's a family business."
His biggest break, he explains, came about because his parents were too poor to join the exodus out of the inner working class suburb Fitzroy in the 1960s and '70s, when many migrant families moved to new housing developments on Melbourne's outskirts.
Instead the family stayed put and later Karas began buying Fitzroy properties while they were still cheap.
The gentrification of Fitzroy and spiralling property prices meant he could then borrow against those assets to add to his property holdings and later build his State Securities loans business. "I managed to buy three houses cheap and they went up with the property boom. I then used that as equity to buy other properties," he says.
He now owns houses, a retail complex and nightclub in the inner Melbourne suburb of Thornbury, and the floor of the LaTrobe Street office building where he runs State Securities.
His business acumen -- he boasts of having pulled his money out of Opes Prime just a week before it collapsed after a tip-off -- has earned Karas a regular seat at Gatto's table at Bourke Street restaurant Society, where the colourful identity can be found on most days.
Karas also admits he has done well on the share market, often investing in the same small resources companies as Khouri. He also owns a stake in the broking company Findlay & Co, which operated at one time out of State Securities' office and was coincidentally involved in many of the companies in which Karas and Khouri traded shares.
The charming and fast-talking Karas enjoyed relative anonymity until October last year, when Purana gangland taskforce detectives went to Victoria's Supreme Court to seize control of an up-and-coming racehorse under proceeds of crime laws, alleging the animal was really owned by a member of a Melbourne crime family.
The horse was three-quarters owned by Karas's wife, Irene Meletsis, despite Karas telling detectives neither he nor his wife had ever been to a racetrack.
In an affidavit filed with the court, detectives said they believed the horse and a number of loans organised through Karas's State Securities Group for the crime family member and his wife were "part of a large-scale money laundering operation" involving profits from alleged drug trafficking.
Records seized by the police in a raid on Karas's office showed one of the loans to the crime family for $100,000 supposedly came from a company called United Hotel Group Ltd, of which the sole director and shareholder is Khoury. The ownership of the horse was frozen, although a judge later allowed it to be auctioned for $1.8 million, with Karas's share of the money being held by the court.
Karas says he does not know when he will return to court to fight the legal battle to get the money. He strenuously denies the racehorse or the loans to the crime family were part of any money-laundering scheme. The horse came into his ownership, says Karas, simply because a borrower defaulted on a loan.
Karas says he can do without the publicity and attention he gets, in particular from Purana, ASIC and the Australian Taxation Office, which are all investigating his business deals. "I just want to be left alone," he pleads. (Credit: The Australian).
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Crime (Wikipedia)
A crime is when a person does something that is against the laws of a country. A person who does this is called a criminal.
The basic idea of what things are called crimes is that they are thought to be things that might cause a problem for another person. Things like killing another person, injuring another person, or stealing from another person are crimes in most countries.
But different countries have many different ideas of what things are crimes. Some things that are crimes in one country are not crimes in other countries. Many countries get their ideas of what things are crimes from religions.
In many countries, if people say they made or wrote a book, movie, song, or Web page that they didn't really write or make, it is a crime against the laws of copyright. In many countries, helping to grow, make, move, or sell illegal drugs is a crime.
In most countries, police try to stop crimes and to find criminals. When the police find someone who they think might be a criminal, they usually hold the person in a jail. Then, usually, a court or a judge decides if the person really did a crime. If the court or judge decides that the person really did it, then he or she might have to pay a fine or go to prison. Sometimes the judge might decide that the criminal should be executed (killed). This is called Capital punishment (or the Death Penalty). There are countries in the world who execute criminals, and others who do not.
When some criminals make money from crime, they try to stop the police finding out where the money came from by money laundering. (Credit: Wikipedia)
The basic idea of what things are called crimes is that they are thought to be things that might cause a problem for another person. Things like killing another person, injuring another person, or stealing from another person are crimes in most countries.
But different countries have many different ideas of what things are crimes. Some things that are crimes in one country are not crimes in other countries. Many countries get their ideas of what things are crimes from religions.
In many countries, if people say they made or wrote a book, movie, song, or Web page that they didn't really write or make, it is a crime against the laws of copyright. In many countries, helping to grow, make, move, or sell illegal drugs is a crime.
In most countries, police try to stop crimes and to find criminals. When the police find someone who they think might be a criminal, they usually hold the person in a jail. Then, usually, a court or a judge decides if the person really did a crime. If the court or judge decides that the person really did it, then he or she might have to pay a fine or go to prison. Sometimes the judge might decide that the criminal should be executed (killed). This is called Capital punishment (or the Death Penalty). There are countries in the world who execute criminals, and others who do not.
When some criminals make money from crime, they try to stop the police finding out where the money came from by money laundering. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Crown's case against Gordon Wood, by Kate McClymont - The Sydney Morning Herald - 30th July 2008
It was a bitterly cold and windy winter's night when Caroline Byrne plunged to her death at The Gap on June 7, 1995. The air was thick with sea spray and visibility was almost zero.
Despite this, the man accused of her murder was able to lead her family to the location of her body using only the feeble light of a torch borrowed from nearby fishermen, a Supreme Court jury has heard.
Gordon Eric Wood, 45, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, a 24-year-old model, who fell to her death at Watsons Bay in Sydney's east.
In his opening address Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, said that in the weeks before her death Byrne had confided to a friend, "Sometimes I fear for my life with Gordon" and that she wanted to leave him because of his possessiveness and jealous fits.
The jury heard Wood was terrified about Byrne leaving because she might disclose what Mr Tedeschi described as "serious, illegal insider trading activity" that Wood and his boss, the late stockbroker Rene Rivkin, had been involved in with regard to Rivkin's printing company Offset Alpine Printing. The company had been over-insured when it burned down in a 1993 fire.
The day before Byrne was murdered Wood and Rivkin had given evidence at an Australian Securities Commission investigation into the unusual share price movements in Offset Alpine.
