Tourism officials complain over £1m advertising campaign, but biggest Channel Island remains defiant Tourism officials on the Isles of Scilly are to lodge a complaint over a claim made by Jersey’s tourism office in a £1m TV advertising campaign that the largest of the Channel Islands is “the warmest place in the British Isles”. Met Office temperature records for Scilly obtained by the Guardian also appear to undermine Jersey’s claim. The Met Office officially recognises Scilly as the warmest place in the UK. A Met Office spokesman said that Jersey – 50 miles further south – does not fall under its auspices because “it is not part of the UK”, although “it had no reason to doubt” Jersey’s claims to be warmer. The small print on Jersey’s advert says it bases its claim on “minimum temperatures supplied by the Jersey Meteorological Department “. Tony Pallot, Jersey’s principal meteorological officer, said Jersey’s “mean minimum” for 1971-2000 – the period used by the Met Office to calculate all its mean temperatures – was 8.9C (32F). However, Met Office data for Scilly seen by the Guardian says the “mean minimum” for St Mary’s, Scilly’s largest island, was 9.4C over the period. On other measures such as hours of sunshine and maximum mean temperatures, Jersey performs marginally better. The council of the Isles of Scilly is also contesting the use of the term “Britain” in Jersey’s advert, arguing that the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British crown dependency but not part of the UK. It also argues that, geographically, Jersey is not part of the British Isles archipelago. Julian Pearce, the council’s economic development officer, said: “We shall be writing to Jersey to remind them of both our geographical position and our ranking as the warmest place in the UK.” He also said he was investigating whether the council had grounds to make a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Jennifer Ellenger of Jersey Tourism said: “We stand 100% behind our advert and we have the data to prove we are the warmest place. We are politically part of the British Isles, even if not strictly geographically.” She confirmed the advert’s claim is based on the mean minimum temperature, but also on two further measures – average hours of sunshine per year and “mean annual” temperature. She added that another aim is to suggest the people of Jersey are the warmest in the British Isles, too. Ordnance Survey , the national mapping agency for “Great Britain” – namely, England, Scotland and Wales – said it defines the “British Isles” as being “all the main and offshore islands of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands”. Malcolm Bell, head of tourism at VisitCornwall , which works closely with Council of the Isles of Scilly to attract 4.5 million tourists to the far south-west of England each year – 100,000 ofwhom visit Scilly – said he would be writing to Jersey Tourism in support of Scilly. He said: “When I first saw the advert I just laughed. It seems a bit desperate to base an advert on warmth alone when people who are only interested in that would just go to somewhere such as Dubai instead. “But the advert’s claim is also a bit cheeky. People want honesty in advertising. “Jersey might just about be technically correct in what they say, but it is bordering on unethical to stretch the truth like this when promoting your destination. We are in economically challenging times and we want to fight fairly for every customer.” Jersey, which received 685,000 visitors in 2010, has been challenged before over its tourism campaigns. In 1990, the ASA upheld a complaint against Jersey after it failed to substantiate a claim that it had more sunshine that anywhere else in the British Isles. In 1993, the ASA criticised Jersey for making exaggerated claims after it ran a newspaper campaign boasting that “our sandy beaches are always spotless and all of our golden beaches are scrubbed and rinsed twice by clear blue water”. The ASA noted that “on seven recent occasions large quantities of untreated sewage had poured onto bathing beaches”. Last year, Jersey Tourism accused the Met Office and the BBC of discrimination because it felt the Channel Islands were routinely left out of national weather forecasts. As a result, it said it was missing out on millions of pounds worth of revenue from prospective visitors. “Many people don’t have any idea just how lovely the weather is a short hop away from the mainland – meaning we lose out on valuable income,” David de Carteret, director of Jersey Tourism, said then. It was this grievance, says Jersey Tourism, that led it to base this year’s campaign around the “warmest place in the British Isles” slogan. Scilly v Jersey Number of islands Scilly: 145 (five inhabited) Jersey: 1 Population Scilly: 2,100 Jersey: 91,626 VAT Scilly: 20% Jersey: 0% Economy Scilly: tourism, daffodil farming Jersey: banking, tourism, Jersey Royal potatoes, Jersey cattle History Scilly: site of hundreds of shipwrecks, including five German U-boats during second world war Jersey: occupied by the Nazis from 1940-45 Sport Scilly: smallest football league in the world with just two teams, Woolpack Wanderers and Garrison Gunners Jersey: fields its own team at the Commonwealth Games TV highlights Scilly: An Island Parish Jersey: Bergerac Famous visitors Scilly: former prime minister Harold Wilson regularly holidayed on Scilly and is buried at St Mary’s Old Church Jersey: Alan Whicker lives on the island Languages Scilly: English, Cornish Jersey: English, French and Jèrriais Local food and drink Scilly: pasty; “scuppered” ale Jersey: “bean crock” with cabbage bread; cider Channel Islands Weather Leo Hickman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Ezra Klein: By Celebrating Spending Cuts, Democrats Have Opened the Door to More Austerity Measures
