Gleision colliery deaths: four miners mourned across south Wales valleys
September 18, 2011 No Comment
Prayers and tributes shared as local community come to terms with loss of four men found dead in flooded mine Candles were lit, prayers said and fond memories shared as the four men killed in the Gleision mining tragedy were remembered and honoured. Congregations at churches across the south Wales valleys were swollen by people touched by what for many is the worst mining disaster in living memory. Around 100 people attended St John the Evangelist church in Cilybebyll, the closest village to the colliery, where they prayed for the men and their families and sang the hymns Abide With Me and The Lord’s My Shepherd. The Rev Martyn Perry told parishioners: “Our thoughts are with families around the area in communities surrounding ours who are in the process of preparing funerals for their loved ones.” Perry said it was easy to trust in God “when things are going well” but added: “There are other times, like this for example, when we can’t see the purpose, we can’t see a pattern and things are difficult and distressing. We wonder about our ability to trust God.”But Perry said better times were ahead, quoting the last verse of the hymn Be Still My Soul, which promises that “love’s pure joy” will be restored. At nearby St David’s church in Resolven, relatives of one of the dead men, Phillip Hill, carried home a candle lit in his memory. Among the congregation was retired oil worker John Brown, 67, who had known Hill since he was a boy and was haunted by the thought of him dying as water poured into the mine. “It’s beyond belief to think of the blackness and the water,” he said. “I just hope at the end it was quick.” The Rev Peter Lewis said: “Phillip was part of the community and he was brought up here in a house just down from the church. A lot of people knew him, particularly those villagers who worked in the mines.” Messages of support have been sent to the Swansea Valley from as far afield as New Zealand and Alaska. An appeal fund set up to help the families of the men who died raised £30,000 within 24 hours. Prince Charles has become patron of the fund. A spokesman for Clarence House said: “He was invited to be the royal patron and he has close links to that area. He followed the story and was deeply saddened by what happened.” The alarm was raised on Thursday when the shaft the men were working in flooded. Three of the seven who were in the small drift mine – including Powell’s son, Daniel – managed to get out but four were trapped 90 metres underground. Hopes that the men might have found an air pocket and survived were dashed as the bodies were found one by one. All died close together in an area near where they had been blasting. An investigation has begun into the cause of the flooding of the mine, which is owned by the company MNS. One key questions is how much the men knew about the area they were working in. It is not clear yet if they were aware that gallons of water lay so close to the section they were working. While more modern mines are carefully mapped, records about historic workings like those around Gleision are not always kept. On the lane near the colliery, the police cordon has been replaced by a line of floral tributes to Hill, 45, and the other men who died: Charles Breslin, 62; David Powell, 50; and Garry Jenkins, 39. One note for Jenkins read: “Sleep tight – we will always love you.” Another, aimed at all four, said: “The day’s work is done, your tools are on the bar, no more sweat and no more pain.” Wales Mining Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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London mayor severely warned over 2008 mayoral race and criticised by own team for trying to ‘offload’ own work in office Boris Johnson was warned by senior members of his campaign team that he would have his “fucking knees” cut off if he let them down in the 2008 London mayoral race, according to a forthcoming unauthorised biography of the Conservative mayor. The warning was given amid fears that Johnson had failed to grasp that just saying “I’m Boris Johnson” and relying on his charm would not be enough to oust the Labour incumbent, Ken Livingstone, according to a former colleague, Sonia Purnell. Johnson went on to beat Livingstone to run city hall where he was subsequently taken to one side by a senior city hall official and urged to “get a grip” after trying to “offload” the hard work of his job on to others. Purnell’s book, Just Boris, is being serialised in the Sunday Times as the Conservatives prepare to gather for their annual party conference next month, and as Johnson begins for a rematch with Livingstone in the 2012 mayoral election next May. The book revisits much of the details of his childhood and personal life first covered in a previous biography, The Rise of Boris Johnson, written by a former Daily Telegraph colleague, Andrew Gimson. Purnell, who was Johnson’s deputy when he was the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, recounts how Conservatives settled for Johnson as their mayoral candidate after failing to persuade a long list of high-profile candidates to stand, including the former Tory prime minister Sir John Major. Once installed as candidate, Johnson, who was sacked as shadow arts spokesman in 2004 by