Mr Tedeschi said that Wood had misled the investigators when he said he had no knowledge of Rivkin's affairs and that he was just a " bag carrier"' for the stockbroker.
Had it emerged that either of them had knowledge of the fire or the subsequent massive increase in the company's share price, they could have been prosecuted for "serious corporate offences," Mr Tedeschi said.
He also said there was not "the slightest skerrick of evidence" implicating Rivkin in the death of Byrne.
About 11.30pm on June 7, 1995, witnesses at The Gap heard a scream which sounded like "someone expressing terror or horror".
Earlier that evening about 8pm, John Doherty, who was living in an apartment on Military Road, near The Gap, heard arguing outside his flat. On opening his window he saw a woman, distressed and moaning out loud, sitting in the gutter. Mr Tedeshi said her face was down and covered by her long hair.
Above her stood a tall man who was arguing with her. For 10 to 20 minutes the argument continued and then they moved further down the road, the jury heard. Mr Doherty later identified Gordon Wood as being the man he saw that night.
Two hours later Mr Doherty heard the same voices again but they were further away. For another hour the arguments continued until there was a loud scream, Mr Tedeschi said.
Two fishermen also recalled hearing an unusual scream about 11.30pm, which sounded like someone expressing "terror or horror".
About 12.30am the fishermen recalled seeing Wood, who was calling out, "Caroline, Caroline," and asking if they had seen a young woman.
At 12.40pm, Wood called Tony Byrne, Caroline's father at his home at the Connaught apartment building in Sydney's CBD. Staying with Tony was Caroline's brother Peter, who just arrived back in Australia after a six-week trip to Japan. Wood told them he found Caroline's car at The Gap and that she was missing.
Caroline arranged to meet her family that night but calls to her home and mobile phone during the day, from both her father and brother, had gone unanswered. She also did not turn up to work.
They were also unsuccessful in reaching Wood on his mobile, the court heard. Wood arrived at the Connaught 15 minutes later driving a red pick-up truck, which belonged to Rivkin.
As they drove towards The Gap the Byrnes asked Wood how he knew where to find her, Wood replied: "I don't know. I just have this feeling."
He took them to Byrne's soft-topped Suzuki car which was parked in Gap Lane. He opened the car with a key and took out her wallet, handing it to her brother. He asked Peter to look in the wallet to see if there was anything relevant.
Byrne found nothing of interest except a note from a male admirer who had spotted Caroline in a coffee shop and left her a note with his phone number.
Handing back the wallet to Wood, the Byrnes were astonished when Wood took the cash out of her wallet and pocketed it, Mr Tedeschi said.
Wood then led Tony and Peter Byrne on a search round the clifftop. It was cold, windy and they could barely make out the pathway in front of them.
The court heard that when they came across the two fishermen, Tony asked them if they'd seen a tall, blonde woman. The fishermen said that they'd heard a scream an hour or so earlier and then one of the fishermen said to Wood: "I saw you here earlier" to which Wood replied , "I was out here about an hour ago."
One of them lent Wood a torch, the battery of which was almost flat, resulting in a feeble light.
It was so cold that Tony Byrne went back to the truck, leaving Wood and his son to continue the search. Shining the weak torch light over the cliff, Wood claimed he could see something. "Can you see that, Peter? It looks like legs and a body," Wood said.
Mr Tedeschi said that Peter Byrne, who had excellent eyesight, couldn't see "a single, solitary thing." He couldn't see the bottom of the cliff, let alone a body, Mr Tedeschi told the jury.
"She's gone, Peter, she's gone," Wood told him.
It was at that very location, some hours later, that Byrne's body was found.
The Crown's case is that it was not physically possible to see Byrne's body through the darkness and that the only reasonable inference the jury could draw from Wood's knowledge of the position of the body was that " he was present when she went over the edge of the cliff".
The three went to Rose Bay police station, where Wood produced a referral that Caroline had obtained from her GP to see a psychiatrist. She had an appointment on the afternoon of her death, which not only did she not keep but which she did not cancel.
She earlier told her GP that she felt down but assured her doctor she was not feeling like harming herself.
"She was depressed. Here, read it," Wood said to Tony Byrne, handing him the referral. The Crown's case is that Wood used the referral to convince others that his girlfriend committed suicide.
A number of police accompanied the Byrnes and Wood back to The Gap. With their torches, police couldn't see anything, nor could the powerful searchlight of the helicopter. But Wood was adamant he could see her. "I know she's down there. I can't believe she's done this," he told police on the night, the jury heard.
At 4.40pm, police finally located her body where Wood said it was. The Crown case is that because of the bad visibility, Wood could only have known she was in that location if he had been present when she was thrown from The Gap.
Mr Tedeschi said there would be scientific evidence given to show that a strong man, using a "spear throw", had hurled Byrne off the cliff. Wood, who was able to bench press more than 100kg at the time and who had been a personal fitness instructor, was capable of such a throw, the jury heard.
Five days after her death, Wood told police Byrne was sick with the flu on the day of her death and that she was in bed when he left for work. When he came home at 1pm she was still in bed and he found she had taken one of his Rohypnol sleeping tablets, he said.
He also said he had gone to lunch with friend Brett Cochrane and another person, but that he had to leave before eating his meal to pick up Rivkin. When he returned home later in the afternoon, she wasn't there, the court heard.
About 7pm he had come home again and she was still not there. He said he assumed she was with her doctor or her at her father's. He claimed to have fallen asleep in front of the television and woken up at 12.40am to find she was not there.
The jury heard Wood told police he immediately knew something was wrong. He walked from his Elizabeth Bay unit to Crown Street in Darlinghurst where Rivkin kept some of his cars. He took one that he usually never drove, a red pick-up truck, and drove to the Connaught but couldn't see her car parked there. He told police he had then driven to Bondi and then to The Gap, where at 1.30am he'd found her car. He also found the fishermen and then went to pick up Tony and Peter.
