Passengers evacuated to lifeboats as fire breaks out on vessel, which was plying Norway’s coast with 262 people on board Two people have been killed and at least nine injured in a fire on a cruise liner operating on a popular route along Norway’s coast, officials say. Police said they had received information that an additional four people were missing, but could not immediately confirm it. Nine people were taken to the hospital, two with serious burns and smoke injuries. The MS Nordlys, with 262 people on board, was evacuated on Thursday after it caught fire at 9.20am local time before arriving in Alesund, 230 miles north-west of Oslo. More than 100 passengers were evacuated into lifeboats before the ship reached port. The remaining passengers and some crew left the vessel as smoke was still billowing from the burning ship. Hurtigruten ASA, the Norwegian operator of the ship, said eight of its crew were among those sent to hospital. Police said they had sealed off parts of Alesund because of the heavy smoke. The MS Nordlys, travelling north from Bergen, is one of several ships that ply the craggy Norwegian coast on the popular 1,500-mile cruise between the south-western city and Kirkenes, high above the Arctic circle near the Russian border. The line carries tourists eager to see the spectacular western coast and locals from coastal cities and hamlets. Norway Cruises Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Gov. Rick Perry Dragged His Feet On Cleaning Up TX Youth Facilities Where Children Were Raped
September 15, 2011 No CommentTexas’ Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice, Don Clemmer, later testified that his office didn’t have the resources to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at a TYC facility in Ward County because at the time the local agent was busy investigating charges of voter fraud by a 68-year-old Hispanic woman. For six years, Gov. Rick “Law and Order” Perry dragged his feet on attacking systemic problems with child rape in the state’s Texas Youth Commission facilities. I’m sure his reluctance had nothing to do with his major donors from the GEO Group, the company to whom he’d bestowed prison privatization contracts: Mary Jane Martinez’s son Jimmy entered the Texas criminal justice system in 2003 because he missed his school bus . He was charged with truancy and destruction of property (for throwing rocks) and sent to live in a county juvenile detention center for a sentence of six months. After five months, instead of being released, he was transferred to an academy 400 miles away, managed by the Texas Youth Commission, the agency that oversees detention and treatment centers across the state. Jimmy finally came home, four years after he was sent away, a period his mother now describes as a living hell. His best friend had been murdered, and Jimmy had been beaten and raped—both, Mrs. Martinez testifed, by TYC guards. “It just made him worse,” Martinez says of the treatment. “My son has PTSD now. He’s schizo.” Unable to find a job after getting out, he was arrested for burglary and landed in a prison facility eight hours away from his native San Antonio. He wasn’t the only victim. Go read the rest. In response to the outcry, Perry appointed his former chief of staff, Jay Kimbrough, to investigate the abuses, and hired an independent ombudsman to sit on the board. But reports continued to pile up. In late 2007, Texas shut down three TYC facilities in quick succession, the last coming in October, when it shuttered a Coke County juvenile detention center after the ombudsman reported unsanitary conditions, such as feces in the shower and blocked-off emergency exits. Two months later, seven former inmates filed suit alleging that they had been sexually abused by guards at the facility, which was operated by the Florida-based private contractor, GEO Group. Perry, for his part, would go on to benefit richly from those efforts, taking in $65,000 from GEO lobbyists and executives during his 2010 reelection campaign. Kimbrough eventually put forward a list of 56 recommended reforms designed to consolidate management of the TYC facilities and reduce overcrowding. Thousands of kids, like Martinez’s son Jimmy, were spending years at state facilities for non-violent offenses, and the juvenile detention system had the opposite of the intended effect; rather than rehabilitating kids and preparing them for reentry, it was a breeding ground for mental illness and a stepping stone to recidivism. Investigators criticized the TYC for its “culture” of punishment—a pervasive use of pepper spray, for instance, for even the most marginal of missteps. With a nudge from activists like Yanez-Correa, the state pushed through a parents’ bill of rights, a prohibition on housing non-violent offenders at TYC facilities, and renewed emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation. The state’s chief executive, stayed on the sidelines for the most part, but signed off on the final package. “Perry didn’t block it, he didn’t say no, he didn’t do anything to stop it,” she says. But the reform effort was complicated by the involvement of the GEO Group, and more broadly, the Perry administration’s support for prison privatization at the expense of quality control. GEO’s response to the Coke County scandal, said State Sen. John Whitmire, the Democratic chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, was to spend more money on lobbyists. As an exasperated Whitmire told the Dallas Morning News, “Now enters GEO with their paid lobbyists attempting to put a good face on this. I’m saying the corporation should back off.” In the year following the scandal, GEO scaled up its lobbying efforts dramatically, pouring $625,000 into lobbying efforts in Austin—more than 10 times what it had spent during the previous legislative session in 2005. Perry, for his part, would go on to benefit richly from those efforts, taking in $65,000 from GEO lobbyists and executives during his 2010 reelection campaign. Even as the stories of the TYC scandal were still trickling out, the blog Grits for Breakfast reported that the agency was taking steps to put even more children under contract care—specifically, it moved to place all 10 to 13 year-olds (about 20 percent of the state’s juvenile residents) in privately operated facilities. (The plan was scrapped after local papers began snooping around.) Even as Perry signed off on sentencing reform designed to reduce overcrowding and improve conditions, GEO got off with a slap on the wrist. With the exception of the shuttered Coke County facility, the company remained in good standing in Texas.
