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"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
Food waste report shows UK families throw away 24 meals a month
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/07/uk-households-food-waste
One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten.
There has been no progress in reducing meat and fish wastage, with Britons still throwing away the equivalent of 96 million chickens every year. The top three foods being thrown away uneaten in British homes are bread, potatoes and milk. The equivalent of 24m slices of bread, 5.8m potatoes and 5.9m glasses of milk are being wasted daily, while even cakes and pastries make it into the top 10 most wasted items.
Syrian refugees threaten suicide after French police try to arrest them
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syrian-refugees-threaten-suicide-after-french-police-try-arrest-t
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/351353-01-08.jpg
Syrian migrants trying to go to England block a pedestrian bridge leading to the ferry terminal of Calais in #France on October 3, 2013. (Photo: AFP - Philippe Huguen)
Two Syrians threatened to jump off a building early Friday after French riot police attempted to clear a group of refugees from a footbridge they are occupying at the English channel in a desperate attempt to get to #Britain. About 60 refugees, 20 of whom are on a hunger strike, have since Wednesday (...)
BBC News - Asylum seeker awarded wrongful detention compensation
►http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-23782329
via @cdb_77
Asylum seeker awarded wrongful detention compensation
Nemah Shehadeh Nemah Shehadeh has launched a fresh claim for asylum in the UK
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69409000/jpg/_69409802_69408589.jpg
An asylum seeker has been awarded £36,000 damages against the UK government for wrongful detention.
Nemah Shehadeh, who lives in Glasgow, was held after an attempt to deport her to Jordan failed in January 2008 when she claimed to be a Palestinian.
Raquel Rolnik is an USP urbanist, a major academic figure in Brazilian urban studies... called a loopy leftist in the british press
Via la la liste de géographie critique
–-----
Outrage as ’loopy’ UN inspector lectures Britain: She’s from violent, slum-ridden Brazil, yet still attacks us on housing and human rights | Mail Online
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418194/Outrage-loopy-UN-inspector-lectures-Britain-Shes-violent-slum-ridden-Br
Outrage as ’loopy’ UN inspector lectures Britain: She’s from violent, slum-ridden Brazil, yet still attacks us on housing and human rights
Iain Duncan Smith said Raquel Rolnik undermined impartiality of the UN
Work and Pensions Secretary wants UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to investigate
Tory MP Stewart Jackson said Miss Rolnick was a ‘loopy Brazilian leftie’
Her country has 54million living without clean water or sanitation
There are an estimated 30million homeless in the city of Sao Paulo and 625,000 live below the poverty line
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Raquel Rolnik: A dabbler in witchcraft who offered an animal sacrifice to Marx | Mail Online
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418204/Raquel-Rolnik-A-dabbler-witchcraft-offered-animal-sacrifice-Marx.html
Raquel Rolnik: A dabbler in witchcraft who offered an animal sacrifice to Marx
Academic brought up a Marxist and offered an animal sacrifice to Karl Marx
The architect appears to follow Candomble, an African-Brazilian religion that originated during the slave trade
Libby Porter, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the School of Geography and Environmental Science in Monash University, Australia
"Well, these are outrageously disgusting and insulting media reports of a highly respected activist and voice for housing rights for the poor. We should note in particular, the use of ’loony leftie’, ’raised in violent slums’ and ’witchcraft’ as a means to denigrate and undermine Rolnick along class, gender and political lines. Rolnick is quite right to launch a significant attack on Britain’s housing policy, because that policy is frankly appalling, just as she mounts similar cogent arguments and critiques in countless other places and has done so for years"
Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war | The Daily Caller
▻http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/29/verify-chemical-weapons-use-before-unleashing-the-dogs-of-war
The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.
According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.
[…]
According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother.
However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite.
The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say.
According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present.
Plus loin:
An Egyptian intelligence report describes a meeting in Turkey between military intelligence officials from Turkey and Qatar and Syrian rebels. One of the participants states, “there will be a game changing event on August 21st” that will “bring the U.S. into a bombing campaign” against the Syrian regime.
The chemical weapons strike on Moudhamiya, an area under rebel control, took place on August 21. “Egyptian military intelligence insists it was a combined Turkish/Qatar/rebel false flag operation,” said a source familiar with the report.
