In the aftermath of a 1972 earthquake that leveled 50,000 buildings and killed 10,000 in Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua, many of the country’s poor had no place to go. While 250,000 of their middle- and upper-class counterparts migrated to safer, more habitable locales, the less fortunate…
Continue reading …Vancouver’s famous kissing couple has come forward to explain their famous embrace amid the riots . Australia’s Scott Jones and Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas tell CBC they got caught up in a crowd running from advancing police when Thomas fell. “Tripped up? I’m not sure,” she says, “but I was starting…
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ResPublica thinktank set up by Phillip Blond rails against ‘appalling experience’ of too many British children David Cameron’s “big society” project is failing children as parks, play schemes and community projects close across the country, a hard-hitting report by one of the prime minister’s favourite thinktanks has declared. A study by ResPublica – which was set up by Cameron’s intellectual soulmate, Phillip Blond – will raise fresh doubts about whether the government’s localism and “big society” agendas can succeed as public service cuts bite. Its publication comes amid rumours that Cameron’s most trusted strategist, Steve Hilton, one of the chief architects of the “big society” concept along with Blond, is growing frustrated with its lack of progress and with the government’s apparent stalling on public service reform as a result of pressure from the Liberal Democrats. Commenting on the report, Children and the Big Society , Blond said: “Our poor record on child welfare obscures the dark reality – the appalling experience that some children endure on a daily basis. Our research found a strong correlation between low levels of trust and poor environment and poor health, negligent parenting, child abuse and low achievement.” In another sign that pressure is mounting on the government over children’s services, a nationwide network of campaigners battling to save Sure Start centres launches an attack on Cameron on Father’s Day in a letter in today’s Observer . Claiming that the prime minister has broken his pre-election promise to protect them and build on their success, campaign groups from across the country write: “His cuts mean some areas have 25% less than last year to spend on early years’ services, and the loss of the ringfenced funds [to local authorities] means councils don’t even have to spend that money on children. “As a result, the Sure Start network of centres is being hollowed out. The loss is greater than he may imagine… We simply ask David Cameron to keep his promise; to rethink his cuts, or at least reinstate the ringfence.” The ResPublica report will be formally launched this week by Andrew Stunell, the communities minister, in a move that confirms the coalition is taking its findings seriously. It criticises the closures of facilities for children, including parks, play schemes and community projects , suggesting that the government should protect them and give children the right to challenge decisions that affect them. The current economic climate was no excuse for failing to act. “It is possible to build connections between children and between families – it is easy and it does not cost extra,” says the report. Among its recommendations is a plan to pilot a number of large-scale, comprehensive community building projects to protect and help vulnerable children. Friends of Hilton have dismissed suggestions that he is on the brink of quitting Downing Street because of a lack of progress on the “big society” and public service reform, although he is said to be frustrated at the way the plan has failed to take off. A joint Daycare Trust/4Children survey on Sure Start children’s centres showed that 250 centres (7%) will close or are expected to close, affecting an estimated 60,000 families. Staff at 1,000 centres (28%) have been issued with “at risk of redundancy” notices. A Department for Education spokesman said local authorities had been given funds to provide facilities such as Sure Start centres and that, if they decided not to do so, they would be held accountable. “Local authorities have statutory duties to meet local need with sufficient childcare and children’s centres, and to support vulnerable children, young people and families. Councils … are accountable to the public for the decisions they make,” said the spokesman. “In a tough financial climate, we have given councils greater freedom over how they can spend taxpayers’ money, including the £2.2bn in early intervention grant in 2011-12 and 2012-13, to ensure it is spent on the services and support needed most in their area.” Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “David Cameron should listen to mums and dads across the country who are desperately worried their local children’s centres are being axed because of the scale of the Sure Start cuts. “The prime minister promised to protect Sure Start, but he has cut the budget by 20%. He clearly doesn’t get how much Sure Start means to families across the country.” Public services policy David Cameron Public sector cuts Public finance Children Thinktanks Toby Helm guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …ResPublica thinktank set up by Phillip Blond rails against ‘appalling experience’ of too many British children David Cameron’s “big society” project is failing children as parks, play schemes and community projects close across the country, a hard-hitting report by one of the prime minister’s favourite thinktanks has declared. A study by ResPublica – which was set up by Cameron’s intellectual soulmate, Phillip Blond – will raise fresh doubts about whether the government’s localism and “big society” agendas can succeed as public service cuts bite. Its publication comes amid rumours that Cameron’s most trusted strategist, Steve Hilton, one of the chief architects of the “big society” concept along with Blond, is growing frustrated with its lack of progress and with the government’s apparent stalling on public service reform as a result of pressure from