When Aisha Gadhafi entered Algeria, it turns out she went straight to the hospital. The AFP reports that she today gave birth to a daughter, and that Algeria is now citing “strictly humanitarian reasons” for allowing her, along with her mother and siblings, into the country . An Algerian paper reports…
Continue reading …With the specter of Hurricane Katrina still looming large, East Coast governors stepped up their emergency responses to Irene, issuing loud warnings, mass evacuations, and continued caution. “No amount of spin, money, or ‘strategery’ can replace the gut reaction to a leader from a scared populace,” said the former head…
Continue reading …A Wisconsin health clinic has warned that 2,345 patients may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis, or other blood-borne diseases by a nurse who improperly used diabetic injection devices. The nurse, whose job involved teaching newly diagnosed diabetics how to use insulin pens, used the same pen every time…
Continue reading …Syrian security forces killed seven people today as they opened fire to disperse thousands of protesters rallying against the regime on the first day of a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. Activists say security forces fired at protesters in the southern province of Daraa, in the central…
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Oscar winner and activist visits and defends community of 86 Irish Traveller families facing eviction from Essex site If it wasn’t the two strong cups of tea, it was the delicious smell of Mary Ann McCarthy’s “traditional Irish feast” of potatoes and cabbage bubbling on the stove that left Vanessa Redgrave in no doubt about the strength of community at Dale Farm. “I’d be happy to live here with them, that’s for sure,” declared the Oscar-winning actor and activist from the steps of McCarthy’s chalet. Describing Dale Farm as “a strong, wise, warm, gentle community”, Redgrave broke off from her filming schedule to meet the 86 Irish Traveller families who face eviction from the Essex site at midnight on Thursday. The largest unauthorised encampment of Travellers in Britain had never seen anything like it. After two bishops visited in the morning, came the actress. Children clustered round on bikes, dogs fell respectfully silent, and a purple doormat was shaken and laid out for her. “The whole situation is really about planning. There’s no crime being committed,” said Redgrave, standing by two ornamental cannon in McCarthy’s frontyard. “We used to live in communities. We had a post office and we had our little local shops, which would help elderly people. Our communities up and down the country have been decimated and destroyed. Dale Farm hasn’t.” But the Travellers who for 10 years have lived on this greenbelt land which they own close to Basildon will find their community smashed up unless a last-ditch temporary injunction before a high court judge succeeds on Wednesday. If they lose, an £18m eviction process will begin and bulldozers will tear up their chalets and caravans. Visibly moved, Redgrave admitted her determination to stick up for the Travellers of Dale Farm was personal and recalled her actor brother, Corin, who suffered “a crippling cardiac arrest speaking in defence of Dale Farm to Basildon council” in 2005 and never fully recovered. Would Corin Redgrave, who died last year, be disappointed to see Dale Farm a day away from eviction? “A big society is a human society where everybody takes care of each other. Corin wouldn’t be disappointed coming here. Here is a warm place,” said Redgrave. Despite the impending eviction, the warmth was certainly mutual as Redgrave dodged boys playing on a toy ride-on tractor (numberplate: WAR-0412) to meet the residents. “If everybody was like her the world would be a better place. She was such a lovely person,” said Tina, a mother of two, who spoke about the impending eviction’s impact on her children. “They’ve been reared up here, they went to preschool and then primary school and my little girl is booked into secondary school for the new term and now we’re getting kicked off. They want to crush this community, destroy our culture and put us into houses.” Basildon council argues that it is enforcing against Dale Farm – assisted by a £1.2m grant from the communities department and up to £4.65m for policing from the Home Office – as it does against any unauthorised development on greenbelt. With the bishops of Chelmsford and Brentwood joining the UN and Amnesty International in questioning the eviction, the council has reassured Travellers it will not immediately cut off water and electricity to the site and will rehouse all vulnerable residents. But Redgrave joined Travellers who described greenbelt as “a weapon” being used against their community. Redgrave said she had supported Gypsy communities across Europe since she became conscious of how “minorities were destroyed” under Hitler. Alongside Redgrave’s warm adjectives describing their community, residents of Dale Farm added another: safe. One single mother was too scared to give her name for fear doctors would refuse to treat her baby boy and was visibly petrified by the prospect of eviction. “It is terrifying to know you have a nine-week-old baby with nowhere to go,” she said. She claimed Basildon council last year offered a one-bedroom flat for her