Consumer group warns music and sports fans against buying tickets for sold out events on the secondary ticket market Music fans looking to book tickets for one of the European summer festivals and sporting events are being warned to take care in the secondary ticket market. The resale of tickets for sold out events is big business, and with the annual festival season almost underway there are fears that hundreds of UK consumers could, as in 2010, hand over their money but end up with no ticket. The UK European Consumer Centre (UKECC) said today that it received 288 complaints and enquiries from UK consumers during 2010 relating to EU traders under its “recreational and cultural services” category, which includes ticket problems – an increase of more than a third (34%) on the 2009 figure of 215. Hungary and the Netherlands were the countries which attracted the most complaints from Britons. The UKECC is co-funded by the European commission and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills , and provides advice for consumers buying goods and services. It also deals with cross-border complaints and grievances from European consumers based in other EU countries regarding UK festivals. It singled out the following as the main areas of complaint: • Tickets failing to be delivered. Most terms and conditions state that tickets will arrive just before the event, but if this doesn’t happen the seller may be long gone. • Cancellation of an event after the consumer has purchased a ticket. The original seller’s terms and conditions usually only allow for a refund of the ticket’s face value, but secondary ticket sellers may have a huge mark-up, so a consumer may only get back a fraction of what he or she paid. • Consumers turning up at a venue only to find their ticket is declined for being void. • Valid tickets are provided, but problems at the event on the day may lead to the consumer being refused admittance to some areas. Jed Mayatt, UKECC manager, said: “We want consumers to be cautious when buying tickets, particularly if an event is sold out. But the temptation of a website still offering tickets is too great for some people, even if it is at inflated prices.” An example highlighted by the UKECC was a UK consumer who bought a pair of tickets to a top-flight football game from an online ticketing company in Spain, for which she paid €381.92. The tickets were not sent to her home as promised, and although the trader promised these would be hand delivered before the game this failed to happen. She sought a refund, as well as damages for consequential losses, amounting to €627.23. After liaising with European Consumer Centre in Spain she was advised to go to the police as it was thought likely to be a scam. The UK ECC’s leaflet, Can you rely on your festival tickets? , outlines how consumers could be caught out, offers advice for purchasers, and addresses the question of legal protection. Music fans are also advised to contact the European Consumer Centre for Services for more information. Consumer affairs Scams Ticket prices Rebecca Smithers guardian.co.uk
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UK’s biggest art charity increases its grant to galleries by more than 50% and launches a new free admissions scheme The UK’s biggest art charity, the Art Fund , intends to increase the amount it makes available for galleries to buy works of art by more than 50% by 2014 – warning that at a time of government spending cuts, museum collections risk being “fatally undermined”. The charity also launched a new National Art Pass, which will give members of the charity free entry to over 200 museums and half-price admittance to temporary shows. The pass has been dubbed “the aesthete’s Oyster” by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum – a museum’s equivalent of the card that regulars use on the London transport network. Annually, the Art Fund will hand out £7m, rather than the £4.5m it grants currently. According to the Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar: “In the past six months, as I have been talking to museum directors … about how we can help them, I’ve been struck by growing worries that as belts tighten, and national and local funding diminishes severely, that acquisitions of major works of art may not be possible and all past progress in creating world-class collections may be fatally undermined.” Museums and galleries, he said, could not continue as lively and vital institutions reflecting the society around them without renewing their collections. “We can’t just stop collecting,” he said. “It would be like a theatre not saying it wasn’t going to mount any more new productions or a library saying they weren’t going to buy any new books.” The Art Fund, formally the National Art Collections Fund, is the UK’s largest art charity. Founded in 1903, it exists to help museums and galleries buy works of art that would otherwise be lost from public view. It is largely funded by the £35 annual fee paid by its 80,000 members and has mounted many successful fundraising campaigns to save artworks for the nation, including, last year, the fundraising effort to buy the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasures and Pieter Bruegel the Younger’s The Procession to Calvary . The uplift in available cash will partly come from a fundraising effort among the existing membership of the Art Fund, and partly from a recruitment drive motored by the introduction of the new National Art Pass. For £35 per year, members will be able to use the National Art Pass to get free access to 208 museums and galleries nationwide. The card will also allow half-price entry to charging exhibitions at national museums, including the Joan Miró exhibition that opens at Tate Modern on 14 April and the current Heracles to Alexander the Great exhibition at the Ashmolean, Oxford. Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, said that the difficulty museums and galleries had in renewing their collections was a long-term problem. “I am always struck when I visit Manchester, Leeds or Nottingham that until the 1960s regional museums were able to make acquisitions on a par with the national collections. Until the 1960s they were equal to Tate; but from then things began to slide when funding began to fall away.” He welcomed the Art Fund’s uplift in funding, saying: “It will I am sure make a big difference. I hope it will renew the culture of collecting across the country.” The National Art Pass, he said, was “simple, clear, I’m sure it’s going to be very effective – and it’s cheap.” Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, also welcomed the Art Fund’s announcement, saying: “Some people wondered whether philanthropy would continue in tough times. This demonstrates that it can.” Speaking about the importance of acquisitions, he said, “We have long-term plans to help people build endowments [in order to be able to buy works of art] but we recognise this won’t happen overnight. This will make a really big difference in the next four years.” He said that the Art Fund’s move showed that “philanthropy was not just about rich individuals; there is also a way in which we can harness a lot of small donations. And with the National Art Pass people will really feel that they are getting something back.” Arts funding Museums Art Arts policy Philanthropy Charities Charlotte Higgins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A bill effectively banning late-term abortions in Kansas has been signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback. The bill bans abortions after 22 weeks gestation except where necessary to save the mother from death or serious injury, based on the controversial belief that fetuses can feel pain, Politico reports. Similar…
Continue reading …If there’s one thing that Fox News cannot abide, it’s pink nail polish on a little boy. Now he and the nation are apparently in for a world of psychological pain and years of therapy. And it’s all because a J. Crew email ad featured a tender moment with a…
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Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff join Amanda Holden on judging panel – while show’s creator is just a phone call away ITV had its first glimpse of a future without Simon Cowell at the launch of the new series of Britain’s Got Talent, which will return on Saturday without the man who created it. Cowell, who is busy making a US version of his other ITV1 hit, The X Factor, will not appear on Britain’s Got Talent until its final week. Such are his US commitments that doubts remain whether he will appear on ITV1′s The X Factor at all , and it was a reflection of the broadcaster’s sensitivity, perhaps, that at the Britain’s Got Talent press launch on Wednesday there was a blanket ban on any question not relating to that show. But fans can rest assured that with or without Cowell the fifth series of the reality talent show has a familiar feel, with singers who can’t sing, dancers who can’t dance, and ordinary-looking folk who turn out to have extraordinary talent. Cowell’s fellow judge Piers Morgan does not feature in the new show – he is busy in the US as well making his CNN chatshow – so there are two new judges, comedian Michael McIntyre and former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, joining Amanda Holden. The three revealed that Cowell had watched early footage of the new series and telephoned them each individually to give them his seal of approval. “Simon phones every day,” joked McIntyre. Hasselhoff said the new lineup of judges was “not better or worse, just different”. Also a judge on the US version, which airs on NBC as America’s Got Talent, Hasselhoff said the UK shows were more fun to make. “Each city and each town sort of had their own spirit. At a drop of the hat the audience just wants to sing. They are so into it and so positive, it’s actually more fun than it is in the States,” he added. Holden said: “He loves it, he does love it. He phoned us all and said he loves it. We were all drunk when we got the call. I was on my way back from dinner. I don’t really know what he said but he sounded pleased.” McIntyre added: “I was in Venice for my wife’s birthday [when he rang]. I have worked out I had drunk 917 Bellinis. “It adds to the show that he has such a presence. It’s his show – for me he makes the best shows on TV – I felt him there all the time. “It was a huge moment when he said he watched it and he absolutely loved it. I’m thrilled for that, and I’m thrilled that he’s coming back. I think it will be really good fun.” Britain’s Got Talent, which propelled west Lothian-born Susan Boyle to global superstardom , although she came second in the 2009 series to dance act Diversity, is one of ITV’s biggest shows, along with The X Factor, I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! and Coronation Street. Last year’s final, won by acrobatic troupe Spellbound, averaged 12.4 million viewers, according to overnight figures . It was well down on the 17.3 million who saw Boyle pipped to the post in 2009, but was nonetheless one of ITV’s highest-rating shows of the year. The broadcaster will hope it does similarly good business this time around. Elaine Bedell, ITV’s director of entertainment and comedy, said: “Britain’s amateur talent has come out in force this year. “We all feel this has been one of the best audition tours for Britain’s Got Talent that we’ve had, with slightly fewer dance groups, more singing and dance groups and of course some fantastic performing dogs.” She described McIntyre and Hasselhoff as “the most unlikely showbusiness double act”. “Simon as you know is with us for the live shows but did not do the audition tour,” she added. “If nothing else, Britain’s Got Talent has taught David something about the geography of the British Isles. He does now know where Glasgow is – and it’s not in Ireland.” • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . Britain’s Got Talent Simon Cowell ITV ITV1 Michael McIntyre Television industry Television Entertainment John Plunkett guardian.co.uk