April 10, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I have to say that I’m in agreement with Ezra Klein here. After the budget deal was reached with Republicans and the President and Harry Reid came out praising the deal as some great bipartisan achievement, I felt the same way he did when he talked to Lawrence O’Donnell about it last night. All they did is validate the Republican’s agenda for more spending cuts at a time when our economy cannot afford it. And they just made it a lot harder to push back against any future austerity measures the Republicans demand when they start debating Paul Ryan’s horrible budget proposal. And as I said in my earlier post with Chris Hayes and Howard Fineman’s reaction to the budget deal, I do not understand how President Obama or the Democrats believe that alienating their base helps them win the next election. And by his base, I’m not talking about myself or liberal bloggers. I’m talking about the working class and the poor in America who voted for him in the last election, and who are going to have to live with these cuts and the job losses they’re going to cause. They look like they’re buying into the beltway Villagers’ narrative and their constant drumbeat about how looking “like an adult” and “everyone getting along” is the most important thing, as though anyone who’s just struggling to get by cares about any of that crap. They care if the policies you enact are helpful or harmful to their pocketbooks. They care about getting Americans back to work and outsourcing jobs. They care that we still have a middle class left in this country and that they’re kids might have an opportunity to do better than they have economically as they make their way through life. What they don’t care about is whether the two parties we’ve got running this country looked like they were getting along while they voted to approve horrid measures that are going to make their lives worse. I understand just as Ezra does that the President and Reid didn’t have any choice but to negotiate with the Republicans to keep from shutting down the government and they were going to have to agree to things that a lot of us weren’t going to like. But don’t go out there and make a deal for some crap sandwich where you didn’t fight harder publicly for the people you’re supposed to be representing and then tell the rest of us how good it’s supposed to taste. I don’t know if the rest of the public that doesn’t follow all of this the same way I do is going to react the same way I did to the President’s speech or what just got agreed to this week during this negotiation on the budget, but as Ezra pointed out in his piece at The Washington Post, this isn’t 1995 and if the economy doesn’t get better, Obama is not going to be remembered as a successful president. Here’s more from Klein’s post and there’s more there, so go read the whole thing, but his column pretty well just reiterates what he said in the video above with his initial reaction to this with Lawrence O’Donnell — 2011 is not 1995 : The substance of this deal is bad. But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse. The final compromise was $38.5 billion below 2010’s funding levels. That’s $78.5 billion below President Obama’s original budget proposal, which would’ve added $40 billion to 2010’s funding levels, and $6.5 billion below John Boehner’s original counteroffer, which would’ve subtracted $32 billion from 2010’s budget totals. In the end, the real negotiation was not between the Republicans and the Democrats, or even the Republicans and the White House. It was between John Boehner and the conservative wing of his party. And once that became clear, it turned out that Boehner’s original offer wasn’t even in the middle. It was slightly center-left. But you would’ve never known it from President Obama’s encomium to the agreement. Obama bragged about “making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” Harry Reid joined him, repeatedly calling the cuts “historic.” It fell to Boehner to give a clipped, businesslike statement on the deal. If you were just tuning in, you might’ve thought Boehner had been arguing for moderation, while both Obama and Reid sought to cut deeper. You would never have known that Democrats had spent months resisting these “historic” cuts, warning that they’d cost jobs and slow the recovery. So why were Reid and Obama so eager to celebrate Boehner’s compromise with his conservative members? The Democrats believe it’s good to look like a winner, even if you’ve lost. But they’re sacrificing more than they let on. By celebrating spending cuts, they’ve opened the door to further austerity measures at a moment when the recovery remains fragile. Claiming political victory now opens the door to further policy defeats later. Right now, the economy is weak. Giving into austerity will weaken it further, or at least delay recovery for longer. And if Obama does not get a recovery, then he will not be a successful president, no matter how hard he works to claim Boehner’s successes as his own. Clinton’s speeches were persuasive because the labor market did a lot of his talking for him. But when unemployment is stuck at eight percent, there’s no such thing as a great communicator. And here’s more from Krugman who agrees with Klein — Celebrating Defeat .