the then Tory leader Michael Howard for lying about an affair with his fellow Spectator journalist Petronella Wyatt, was “banned from philandering” during the mayoral campaign and ordered to write down any infidelities that were not yet in the public domain. The party enlisted the help of Lord Marland, a former party treasurer, and Lynton Crosby, the Australian election strategist, to help Johnson’s campaign. The pair, reportedly concerned at Johnson’s laid back approach, allegedly put him on notice that “we’ll cut your fucking knees off” if he let them down. He was told in no uncertain terms to apply “the tightest self-discipline” and warned that if he was a minute late for meetings with campaign donors, Marland would instantly resign. Marland told Purnell: “Boris had been able to wing it all his life through charm, intelligence and bashfulness. He really believed until then, that just saying “I’m Boris Johnson” and playing London Calling would do the job. We had to awaken him to the realisation that if he carried on the same way he really could lose.” Crosby has been enlisted again to spearhead Johnson’s re-election bid. Purnell, who describes Johnson as “the most ruthless, ambitious person I have ever met”, writes that Johnson tried to “offload” much of the hard work to a “top businessman” after being elected London mayor, to avoid having to do the boring aspects of the role himself. She said the idea of having Johnson as a “chairman mayor” supported by “an absolutely top flight chief operating officer” was the brainwave of one of Johnson’s campaign chiefs drawn up before the election amid fears that he did not possess the managerial skills set to run the capital. But the strategy of delegating the day-to-day running of the capital during the first few months of his mayoralty proved a disaster and after four months, according to Purnell, a senior city hall official had words. “In an extraordinary showdown in a restaurant after he was elected, a senior official told Johnson: “Boris, you’ve got to start being mayor. Go out there and be in charge. It was made crystal clear that … Boris could not afford to be semi-permanently out to lunch. He had to get down and dirty, to run things himself,” wrote Purnell. After two months of “near chaos” at city hall Tim Parker, a prominent businessman and former board member of the Audit Commission, came in and took on the chief executive role of “first deputy mayor”. But he stood down just a couple months later – becoming the third senior adviser to quit in the four months of Johnson’s reign, claiming he did not think Johnson needed a full-time first deputy mayor. The claim will resonate with some opposition members of the London assembly who were surprised when less than two years into the job, Johnson announced he was delegating the chairmanship of the Metropolitan Police Authority to his deputy mayor for policing, Kit Malthouse. Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the London assembly, said Johnson appears to rely too heavily on the advisers in his mayoralty. She pointed to the way city hall was left in temporary disarray following the death of Sir Simon Milton, Johnson’s chief of staff who died in April and who many saw as the real power behind Johnson’s mayoralty. Ed Lister, the Tory leader of Wandsworth council, was swiftly announced as his replacement. Pidgeon, chairs the assembly’s transport committee, chaired by Johnson, said the Conservative mayor also seems to leave much of the direction for transport policy to his deputy chair, Daniel Moylan. “He’s a very good front man but is not a details man,” said Pidgeon. “It is great having strong individuals in your top team but you have to give the direction and the vision. I don’t think he is doing that in areas such as Transport for London, and that is a problem.” Boris Johnson Conservatives London Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Lib Dems vote overwhelmingly to set up panel to consider decriminalising drugs
September 18, 2011 No Comment
Motion also offers show of support for Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, following high profile resignations from body The Liberal Democrats have voted to establish a panel to consider decriminalising the use of all drugs. The panel would also consider a less radical alternative: that possession would remain illegal, but those caught would have to appear before a panel and made to undertake “appropriate education, health or social interventions”, replacing the existing fines and jail sentences on the statute book. Any money made available by these reforms would be used for education, treatment and rehabilitation. The motion also offers a show of support for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, following high profile resignations from the body over disagreements with the then-Labour government, and the coalition’s plan to remove the statutory minimum of scientists sitting on the council . The Lib Dem motion says the council should “retain a majority of independent scientific and social scientific experts in its membership” and that no changes to drug laws should be made without its advice. The panel would carry out an impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to evaluate, “economically and scientifically”, the legal framework prohibiting drugs. Ewan Hoyle, a delegate