The prosecution claims there was not sufficient time to drive around to all those places as well as returning to the city to collect the Byrnes.
The other odd thing, said Mr Tedeschi, was that Wood had his phone turned off from 5.48pm on the day of the murder until four minutes after police located her body at 4.40am the next morning. This was despite Wood being on 24-hour call for Rivkin, he said. The jury also heard Wood did not ring his message bank to check if he had any messages, which the Crown says is strange for someone who was concerned about his missing girlfriend.
Nor did he attempt to call her mobile or to contact her family to see if she was with them, the Crown said.
Two days after her death, Wood told Caroline's brother Peter that "Caroline's spirit told me where to find her".
News
Media Man Australia News
Despite this, the man accused of her murder was able to lead her family to the location of her body using only the feeble light of a torch borrowed from nearby fishermen, a Supreme Court jury has heard.
Gordon Eric Wood, 45, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, a 24-year-old model, who fell to her death at Watsons Bay in Sydney's east.
In his opening address Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, said that in the weeks before her death Byrne had confided to a friend, "Sometimes I fear for my life with Gordon" and that she wanted to leave him because of his possessiveness and jealous fits.
The jury heard Wood was terrified about Byrne leaving because she might disclose what Mr Tedeschi described as "serious, illegal insider trading activity" that Wood and his boss, the late stockbroker Rene Rivkin, had been involved in with regard to Rivkin's printing company Offset Alpine Printing. The company had been over-insured when it burned down in a 1993 fire.
The day before Byrne was murdered Wood and Rivkin had given evidence at an Australian Securities Commission investigation into the unusual share price movements in Offset Alpine.
Mr Tedeschi said that Wood had misled the investigators when he said he had no knowledge of Rivkin's affairs and that he was just a " bag carrier"' for the stockbroker.
Had it emerged that either of them had knowledge of the fire or the subsequent massive increase in the company's share price, they could have been prosecuted for "serious corporate offences," Mr Tedeschi said.
He also said there was not "the slightest skerrick of evidence" implicating Rivkin in the death of Byrne.
About 11.30pm on June 7, 1995, witnesses at The Gap heard a scream which sounded like "someone expressing terror or horror".
Earlier that evening about 8pm, John Doherty, who was living in an apartment on Military Road, near The Gap, heard arguing outside his flat. On opening his window he saw a woman, distressed and moaning out loud, sitting in the gutter. Mr Tedeshi said her face was down and covered by her long hair.
Above her stood a tall man who was arguing with her. For 10 to 20 minutes the argument continued and then they moved further down the road, the jury heard. Mr Doherty later identified Gordon Wood as being the man he saw that night.
Two hours later Mr Doherty heard the same voices again but they were further away. For another hour the arguments continued until there was a loud scream, Mr Tedeschi said.
Two fishermen also recalled hearing an unusual scream about 11.30pm, which sounded like someone expressing "terror or horror".
About 12.30am the fishermen recalled seeing Wood, who was calling out, "Caroline, Caroline," and asking if they had seen a young woman.
At 12.40pm, Wood called Tony Byrne, Caroline's father at his home at the Connaught apartment building in Sydney's CBD. Staying with Tony was Caroline's brother Peter, who just arrived back in Australia after a six-week trip to Japan. Wood told them he found Caroline's car at The Gap and that she was missing.
Caroline arranged to meet her family that night but calls to her home and mobile phone during the day, from both her father and brother, had gone unanswered. She also did not turn up to work.
They were also unsuccessful in reaching Wood on his mobile, the court heard. Wood arrived at the Connaught 15 minutes later driving a red pick-up truck, which belonged to Rivkin.
As they drove towards The Gap the Byrnes asked Wood how he knew where to find her, Wood replied: "I don't know. I just have this feeling."
He took them to Byrne's soft-topped Suzuki car which was parked in Gap Lane. He opened the car with a key and took out her wallet, handing it to her brother. He asked Peter to look in the wallet to see if there was anything relevant.
Byrne found nothing of interest except a note from a male admirer who had spotted Caroline in a coffee shop and left her a note with his phone number.
Handing back the wallet to Wood, the Byrnes were astonished when Wood took the cash out of her wallet and pocketed it, Mr Tedeschi said.
Wood then led Tony and Peter Byrne on a search round the clifftop. It was cold, windy and they could barely make out the pathway in front of them.
The court heard that when they came across the two fishermen, Tony asked them if they'd seen a tall, blonde woman. The fishermen said that they'd heard a scream an hour or so earlier and then one of the fishermen said to Wood: "I saw you here earlier" to which Wood replied , "I was out here about an hour ago."
One of them lent Wood a torch, the battery of which was almost flat, resulting in a feeble light.
It was so cold that Tony Byrne went back to the truck, leaving Wood and his son to continue the search. Shining the weak torch light over the cliff, Wood claimed he could see something. "Can you see that, Peter? It looks like legs and a body," Wood said.
Mr Tedeschi said that Peter Byrne, who had excellent eyesight, couldn't see "a single, solitary thing." He couldn't see the bottom of the cliff, let alone a body, Mr Tedeschi told the jury.
"She's gone, Peter, she's gone," Wood told him.
It was at that very location, some hours later, that Byrne's body was found.
The Crown's case is that it was not physically possible to see Byrne's body through the darkness and that the only reasonable inference the jury could draw from Wood's knowledge of the position of the body was that " he was present when she went over the edge of the cliff".
The three went to Rose Bay police station, where Wood produced a referral that Caroline had obtained from her GP to see a psychiatrist. She had an appointment on the afternoon of her death, which not only did she not keep but which she did not cancel.
She earlier told her GP that she felt down but assured her doctor she was not feeling like harming herself.
"She was depressed. Here, read it," Wood said to Tony Byrne, handing him the referral. The Crown's case is that Wood used the referral to convince others that his girlfriend committed suicide.