Continue reading …Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's Colbert Report on Comedy Central to plug his memoir, Here Comes Trouble, left-wing film maker Michael Moore used a provocative choice of words to describe his feelings toward Wall Street and conservatives who oppose regulations against businesses as he declared that “I'm a bigot against people like you that support Wall Street and corporations…” Moore seemed to play along with host Stephen Colbert's regular shtick as an exaggerated conservative commentator, since the liberal activist smiled and laughed during much of the segment as he sparred with the faux-conservative over corporations. Below is a transcript of the relevant exchange when Moore chose to describe himself as a “bigot”: STEPHEN COLBERT: What excites me about this is that parents can read this book, stories from your childhood, and use it as a cautionary tale to make sure our children don't turn into you because, Michael, you've got to know at this point it is over. Liberalism has lost, and you stand as a walking, living, breathing, cautionary tale. A decaying Don Quixote still tilting at his windmills. With every turn of the spar, you are driven down into the mud. Send yourself a letter while the post office is still here, Michael. It's over. It's over, Mickey. Your response. MICHAEL MOORE: I'm afraid it's your side that's over. You have – your, not you personally, but your people – COLBERT: Oh, “your people.” That's racist. Go ahead, go ahead, yeah, yeah, you can't tell any Irish people apart. Go ahead. MOORE: I'm a bigot against people like you that support Wall Street and corporations and (INAUDIBLE) COLBERT: The job creators. You hate job creators. Go ahead. MOORE: The job elimators, which iswhat your people are, and, yes, I am a bigot against all of you.
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Police say three men escaped to the surface but four remain trapped after incident at Gleision colliery, near Swansea A major rescue operation is underway after four people were feared to be trapped in a coalmine in Wales. South Wales police said officers, with fire and ambulance crews, were called to the Gleision colliery in Pontardawe, Swansea, at 9.20am. The small hillside mine, near Cilybebyll, has been in operation since 1993. A police spokesman said: “Seven people were initially in the mine at the time. Three of them got out, with one taken to hospital. His condition is currently unknown. “It is believed the other four remain inside. A rescue operation is under way. As you can imagine, it is quite a dynamic situation.” Local councillor Arthur Threlfall, who serves on Cilybebyll community council, described the situation as very worrying. He said: “I understand the injured man was taken to hospital via helicopter. The mine is in quite a remote spot. At the moment, you cannot go anywhere near it because a large area around it has been cordoned off by the police. “Gleision is one of those collieries that has open and shut many times, and they tend to work on the basis of when coal is found. However, it has recently been extended. “This is the first mining disaster I have known for many years. There are not many collieries left like there used to be. However, it is a very worrying situation and it has shocked a lot of people.” The Neath MP and shadow Welsh secretary, Peter Hain, also expressed his concern. He said: “I am immediately seeking information on the miners’ predicament. “I am asking what action needs to be taken urgently by all relevant authorities to secure their safety.” Mining Wales Steven Morris Stephen Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NBC’s Engel Is Adamant on NPR: Iraq’s Liberation Set Back ‘Arab Spring’
September 15, 2011 No CommentGeorge W. Bush spoke out repeatedly during his term for the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East. He said it was insulting to assume that Arabs or Muslims were incapable of democratic reforms. Bush overthrew dictators in Iraq and Afghanistan and allowed elections to proceed. But NBC's chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, was adamant on National Public Radio on Friday: You cannot credit Bush policies for the “Arab Spring.” NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross seemed to be hoping Engel would help her out and denounce Bush: GROSS: You covered the war in Iraq, which the Bush administration said would bring democracy to Iraq and then help spread it through the Middle East. So now democracy is trying to spread through the Middle East, you know… ENGEL: But it wasn't because of Iraq. GROSS: Yes. So I wanted to know whether you think Iraq had anything to do with that. ENGEL: No. If anything I think it slowed it down. I was in Egypt. I was in Libya. I was in Tunisia even and I didn't hear a single person saying in those crowds: “We're going to do this. Look what they've done in Baghdad. If they can do it in Baghdad we can do it here too.” Zero. Zilch. Instead what you saw was the governments of Gadhafi and of Mubarak saying: “Look at what happened in Baghdad. You people want democracy? Well, look at what happened in Iraq. They had a civil war. They had chaos.” The Iraq was used to scare the people into not pursuing their democratic aspirations. So this cause-effect relationship that some people are talking about just wasn't there. People were determined to go out onto the streets to demonstrate and to demand more rights because their governments were treating them badly because of corruption, because of inequality, not because they were inspired by what they saw in Baghdad. What people saw in Baghdad was the country descend into civil war. Engel seemed to be speaking from the John Chancellor School — as in when the former NBC anchor claimed shortages in the Soviet Union had nothing to do with communism . Engel appeared on NPR to promote his new documentary with Rachel Maddow titled “Day of Destruction, Decade of War.”