from Glasgow South and the founder of Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, moved the motion. Drug policy had been a no-go area for politicians because of “cowardice, pure cowardice”, he said – fear of the reaction from tabloid newspapers. “It’s time politicians looked voters in the eye and attempted to explain complex concepts.” Hoyle added: “I want Nick Clegg to walk into David Cameron’s office and say: ‘This is part of what is needed to get the country out of a hole.’” All motions passed at the Lib Dem conference become party policy – but not coalition policy. Asked if the successful motion meant the drugs panel would now be set up, a party spokesman said: “This gives our MPs and ministers backing from conference to take this into government, to put into the coalition process. It will bind ministers and MPs in the coming years as they move forward, if drugs policy comes up, to act on it where appropriate.” He characterised the motion as “not that different from government policy: to follow the science on drugs”. But Lib Dem frontbenchers stayed away from the debate, although MEPs Chris Davies and Graham Watson did speak in favour of the motion. Davies told the conference: “Far from reducing the supply of drugs, prohibition has actively encouraged their use. It’s a policy that has failed.” Caroline Chatwin, an expert in drugs policy at the University of Kent, said the Lib Dems’ motion represented “an important and positive step forward in the recognition that the harm caused by drug policy can be greater than the harm caused by drugs themselves”. “Every year, many people, particularly young people, are criminalised for the possession of drugs when, apart from their drug use, they are otherwise law abiding citizens,” she said. “This is a state of play that causes harm to both individuals who are criminalised and society in general, which suffers the consequences of large numbers of disaffected and marginalised members. “It is particularly damaging that particular groups, such as disadvantaged black males, are disproportionately stopped by the police on suspicion of minor drug offences, breeding disaffection and alienation amongst whole communities.” She added that although the motion was based on Portugal’s seemingly successful policy of drug decriminalisation, “David Cameron has already sent drug policy advisers to Portugal to investigate the possibility of adopting a Portuguese strategy here – an idea that he ultimately rejected.” But she said that the Lib Dem motion still “falls short of the mark, by leaving the illegal drug trade in the hands of unscrupulous criminals”. The UK Drugs Policy Commission has also backed the thrust of the Lib Dem motion . Roger Howard, the commission’s chief executive, said there was an understandable worry that removing criminal penalties for simple possession could lead to a rise in drug use, but he insisted the move could do some good. “The evidence from other countries suggests there would be no great surge in drug use,” he said. Speaking against the motion in a debate which was at times quite emotional, Julian Cooper, a councillor in Witney, David Cameron’s constituency in Oxfordshire, said the proposal “totally underplays the consequences” of legalising drugs, particularly the health consequences. The motion was passed with only one or two votes against, according to Andrew Wiseman, the chair of the Lib Dems’ federal policy committee. Drugs policy Liberal Democrats Liberal Democrat conference 2011 Liberal Democrat conference Drugs Health Paul Owen guardian.co.uk
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EU’s failure to resolve Greek problem adds to tensions as world’s finance ministers and central bankers gather at IMF Investors are poised for another week of turmoil in the global financial markets as finance ministers and central bankers gather in Washington for the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting amid the biggest crisis since the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago. A weekend meeting of EU finance ministers in Poland failed to resolve any of the issues in the beleaguered eurozone, instead casting more doubt over the future of Greece by delaying a decision on a much needed €8bn (£7bn) bailout payment until next month. Reports in Greece suggested the EU, IMF and European Central Bank were asking for further austerity measures, including 100,000 public sector job cuts, in an attempt to resolve Greece’s budget deficit and avoid a default. Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, who has cancelled plans to attend the IMF meeting in favour of dealing with the crisis, held an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday to discuss additional cutbacks before a conference call with the EU and the IMF on Monday. Meanwhile Moody’s is expected to announce imminently whether it plans to downgrade Italy’s credit rating, a move that would escalate the European debt crisis and cause problems for French banks exposed to the country’s debt. Many observers believe last week’s news of a co-ordinated plan by five central banks to pump dollars into the system was designed to improve liquidity in the event of further turmoil. But the political pressures within the eurozone were in focus once more following a predicted defeat for German chancellor Angela Merkel in