the Liberal Democrats. Commenting on the report, Children and the Big Society , Blond said: “Our poor record on child welfare obscures the dark reality – the appalling experience that some children endure on a daily basis. Our research found a strong correlation between low levels of trust and poor environment and poor health, negligent parenting, child abuse and low achievement.” In another sign that pressure is mounting on the government over children’s services, a nationwide network of campaigners battling to save Sure Start centres launches an attack on Cameron on Father’s Day in a letter in today’s Observer . Claiming that the prime minister has broken his pre-election promise to protect them and build on their success, campaign groups from across the country write: “His cuts mean some areas have 25% less than last year to spend on early years’ services, and the loss of the ringfenced funds [to local authorities] means councils don’t even have to spend that money on children. “As a result, the Sure Start network of centres is being hollowed out. The loss is greater than he may imagine… We simply ask David Cameron to keep his promise; to rethink his cuts, or at least reinstate the ringfence.” The ResPublica report will be formally launched this week by Andrew Stunell, the communities minister, in a move that confirms the coalition is taking its findings seriously. It criticises the closures of facilities for children, including parks, play schemes and community projects , suggesting that the government should protect them and give children the right to challenge decisions that affect them. The current economic climate was no excuse for failing to act. “It is possible to build connections between children and between families – it is easy and it does not cost extra,” says the report. Among its recommendations is a plan to pilot a number of large-scale, comprehensive community building projects to protect and help vulnerable children. Friends of Hilton have dismissed suggestions that he is on the brink of quitting Downing Street because of a lack of progress on the “big society” and public service reform, although he is said to be frustrated at the way the plan has failed to take off. A joint Daycare Trust/4Children survey on Sure Start children’s centres showed that 250 centres (7%) will close or are expected to close, affecting an estimated 60,000 families. Staff at 1,000 centres (28%) have been issued with “at risk of redundancy” notices. A Department for Education spokesman said local authorities had been given funds to provide facilities such as Sure Start centres and that, if they decided not to do so, they would be held accountable. “Local authorities have statutory duties to meet local need with sufficient childcare and children’s centres, and to support vulnerable children, young people and families. Councils … are accountable to the public for the decisions they make,” said the spokesman. “In a tough financial climate, we have given councils greater freedom over how they can spend taxpayers’ money, including the £2.2bn in early intervention grant in 2011-12 and 2012-13, to ensure it is spent on the services and support needed most in their area.” Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “David Cameron should listen to mums and dads across the country who are desperately worried their local children’s centres are being axed because of the scale of the Sure Start cuts. “The prime minister promised to protect Sure Start, but he has cut the budget by 20%. He clearly doesn’t get how much Sure Start means to families across the country.” Public services policy David Cameron Public sector cuts Public finance Children Thinktanks Toby Helm guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Twenty hospitals must shut to tackle NHS crisis, urges key health thinktank
June 18, 2011 No Comment
Leading health experts say services cannot be sustained and the government must wield the axe – risking wrath from public Twenty hospitals must shut if the NHS is to improve its levels of care, according to leading health experts and government advisers. Fears are growing that the row over health secretary Andrew Lansley’s reforms has proved a distraction from the need to act quickly amid a financial crisis within the health service. Problems over the controversial Health and Social Care Bill appear far from over, with many peers determined to subject the revised legislation to thorough scrutiny in the Lords. However, writing for the Observer today , Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund, an influential health thinktank, calls on the government to focus on drastic cuts to 10% of the country’s hospitals amid a squeeze on spending on the NHS. Ham writes: “The challenge of improving care by changing where services are provided is not new. What is different today is the financial pressures facing the NHS and the prospect that funding in England will not increase above the rate of inflation for at least four years. Several hospitals have large deficits and it is clear that existing services cannot be sustained either clinically or financially. Financial pressures are increasing by the day and will adversely affect quality unless ministers recognise the urgent need to change the way services are provided. “Up to 20 hospitals, around 10% of the total in England, may not be financially sustainable and will have to be merged or taken over. Many others face financial or clinical challenges that require changes to the services they provide.” A source close to the government said Sir David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, was aware that 20 of his hospitals needed to close or merge. “It has been a storm brewing, but everyone knows it has to be done,” the source added. “The problem – and the government knows it – is that people will link the reform bill with these closures. But this needs to happen.” Professor Steve Field, who headed the government’s NHS reforms “listening exercise”, also backed Ham, although he conceded that the cuts would provoke a furious backlash, particularly in London, which is set to be disproportionately hit. “It’s time we grasped the nettle of reconfiguration,” Field said. “Unless we tackle this, we won’t be able to meet the demands of the ageing population. It’s difficult and unpopular, but if we do it we can produce better, safer services for patients and will ultimately save lives. “The NHS’s future will inevitably mean more care being delivered outside of hospitals, which means that over time we will need fewer hospitals than we have today, particularly in the bigger cities, and especially in London, where it’s been a problem for many years that a lot of hospitals all try to do the same thing, which results in some surgeons doing too few cases.” The leader of Britain’s hospital doctors also backed calls for change. Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said concentrating certain types of care into a smaller number of sites benefited patients because those hospitals end up with bigger teams of specialists and find it much easier to have a fully staffed rota. “People want a hospital at the end of the road, just as they want a library, swimming pool or post office nearby. But it’s not possible,” he said. Dr Jennifer Dixon, director of the Nuffield Trust health thinktank and a member of the Downing Street “kitchen cabinet”, which is advising on the future of the NHS, added that growing financial pressures upon it – which include flat budgets until 2015 and an ongoing £20bn savings drive – meant hospitals are at risk of going bust: “A number of hospitals – in the ballpark of 20 to 30 – are simply not financially viable in their current form now and would be effectively bankrupt unless they can change their models of care.” NHS Health Health policy Thinktanks Andrew Lansley Public services policy Denis Campbell Daniel Boffey Toby Helm guardian.co.uk
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Rebels find documents implicating Libyan leader in war crimes, and hold them for International Criminal Court investigators Thousands of documents that reveal in chilling detail orders from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s senior generals to bombard and starve the people of Misrata have been gathered by war crimes investigators and are being kept at a secret location at the besieged Libyan port. The documents, some of which the Observer has seen, will form damning evidence in any future war crimes trial of the Libyan leader at the International Criminal Court. The court’s prosecutors are expected to travel to the city to view the documents once the daily bombardments have ceased. One document shows the commanding general of government forces instructing his units to starve Misrata’s population during the four-month siege. The order, from Youssef Ahmed Basheer Abu Hajar, states bluntly: “It is absolutely forbidden for supply cars, fuel and other services to enter the city of Misrata from all gates and checkpoints.” Another document instructs army units to hunt down wounded rebel fighters, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. Plans to bombard the city are also in the archive, say investigators, who also claim they have a message from Gaddafi relayed to the troops ordering that Misrata be obliterated and the “blue sea turned red” with the blood of the inhabitants. The documents are expected to form a crucial element of any trial against Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi if, as is expected, ICC judges confirm indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity that are demanded by its chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. They represent a landmark in international justice because no significant war crimes trial in the short history of international courts has had access to documents directly implicating the lead players in the commission of war crimes. “From what we have here, the case is already proved,” Khalid Alwab, a Misrata war crimes investigator, told the Observer . “All the evidence is here. Signed and stamped.” The documents have yet to be revealed to the ICC, according to the 60-strong team of Libyan lawyers who brave daily shelling to collect evidence from the city. “We are ready to show them to the ICC,” said Alwab. “They are free to contact us.” The fierce shellfire that has pounded Misrata since late February has kept ICC investigators away, and the indictments so far requested deal with crimes elsewhere in Libya. The documents were saved when lawyers supporting the rebellion told protesters who broke into army bases and police stations to protect the buildings against arson. Elsewhere in the rebel-held parts of Libya, such buildings have been completely destroyed along with their contents. Government forces who surrender to the rebels are searched, and any documents they carry are preserved in case they can be used as evidence. Alwab said that he believed Gaddafi’s forces had not been ordered to destroy documents because they had not expected to be overrun. Sir Geoffrey Nice, the former lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague, writes in the Observer : “When the citizens of Misrata made the decision not to burn the archive left to them, they were certainly serving history well.” Gaddafi continues to show defiance to Nato, greeting another night of heavy bombing of Tripoli by broadcasting a furious message through the capital’s public address system. “Nato will be defeated,” he yelled in a hoarse voice that was piped across the city. Within minutes, the emotive tones of the speech were mixed with the sound of automatic gunfire and car horns from supporters across the city. In a sign of the growing desperation felt by Libya’s opposition, Ali Tarhouni, the rebel finance minister, said that they had almost run out of cash. International loans have failed to materialise and continued fighting has made it impossible to repair damaged oil installations that halted production in April. “We don’t have any [cash]. We are running out of everything,” he told the Reuters news agency. “It’s a complete failure. Either they [Western nations] don’t understand or they don’t care.” Nato has yet to find an answer to the Libyan dictator’s defiance, with missiles continuing to fall on Misrata. “It is unfortunately still the case that pro-Gaddafi