A number of police accompanied the Byrnes and Wood back to The Gap. With their torches, police couldn't see anything, nor could the powerful searchlight of the helicopter. But Wood was adamant he could see her. "I know she's down there. I can't believe she's done this," he told police on the night, the jury heard.
At 4.40pm, police finally located her body where Wood said it was. The Crown case is that because of the bad visibility, Wood could only have known she was in that location if he had been present when she was thrown from The Gap.
Mr Tedeschi said there would be scientific evidence given to show that a strong man, using a "spear throw", had hurled Byrne off the cliff. Wood, who was able to bench press more than 100kg at the time and who had been a personal fitness instructor, was capable of such a throw, the jury heard.
Five days after her death, Wood told police Byrne was sick with the flu on the day of her death and that she was in bed when he left for work. When he came home at 1pm she was still in bed and he found she had taken one of his Rohypnol sleeping tablets, he said.
He also said he had gone to lunch with friend Brett Cochrane and another person, but that he had to leave before eating his meal to pick up Rivkin. When he returned home later in the afternoon, she wasn't there, the court heard.
About 7pm he had come home again and she was still not there. He said he assumed she was with her doctor or her at her father's. He claimed to have fallen asleep in front of the television and woken up at 12.40am to find she was not there.
The jury heard Wood told police he immediately knew something was wrong. He walked from his Elizabeth Bay unit to Crown Street in Darlinghurst where Rivkin kept some of his cars. He took one that he usually never drove, a red pick-up truck, and drove to the Connaught but couldn't see her car parked there. He told police he had then driven to Bondi and then to The Gap, where at 1.30am he'd found her car. He also found the fishermen and then went to pick up Tony and Peter.
The prosecution claims there was not sufficient time to drive around to all those places as well as returning to the city to collect the Byrnes.
The other odd thing, said Mr Tedeschi, was that Wood had his phone turned off from 5.48pm on the day of the murder until four minutes after police located her body at 4.40am the next morning. This was despite Wood being on 24-hour call for Rivkin, he said. The jury also heard Wood did not ring his message bank to check if he had any messages, which the Crown says is strange for someone who was concerned about his missing girlfriend.
Nor did he attempt to call her mobile or to contact her family to see if she was with them, the Crown said.
Two days after her death, Wood told Caroline's brother Peter that "Caroline's spirit told me where to find her".
News
Media Man Australia News
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Nine's Underbelly blitz targets new top ratings - The Daily Telegraph - 22nd July 2008
Channel Nine CEO David Gyngell will officially give the green light to the hugely anticipated Underbelly prequel during a network presentation to media buyers and advertisers tonight.
In addition to toasting Nine's ratings turnaround and outlining the planned highlights for the remainder of the year's schedule, Gyngell will formally motion the bloodshed to resume - on Underbelly, not the rival networks, that is.
Speaking exclusively to Confidential yesterday, the ironically media-shy boss said that he was "really excited" about the 13-episode series scheduled to begin production in September.
"The best television drama always warrants a second season and Underbelly is no exception," he said.
Gallery: The controversial series Underbelly
"It was the best television many of us have seen in a very long time."
Involving most of the stellar cast from the first gangland epic series - with a heavy focus on Vince Colosimo's character Alphonse Gangitano - the prequel will converge on building the background to the colourful characters.
And it will show their involvement in the Melbourne underworld before the arrest of Carl Williams in 2004.
Already unashamedly positioned as Nine's ratings linchpin in next year's ratings war, Gyngell is backing the gritty production with full force.
"It was compulsive viewing this year and we aim to make it compelling in 2009. We'll have the production team and cast to do just that," he said.
The series brought fame to Kat Stewart who played Roberta Williams, and Gyton Grantley who played her drug-running husband Williams.
Are you excited by the news?
13-episode series to begin production in September
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
In addition to toasting Nine's ratings turnaround and outlining the planned highlights for the remainder of the year's schedule, Gyngell will formally motion the bloodshed to resume - on Underbelly, not the rival networks, that is.
Speaking exclusively to Confidential yesterday, the ironically media-shy boss said that he was "really excited" about the 13-episode series scheduled to begin production in September.
"The best television drama always warrants a second season and Underbelly is no exception," he said.
Gallery: The controversial series Underbelly
"It was the best television many of us have seen in a very long time."
Involving most of the stellar cast from the first gangland epic series - with a heavy focus on Vince Colosimo's character Alphonse Gangitano - the prequel will converge on building the background to the colourful characters.
And it will show their involvement in the Melbourne underworld before the arrest of Carl Williams in 2004.
Already unashamedly positioned as Nine's ratings linchpin in next year's ratings war, Gyngell is backing the gritty production with full force.
"It was compulsive viewing this year and we aim to make it compelling in 2009. We'll have the production team and cast to do just that," he said.
The series brought fame to Kat Stewart who played Roberta Williams, and Gyton Grantley who played her drug-running husband Williams.
Are you excited by the news?
13-episode series to begin production in September
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Monday, July 28, 2008
Gordon Wood trial to start today, by Kate McClymont - The Sydney Morning Herald - 28th July 2008
The murder trial of Gordon Wood, the former chauffeur of the late businessman Rene Rivkin, is expected to commence this afternoon.
Wood is accused of murdering his model girlfriend, Caroline Byrne, whose body was found at the base of The Gap in June 1995.
An unusually large number of potential jurors assembled in the historic Supreme Court building in inner-city Darlinghurst this morning.
Potential jurors were asked to excuse themselves if they knew Wood or other potential witnesses who included former ALP heavyweight Graham Richardson, adman John Singleton, paparazzi photographer Jamie Fawcett and entertainer Tanya Zaetta.
The Crown is planning to call between 94 and 104 witnesses and the trial is expected to last for up to 16 weeks.
Empanelling of the jury will be finished after the lunchtime adjournment, and Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC , is expected to deliver his opening address to the jury this afternoon.