another state election at the weekend. Sony Kapoor, of the economic policy thinktank Re-Define, said: “The inability of EU leaders to handle the problem of Greece, one of the smaller economies in the EU, does little to inspire confidence in their capacity to tackle the much larger threat posed by the continuing failure of Italy and Spain to be able to refinance themselves at reasonable costs.” Before its annual meeting on Friday, the IMF is likely to cut its growth forecasts for the global economy in the wake of the instability in Europe. At the meeting itself, US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to repeat his calls for Europe to stop bickering and take action to tackle the debt crisis, comments that annoyed some EU officials when he made them in Poland on Friday because of America’s own debt troubles. Elsewhere, Adam Posen, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said the eurozone crisis was the biggest single threat to the global economy. He told Sky News: “It is bigger for the UK than for the US or for other people who are not as tightly tied to Europe. We’re all tied to western Europe, we’re all tied financially, politically, economically, commercially.” Posen said Bank officials, including its governor Mervyn King, were working “very hard to make sure we know where all the linkages are”, adding that banks were as well capitalised as they could be. He also said that Europe’s debt problem was solvable and the rich countries of central Europe should take the loss to alleviate the fear across markets. European debt crisis European banks Bank of England Economics Euro European Union Greece Europe Nick Fletcher guardian.co.uk
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Activists say Ibrahim Mohammed al-Farouj was killed by a bullet to the head At least one child has been shot dead and another arrested as Syrian pupils protested against the government on the first day of the new school year. Eleven-year-old Ibrahim Mohammed al-Farouj from Sanamein was killed by a bullet to the head, activists said, exactly six months after a group of schoolchildren in the southern city of Deraa sparked the first protests of the uprising against president Bashar al-Assad. Some schools remained closed because they had been used as holding centres for detained protesters or because teachers had been arrested, according to sources across the country. In other areas, troops used live ammunition to disperse students who had boycotted classes, chanting “No studying, no teaching until the president is toppled.” Sameh al-Hamwi, an activist in Hama, said: “The government postponed the opening of many schools to Tuesday.” He estimated that more than half the parents in the city were planning to keep their children at home amid fears for their safety. In the flashpoint city of Homs, locals said at least one child was arrested from a school in the wealthy Ghouta area. Amateur footage posted online showed children in another school in the city trampling on posters of Assad . At a third school, children tore up their citizenship textbooks. A former student of Ghasaniee, a school in Homs which had been used as a temporary detention facility, did not re-open, according a former student, who said a friend of his had found the playground full of discarded bullet casings and walls pockmarked with holes. For the past six months, young people have been on the frontline of anti-government protests which broke out after a dozen children – all aged under 15 – were arrested in Deraa for scrawling anti-regime graffiti on a wall. But children have also been victims of the regime’s violent response: 182 Syrians under the age of 18 have been killed and scores more tortured, according to Radwan Ziadeh, a US-based human rights activist from Syria and head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights. In one notorious case, the mutilated body of Hamza al-Khateeb, 13, was returned to his parents in May after he had been arrested by security forces. His neck had been broken and his penis cut off. “Children have been living the deaths and arrests of their family members and even friends,” said Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights lawyer in Damascus. “It has stolen their innocence and childhood.” Nour Ali is the pseudonym for a journalist based in Damascus Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Nour Ali guardian.co.uk
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Forthcoming ‘Buffett tax’ provokes fresh conflict between US president and rightwingers US Republican leaders have accused president Barack Obama of “class warfare” as he prepares to unveil plans to increase taxes for millionaires. Obama is set to reveal details of the so-called “Buffett tax” – named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has repeatedly called for the rich to pay higher taxes – on Monday. Obama looks set to propose a tax hike for those earning more than $1m a year as part of a wider plan to tackle the US’s massive deficit. The proposals, which have little chance of becoming law without Republican support, look set to become the latest battle ground for Republicans and Democrats gearing up for next year’s election and an increasingly contentious fight over how to support the US’s struggling economic recovery. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House of Representatives budget committee, said: “Class warfare may make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics.” Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Ryan said the plan “adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty, and it punishes job creation and those people who create jobs.” Ryan said higher taxes would hurt job creation. “If you tax something more, you get less of it,” said Ryan. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said the proposal would further damage the US’s fragile economy. “We have thrown a big wet blanket over the private sector economy. We’ve borrowed too much, we’ve spent too much and we’ve dramatically over-regulated every aspect of the private sector in our country and now we are threatening to raise taxes on top of it. That’s not going to get the economy moving,” McConnell said on NBC’s Meet the Press. The fight comes as clashes between Republicans and Democrats over the economy intensify in the runup to next year’s election. The would-be Republican presidential candidates will hold their next debate on Thursday and Obama’s proposals are bound to be a central issue. Former president Bill Clinton defended the plan. “The least harmful tax increases are the ones that senator McConnell and the people who agree with him hate the most, and that is restoring the tax levels that existed when I was president for those of us in high-income groups. That’s the one that does the least harm.” Obama’s proposal comes a month after Buffett began reviving his longstanding objection that he and his “megarich friends” pay significantly less tax than most people thanks to tax breaks that favour investors . “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he wrote in the New York Times. ” It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice. ” Obama’s poll ratings hit a new low last week, thanks to the continuing economic malaise in the US. According to the latest CBS/New York Times poll, Obama’s approval rating is now 43%, down from 57% in May. Those surveyed said the economy and jobs were the two biggest issues the US faces. Some 86% said the state of the US economy is either very bad or fairly bad. Nearly half – 48% – believe the nation is moving toward another recession. Obama’s millionaire tax hike will be a central component of the president’s proposals to a special joint Congressional “super committee” that is working to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November. With unemployment now at 9.1% and income inequality at record levels, the president is hoping to put pressure on Republicans who have staunchly rejected any tax increases and have called for deep cuts in government spending on the US’s Medicare, Medicaid and social security programmes. Last week Republican speaker John Boehner said Obama should tackle tax reform to get rid of many tax breaks. “Tax increases, however, are not a viable option for the joint committee,” Boehner said. The tax fight comes in another tough week for Obama. The United Nations is set to vote on recognising Palestinian statehood this week after the US fought unsuccessfully to stop the vote taking place . Last week the Democrats lost a key congressional district in New York where some of the area’s heavily Jewish voters said they were protesting against the administration’s record on Israel . He is also expected to meet European leaders amid fears that Europe’s economic crisis will prove a further drag on the US’s fragile recovery. US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner travelled to Poland last week to meet Europe’s finance ministers and asked them to step up efforts to tackle the crisis. Geithner was rebuffed by Austria’s finance minister, Maria Fekter. “I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the eurozone, they tell us what we should do and when we make a suggestion … that they say no straight away,” said Fekter. • Last week the US census revealed that 46 million Americans – one in six – now live in poverty, the highest number ever. • In 2010, the top 20% of Americans earned 49.4% of the nation’s income. The top 1% account for 24% of all income. • About 47% of US people pay no federal income taxes, either because their incomes are too low, or because they qualify for enough tax breaks to eliminate their liability. • People who make money from investments pay far lower taxes than those who earn it from their wages. • Last year Warren Buffett, who has a $50bn personal fortune, paid $6.9m in federal taxes – 17.4% of his taxable income. The other 20 people in his office paid between 33% and 41%. • “While the poor and middle-class fight for us in Afghanistan and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” Buffett wrote in the New York Times last month. US domestic policy Barack Obama Obama administration US economy Republicans Global recession Global economy US politics United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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UBS has set up a committee led by David Sidwell, independent director on the board to investigate the unauthorised trading The boss of UBS was under fresh pressure last night after the Swiss bank upped the cost of the alleged rogue trading by Kweku Adoboli – to $2.3bn (£1.45bn) from $2bn – and claimed his activities had been