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Two Ulster Unionists attended funeral mass for murdered Catholic PSNI constable despite ban The Protestant Orange Order in Northern Ireland has become embroiled in an embarrassing controversy after one of its lodges demanded that two Ulster Unionists be disciplined for attending a requiem funeral mass for the murdered Catholic police constable Ronan Kerr. Under the Orange Order’s rules, members are not allowed to attend the Catholic mass, even though thousands of its members flout the ban – particularly in the countryside, where many Protestants live side by side with Catholic neighbours. A hardline Orange Lodge in the Sandy Row area of Belfast has put forward a formal complaint to the institution about the decision by the Ulster Unionist leader, Tom Elliott, and the Stormont minister Danny Kennedy to attend Kerr’s funeral in April. The police officer was murdered after anti-ceasefire republicans placed a booby-trap bomb under his car outside his home in Omagh, Co Tyrone. A letter to the Grand Lodge of Ireland from the Sandy Row lodge accuses the two Ulster Unionists of “selling their principles for political expediency”. Elliott and Kennedy are both prominent members of the Orange Order in their native counties of Fermanagh and Armagh. The complaint has caused widespread anger across the community in Northern Ireland. The widow of the first PSNI officer shot dead by republican dissidents, Constable Stephen Carroll, denounced the Orange Order ban, describing it as “antiquated”. Kate Carroll said Elliott and Kennedy’s attendance at the mass was “groundbreaking” and she was “delighted to see that people as prominent as them were there to show solidarity with police”. A spokesman for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland said: “The complaints procedure is a private matter.” It is understood that it was the only complaint from among 1,200 Orange lodges on the island of Ireland. The complaint will be taken up by Elliott and Kennedy’s respective Orange county districts, and it is expected that no disciplinary procedures will be taken against either man. Northern Ireland guardian.co.uk
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Three tech giants have approached media buyers about plan to target rival’s $2.5bn share of US market, say reports Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are joining forces to try and loosen Google’s grip on internet advertising, according to reports. Executives from the three companies have privately told media buyers about the plan in the US, where Google has now outstripped Yahoo in display as well as search advertising. Citing unnamed sources, tech blog AllThingsD said the trio are planning to sell each other’s “class 2 display” advertising inventory – advertising space they have not managed to sell themselves and would normally hand over to media agencies to fill. The potential tie-up comes days after reports that AOL and Yahoo, fallen giants of the first age of the internet, were discussing a merger in the wake of the firing of Yahoo’s chief executive, Carol Bartz. AOL’s chief executive, Tim Armstrong, has approached Yahoo’s advisers to gauge its interest in combining the companies, Bloomberg reported. The advertising hook-up, in the meantime, could help slow the fast growth of Google and Facebook in the lucrative online display advertising market. Google has long dominated search advertising – or online classified advertising – but overtook Yahoo in display advertising in May this year in the US, according to research firm IDC. The search giant’s first quarter revenues of $396m – 13.3% of the market – compared with Yahoo’s $330m. Facebook had 8.8% of the market. Google got into the display end of the market in 2009 after acquiring DoubleClick. Since then the business has grown rapidly and is now estimated to be worth $2.5bn a year. Yahoo said it has “longstanding relationships” with AOL and Microsoft and will continue to work and compete with them in years to come. AOL said it is fortunate to have longstanding relationships with a large number of premium publishers, including Yahoo and Microsoft. “We’re excited to continue to explore opportunities to expand our relationships,” said AOL spokeswoman Caroline Campbell in a statement, adding that the company will share more information “when it’s available”. •
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Joris Luyendijk and Garry Blight: Almost everyone in the financial sector complains about how they are represented in the media. Here, those people get the chance to talk about how they see themselves – and it’s your chance to listen in Garry Blight Joris Luyendijk