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MPs have recommended criminalising clients of sex workers, saying 80% of prostitutes are victims of slavery and trafficking France is to consider making it illegal to pay for sex, in a rethink of prostitution laws. A cross-party commission of French MPs have recommended criminalising all clients of sex workers, meaning anyone who buys sex from any kind of prostitute would face prison and a fine. If a law is introduced, France would join only a handful of European countries where clients of sex workers face prison. In 1999 Sweden became the first, followed by Norway and Iceland. The Socialist Danielle Bousquet and Guy Geoffroy of Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP said clients must understand that any visit to a prostitute encouraged slavery and trafficking – which 80% of the estimated 20,000 sex-workers in France were victims of. Roselyne Bachelot, the social affairs minister, favours criminalising clients. She told the commission inquiry: “There is no such thing as freely chosen and consenting prostitution. The sale of sexual acts means women’s bodies are made available for men, independently of the wishes of those women.” Proposals for a law could be drawn up this month but it would not be debated in parliament before 2012. In France prostitution is not illegal, but activities around it are. Brothels, once the subject of artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, were outlawed in 1946. Pimping is illegal, as is paying for sex from a minor. In 2003 a controversial law against soliciting was introduced by Sarkozy, then interior minister, making it illegal to stand in a public place known for prostitution dressed in revealing clothes. Sex-workers’ groups in France have long campaigned for legal status and rights. The French actor, Philippe Caubère, famous for playing Molière, is open about regularly paying sex-workers €200 for sex. He said the government was playing politics in the runup to next year’s presidential election. “First it was immigrants, now it’s prostitutes. This is plain populism and shows a disdain for individual liberties,” he said. He told Le Parisien the government was not doing enough under existing laws to help exploited and trafficked women. “As for the other women, leave them alone. They take care of men who mostly live in sexual misery and terrible solitude. They are remarkable women.” Mouvement du Nid, a French group campaigning to end prostitution, published a study in 2004 which found 41% of male clients of sex workers said they were married and 57% were fathers. The French justice minister, Michel Mercier, supports criminalising clients, but the interior minister, Claude Guéant, said it would be difficult to make buying sex a crime when prostitution itself was not illegal. France Europe Prostitution Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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MPs have recommended criminalising clients of sex workers, saying 80% of prostitutes are victims of slavery and trafficking France is to consider making it illegal to pay for sex, in a rethink of prostitution laws. A cross-party commission of French MPs have recommended criminalising all clients of sex workers, meaning anyone who buys sex from any kind of prostitute would face prison and a fine. If a law is introduced, France would join only a handful of European countries where clients of sex workers face prison. In 1999 Sweden became the first, followed by Norway and Iceland. The Socialist Danielle Bousquet and Guy Geoffroy of Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP said clients must understand that any visit to a prostitute encouraged slavery and trafficking – which 80% of the estimated 20,000 sex-workers in France were victims of. Roselyne Bachelot, the social affairs minister, favours criminalising clients. She told the commission inquiry: “There is no such thing as freely chosen and consenting prostitution. The sale of sexual acts means women’s bodies are made available for men, independently of the wishes of those women.” Proposals for a law could be drawn up this month but it would not be debated in parliament before 2012. In France prostitution is not illegal, but activities around it are. Brothels, once the subject of artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, were outlawed in 1946. Pimping is illegal, as is paying for sex from a minor. In 2003 a controversial law against soliciting was introduced by Sarkozy, then interior minister, making it illegal to stand in a public place known for prostitution dressed in revealing clothes. Sex-workers’ groups in France have long campaigned for legal status and rights. The French actor, Philippe Caubère, famous for playing Molière, is open about regularly paying sex-workers €200 for sex. He said the government was playing politics in the runup to next year’s presidential election. “First it was immigrants, now it’s prostitutes. This is plain populism and shows a disdain for individual liberties,” he said. He told Le Parisien the government was not doing enough under existing laws to help exploited and trafficked women. “As for the other women, leave them alone. They take care of men who mostly live in sexual misery and terrible solitude. They are remarkable women.” Mouvement du Nid, a French group campaigning to end prostitution, published a study in 2004 which found 41% of male clients of sex workers said they were married and 57% were fathers. The French justice minister, Michel Mercier, supports criminalising clients, but the interior minister, Claude Guéant, said it would be difficult to make buying sex a crime when prostitution