hidden by “fictitious” trades. Oswald Grübel, a veteran banker who was lured out retirement to try to rescue UBS two years ago, told the Swiss weekly Der Sonntag that he had no intention of resigning despite calls to take responsibility for the alleged rogue trading incident. In attempt to explain the events that led up Adoboli being charged with fraud and false accounting on Friday less than 48 hours after being arrested by City of London Police, the Swiss bank said on Sunday said the losses had been incurred in the past three months through “unauthorised speculative trading” in futures contracts on stock market indices on the S&P 500 on Wall Street, Germay’s Dax index and the Euro Stoxx index, which is based on basket of eurozone stocks. The bank said Adoboli, who is in custody awaiting a bail hearing on Thursday, had hidden the extent of his trading activities because of “fictitious” trades, using complex financial instruments known as exchange traded funds. EFTs are designed to mimic market movements without holding the actual stocks. “The positions taken were within the normal business flow of a large global equity trading house as part of a properly hedged portfolio. However, the true magnitude of the risk exposure was distorted because the positions had been offset in our systems with fictitious, forward-settling, cash ETF positions, allegedly executed by the trader. These fictitious trades concealed the fact that the index futures trades violated UBS’s risk limits,” the bank said. Adoboli, British educated of Ghanian descent, was arrested at 3.30am on Thursday morning after UBS called in the police at 1.30am after becoming suspicious about the 31 year old’s activities. The bank, which has set up a special committee to investigate the trading activities and the “control environment”, said: “Following inquiries directed to him by UBS control functions that were reviewing his positions, the trader revealed his unauthorised activity on 14 September”. The committee is staffed by UBS non-executives. It will be chaired by former banker David Sidwell, who is the senior independent director, as well as Joseph Yam, former chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and Ann Godbehere, who used to be at Northern Rock. UBS has now closed out all the positions it believes were held by Adoboli after setting up “Project Bronze” led by of its top trader Jason Barron. One of the three charges faced by Adoboli dates back to 2008 piling more pressure on the bank’s management and adding fuel to calls from Swiss politicians to break up the bank into its high street and investment banking businesses. Thousands of jobs in the City, where it employs 6,000, are at risk from any restructuring of the business which could be announced at an update slated for 17 November. Grübel has faced calls from Switzerland’s Social Democrats to resign but he was defiant on Sunday. “That is purely political. I am not thinking about stepping down,” he told Der Sonntag. While he admitted responsibility, he said: “But if you ask me whether I feel guilty, I say no. Two charges claim that Adoboli falsified records of ETFs between October 2008 and December 2009 and then January 2010 and September 2011. A third charge alleges that he committed fraud between January 2011 and September 2011 while senior trader in global synthetic equities. His lawyers at Kingsley Napley – the law firm that advised Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who broke Barings – are yet to issue a statement or enter pleas to the charges. On Friday, his father, John, told Reuters from Ghana: “I want the world to have an open mind. He should not be sentenced before the trial begins.” The former UN worker is hoping to fly to the UK this week. Accountants Deloitte are expected to run an investigation into what went wrong at UBS for the Financial Services Authority. UBS will be pay Deloitte’s fees. UBS Banking European banks Banking reform Financial sector Financial Services Authority (FSA) Regulators Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Chris Hayes has done a very good job of filling in during the week for some of the prime time hosts at MSNBC and he’s now got his own show on the weekends. I’ll just say I agree with Digby as to why his new show is a welcome change from, as she put it, “the usual cable news fare.” It’s definitely a welcome change from five hours or so of Alex Witt on the weekends and her cozying up to “her boys” Pat Buchanan and useless so-called “Democratic strategist” Peter Fenn and the general just gossipy and celebrity driven gist of her so-called “news” coverage, or the typical he said/she said nature of any of her “reporting” on politics from MSNBC on the weekends. Shows like Witt’s always seemed to me to be much more concerned over whether they’re just being polite to their guests who come on their show and lie, rather than ever calling them out for those lies, because heaven forbid if you did that, they might not come back on your show again to lie some more to the public. Thankfully, the MSNBC viewers will now be exposed to two less hours of that each day on the weekends. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I heard Chris was going to get his own show, but it looks like he just gave me a reason to reprogram the DVR for the weekends if this first show is any indication.
