|
|
|
Cuttings and links to other online information.
The Farepak fiasco nightmare
Kirsty Macauley knows what it feels like to have her piggybank raided. A pregnant single mother-of-three from Ayrshire, she is one of the estimated 120,000 people who have lost money due the collapse of Farepak, a savings club that encouraged people to save monthly for vouchers to spend at Christmas. (Telegraph, 29 Oct 2006)
Report's stark warning on climate
The Stern Review says that climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. And on the basis of this intellectually rigorous and thorough report, it is hard to disagree. (BBC, 29 Oct 2006)
OAPs: Give us more loos
Hundreds of people were at Lambeth Town Hall on Tuesday to mark the launch of the Campaign for Decent Public Toilet Provision. (South London Press, 27 Oct 2006)
English Heritage searches for links to slavery
English Heritage is to rewrite the histories of its properties to include any links that they may have with slavery. (Telegraph, 26 Oct 2006)
Starbucks, the coffee beans and the copyright row that cost Ethiopia £47m
Starbucks, the giant US coffee chain, has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia's farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to £47m a year, said Oxfam.
...Fitsum Hailu, of the Ethiopian embassy in the US, added: "Struggling Ethiopian farmers should be able to realise a greater portion of the value our coffee commands on the international market. This project is innovative - and a unique opportunity for our farmers to be empowered in the arena of international trade." (Guardian, 26 Oct 2006)
Union accuses bank of making hollow claims about ethics
Goldman Sachs was accused yesterday of making hollow claims about its ethical standards after the firm awarded a select band of top bankers multi-million-pound payouts while refusing to pay cleaners little more than the minimum wage. (Guardian, 26 Oct 2006)
Councils urged to lead community child development
Local authorities could play a greater role in improving education by using their influence to ensure that children are in a "fit state to learn", a new report says. ! (Guardian, 25 Oct 2006)
Old school ties
The long-awaited, long-gestated charities bill reaches its climax in the Commons today - but with a hole at its heart in relation to independent schools and hospitals. (Guardian, 25 Oct 2006)
Collapse of ecosystems likely if plunder continues
Humans are living well beyond their ecological means and are now exhausting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. In so doing, says WWF's bi-annual report, we are threatening ourselves and all other species with extinction. (Guardian, 25 Oct 2006)
Four assaulted in mosque attack
CRE chairman Trevor Phillips warned that the Muslim veil row could trigger race riots.
Police were called to the Eccles Mosque on Liverpool Road in Salford, Greater Manchester, shortly before 9.30pm yesterday following a report of an attack inside the building. (Telegraph, 23 Oct 2006)
How you can save energy
Britain is Europe's worst energy waster, with bad habits such as leaving appliances on standby set to cost households £11bn by 2010, a study has claimed. (BBC, 23 Oct 2006)
How Britain became frightened of its young
Britain is becoming fearful of its young people with most adults too scared to intervene if they see misbehaviour in the street, a report says.
...The report, Freedom's Orphans: Raising Youth in a Changing World, to be published next month, said that both condemnation of teenagers and attempts to absolve them from all blame were misplaced. (Telegraph, 23 Oct 2006)
Why we're still the best of enemies
Old enmities and new grumbles are given a vigorous airing in advance of next year's tercentenary of the union of England and Scotland...
...Christopher Whatley, by far the most eminent of the authors reviewed here, adds further context to the story. In The Scots and the Union, he argues that it wasn't just threats and inducements that created Great Britain, but a committed group of Scottish Protestants who had long seen union as a means of extinguishing Catholic influence. (Guardian, 22 Oct 2006)
Merryn on Money: Christmas is cancelled
When Christmas company Farepak went into administration last week (for reasons that remain unclear) its customers were completely shocked: 170,000 of them had been saving for their Christmas presents and meals through the firm and had put in an average of £200 each — some a great deal more. Administrators have made it pretty clear they aren’t getting their money back. (Times, 22 Oct 2006)
Slum dispute over Commonwealth Games
...In the last two years, more than a quarter of a million people have had their homes demolished along the banks of the Yamuna.
