Conservative-led council says it will re-hire staff if they accept 5.4% pay cut A Conservative-led council has sent letters of dismissal to its entire workforce, telling them they will be re-hired the next day only if they agree to a pay cut. Shropshire county council gave its 6,500 staff notice of their dismissal on 30 September, but offered them immediate re-employment if they accepted a 5.4% pay cut as well as changes to their sick-pay arrangements. The council said it needs to make the changes to find £7m towards a total savings target of £76m over three years. The alternative would be “large-scale” redundancies. Jackie Kelly, the council’s head of organisational development, said it had been necessary to embark upon a legal process of “dismissal and re-engagement” following failure to reach agreement with trade unions. All staff had been offered re-employment. “Whilst we appreciate [that] the formal nature of this process may lead to some anxiety, we intend to continue offering reassurance, guidance and support to all our staff over the coming days, weeks and months,” Kelly said. Unison, which represents about 40% of the council’s workers, said the letters had frightened and intimidated people. Leaders of the union’s Shropshire branch would be meeting to discuss balloting on industrial action. “We’ve been told to sign up and shut up,” said Alan James, branch secretary. “There’s not a lot of places we can go with this.” The council’s plan emerged as new figures showed that spending by councils on local services has fallen for the first time in two decades as a result of cuts in government grants. Councils in England will this year spend an average 5.7% less on services than in the previous 12 months, including almost 15% less on housing, 21% less on roads and 32% less on planning. The spending figures provide the first authoritative overview of the effect of the sharp cut in council grants for 2011-12. The main grant has been reduced by almost 10%. According to public finance body Cipfa, which has surveyed all councils’ spending plans as notified to Whitehall, expenditure on services will amount to £99.5bn or £1,921 per person – a return to levels of 2008-09. Cipfa says the reduction is the first since the introduction of the poll tax in 1990. The biggest spending falls are in the north-west (an average 7.8%) and north-east (6.9%), with the lowest in the south-east outside of London at 3.2%. Ian Carruthers, Cipfa’s policy and technical director, said: “These statistics underline the difficult decisions councils have been faced with in setting their 2011-12 budgets. It is only through effective financial planning and an emphasis on efficiency that the impact on frontline services has not been greater.” One encouragement for ministers is that their measures to protect spending on services for elderly and disabled people appear to have worked: average spending on social care is shown to be rising this year by 1.6%. But groups representing the hardest-hit services expressed dismay. Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: “Our advice services are already seeing a huge increase in demand as unemployment and cuts to services begin to bite, whilst local authorities reduce the safety net for those in housing need.” Trudi Elliott, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said: “Planning has a critical role to play in supporting communities’ aspirations for growth, new homes and protecting the environment and their social fabric.” The local government minister, Grant Shapps, said councils’ total spending this year, including expenditure other than that on frontline services, would amount to £118bn. This equated to more than £5,000 per household and there remained scope for savings without hitting services. “By cutting waste, more joint working and improving procurement, councils can do more for less,” Shapps said. “Good councils can hold council tax down and protect frontline services.” But Dave Prentis, general secretary of public services union Unison, said: “Given the biggest-in-a-generation spending cuts hitting councils, it’s hardly surprising that spending has shrunk so drastically. Look behind the figures and you’ll find cuts sending shockwaves through communities.” Public sector cuts Local government Public sector pay Public finance David Brindle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
US president warns Texan authorities that execution would put America in breach of international legal obligations President Barack Obama is attempting to block the execution in Texas on Thursday of a Mexican man because it would breach an international convention and do “irreparable harm” to US interests. The White House has asked the US supreme court to put the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia on hold while Congress passes a law that would prevent the convicted rapist and murderer from being put to death along with dozens of other foreign nationals who were denied proper access to diplomatic representation before trials for capital crimes. The administration moved after the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, brushed aside appeals from diplomats, top judges, senior military officers, the United Nations and former president George W Bush to stay Leal’s execution because it could jeopardise American citizens arrested abroad as well as US diplomatic interests. Leal, 38, was convicted in 1994 of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio. Few question that he was responsible for the killing but the Texas authorities failed to tell Leal, who was born in Mexico and has lived in the US since the age of two, that under the Vienna convention he was entitled to contact the Mexican consulate when he was arrested. Leal’s lawyers argue that the lack of consular access played a role in the death penalty being applied because the Mexican national incriminated himself in statements made during “non-custodial interviews” with the police on the day of the murder. Had Leal had access to the Mexican consulate it would have been likely to have arranged a lawyer who would have advised the accused man to limit his statements to the police. As it was, the Mexican authorities were never informed of his arrest. In a 30-page brief to the supreme court, the administration said that the carrying out of the execution “would place the United States in irreparable breach of its international law obligation” under the convention. The White