mother, herself and her sister and brother but she has never been offered alternative accommodation since. She fears being placed in a flat, alone. “This is a very safe community. When my baby gets bigger I’ll know that if he goes outside someone will bring him back,” she said, describing how their life in caravans enabled extended families to support each other. “Obviously everybody would like to have their mum or sister nextdoor. For us it’s going to be a culture shock. [not to have that]“. Grattan Puxon, a veteran Gypsy campaigner, joined Redgrave for tea in McCarthy’s chalet: “This shouldn’t happen. This is not broken Britain. This is Britain strong and healthy and we want to save a small part of it if we can,” he said. Judging by radio phone-ins and the opinions of neighbours, most local people support the eviction – despite the £18m pricetag. But one local resident, Ann Kobayashi, who befriended Dale Farm residents who attend her Catholic church, said she believed the majority mood was “live and let live”. “Their close-knit community exemplifies the big society which is much spoken of,” she said. After Redgrave ducked inside to finally tuck into Mary Ann McCarthy’s meal of potatoes and cabbage, Kathleen McCarthy pointed out how the settled community in Britain might be inspired by the communal strength on show at Dale Farm. “What they can learn from us is how to be more friendly to one another,” said McCarthy. “Our doors are open 24/7. We welcome everybody with open hearts.” The search for a suitable home The fields of Dale Farm were a scrap yard before Irish Travellers moved on to the land 10 years ago. Now the site could be reduced to rubble. The Travellers, many of whom had moved around Essex for several generations, hoped they would eventually get planning permission for the bases they had laid down for their caravans on greenbelt land next door to a legal Gypsy site. They didn’t, although former deputy prime minister John Prescott gave them two years’ leave to remain, during which their numbers increased to nearly 500 people. With legal appeals apparently exhausted, Basildon borough council served the Travellers with a notice to quit by 31 August or face forcible eviction. Private firms have been contracted to carry out the eviction, which could cost the council up to £8m, with a further £10m in police costs. But the Travellers are seeking a last-minute injunction against the eviction, which will be heard before a high-court judge on Wednesday. One Dale Farm resident, Mary Flynn, is a test case: she is seriously ill and dependent on a nebuliser. She has a letter from the council warning that her electricity will be cut off during the eviction process. Campaigner Grattan Puxon (pictured) claims this would be a “death sentence” for her. The Travellers’ legal team will also claim that Basildon council has not properly processed their homelessness forms and is asking for an injunction to delay the eviction until alternative, authorised sites can be identified. Dale Farm residents insist they will move if they can be found pitches on smaller sites (a feature approved by all sides) in the local area, which they praise for its popular primary school and access to healthcare. The Travellers say there are alternative sites nearby which are owned by the Homes and Communities Agency, a government body which, they claim, said they would be suitable for Traveller pitches. Three planning applications are currently being put forward for smaller sites for the Dale Farm residents within the Basildon area, but one has already been rejected by planners. Basildon borough council is reluctant to countenance more Traveller sites in the area. It says it already has among the highest number of authorised pitches in Essex and is making three more pitches available for Travellers each year. It claims other nearby councils should do their bit. A dozen empty pitches that already have planning approval have been offered to Dale Farm by a landowner near Stowmarket in Suffolk, but residents will need more. There are no votes in approving sites for Travellers, and neighbouring councils fear an influx from Dale Farm. Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Housing Communities United Nations Amnesty International Human rights Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk
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Homelessness charity points to direct link between economic downturn and welfare cuts, and rising numbers living on streets The economic downturn and the government’s deep cuts to welfare will drive up homelessness over the next few years, raising the spectre of middle class people living on the streets, a major study warns. The report by the homelessness charity Crisis, seen by the Guardian, says there is a direct link between the downturn and rising homelessness as cuts to services and draconian changes to benefits shred the traditional welfare safety net. In the 120-page study, co-authored by academics at the University of York and Heriot-Watt University, Crisis highlights figures released over the summer which show councils have reported 44,160 people accepted as homeless and placed in social housing, an increase of 10% on the previous year and the first increase in almost a decade. Last year another 189,000 people were also placed in temporary accommodation – such as small