The city authorities plan to make Delhi completely slum-free in time for the arrival of thousands of foreign athletes and spectators for the next Commonwealth Games, due to be held here in 2010. (BBC, 21 Oct 2006)
Home Office plans floating jails
Home Secretary John Reid has been accused of panic measures over plans to use prison ships to ease overcrowding in jails in England and Wales.
...Britain's last floating prison - HMP Weare moored at Portland Harbour in Dorset - closed last year after the chief inspector of prisoners described the vessel as "unsuitable, expensive and in the wrong place". (BBC, 21 Oct 2006)
Prison ship sought as crowding crisis grows
John Reid is planning to open a new super-prison ship to hold hundreds of inmates and ease the pressure on the rising prison population. (Times, 21 Oct 2006)
A heavy price is extracted for free banking
The big banks have a standard response when, as yesterday, they are accused of ripping off customers with a financial product of shockingly poor value: they hint darkly that free banking is under threat. (Guardian, 20 Oct 2006)
Outrage at town hall pay increase
...Lambeth's Labour leaders have been accused of lining their pockets with council tax payers' cash after it emerged some councillors will receive pay increases of more than 100 per cent. (South London Press, 20 Oct 2006)
Nigerian leaders 'stole' $380bn
More than $380bn has either been stolen or wasted by Nigerian governments since independence in 1960, the chief corruption fighter has said. (BBC, 20 Oct 2006)
Charities shut down in Putin's war on free speech
Several leading human rights organisations critical of the Kremlin were forced to suspend operations yesterday after failing to meet a deadline for registration that critics said was impossible to meet. (Telegraph, 20 Oct 2006)
Clare Short resigns as Labour MP over war in Iraq
Clare Short, the former Cabinet Minister and Left-wing firebrand, resigned as a Labour MP and will sit as an independent for the remainder of this parliament. (BBC, 20 Oct 2006)
One-third support 'some torture'
Nearly a third of people worldwide back the use of torture in prisons in some circumstances, a BBC survey suggests. (BBC, 19 Oct 2006)
Stand by for a ban on wasteful TVs
Televisions with wasteful standby settings and DVD players that never switch off will be banned by regulations to be proposed by Brussels tomorrow to force households to cut energy use by 20 per cent. (Times, 18 Oct 2006)
4 million people can't be wrong
No wonder four million people have signed a petition in support of Britain's post offices. Today there are 14,000 of them, but Adam Crozier, the chief executive of Royal Mail, has said the system could be run with only 4,000. (Telegraph, 18 Oct 2006)
The courts are starting to accept that the war against Iraq is a crime
In the early hours, two days before the attack on Iraq began, two men in their 30s, Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch, cut through the fence surrounding the air base at Fairford in Gloucestershire and made their way towards the B52 bombers which were stationed there. The planes belonged to the US air force. (Guardian, 17 Oct 2006)
Change 'will weaken' openness law
Politically-embarrassing requests could be buried more easily if proposed changes to the Freedom of Information are put through, say campaigners. (BBC, 17 Oct 2006)
Hopes for peace in tatters as 100 killed when bomber rams convoy
Sri Lanka suffered its worst suicide bomb attack yesterday when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a lorry filled with explosives into a naval convoy, killing at least 100 sailors and injuring 150. (Times, 17 Oct 2006)
Gas drilling leaves villages buried in a sea of mud
In the shadow of Mt Penanggungan, a sacred volcano in eastern Java, a vast sea of mud stretches to the horizon. A few rooftops break the surface of the sludge, as does the odd vehicle, and a sulphurous, burnt rubber smell hangs in the air.