Media Man Australia
News
Wood is accused of murdering his model girlfriend, Caroline Byrne, whose body was found at the base of The Gap in June 1995.
An unusually large number of potential jurors assembled in the historic Supreme Court building in inner-city Darlinghurst this morning.
Potential jurors were asked to excuse themselves if they knew Wood or other potential witnesses who included former ALP heavyweight Graham Richardson, adman John Singleton, paparazzi photographer Jamie Fawcett and entertainer Tanya Zaetta.
The Crown is planning to call between 94 and 104 witnesses and the trial is expected to last for up to 16 weeks.
Empanelling of the jury will be finished after the lunchtime adjournment, and Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC , is expected to deliver his opening address to the jury this afternoon.
Media Man Australia
News
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Aussie teenagers tackle cyber crime at global forum - The Age - 18th July 2008
Faced with the danger of online predators, fraudsters and bullies, a group of Australian teenagers are putting their heads together with others from around the world to tackle internet crime.
Ten teenagers from Canberra have flown to England to take part in a unique five-day forum giving young people a say on the best ways to protect them in cyberspace.
A total of 150 teenagers aged 14 to 17 from 19 countries are attending the International Youth Advisory Council (IYAC) in the hope they can come up with fresh strategies for governments, businesses and police worldwide to follow.
Many of those at the forum will draw on their own experiences of being targeted by cyber bullies, fraudsters and predators.
Canberra teenager Anthony, 15, said he frequently came across "fake" people while surfing the net and through his online business hosting gaming websites.
"What happens on the internet, people don't think it's 'real'," he told AAP.
"They think it's just fantasy. So we need to stay safe and they need to keep us safe.
"If we can tell them how to do that for the billions of kids out there, that's fantastic."
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has backed the forum and sent five staff along with the Canberra teenagers.
Before they left, AFP officers worked with the group on new cyber crime strategies which are expected to be expanded when they return to Australia.
"We realised the only way that us as 30, 40, 50 year olds can develop robust and meaningful strategies that deliver to young people is to actually give young people a voice and to listen to what they've got to say," head of the AFP's high tech crime unit Kevin Zuccato said.
"What concerns them the most is cyber bullying, identity theft and attribution, in terms of 'how do I know who I'm talking to' (in chatrooms and on social networking sites).
"So they're actually concerns about how do I identify myself in the internet, how do I make sure no one steals that identity and hassles me out or slags my name off, how do I know who I'm talking to so I'm sure I can safeguard myself.
"That to me was really interesting and demonstrates that getting these guys in, listening to what they've got to say, giving them an opportunity to participate is going to steer us in the right direction."
Ella, 15, from Canberra, said the key was educating young people about the internet so they could use it safely rather than putting them off because of the risks.
"You don't want to put people off the internet, because it's a great resource," she said.
"But you do want to warn people of the dangers and give them strategies when they are faced with those dangers."
The aim of the IYAC forum is to devise a global online charter to present to the United Nations and the World Congress III Against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in Brazil this November.
Media Man Australia
Technology News
Ten teenagers from Canberra have flown to England to take part in a unique five-day forum giving young people a say on the best ways to protect them in cyberspace.
A total of 150 teenagers aged 14 to 17 from 19 countries are attending the International Youth Advisory Council (IYAC) in the hope they can come up with fresh strategies for governments, businesses and police worldwide to follow.
Many of those at the forum will draw on their own experiences of being targeted by cyber bullies, fraudsters and predators.
Canberra teenager Anthony, 15, said he frequently came across "fake" people while surfing the net and through his online business hosting gaming websites.
"What happens on the internet, people don't think it's 'real'," he told AAP.
"They think it's just fantasy. So we need to stay safe and they need to keep us safe.
"If we can tell them how to do that for the billions of kids out there, that's fantastic."
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has backed the forum and sent five staff along with the Canberra teenagers.
Before they left, AFP officers worked with the group on new cyber crime strategies which are expected to be expanded when they return to Australia.
"We realised the only way that us as 30, 40, 50 year olds can develop robust and meaningful strategies that deliver to young people is to actually give young people a voice and to listen to what they've got to say," head of the AFP's high tech crime unit Kevin Zuccato said.
"What concerns them the most is cyber bullying, identity theft and attribution, in terms of 'how do I know who I'm talking to' (in chatrooms and on social networking sites).
"So they're actually concerns about how do I identify myself in the internet, how do I make sure no one steals that identity and hassles me out or slags my name off, how do I know who I'm talking to so I'm sure I can safeguard myself.
"That to me was really interesting and demonstrates that getting these guys in, listening to what they've got to say, giving them an opportunity to participate is going to steer us in the right direction."
Ella, 15, from Canberra, said the key was educating young people about the internet so they could use it safely rather than putting them off because of the risks.
"You don't want to put people off the internet, because it's a great resource," she said.
"But you do want to warn people of the dangers and give them strategies when they are faced with those dangers."
The aim of the IYAC forum is to devise a global online charter to present to the United Nations and the World Congress III Against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in Brazil this November.
Media Man Australia
Technology News
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Media man a crime buster, by Kelly Ryan - Herald Sun - 9th June 2008
Putting the finger on crime for more than 20 years has won Herald Sun journalist Geoff Wilkinson a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).
The senior investigative reporter has been recognised for his services to crime prevention, particularly through the establishment of the Crime Stoppers program.
The program began in Victoria in 1987 - when Wilkinson was media director for Victoria Police - and was later adopted by all Australian states and territories.
Nationally, calls have led to more than 45,000 arrests, 125,000 charges and the recovery of drugs and stolen property worth over $900 million.
Wilkinson said that his award was "recognition and acknowledgment of the efforts of a lot of people over a long period.
"Crime Stoppers is a simple concept, but it needed the support of police, media and the community to make it work as well as it has," he said.