hotels and B&Bs – to prevent them from becoming homeless, an increase of 14% on the previous year. Crisis says that with no sign of economic recovery in sight, there are already signs that homelessness is returning to British streets. In London, rough sleeping, the most visible form of homelessness, rose by 8% last year. Strikingly, more than half of the capital’s 3,600 rough sleepers are now not UK citizens: most are migrants from eastern Europe who cannot find work and, unable to get benefits or return home, are left to fend for themselves on the streets. The charity says the evidence is that the current recession has seen the poor suffer the most, but other parts of society may be in jeopardy if the government’s radical welfare agenda is acted on as the economy stutters. “Any significant reduction of the welfare safety net in the UK as a result of coalition reforms may, of course, bring the scenario of middle class homelessness that much closer,” the report states. The charity says that the government needs to reverse cuts to housing benefit and invest urgently in new housing. It also calls on ministers to withdraw the most radical provisions in the localism bill, which would make “temporary accommodation” for needy families just that. Under the new legislation councils would be forced to remove parents and children who have been in a hotel for a year. At present the assistance is open-ended. There is also an alarming trend in what the charity calls the “hidden homeless” – families forced to squeeze into one room rather than a flat. It says 630,000 households are now “overcrowded”, with London and the south-east the worst hit. This trend could worsen: this summer a survey by the National Landlords Association found more than half of private landlords were planning to reduce the number of properties they let to tenants on housing benefits. Crisis says more families will be forced to share an ever decreasing number of homes. In a separate report, Channel 4 News will broadcast further evidence that official figures underestimate the true picture of homelessness. In Crawley, West Sussex, the Open House hostel said it turned away people needing a bed almost 2,000 times last year, although official figures estimate there are just seven homeless people in the town. Two-thirds of homelessness organisations nationwide told Channel 4 there had been a rise in rough sleeping in their area. Leslie Morphy, Crisis’s chief executive, said: “We are extremely worried. Homelessness in both its visible and hidden forms is already rising and as the economic downturn causes further increases in unemployment and pressure on households’ finances, homelessness is likely to continue to rise. This research is clear that it is the welfare and housing systems in the UK that traditionally have broken the link between unemployment and poverty and homelessness, yet these are now being radically dismantled by the coalition government. The government must listen and change course before this flow of homeless people becomes a flood.” Crisis argues that instead of redoubling its efforts to end the “scandal” of homelessness, the government is in effect making it impossible for those on low incomes to pay their rent. It says in the past British welfare policy, unlike the that in the US, has linked housing benefit to actual rents. But the government’s changes break this link and mean that claimants will be priced out of swaths of the country – or end up on the streets in wealthy regions. The report also says the government’s new “affordable” house building regime is likely to generate fewer than 50,000 homes by 2015, “well short of the 80,000 required to meet ministers’ targets”. Gone will be the lifetime tenancies offered by councils which had to give priority to those in need. Instead, under new powers, local authorities will be able to choose families with “local connections”. With the coalition’s welfare reform bill heading to the Lords and MPs voting on the localism bill next week, Labour said Crisis’s warnings were a “timely reminder of a looming homeless catastrophe”. Karen Buck, Labour’s welfare spokesperson, said the government had played down the rising number of people who thanks to the economic downturn were forced to rely on housing benefit. She said that since the government took power another 150,000 families had been forced on to housing benefit. “The numbers relying on housing benefit to help with housing costs have been soaring. These figures include not just the unemployed but hundreds of thousands of working families. Rising rents, benefit cuts and housing shortages risk a homeless catastrophe with all the associated human and financial costs”. Homelessness Communities Housing Charities Voluntary sector Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If you thought things like Peter King’s hearings or the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy would leave Muslim Americans feeling disgruntled, think again. Muslims are actually much happier with the country than everyone else, according to Pew poll released today, with 56% saying they’re satisfied with the way things are going,…