Steam billows from a mound that is spewing out four million cubic feet of grey filth every day, engulfing four villages and leaving more than 12,000 people homeless. (Telegraph, 13 Oct 2006)
US rejects UK Guantanamo comments
The US government has rebuffed UK calls to close its controversial detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (BBC, 13 Oct 2006)
Iraq war has killed 650,000, says study
About 650,000 more Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the war than would have died if the occupation had not occurred, research shows.
American and Iraqi epidemiologists, whose research was published online yesterday by the medical journal The Lancet, said that a more than doubling of the mortality rate between the periods before and after the March 2003 invasion constituted a "humanitarian emergency". (Telegraph, 12 Oct 2006) See Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
Armenian diaspora bound by killings
From the Armenian perspective, the passing of a law in France forbidding denial of what Armenians consider to have been genocide is recognition of a great historical disaster. (BBC, 12 Oct 2006)
Bloody uprising of the Mau Maus
Legal action taken against the British government to secure compensation for a dozen Kenyans allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau uprising will cast the spotlight on one of the Empire's bloodiest conflicts. (BBC, 12 Oct 2006)
Law chief attacks longer sentences
The Lord Chief Justice criticised ever-lengthening jail sentences yesterday, which he said could in the future be regarded just as shocking as the noose and the whip.
...His speech outlined the history of British punishments, including practices now considered “utterly barbaric”, such as flogging and the scold’s bridle.He then added: “I sometimes wonder whether, in a hundred years’ time, people will be as shocked by the length of the sentences we are imposing as we are by some punishments of the 18th century.” (Times, 11 Oct 2006)
Counting the human cost of regeneration
Julia Chain of the Commission for Racial Equality explains why the CRE has launched a formal inquiry into regeneration. (Guardian, 9 Oct 2006) See CRE
Libération trapped by debts and few readers
From Adam Sage in Paris
Libération, the French newspaper co-founded by Jean-Paul Sartre as the voice of anti-capitalism, is looking for a capitalist saviour after being given six months to stave off bankruptcy. (Times, 9 Oct 2006)
Is this the killer of Russian journalist?
Russia's best known investigative journalist was murdered two days before
she was due to publish a scathing report on torture by Russian agents in
Chechnya, it emerged yesterday, as outrage spread around the world.
As messages poured in for Anna Politkovskaya, who became famous for her withering criticism of President Vladimir Putin's war in Chechnya, Russian activists struggled to assess the disturbing implications of her killing for the future of their country. (Telegraph, 9 Oct 2006)
Thousands
going to 'poor schools'
A top government adviser has said about 80,000 children go to weak secondary
schools each year - some of them so bad they should be "shut down quickly".
(BBC, 7 Oct 2006)
Prison chiefs meet Reid over overcrowding
John Reid, the home secretary, held talks with senior officials yesterday amid concern that prisons will be full within days. The Home Office said the prison population for England and Wales had reached 79,806 yesterday, 162 short of the official Prison Service limit of 79,968.
(Guardian, 6 Oct 2006)
Analysts name Britain's most racially diverse areas
Two strangers bumping into each other by accident have a less than 50% chance of belonging to the same racial group in some UK cities, the first official index of diversity revealed yesterday. (Guardian, 6 Oct 2006)
Mau Mau veterans to sue Britain over torture and illegal killings in Kenya
An ageing group of former Mau Mau insurgents will launch a legal action in Britain next week accusing the army and colonial authorities of torturing or illegally killing thousands of Kenyans during the rebellion for independence 50 years ago.
(Guardian, 6 Oct 2006)
Police patrol dairy after attack
A petrol bomb has been thrown at a dairy owned by a Muslim family. (BBC, 4 Oct 2006)
Glasgow Girls renew TV battle against dawn raid
The Glasgow teenagers who waged a high-profile campaign against “dawn raids” by the immigration authorities are making and starring in a new BBC documentary. (Sunday Herald, 1 Oct 2006)
|
|
|
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
|