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Japanese police braced for conflict with underworld as Yamaguchi-gumi head Kenichi Shinoda released after six-year sentence Police in Japan are bracing themselves for the possibility of conflict with the underworld after the head of the country’s most powerful crime syndicate was released from prison. Kenichi Shinoda was freed from the Fuchu prison, near Tokyo, on Saturday after serving a six-year sentence for firearms offences. Wearing a brown leather fedora and dark sunglasses, the 69-year-old was ushered into a waiting van shortly after dawn and taken to the western port city of Kobe, the headquarters of the Yamaguchi-gumi. Around 35,000 gangsters – 44% of Japan’s total – are members of the Yamaguchi-gumi, which has adopted a more aggressive stance under Shinoda’s leadership . Soon after he became Japan’s most powerful mafia don in July 2005 , Shinoda forged links with rival gangs and extended the Yamaguchi-gumi’s reach beyond its traditional base in western Japan. The potential for conflict has risen over the past two years amid a police crackdown on gang activities that resulted in the arrest of Shinoda’s second in command, Kiyoshi Takayama , for alleged extortion in November. Takaharu Ando, the head of the national police agency, has vowed to destroy the Yamaguchi-gumi as part of an unprecedented crackdown on organised crime. “We want them to disappear from public life,” he told reporters after being appointed in 2009. Shinoda – also known as Shinobu Tsukasa – served 13 years in prison for killing a rival with a samurai sword in the 1970s while he was the leader of the notorious Kodo-kai, a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate based in central Japan. Japan Organised crime Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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Less than half of estimated dead recovered, while Fukushima plant officials hope to stop pumping radioactive water into sea The search is continuing for victims of the tsunami that struck Japan’s north-east coast almost a month ago, while officials said they hoped to stop pumping radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea. More than 20,000 Japanese troops and 110 from the US conducted land, sea and air searches for the thousands of victims whose bodies have yet to be recovered. One month since the 11 March disaster, fewer than 13,000 of the estimated 28,000 who died have been found. The likelihood of finding more is fading because many have probably been swept out to sea. A similar search last week yielded just 70 bodies. On a visit to Ishinomaki, where 2,600 of 163,000 residents were killed and 2,800 are still missing, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, vowed to support the city’s recovery. About 17,000 people are still living in evacuation centres, while its fishing industry, which accounts for 40% of the local economy, may never fully recover. “The government will do its best to help you,” Kan said. “We will do everything we can to enable you to start fishing again.” The operation to stabilise the Fukushima plant, meanwhile, is about to enter its fifth week, with no end in sight to the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Nuclear officials said they hoped to stop pumping contaminated water into the sea, amid criticism from neighbouring China and South Korea, which have accused Tokyo of incompetency in its handling of the crisis. Engineers said the build-up of radioactive water during recent attempts to cool Fukushima’s overheating reactors left them with little choice but to pump it into the ocean, where it quickly dissipates. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), apologised for the nuclear crisis, which has prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, contaminated local food and water supplies and caused panic as far away as Tokyo, 150
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Vast array of hardware stolen includes £50,000 worth of night-vision goggles and even an aircraft fuselage Thieves stole enough military equipment from Britain’s armed forces last year to “launch a small coup”, according to an MP. The vast array of hardware included expensive kit needed by troops in the field: almost £50,000 worth of night-vision goggles, as well as pistols, boots, body armour and ration packs. A silver statue worth £25,000 was taken from the Household Cavalry barracks in Knightsbridge, and more than £7,000 of silver cutlery from the Redford barracks in Edinburgh. Compensation cheques totalling £85,000 also disappeared. Thieves somehow made off with pieces of machinery that would have been hard to move without anyone noticing, among them an aircraft fuselage, a Bedford truck, an industrial washing machine, an