Wilkinson has bagged many prestige journalism awards, including the Victoria Law Foundation's Reporter of the Year in 2002 and 2007 and News Limited's Specialist Writer of the Year in 2006, as well as three Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards.
But Wilkinson said Crime Stoppers was his most important achievement.
The senior investigative reporter has been recognised for his services to crime prevention, particularly through the establishment of the Crime Stoppers program.
The program began in Victoria in 1987 - when Wilkinson was media director for Victoria Police - and was later adopted by all Australian states and territories.
Nationally, calls have led to more than 45,000 arrests, 125,000 charges and the recovery of drugs and stolen property worth over $900 million.
Wilkinson said that his award was "recognition and acknowledgment of the efforts of a lot of people over a long period.
"Crime Stoppers is a simple concept, but it needed the support of police, media and the community to make it work as well as it has," he said.
Wilkinson has bagged many prestige journalism awards, including the Victoria Law Foundation's Reporter of the Year in 2002 and 2007 and News Limited's Specialist Writer of the Year in 2006, as well as three Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards.
But Wilkinson said Crime Stoppers was his most important achievement.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Man stabbed in queue for Grand Theft Auto IV, by Hannah Fletcher - Times Online - 30th April 2008
A hooded man queuing to buy the new Grand Theft Auto IV, the notoriously violent computer game, stabbed a passer-by in the head and neck. Up to 100 people witnessed the attack.
Like dozens of video-game sellers across the country, Gamestation in Croydon, South London, opened at midnight yesterday for the launch of the game.
Onlookers thought initially that the stabbing was part of a stunt by the store to whip up excitement about the release of the 18-certificate title.
The victim is thought to have struggled home to fetch his own knife for a revenge attack but collapsed in the street and was taken to hospital.
Malcolm Critchell, who was at the shop with his nephew, Jordan, said: “While waiting outside the store, a man stood next to us and was covered from shoulder to belly in blood. Myself and others thought it was a show to promote the game but when we looked closer, he had been knifed repeatedly. It was unbelieveable – there was blood everywhere, all down the street. It was like something out of a nightmare. We were told he had been rude to some bloke [for] which he was knifed. He then went home, grabbed a kitchen knife and went looking for this person.”
The 23-year-old victim was walking past the queue at about 11pm when he was attacked. Witnesses said that he sustained stab wounds to his head and back. He was treated in hospital and later discharged.
Marcus Henderson, 24, who was in the queue, said: “It was a scene straight from the game itself. In Grand Theft Auto, when you attack someone but don’t finish them off they’ll come and get you.”
The Metropolitan Police said that the man involved in Monday’s stabbing “appeared to be in a queue of people who were waiting for [Gamesta-tion] to open for a special event”.
Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leices-ter East and a long-time campaigner against video games, told The Times: “[ Grand Theft Auto] is a violent and nasty video game and it doesn’t surprise me that some of those who play it behave in this way.”
More than half a million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV are expected to be sold in Britain in the next week, while more than six million copies will be sold worldwide, raking in more than £200 million.
Critics of the game, in which players can roam freely around a digital landscape murdering, pillaging and stealing, have long argued that it is a dangerous influence.
Since Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive Software, released the first Grand Theft Auto game in 1997, they have faced a series of lawsuits from the families of murder victims, claiming that the game inspired the killers.
Elsewhere, an 18-year-old from Ley-land, Lancashire, was reported to have suffered a broken jaw after being mugged by two older men. Lancashire police said that the motive for the attack was the victim’s new copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, which he had bought from his local Blockbuster store minutes earlier.
The bad publicity appeared to have little effect on sales. Play.com was taking up to 80 orders a minute and had to take on 90 extra staff to cope. Woolworths reported selling 200 copies a minute and said that it would be sold out by the end of the day.
Like dozens of video-game sellers across the country, Gamestation in Croydon, South London, opened at midnight yesterday for the launch of the game.
Onlookers thought initially that the stabbing was part of a stunt by the store to whip up excitement about the release of the 18-certificate title.
The victim is thought to have struggled home to fetch his own knife for a revenge attack but collapsed in the street and was taken to hospital.
Malcolm Critchell, who was at the shop with his nephew, Jordan, said: “While waiting outside the store, a man stood next to us and was covered from shoulder to belly in blood. Myself and others thought it was a show to promote the game but when we looked closer, he had been knifed repeatedly. It was unbelieveable – there was blood everywhere, all down the street. It was like something out of a nightmare. We were told he had been rude to some bloke [for] which he was knifed. He then went home, grabbed a kitchen knife and went looking for this person.”
The 23-year-old victim was walking past the queue at about 11pm when he was attacked. Witnesses said that he sustained stab wounds to his head and back. He was treated in hospital and later discharged.
Marcus Henderson, 24, who was in the queue, said: “It was a scene straight from the game itself. In Grand Theft Auto, when you attack someone but don’t finish them off they’ll come and get you.”
The Metropolitan Police said that the man involved in Monday’s stabbing “appeared to be in a queue of people who were waiting for [Gamesta-tion] to open for a special event”.
Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leices-ter East and a long-time campaigner against video games, told The Times: “[ Grand Theft Auto] is a violent and nasty video game and it doesn’t surprise me that some of those who play it behave in this way.”
More than half a million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV are expected to be sold in Britain in the next week, while more than six million copies will be sold worldwide, raking in more than £200 million.
Critics of the game, in which players can roam freely around a digital landscape murdering, pillaging and stealing, have long argued that it is a dangerous influence.
Since Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive Software, released the first Grand Theft Auto game in 1997, they have faced a series of lawsuits from the families of murder victims, claiming that the game inspired the killers.
Elsewhere, an 18-year-old from Ley-land, Lancashire, was reported to have suffered a broken jaw after being mugged by two older men. Lancashire police said that the motive for the attack was the victim’s new copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, which he had bought from his local Blockbuster store minutes earlier.