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Last of the big six energy firms increases its electricity and gas prices, by 4.5% and 15.4% respectively EDF Energy has become the last of the big six energy firms to announce a price rise, unveiling an increase in electricity and gas prices of 4.5% and 15.4% respectively, removing one of the few remaining lifelines for the millions of households edging closer to fuel poverty. EDF said the increases, which it blamed mainly on rising wholesale energy prices, will be introduced on 10 November, taking the average dual fuel energy bill to almost £1,300 a year. Consumer Focus said the price rises – along with recent price hikes from Scottish Power, Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), British Gas, E.ON, and npower – mean “millions of people will be cutting back on other essentials if they want to keep warm”. The EDF announcement comes just a month after npower became the fifth of the six biggest energy firms to disappoint consumers with a price rise, while previously announced increases from E.ON and SSE came into effect on 13 and 14 September . According to USwitch , the average bill size across all suppliers has now jumped 14.2% from £1,132 pre-price hikes, to £1,293. In early September 2011 , EDF was named as Britain’s most complained about power company, according to figures published by Consumer Focus. But upon announcing the price rises, EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz called for trust in the energy industry to be rebuilt, pointing out that his group’s electricity price rise was in line with inflation, and the gas increase was lower than all other major suppliers. He added: “We have absorbed rising wholesale energy, network and other costs as long as possible but must reluctantly now pass some of these through to consumers.” Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus , said the fact that EDF has made smaller and later hikes than other suppliers is welcome, “but it won’t soften the blow on those who are struggling on tight household budgets”. He warned that with the industry gearing up to invest £200bn in generation and network infrastructure, worse is to come with consumer expected to foot the bill. Mark Todd, director of the price comparison service Energyhelpline.com , said: “Consumers need to keep their eyes open because there are still lots of good deals being offered for those who are willing to switch. Fixed-rate deals of 1-4 years are available at lower costs than standard prices and there are internet rates offering savings of about £300 a year. “In fact, only yesterday, Scottish Power brought in a new online tariff at £990, showing money can be saving if people act promptly and switch. There is still competition in the energy industry but only if you are willing to switch.” Last winter, over three-quarters of people rationed their energy use because of cost, according to USwitch, while over 14 million households went without heating at some point to keep their energy costs down. “We are in danger of seeing energy becoming an unaffordable luxury for the few instead of a household basic for the many,” said the firm’s energy expert Tom Lyons. “As a result many households are being forced to make unpalatable and sometimes even dangerous choices. My concern is that the impact will really become apparent this coming winter.” Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which? , had advice for consumers looking to switch: “If you’re not already paying by direct debit or if you’ve been on the same tariff for more than a year then you could be paying too much. Most of us have never switched – so check if you can find a cheaper deal today. You could save yourself over £200. Energy bills Consumer affairs Household bills EDF Energy Mark King guardian.co.uk
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Riots data reveals a third of those in court had been in prison before, but also shows sentences are tougher than usual The sentences handed down to convicted rioters by the courts have been more draconian than previously thought but nearly three-quarters of those appearing in court had criminal records. However, the average jail terms handed down were two to three times longer than normal, according to the latest Ministry of Justice data . The official statistics, released on Thursday, back up claims by the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, that a “hardcore of the criminal classes” were involved in the riots, with 73% of those put before the courts having previous criminal convictions – and one third of them having served a prison sentence before. Those with criminal records have an average of 15 offences each. However, MoJ statisticians stressed that the latest sentencing data, up to Monday of this week, also shows that some people – particularly teenagers – were being drawn into the criminal justice system for the first time. The data shows that the 176 people so far jailed over the riots have been sentenced to an average of 11.1 months. The detailed figures show that those convicted of burglary during the riots – generally looting – have been jailed for 14.1 months, compared with the normal rate of 8.8 months, a sentence some 60% longer than normal. Those convicted of violent disorder are being jailed for 10.4 months compared with 5.3 months normally, and those convicted of theft are getting sentences three times as long: 7.1 months compared with a normal rate of 2.4 months. The figures also show a much more hardline approach to using prison sentences, with 43% of those sentenced so far by magistrates being sent to jail compared with a normal custody rate of 12%. Clarke said the figures confirmed that “existing criminals were on the rampage”. He added: “I am dismayed to see that a hardcore of repeat offenders back in the system. This reinforces my determination to introduce radical changes to ensure both effective punishment and reform to tackle reoffending.” UK riots Crime Sentencing Alan Travis James Ball guardian.co.uk
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