inflatable boat, an outboard motor and a £50,000 helicopter rotor tuner. Police estimate almost £700,000 worth of equipment was reported stolen from MoD buildings and bases during 2010, but said the level of theft had gone down in recent years. The (.doc file) was put on the House of Commons website after the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavetree, Luciana Berger, submitted a question on the issue. Berger asked for details of equipment stolen from the armed services worth more than £100 and said she was astonished when the inventory was given to her. “There’s enough military equipment to launch a small coup. The list went on and on, and the one I asked for was restricted to those items worth more than £100, so it is likely that many other things were stolen. “This list doesn’t include military bases abroad either. I will be laying down another question about that.” Berger said she had been in touch with service personnel who had told her security at some military bases was poor. They had also raised concern about the lack of patrols by MoD police, a force of 3,500 officers that is responsible for security at MoD bases. The papers name the bases from which material has been taken. Most of the night-vision goggles were taken from HMS Ocean in June last year; a television disappeared from the same ship. Military clothing worth £30,000 was taken from the Assaye barracks in Tidworth, Hampshire, home of the 1st Regiment of the Royal Artillery. The aircraft fuselage went missing from RAF Kinloss in May last year. One defence source said: “How someone managed to walk away with that, God alone knows.” The junior defence minister Andrew Robatham insisted all allegations of theft of military equipment were carefully examined. “The necessary resources, including the Ministry of Defence police, are allocated to investigate the loss, and wherever possible recover the equipment,” he said. “The Ministry of Defence has recently set up a defence crime board to provide strategic direction and initiatives aimed at combating the harm done to defence by crime.” He said the MoD compensation cheques that had gone missing had not been successfully cashed. “The cheques were for £60,000, £16,500 and £8,000. I can confirm that neither the intended recipients nor the MoD have suffered a financial loss as a consequence.” An MoD police spokesman said arrests had been made in some of the cases last year. “It is fair to say that we get a full range of people involved in this. Service personnel, civil servants, outsiders and civilian contractors working in MoD buildings.” In a statement, the force said the military community included “many hundreds of thousands of people”. “Although a certain level of theft is therefore to be expected, it is far less than for a similar-sized population in a UK town,” it said. “The MoD police ensures that all crime reported to it is fully investigated and over the last three years the level of theft it deals with has fallen by almost 20%.” Military Defence policy Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and leaders from Mauritania, Congo, Mali and Uganda will also meet Libyan rebels in Benghazi Jacob Zuma is due to meet Muammar Gaddafi as part of an African Union peace effort, as Libyan government forces and rebels battle for control of the strategic eastern town of Ajdabiya. The South African president and leaders from Mauritania, Congo, Mali and Uganda will also meet Libyan rebels in Benghazi as part of the AU diplomatic initiative. South Africa voted in favour of UN resolution 1973, which authorised military action in Libya to protect civilians, but Zuma subsequently criticised western air strikes against Gaddafi. After criticism from his African National Congress party’s youth wing and political allies in the Communist party for voting for the resolution, Zuma accused the US and its allies of going against its “letter and spirit”. The AU delegation arrives in Libya as Libyan government forces continue to push back the disorganised rebel forces. The rebels said forces loyal to Gaddafi killed four of their fighters on Saturday in Ajdabiya, about 100 miles from their stronghold in Benghazi. A Reuters witness near Ajdabiya’s eastern gate heard shooting and artillery fire and saw plumes of black smoke, suggesting Gaddafi’s forces had pushed towards the centre of the town. “There is resistance inside the city. Gaddafi forces are fighting with rebels. They have a presence inside,” said a rebel at a checkpoint on Ajdabiya’s eastern fringes. One rebel fighter, Hassan Bosayna, said eight Gaddafi loyalists and four rebels were killed on Saturday. One of the rebels was shot in the forehead by a sniper. Muftah, another rebel, said: “There are Gaddafi forces inside Ajdabiya in sand-coloured Land Cruisers and