itself was not illegal. France Europe Prostitution Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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Coastal highway between two cities blocked by women and children demonstrating against government crackdown Hundreds of Syrian women have marched along the country’s main coastal highway to demand the release men seized from their hometown, human rights activists said. Security forces, including secret police, stormed the town of Baida, going into houses and arresting hundreds of men after locals joined anti-government protests, according to the activists. Video showed a large crowd, most of them women, marching along the road leading to Turkey as they chanted: “We want the men of Baida.” Women demonstrated in support in the nearby Mediterranean city of Banias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said 350 men were arrested in Baida. An activist on Twitter put the number at 800 and said she would release the names of 111 of those detained soon. A human rights lawyer in contact with people in the town told Reuters that security forces had arrested 200 residents in Baida, killing two people. “They brought in a television crew and forced the men they arrested to shout ‘We sacrifice our blood and our soul for you, Bashar’,” the lawyer said. “Syria is the Arab police state par excellence . But the regime still watches international reaction, and as soon as it senses that it has weakened, it turns more bloody.” Tensions have been raised in the mostly Sunni Muslim country ruled by minority Alawites – an offshoot sect of Shia Islam – since protests against President Bashar al-Assad began. The Damascus Declaration, Syria’s main rights group, says the death toll from the demonstrations, now in their fourth week, has reached 200. Assad has responded to the demonstrations with a combination of some concessions – offered to conservative Muslims and Kurds – and force. Assad’s government has described the protests as part of a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife, blaming unspecified armed groups and “infiltrators” for the violence, and denying a report by Human Rights Watch that security forces have prevented ambulances and medical supplies from reaching besieged areas . Montaha al-Atrash, board member of the Syrian human rights group Sawasieh, said: “As soon as an area like Baida stands up, they attack it and put out the usual film reel of members of the security forces who died defending stability and order.” Activists said Baida was targeted because its residents participated in a demonstration in Banias last week in which protesters shouted: “The people want the overthrow of the regime” – the rallying cry of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions where the leaders were toppled. One activist said some residents of Baida had weapons and it appeared that an armed confrontation had erupted. But Sheikh Anas Airout, an imam in Banias, said Baida residents were largely unarmed. Protests against 48 years of autocratic Ba’ath Party rule erupted in the southern city of Deraa near the border with Jordan, and expanded to the suburbs of the capital Damascus, the north-east, the coast and areas in between. But attempts to spread the protests to Damascus proper or to Syria’s second city have failed so far. Syria Middle East Protest Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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President said suspects admitted attack which killed 12 commuters and injured 150 Police in Belarus have arrested two people accused of organising the bombing in a Minsk metro station on Monday which killed 12 commuters and injured up to 150. President Alexander Lukashenko said the suspects were held on Tuesday evening in what he described as a “brilliant operation” by police officers and the KGB. “The main thing is that we know who carried out this attack, and how,” he said. “It’s not clear yet why, but that will soon become known.” No details of the alleged attackers were given, but identikit photographs of two suspects issued earlier showed a fair-haired Slavic-looking man and another with darker features wearing a woollen hat. Both appeared to be under 30. The bomb, placed under a bench on the platform at Oktyabrskaya station in the centre of the capital, exploded just before 6pm on Monday. Bloodied survivors staggered outside as thick smoke filled the metro. Security sources told news agencies that surveillance cameras recorded a man putting a bag under the bench, ascending the escalator and then reaching under his coat to detonate the explosives. The man was identified in earlier footage, in which he regularly left the metro at a different station. Officers who staked out the station exit station identified the man and followed him to his home, where he was arrested by police special forces. Lukashenko said the detainees admitted the attack, and two other bombings, one in the city of Vitebsk in 2005 and another in a Minsk park in 2008, both of which injured about 50 people. Lukashenko, an autocrat who has been in office since 1994, signalled that Belarus’s beleaguered liberal opposition could be made a scapegoat for the attack when he said ” the fifth column ” should be questioned. “Bring in everyone and interrogate them, pay no attention to democracy or the groans and howls of the foreign martyrs,” he ordered security bosses. “We must not relax our efforts. The mop-up operation must be total.” Belarus Alexander Lukashenko Global terrorism Europe Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Owners of a Florida Internet company are being sued for paying homeless men $50 to be filmed while women punched and kicked them in dominatrix fetish videos, according to Florida court documents. The company sells “beatdown videos” of women attacking men for up to $900 on its site at Shefights….
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