House said it was in the US’s interests to meet its treaty obligations. “These interests include protecting Americans abroad, fostering co-operation with foreign nations, and demonstrating respect for the international rule of law,” it said. Carrying out Leal’s execution would cause “irreparable harm” to US interests abroad, the administration added. “That breach would have serious repercussions for United States foreign relations, law-enforcement and other co-operation with Mexico, and the ability of American citizens travelling abroad to have the benefits of consular assistance in the event of detention,” it said. The legal situation has been complicated by earlier court rulings. In 2004, the international court of justice (ICJ) ruled that the US authorities had failed to meet its legal obligations to 51 Mexicans awaiting execution in American prisons when they were not informed of their right to contact their consulates. The then president, George W Bush, a former Texas governor who backs the death penalty, said the US would adhere to the ICJ ruling which, in effect, meant the death sentences would be reviewed or commuted. But in 2008 the supreme court ruled that while the US government was obliged to comply with the ICJ ruling it did not have the power to force individual American states to do so. Only Congress could require adherence by passing a law. The Obama administration has told the supreme court that a bill has recently been introduced in to the Senate to do just that but it is unlikely to win the approval of both houses of Congress before next year. The White House wants Leal’s execution put on hold until the law is passed but two courts have already ruled that pending legislation has no effect on the legal process. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has appealed to Perry to commute Leal’s sentence to life imprisonment. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions said that if Leal was put to death it would be “tantamount to an arbitrary deprivation of life”. Perry’s office has said Texas laws had been abided by and that Leal would be executed for “the most heinous of crimes”. United States Obama administration Capital punishment Barack Obama George Bush Mexico United Nations Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Cory Monteith, who plays likeable characters in the TV show ‘Glee’ and the new movie ‘Monte Carlo,’ says he’s interested in playing a jerk for his next role. The 29-year-old also talks about plans to release his own CD. (July 5)
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media Naturally we couldn’t make it through another Sunday without our corporate media bringing on Sen. John McCain to prove he’s living in Republican upside-down land. I don’t have much to add to Steve Benen’s take on this, and please go read the entire post, but here’s part of it — McCain: Americans ‘don’t want compromise’ : It’s safe to say Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of public opinion. In every meaningful way, McCain’s assumptions are exactly backwards. What the conservative senator seems to be arguing here is the notion of a mandate: Republicans campaigned against taxes, Republicans won, ergo Republicans can’t allow a compromise that imposes any tax increases on anyone ever. It’s an “elections have consequences” kind of approach. And that’s not a bad pitch, if McCain were in any way correct about the details, but he’s not. For one thing, Americans elected a Democratic Senate. (McCain may have forgotten, but his caucus is still in the minority.) If voters left us with a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, how exactly does McCain perceive this as an anti-compromise electorate? For another, the evidence is overwhelming that the American mainstream absolutely supports additional revenue as part of a larger debt-reduction deal. And naturally we got no follow up from Crowley on just how wrong-headed McCain’s assertions are or why he thinks it’s acceptable to call something a “negotiation” when one side is completely unwilling to compromise. McCain also floated the idea that the GOP might be willing to consider “certain revenue raisers” as long as no one dares call them a tax increase, but of course he refused to say just what those “revenue raisers” are. Full transcript below the fold. CROWLEY: let me bring you back home to the domestic problem that is hanging up congress at this point, and that is increasing the debt ceiling and the comparable part to this puzzle, which is lowering the U.S. trade — the U.S. deficit, sorry. Would you in the spirit of compromise, would you, Senator John McCain, not speaking for the Republican Party, could you see your way clear to voting for some sort of tax increase, whether it’s closing a loophole of oil companies or charging those who have private jets? What would be so wrong with that? MCCAIN: Well, I think that if we did those small things you’re talking about, they would have very small impact. But the principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November, and the results of the election was that the American people didn’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending. CROWLEY: But what about compromise? MCCAIN: I would argue that if we do otherwise — well, you know, the American people, as the president describes it, administered a shellacking. They don’t want compromise. They want us to balance the budget. They want us to stop mortgaging our children and our grandchildren’s futures. And they don’t think they need their taxes raised, and I don’t either. And I think that this catastrophe or short-term meltdown that we’re facing is not nearly as bad as the meltdown we’re facing unless we get our deficit under control. CROWLEY: No way no how would Senator John McCain vote for anything, a closing of a loophole or tax hike of any sort? MCCAIN: Candy, Jon Kyl was in negotiations as you know with the vice president. And he said there were certain revenue raisers in other areas that perhaps we could work on. But to somehow say that we’re raise American’s taxes, anybody’s taxes I think is something that a principle that we promised the American people last year November and that we have to stick to. CROWLEY: Could you share what sort of revenue raisers might be OK with you? MCCAIN: No. CROWLEY: You’re no fun. Thank you very much, Senator John McCain, we appreciate your taking the time this morning. MCCAIN: Thanks for having me on, Candy.