we know there are Gaddafi snipers in civilian clothing in the city as well.” Rebels were firing rockets from pickup trucks into the desert on the outskirts of the town, possibly in an attempt to stop any flanking manoeuvre by Gaddafi loyalists. The mostly untrained rebels have tried to reorganise and re-equip but were unable to hold their ground last week against Gaddafi’s better-armed forces in the oil terminal of Brega, west of Ajdabiya, the last major town on the Mediterranean coastal road before Benghazi to the north and the oil terminal of Tobruk further east. Libya’s deputy foreign minister said government forces shot down two US-built helicopters being used by rebel forces. Khaled Kaim accused the international community of double standards for allowing rebel forces to operate aircraft despite the existence of a no-fly zone over the country. “A clear violation was committed by the rebels to resolution 1973 relating to the no-fly zone. The rebels used two Chinook helicopters and they were shot down” near the eastern oil facilities of Brega, he said. “We have a question for the allied forces: Is this resolution made for the Libyan government only or everyone in Libya?” Kaim’s claims could not be confirmed with the rebels, but journalists in the area described seeing at least one helicopter apparently engaged in fighting in the area on Saturday, although it appeared to be a Russian-built model. The government forces still have most of the military aircraft in the country, but a few were taken by the rebels when some air force units defected. Nato, which enforces the no-fly zone, said it has been applying it to both sides and on Saturday intercepted a rebel MiG-23 fighter jet and forced it back to the airport. Nato forces continue to carry out air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces, destroying 17 tanks and damaging nine others, the alliance said on Saturday. Rebels have bitterly criticised the alliance for giving insufficient support as government forces continue to push eastwards and for Nato attacks mistakenly against them . Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Jacob Zuma South Africa African Union Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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News Team Boxing News Amazing David Haye interview Boxing News Delivers Stats and Gossip | National Institute of … From just about any type of details which is obtainable today through the media and from on-line sources, boxing news is the most beneficial method to remain on. WBN: Donnie Nietes KO's Vasquez at 108lbs, wins for Steiglitz and Hall Filipino former WBO minimumweight champion Donnie Nietes successfully manoeuvred his first foray into the light-flyweight division by knocking out Armando Vasquez impressively in the first round of their meeting at La Salle Coliseum in … Grano stops Alexander in 6th Round – Boxing News HARTFORD (April 9, 2011) – Heavyweight Tony “TNT” Grano got back on the winning track tonight in the main event on “The Willie Pep Boxing Classic,” Stieglitz retains WBO super middleweight title (AP) – Boxing News ShareRobert Stieglitz of Germany retained his WBO super middleweight title Saturday when challenger Khoren Gevor of Armenia was disqualified in the 10th round for an intentional head butt. The foul… WBN: Paulie Malignaggi follows the dress code – “Action Heroes … World Boxing News will be scoring the HBO “Action Heroes” double bill, including the WBA light-welterweight title fight between Marcos “El Chino” Maidana and Erik “El Terrible” Morales and the interim WBA and WBO lightweight title bout … larthomson says: RT @BoxingHeadlines : Tomasz Adamek takes step towards potential Klitschko showdown http://es.pn/g52N7f #Boxing
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If you’re not already running the Plex Media Server on one of the twenty-three beige boxes networked across your tiny domicile, you may be sorely tempted to install a copy this week, because the iOS app has just received a truly massive update. Where once the XBMC spinoff would have to transcode every video it delivered to your device across the ether, Plex claims it can now either bypass that CPU-intensive process or use an iOS-optimized technique, pumping H.264 video over the air far more efficiently. Second, it can deliver that content from iOS direct to your TV, via either a video-out cable or experimental support for AirPlay . Not bad, right? How’s universal search sound — the ability to type in a word and have the app reach out to local servers, remote servers, and online video services like YouTube and Vimeo too? Yeah, that $4.99 price tag is looking mighty affordable right about now, and there are plenty more improvements to peruse at the links below. Plex 1.1 for iOS improves streaming