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The Republican presidential hopeful raised eyebrows with her comments that the weather was God’s way of warning politicians The Republican White House hopeful Michele Bachmann has insisted she was joking when she said a hurricane and quake were God’s warning to Washington, in an effort to control the damage from her latest controversial comments. The Tea Party favourite raised eyebrows with a weekend remark to supporters in Florida that Hurricane Irene, which killed at least 24 people and left millions without power, and an east coast earthquake were God’s way of telling US politicians to cut spending and fix the budget deficit. “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ ” Bachmann said at a campaign event in Sarasota on Sunday. “Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.” Bachmann, among the top three candidates seen to have a chance to win the Republican nomination and take on President Barack Obama next year, made similar comments elsewhere in Florida on Saturday, drawing some laughs from her audience. When the remarks began drawing attention, she went into damage control. “Of course I was being humorous when I said that. It would be absurd to think it was anything else,” Bachmann said on Monday on a campaign stop in Miami. “I am a person who loves humour, I have a great sense of humour.” The hurricane drenched Vermont and caused the worst flooding in the state for 80 years. The 5.8-magnitude earthquake, a rare occurrence on the East Coast, shook up Washington and did minor damage to the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. Many comments by Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, have come under scrutiny since she surged towards the head of the Republican election race over the summer. During her campaign in June, she declared that the celebrated American actor John Wayne was from her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, when in fact he was born 150 miles away. She has also been quizzed about a remark that suggested wives should be submissive to their husbands, and in a recent speech she confused Elvis ‘s birthday with the anniversary of his death. Bachmann told her Miami audience on Monday that if she were elected president, “you won’t see any teleprompter in the White House”. She criticised Obama for using one in speeches. Bachmann is popular in the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement and with religious social conservatives. She won an important poll in the early voting state of Iowa earlier this month, but recent surveys have shown her lagging behind the Texas governor, Rick Perry, and the moderate Mitt Romney. A CNN poll on Monday put her in fourth place among Republicans, with 9%, and behind the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who has not declared her candidacy. Bachmann seems to be fighting Perry for the same kind of conservative Republican voters and falling behind. Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said her Irene comment reflected a dilemma for the Minnesotan, that she has to shift right to regain her footing against Perry but, in doing so, she raises questions about whether she is electable. Tea Party movement Republicans Hurricane Irene Natural disasters and extreme weather United States US politics guardian.co.uk
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Dick Cheney, vice-president to George W Bush, pays tribute to ‘one of America’s closest and best allies in the war on terror’ He may or may not welcome it, but Tony Blair has had lavish praise heaped on him by the uber-conservative of US politics, Dick Cheney. In his autobiography published on Tuesday, the self-declared Darth Vader of the Bush administration pays tribute to the former Labour leader. Not only was Blair America’s greatest ally during the Bush years, says Cheney, but his speeches about the “war on terror” were some of the most eloquent he had been privileged to hear. George Bush’s friendship and closeness to Blair have been well documented, but the position of his vice-president, who earned a reputation for secretiveness while at the White House, has been less clear until now. In the 565-page In My Time, Cheney is unrepentant about the most controversial decisions taken by the White House, from the waterboarding of Guantánamo Bay detainees to the invasion of Iraq. Recalling a trip to Europe in March 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, Cheney says: “I began my trip with a stop in London to visit one of America’s closest and best allies in the war on terror, British prime minister Tony Blair. I have tremendous respect for Prime Minister Blair,” Cheney writes. “He is a Labour party liberal and I am a conservative Republican, and we didn’t always agree on strategy or tactics. But America had no greater ally during our time in office. His speeches about the war were some of the most eloquent I’ve been privileged to hear.” Meeting at Downing Street, Cheney, an early advocate of invading Iraq, said a decision had not yet been made, but invasion was on his mind: “The president wanted to be absolutely clear that if he decided to go to war, we would finish the job. We would remove Saddam Hussein, eliminate the threat he posed and establish a representative government.” The vice-president even made phone calls to lobby Tory MPs on Blair’s behalf. On the eve of the crucial Commons vote in 2003 that authorised the war in Iraq, he writes: “At the request of the British, I
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