Continue reading …
What is there to say about true-crime books? They’re fun. They can be intellectually compelling, and, like the fictional variety from Hammett, Cain and that crowd, they’re more often than not rooted in the far side of respectability or polite society. Most every writer wants to write one. The trick is to come up with the right crime, the right crook or issue. Here are ten of my favorites that helped get me through “Reasonable Doubt: The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, and the Trial of Chris McCowen”:
Continue reading …ABC Chides Money-’Obsessed’ Candidates’ Fourth of July, Gushed Over Obama in 2007
July 5, 2011 No Comment
Good Morning America's John Berman on Tuesday offered a condescending, dismissive take on how the money “obsessed” presidential candidates spent their Fourth of July. Yet, four years ago, the same program offered a fawning look at what Barack Obama did on Independence Day. After mentioning Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, Berman suggested that the Fourth of July could be ” a chance to take a break from their recent big obsession, cash .” The journalist quickly followed this up by noting that the President has raised $60 million. Berman pointedly explained, “… Though he spent the day with men and women whose value is beyond priceless .” (This was a reference to Obama's speech to U.S. troops at a barbeque.) The reporter joked that Newt Gingrich was “lonely” while campaigning in Iowa and sarcastically added that the former Speaker “has lost most of his staff” and “was surrounded by his wife, a Ford and this [homemade] sign.” In contrast, on July 5, 2007, GMA's David Wright offered a sympathetic look at Independence Day and the toll the campaign had taken on then-candidate Obama: “For most of us, the Fourth of July is a family event. But if you run for president, you have to make certain sacrifices.” Wright continued, “For Barack Obama, the Fourth of July in Iowa was too important to miss. The solution? Bring the family along.” He explained to viewers that “the [Obama]
Continue reading …
Is it just us or do all-in-ones seem to be having a moment? Over the past two months, we’ve seen Toshiba make a belated jump into the market, while Lenovo went and added one to its family of Think-branded laptops and desktops. And that’s not even counting models by old-timers like Apple, Dell, and MSI. And then there’s HP, which has been making touchscreen all-in-ones for three years — long before they were a thing . The company’s had plenty of time to fine-tune its finger-friendly TouchSmart software, and now, its newest model, the TouchSmart 610 ($899 and up), ushers in a fresh design, highlighted by a hinge that allows the display to slide down and lie nearly flat. Although it’s been shipping since this spring, it’s only been available with Sandy Bridge for about a month now. We took one of these tricked-out beasts into our living room and got reacquainted with the comforts of not-so-mobile computing. At the risk of spoiling everything, we think this should be on your shortlist if you’re considering an all-in-one, especially one with a big ‘ol touchscreen. Read on to find out why. Gallery: HP TouchSmart 610 Continue reading HP TouchSmart 610 review HP TouchSmart 610 review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …On what would have been Princess Di’s 50th birthday , conservative mouthpiece Ann Coulter lashed the late royal for something she’s somewhat of an expert on: Narcissism. Diana was “just this anorexic, bulimic narcissist,” Coulter grouses in an interview , though added that the newly minted Princess Kate “seems like a lovely…
Continue reading …Mexico has busted an army deserter who helped found one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels. Jesus Rejon Aguilar—alias “El Mamito” or “Pretty Boy”—was third in command of the Zetas drug cartel and is suspected of crimes including the killing of a US customs agent in northern…
Continue reading …German police may find themselves cruising Facebook for parties to shut down if lawmakers have their way. Several high-profile, out-of-control house parties—including a 16-year-old girl’s birthday party that drew 1,600 gatecrashers—has sparked calls for police to be given the power to ban parties organized on Facebook, the…
Continue reading …