over 3G, pipes video to your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Referendum results show 60% of voters against repayment plan for Britain and Netherlands, sending dispute to European court Icelanders have rejected the latest government-approved plan to repay the £3bn owed to Britain and the Netherlands from the crash of the country’s banking system in 2008, prompting the prime minister to warn of economic and political chaos. Final results from five of six constituencies, including the capital, Reykjavik, showed the “no” side taking just under 60% of the vote, meaning the dispute will end up in a European court. “The worst option was chosen,” said the prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. “The vote has split the nation in two . We must do all we can to prevent political and economic chaos as a result of this outcome.” The debt was incurred when Britain and the Netherlands compensated their nationals who lost savings in online Icesave accounts owned by Landsbanki, one of three Icelandic banks that collapsed in late 2008. Icelandic politicians in February backed a repayment plan agreed with creditors, but the president refused to sign the bill, triggering the vote. In March 2010, Iceland rejected an earlier Icesave repayment blueprint in a referendum . Economists say uncertainty over the payback deal is hurting efforts to drag Iceland out of recession, end currency controls and boost investment. Many voters cited opposition to taxpayers footing the bill for irresponsible bankers as their reason for voting against the plan. “I know this will probably hurt us internationally, but it is worth taking a stance,” Thorgerdun Ásgeirsdóttir, a 28-year-old barista, said after casting a “no” vote. Svanhvit Ingibergs, 33, who works at a rest home, said: “I had no part in causing those debts, and I don’t want our children to risk having to pay them. It would be better to settle this in a court.” Sigurðardóttir said Iceland would now defend its case before the court of the European trade body overseeing Iceland’s cooperation with the EU, the Efta Surveillance Authority (ESA). Economists have said this route could be much costlier. Iceland is still pulling itself out of a deep recession. Politicians and economists believe solving the Icesave issue would help the country get back into international financial markets. Getting such funding is also part of a plan to end the controls on capital flows it imposed in 2008 to stabilise a tumbling currency. The controls have left an estimated equivalent to a quarter of Iceland’s gross domestic product in the hands of foreign investors, many of whom are expected to want to pull out. Ratings agencies will have followed the vote closely, with Moody’s having said it may lower its credit rating on Iceland after a “no” vote. Iceland Icesave Banking Global economy Economics Europe guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Credit: Life Magazine Gen. Matthew Ridgeway – portrait of a man about the enter the shark tank. Click here to view this media The week ending April 8, 1951 was something of a calm before the storm. Three days after this broadcast (Voices and Events from NBC Radio), President Truman would make the stunning announcement that he was firing General Douglas MacArthur from his command of the Far East and replacing him with Gen. Matthew Ridgeway . There is mention of what would be the last straw in the broadcast as MacArthur is quoted as favoring the Nationalist Chinese opening up a second front in the Korean conflict during an overseas visit. But for all the controversy there was still a war going on with no real end in sight. Other news that week had a lot to do with the upcoming Presidential election for 1952. Speculation was rife that the hands-down candidate would be General Eisenhower, but it was unclear as to which party ticket he would run under. No one, it seems asked him what his party affiliation was. Meanwhile, the playing field was pretty much open as it appeared there were no candidates willing to take on the grueling campaign and the overwhelming responsibility. Senator Paul Douglas probably said it best that week: Sen. Paul Douglas: “The job is really an impossible job. And it calls for the brooding qualities of Lincoln, the philosophic depth of Jefferson, the sturdiness of Cleveland, the daring of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the popular leadership qualities of Theodore Roosevelt. In addition he must be a spiritual leader. He needs the patience of Job. And must have the physique of either a Sandow, a Samson or a Charles Atlas. Any man who wants to be President of the United States needs to have his head examined.” No doubt sage words of advice, even sixty years later.
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