The bad publicity appeared to have little effect on sales. Play.com was taking up to 80 orders a minute and had to take on 90 extra staff to cope. Woolworths reported selling 200 copies a minute and said that it would be sold out by the end of the day.
Grand Theft Auto's anti-hero steals the show, by Asher Moses - The Sydney Morning Herald - 30th April 2008
He's the biggest name in entertainment but you won't find him striding down the red carpet or cavorting with Hollywood starlets under the watchful eye of the paparazzi.
No, Niko Bellic, set to become the most high profile Slav in entertainment since Borat Sagdiyev took the box office by storm 18 months ago.
He is among the new breed of entertainment personalities who, rather than being cast, are built from scratch by a team of programmers and graphic designers.
He's the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto IV and, just days after hitting the streets, is already giving flesh-and-blood Hollywood stars a run for their money.
Launched around the world at midnight on Monday, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is on track to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Analysts have predicted the title, which has inspired near-perfect reviews from most gaming magazines, will sell at least 6 million copies in its first week.
And if the $US400 million ($428 million) first week sales estimates prove correct, GTA IV will earn as much as Pirates Of The Caribbean III earned in its opening weekend in May last year to become Hollywood's record holder.
It would also eclipse Spider-Man 3 and the previous video game king, Halo 3, which raked in $US300 million in its first week in September last year.
Steve Wilson, CEO of EBGames, which held midnight launch events around Australia for GTA IV, said the launch was "almost twice as big as Halo 3".
"It was very, very big, much bigger than we were expecting even, and we were expecting big - particularly for a Tuesday," he said.
The game's developer, Rockstar Games, and EBGames both refused to release first-day sales figures or the number of copies sold.
Bellic is expected to join a growing list of game stars - Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series and Master Chief from Halo, to name a few - that have become household names among anyone with even a passing interest in videos games.
Unlike the two-dimensional characters in movies, today's games allow players to become the character and completely immerse themselves in their world. And thanks to the power of the latest generation of games consoles, those worlds have become a lot richer, with virtually no limitations on where a player can travel, hundreds of characters to interact with and hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue.
Bellic inhabits Liberty City, modelled on present-day New York, and has recently arrived in the US from Eastern Europe in search of the American Dream. But instead of the riches promised by his cousin Ramon, the anti-hero quickly becomes wrapped up in crime and warring rival syndicates as he helps Roman clear his hefty debt.
"We wanted someone who felt tough but also like an alien ... On the one hand he's an innocent, on the other hand he's battle hardened and world weary. A modern 'arriving in America' story felt very interesting to us," Rockstar co-founder and creative vice-president Dan Houser told Hollywood industry magazine Variety.
As players guide Bellic through the city's seedy criminal underbelly they can use breaks between missions to visit prostitutes and invite friends out for a drink, a round of pool or a game of darts. Bellic's phone can be used to dial up ambulances if he or friends become injured and players can even use the phone to buy and download tracks heard on the game's radio stations.
GTA IV is the ninth game in the Grand Theft Auto series, which has sold more than 70 million copies since its launch in 1997 and holds three of the top four spots on the list of best-selling games of all time. Unlike a typical movie, GTA IV takes 40 hours or more to get through and can be extended via the online multiplayer mode, making its $120 price tag somewhat easier to digest.
Variety reported that GTA IV's success could detract from film box office takings over the next few months as young males shy away from the cinema in favour of the couch. As far as heroes go, Bellic will be up against Indiana Jones and Batman when their latest outings debut in cinemas this year.
Rockstar is hoping GTA IV will be recognised alongside the great standout gangster movies, saying there hadn't been one over the past few years.
Metacritic, which aggregates reviews from all publications, lists 15 reviews for the PS3 version of GTA IV and 25 reviews for the Xbox 360 version. The average scores are 100 and 99 respectively.
"Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun," read a review in The New York Times.
The game, which rewards players for mass killing, carjacking and gambling and also includes drink driving and simulated sex with prostitutes, has raised the ire of family lobby groups, who say it could influence the real-life behaviour of young players.
In Australia, because there is no R18+ rating for video games, Rockstar Games was forced to tone down some of the more extreme content before it could be sold here under the MA15+ rating.
"While there are some minor differences between the Australian and US/EU versions, they are not significant and we do not believe they take away from the level of scope and detail that make GTA IV such an incredible experience," Rockstar said in a statement.
Game reviewers at IGN were one of the first in Australia to play through the local version of the title and confirmed the censorship changes were minor.
Murderous rampages, picking up prostitutes, visiting strip clubs for private lap dances and drink driving are all present in the Australian release but the act of having sex with hookers in one's car has been toned down.
"While you can spin the camera 360 degrees around the car and see Niko and the hooker bumping and grinding in the US version, during the act of sex the camera remains locked at the rear of the car, focusing on the bumping car itself and the sound effects in the Aussie version," IGN said.
But in a reminder of how meaningless local censorship rulings have become in the internet age, the uncensored Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV for both PAL and NTSC regions were leaked to various BitTorrent file sharing websites days before the midnight launch.
No, Niko Bellic, set to become the most high profile Slav in entertainment since Borat Sagdiyev took the box office by storm 18 months ago.
He is among the new breed of entertainment personalities who, rather than being cast, are built from scratch by a team of programmers and graphic designers.
He's the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto IV and, just days after hitting the streets, is already giving flesh-and-blood Hollywood stars a run for their money.
Launched around the world at midnight on Monday, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is on track to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Analysts have predicted the title, which has inspired near-perfect reviews from most gaming magazines, will sell at least 6 million copies in its first week.
And if the $US400 million ($428 million) first week sales estimates prove correct, GTA IV will earn as much as Pirates Of The Caribbean III earned in its opening weekend in May last year to become Hollywood's record holder.
It would also eclipse Spider-Man 3 and the previous video game king, Halo 3, which raked in $US300 million in its first week in September last year.
Steve Wilson, CEO of EBGames, which held midnight launch events around Australia for GTA IV, said the launch was "almost twice as big as Halo 3".