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Click here to view this media A top House Republican said Sunday that President Barack Obama was engaging “class warfare” with a proposal to tax millionaires at a higher rate. The so-called “Buffet rule” would make sure millionaires pay about the same tax rate as the employees that work for them. It’s named after billionaire Warren Buffet, who has said that he is taxed at a rate of about 17.4 percent, while his secretary is taxed at a rate of about 36 percent. “If you tax something more, Chris, you get less of it,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “Class warfare, Chris, may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need a system that seeks to divide people and prey on peoples’ fear, envy and anxiety. We need a system that creates jobs and innovation, and removes these barriers for entrepreneurs to go out a rehire people. I’m afraid these kinds of tax increases don’t work.” “This is being called the ‘Buffet rule” because it comes after Warren Buffet, the multi-billionaire owner of Berkshire Hathaway said, ‘I get so much of my money from capital gains, I end up paying a lower effective tax rate than my secretary who gets her money in salary,’” Wallace noted. “What about the question of fairness, sir?” “What he forgets to mention is that is a double tax,” Ryan insisted. “Capital gains and dividends are taxes on money that has already been taxed once before based on income… It looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path. Class warfare will simply divide the country more, attack job creators, divide people and it doesn’t grow the economy.”
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TV station also plans to air shows about public safety after being ordered to scrap its hugely popular talent show Chinese television bosses are replacing the country’s equivalent of Pop Idol with programmes about housework and morally improving topics, after officials ordered them to scrap the talent show. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), the broadcasting watchdog, had previously imposed a cap on how much screen time such programmes could take up, saying that it was concerned about their impact on young viewers. The latest run of the hugely popular Super Girl contest finished on Friday. A spokesman for Hunan Satellite Television said it would not show any TV talent shows with mass participation next year because it had been accused of breaking time limits. “Hunan Satellite Television obeys the state watchdog’s decision and will not hold similar talent shows next year,” said Li Hao. “Instead, the channel will air programmes that promote moral ethics and public safety, and provide practical information for housework.” The show’s heyday was in the middle of the last decade, when up to 400 million viewers tuned in for the final and voted for their favourite contestants via text messaging and phone polls. But in 2007, SARFT decreed that talent shows could not be shown in prime time – between 7.30pm and 10.30pm – or screened for more than two hours a day. It also banned text voting – with some suggesting officials were concerned that the democratic method of choosing the winner was a bad influence. “I don’t think the content is really the important thing; it’s not that different from what goes on elsewhere,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei.com , which follows Chinese media. “I think it’s more about clamping down on the uppity provincial station – making sure they don’t have a runaway hit that puts [state broadcaster] CCTV to shame. “I think CCTV is very wary when any provincial station has a breakaway hit and SARFT and CCTV are very close.” Hunan TV has a reputation as the boldest and most innovative of China’s broadcasters. It has often found success by picking up western formats and adapting them to suit a Chinese audience, launching versions of Strictly Come Dancing and Top Gear, among other hits. China is particularly strict in its controls on broadcast media and SARFT’s decisions can be startling to outsiders. Earlier this year an official from the watchdog denounced time travel dramas for their “frivolous” approach to history . China The news on TV Television Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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