forces continue to show shocking determination to harm the Libyan people,” said Oana Lungescu, a Nato spokeswoman. “It is hard to imagine the end to attacks on civilians while the pro-Gaddafi regime is still in power.” Residents of Misrata hoped for just such an ending last week, when Nato leafleted government lines around the city with lurid pictures of Apache helicopters and warning of dire retribution if the bombardment continued. Since then, the bombardment has only intensified. On the streets of the shell-shattered city, journalists are now asked at regular intervals by the frightened populace: “Where is Nato?” Muammar Gaddafi Libya War crimes International criminal court Nato Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa United Nations International criminal justice Luis Moreno-Ocampo Chris Stephen guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …John Boehner isn’t the only one who thinks President Obama is overstepping his legal authority in Libya. The president overruled some of the administration’s top lawyers when he decided to continue participating in the air war without congressional approval, reports Charlie Savage in the New York Times . The head of…
Continue reading …A parade of convicted criminals are today trying to do what Amanda Knox’s defense could not: Convince a Perugia court that the American exchange student had nothing to do with the murder of British roommate Mereditch Kercher. Mario Alessi today testified that another man convicted in Kercher’s murder, Rudy Guede,…
Continue reading …Tokyo Electric launched its much-hyped water filtration system yesterday at its foundering Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant—only to shut it down a mere five hours later. The setback is very serious, notes the New York Times, with Tepco in grave danger of running out of room for the tens of…
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Controversial reforms will also cut benefit for 450,000 disabled tenants in social housing, according to leading charity A hundred thousand disabled children will lose out when a crucial welfare benefit is halved under controversial reforms. Parents can now receive a maximum of £54 a week through tax credits to help with the extra cost of looking after a child with disabilities. But under the welfare reform bill, passed by the Commons last week, that benefit will form part of universal credit and be cut to £27 a week, plunging thousands of families below the poverty line, according to the Children’s Society. The government says the money saved will allow it to offer larger sums to children with severe disabilities. However, the Children’s Society said some families would lose £1,400 a year. It is claimed this could cost families with a child born with a disability about £22,000 by the time the child reaches 16. The government says it will provide transitional payments to ensure people do not lose out, but the guarantee does not extend to new claimants and will not be protected from inflation. Cash protection will also be lost through as yet undefined changes in a family’s circumstances. Antony Best, 23, whose wife died of swine flu in January, leaving him responsible for three children under four, two of whom have disabilities, said the change would mean he would struggle to run the car he needs to take them to hospital. Best, from Bradford, said: “I receive £197 a month through credits and disability allowance for help with my eldest child, who has Down’s syndrome, and I am applying for help with my youngest son, who has cerebral palsy. Without it I wouldn’t be able to put anything in a fund for their futures and I don’t know how I would run the car. It would have a huge impact.” Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children’s Society, called for the government to halt the reforms. “This cut threatens to push many disabled children back below the poverty line,” he said “With 100,000 children affected by this, there are 100,000 reasons to rethink this policy.” The revelation follows angry exchanges in the Commons over welfare changes which are set to see 7,000 cancer victims lose their benefits. On Friday a Tory MP, Philip Davies, was condemned for suggesting disabled people should be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage to make them more attractive to employers. The bill will hit hundreds of thousands of disabled people by cutting their housing benefit. Under the proposals, 670,000 social housing tenants with a “spare room” will lose an average £676 a year because their homes will be deemed too large for their needs. Two-thirds of those who will be affected – about 450,000 people – are disabled according to the government’s impact assessment. Up to 200,000 of those receive disability living allowance and about 100,000 live in homes adapted to their needs. The proposed housing benefit cuts mean many tenants will go into debt and others will have to move, says the National Housing Federation’s chief executive, David Orr: “The cuts to housing benefit are extremely harsh. Under-occupation in the social housing sector should be tackled, but slashing people’s housing benefit and pushing them into poverty is not the answer.” Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said: “Cuts to child benefit, disability living allowance reforms and the impact of local authority budget cuts are all having a cumulative effect that could risk pushing thousands more families into poverty as a result.” The Department for Work and Pensions said: “Our reforms don’t necessarily mean that people will need to move and our discretionary housing payment fund will provide a safety net for those who need it, with £130m invested over four years to smooth the transition. We will ensure there are no cash losers when people are moved to universal credit. We have increased the number of children eligible for the higher rate of disability support, and the introduction of universal credit will lift a million people, including 350,000 children, out of poverty.” Disability Housing benefit Children Welfare Daniel Boffey Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
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