"It was very, very big, much bigger than we were expecting even, and we were expecting big - particularly for a Tuesday," he said.
The game's developer, Rockstar Games, and EBGames both refused to release first-day sales figures or the number of copies sold.
Bellic is expected to join a growing list of game stars - Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series and Master Chief from Halo, to name a few - that have become household names among anyone with even a passing interest in videos games.
Unlike the two-dimensional characters in movies, today's games allow players to become the character and completely immerse themselves in their world. And thanks to the power of the latest generation of games consoles, those worlds have become a lot richer, with virtually no limitations on where a player can travel, hundreds of characters to interact with and hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue.
Bellic inhabits Liberty City, modelled on present-day New York, and has recently arrived in the US from Eastern Europe in search of the American Dream. But instead of the riches promised by his cousin Ramon, the anti-hero quickly becomes wrapped up in crime and warring rival syndicates as he helps Roman clear his hefty debt.
"We wanted someone who felt tough but also like an alien ... On the one hand he's an innocent, on the other hand he's battle hardened and world weary. A modern 'arriving in America' story felt very interesting to us," Rockstar co-founder and creative vice-president Dan Houser told Hollywood industry magazine Variety.
As players guide Bellic through the city's seedy criminal underbelly they can use breaks between missions to visit prostitutes and invite friends out for a drink, a round of pool or a game of darts. Bellic's phone can be used to dial up ambulances if he or friends become injured and players can even use the phone to buy and download tracks heard on the game's radio stations.
GTA IV is the ninth game in the Grand Theft Auto series, which has sold more than 70 million copies since its launch in 1997 and holds three of the top four spots on the list of best-selling games of all time. Unlike a typical movie, GTA IV takes 40 hours or more to get through and can be extended via the online multiplayer mode, making its $120 price tag somewhat easier to digest.
Variety reported that GTA IV's success could detract from film box office takings over the next few months as young males shy away from the cinema in favour of the couch. As far as heroes go, Bellic will be up against Indiana Jones and Batman when their latest outings debut in cinemas this year.
Rockstar is hoping GTA IV will be recognised alongside the great standout gangster movies, saying there hadn't been one over the past few years.
Metacritic, which aggregates reviews from all publications, lists 15 reviews for the PS3 version of GTA IV and 25 reviews for the Xbox 360 version. The average scores are 100 and 99 respectively.
"Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun," read a review in The New York Times.
The game, which rewards players for mass killing, carjacking and gambling and also includes drink driving and simulated sex with prostitutes, has raised the ire of family lobby groups, who say it could influence the real-life behaviour of young players.
In Australia, because there is no R18+ rating for video games, Rockstar Games was forced to tone down some of the more extreme content before it could be sold here under the MA15+ rating.
"While there are some minor differences between the Australian and US/EU versions, they are not significant and we do not believe they take away from the level of scope and detail that make GTA IV such an incredible experience," Rockstar said in a statement.
Game reviewers at IGN were one of the first in Australia to play through the local version of the title and confirmed the censorship changes were minor.
Murderous rampages, picking up prostitutes, visiting strip clubs for private lap dances and drink driving are all present in the Australian release but the act of having sex with hookers in one's car has been toned down.
"While you can spin the camera 360 degrees around the car and see Niko and the hooker bumping and grinding in the US version, during the act of sex the camera remains locked at the rear of the car, focusing on the bumping car itself and the sound effects in the Aussie version," IGN said.
But in a reminder of how meaningless local censorship rulings have become in the internet age, the uncensored Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV for both PAL and NTSC regions were leaked to various BitTorrent file sharing websites days before the midnight launch.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Underbelly to go global - The Sydney Morning Herald - 8th April 2008
Controversial Melbourne gangland drama Underbelly will be seen by audiences around the world in Europe, Asia and Africa after the Nine Network signed an international distribution deal.
Nine today announced it had signed a deal with Fox International Channels and British-based distributor Portman Film & Television to broadcast the 13-episode series.
Underbelly will be screened across most Fox International Channel feeds, including Britain, Italy, the Balkans, Korea, Pan-Asia, Portugal, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.
Nine's chief executive David Gyngell said the deal was testament to the production quality of Underbelly.
"To say we are pleased is an understatement - we are delighted that the series will gain international audiences and global recognition."
Underbelly focuses on the story behind Melbourne's infamous gangland killings - a 10-year war between rival factions of the city's criminal underworld.
The program has not been shown in Victoria because of a court order suppressing its broadcast in that state.
Nine's head of drama, Jo Horsburgh said the series had been a "terrific creative challenge".
"We are hugely proud of this outcome," Horsburgh said.
The show's premiere was the most successful Australian drama launch in Sydney and nationally in the 25-54 year old demographic since the OzTam ratings system was introduced.
It was also the No.1 program on its premiere night for all people in all the markets in which it aired - Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
AAP
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
Nine today announced it had signed a deal with Fox International Channels and British-based distributor Portman Film & Television to broadcast the 13-episode series.
Underbelly will be screened across most Fox International Channel feeds, including Britain, Italy, the Balkans, Korea, Pan-Asia, Portugal, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.
Nine's chief executive David Gyngell said the deal was testament to the production quality of Underbelly.
"To say we are pleased is an understatement - we are delighted that the series will gain international audiences and global recognition."
Underbelly focuses on the story behind Melbourne's infamous gangland killings - a 10-year war between rival factions of the city's criminal underworld.
The program has not been shown in Victoria because of a court order suppressing its broadcast in that state.
Nine's head of drama, Jo Horsburgh said the series had been a "terrific creative challenge".
"We are hugely proud of this outcome," Horsburgh said.
The show's premiere was the most successful Australian drama launch in Sydney and nationally in the 25-54 year old demographic since the OzTam ratings system was introduced.
It was also the No.1 program on its premiere night for all people in all the markets in which it aired - Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
AAP
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)