In The Papers 4 November

04-11-2008

by Sylvia Leatham

'Lyingeyes' gets six years for hitman plot | Bank of Ireland loses customer details, again

The Irish Times reports that Sharon Collins, the Clare woman accused of using the name lyingeyes98 to hire a hitman on the internet, has been sentenced to six years in prison for conspiring to kill her former partner, PJ Howard, and his two sons. Collins's co-accused, Essam Eid, an Egyptian national and Las Vegas poker dealer, was also sentenced to six years for demanding money with menaces and for handling stolen property. Eugene O'Kelly, Collins's solicitor, said there would be an appeal.

The paper also says that hotel chain Marriott International is to set up a second operation in Cork, with the creation of 220 jobs, as noted by ENN on Monday.

The same paper reports that a man is being sued by four companies for allegedly costing them up to EUR9.2 million by selling equipment enabling others to access cable TV services for free. On Monday Justice Peter Kelly granted applications by UPC Ireland and three Swiss-registered companies -- Nagravision, Nagracard and Kudelski, all of which provide services which control access to digital TV and broadband internet -- to transfer their proceedings against Thomas Roddy of Salthill to the Commercial Court. Roddy's counsel said the defence was denying all the claims and asked for time to take instructions from his client as to how matters should proceed.

The Irish Independent says that the personal details of nearly 1,000 Bank of Ireland customers have gone missing after an employee wrongfully copied them on to a memory device which was subsequently lost. Both Bank of Ireland and the Data Protection Commission have launched separate investigations into the matter after the USB stick was reported lost last Wednesday, said bank spokeswoman Anne Mathews. Most of the 894 customers affected have already been contacted by the bank, she said. She stressed that the material on the USB key is not financially sensitive, but the bank will monitor the accounts of affected customers in the event of any unusual or fraudulent activity.

The Irish Examiner reports that Cork Institute of Technology president Dr Brendan Murphy has reiterated his call for the college to be designated a technological university. The college applied for the change in status to the Department of Education last March, adding to similar applications from Waterford Institute of Technology and Dublin Institute of Technology. "The national and international standing of CIT will be enhanced and consequently the institute will be better able to recruit partners, staff, researchers and students from abroad," said Dr Murphy. A spokesperson for Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe said he expects to make a decision in the near future in relation to the applications for university status from CIT, WIT and DIT.

The paper also notes that teachers have warned that students might be unable to participate in the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in January because government cutbacks will mean schools cannot pay a substitute for teachers to bring them to the event. Around 500 projects will be selected for the exhibition at the RDS in Dublin from 6 to 10 January. However, the ban on substitute cover for second-level schools, except for maternity and certified sick leave, announced by Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe in the budget, comes into effect the same week. Event organisers have declined to comment on speculation that students' participation might be affected by the substitution cutbacks.

According to the Financial Times, telco giant Deutsche Telekom is set to ramp up its cost-cutting measures, as it aims to revive its German fixed-line phone business. Rene Obermann, chief executive, said the fixed-line business faced further restructuring, but he confirmed the company expected to hit its 2008 targets on earnings and cash flow. Obermann said Deutsche Telekom was looking to secure EUR4.7 billion in savings from its existing cost-cutting programme, and he pointed to the possibility of further cost-cutting, partly through the planned modernisation of the firm's fixed-line infrastructure. He also sought to reassure investors there would be no big spending on deals by signalling that the telecoms firm had no plans to make a bid for Sprint Nextel, the struggling US mobile operator.

The paper also reports that the company behind Barack Obama's record-breaking online fundraising campaign is using its high profile to pursue political clients overseas, corporate clients, and institutions such as university alumni associations. Blue State Digital's tools and consulting services have helped the Obama campaign raise much of its USD440 million total. It now plans to open an office in London in January, where it ran the online campaign for Ken Livingstone's unsuccessful bid to remain mayor of London this year, and has begun work with the Labour Party and with trade unions interested in mobilising their membership.

The Wall Street Journal says that Yahoo and Google have sent the US Justice Department a revised version of their search-advertising pact, shrinking its scope as regulators prepare to bring a suit against the agreement if a deal is not reached, according to sources. The two companies struck a fairly open-ended agreement in June that allowed Yahoo to display search ads sold by Google and share the revenue. Under that deal, Yahoo was able to select how many Google-sold search ads it could show and for which search terms. But under the revision, the companies agreed to cap the revenue Yahoo can generate from the deal to 25 percent of Yahoo's search revenue and to shorten the length of the agreement to two years from up to 10 years, say sources.

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