‘They make you feel like you’re a criminal’: Iraqi’s account of UK asylum system
Ghada, a refugee from Iraq, fled her home country in 2007. She had been persecuted for working with foreigners and promoting women’s rights. Here’s an account of her experience of the UK asylum system.
▻http://www.trust.org/item/20130906082447-tbiu4/?source=spotlight
#asile #réfugié #Irak #UK #Grande-Bretagne #migration #témoignage
En janvier 2012, le gouvernement du Royaume-Uni a autorisé la livraison de composants susceptibles d’être utilisés pour la fabrication du gaz sarin.
Revealed : UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria - UK Politics - UK - The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-uk-government-let-british-company-export-nerve-gas-chemicals
The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus.
Mais c’était pour des usages civils et d’ailleurs le temps a manqué pour les livrer.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “You see the system working, with materials not exported. The facts are that the licences were revoked and the exports did not take place. The Prime Minister’s view is that that demonstrates that the system is working. There is a sanctions regime, which is a very active part.”
Critics of the Business Secretary, whose department said it had accepted assurances from the exporting company that the chemicals would be used in the manufacture of metal window frames and shower enclosures, said it appeared the substances had only stayed out of Syria by chance.
Donc, hier, Obama a annoncé qu’il allait attendre le vote de l’AIPAC avant de bombarder la Syrie.
La presse britannique après le vote d’hier sur la Syrie:
Blow to Cameron’s authority as MPs rule out British assault on Syria | Politics | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/30/cameron-mps-syria
David Cameron’s plans for military action in Syria shot down in dramatic Commons vote - UK Politics - UK - The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-camerons-plans-for-military-action-in-syria-shot-down-in-dramat
Britain drifts towards isolation | The A-List
▻http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2013/08/30/britain-drifts-towards-isolation/#axzz2dRsGhzHj
‘National soul-searching’ after defeat on Syria, Chancellor says | The Times
▻http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3856104.ece
Syria crisis: No to war, blow to Cameron - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10275158/Syria-crisis-No-to-war-blow-to-Cameron.html
Will we bomb Syria? Yes, say press stories as papers urge Cameron not to do it
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/aug/26/davidcameron-national-newspapers?CMP=ema_546&et_cid=46675&et_rid=484358
Are we really about to launch an attack on Syria? If you read the headlines in most of Britain’s national newspapers today you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a certainty.
“Missile strikes on Syria in days” (Daily Mail); “Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria” (Daily Telegraph); “We’ll bomb Syria” (Daily Mirror); “Syria: air attacks loom as West finally acts” (The Independent); “Britain and US missile strike on Syria likely ’within days’” (Daily Express); “Britain & US ’to hit Syria in days’” (The Sun); “We will bomb Syria ’in days’” (Daily Star); “West eyes air strikes on Syrian military” (Financial Times).
Mais:
In other words, the largely gung-ho news headlines are not reflected in the concerns of editorials - something of a first, I do believe.
Britain and Spain escalate dispute over Gibraltar - World Socialist Web
Site
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/22/gibr-a22.html
Britain and Spain escalate dispute over Gibraltar
By Paul Mitchell
22 August 2013The Conservative/Liberal-Democrat coalition government in Britain and the Popular Party (PP) government in Spain are escalating the dispute over Gibraltar as part of an effort to whip up nationalist sentiment and deflect attention away from the social crisis in both countries. In addition the PP and the Spanish monarchy are embroiled in corruption scandals, which have seen support for the two institutions plummeting.
#gibraltar #espagne #royaume_uni #frontière #différend_territorial
#Gibraltar, une taxe à la frontière est illégale pour la Communauté européenne ? Pas de problème, on fera une écotaxe
Une congestion charge , comme le péage urbain introduit en 2005 pour Londres. Et dont il faudra revoir la traduction dans le cas d’espèce.
Spain threatens ’eco-tax’ on Gibraltar as Britain rejects demands for talks over sovereignty - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/gibraltar/10254703/Spain-threatens-eco-tax-on-Gibraltar-as-Britain-rejects-demands-for-tal
Spain was also warned by the EU that any move to impose a tax at the border would be deemed “illegal” after Madrid said a 50 euro frontier levy and a ban on Gibraltar aviation traffic from using Spanish airspace were measures under consideration.
Instead Spain may get around a direct ban on border tax by imposing a London style “congestion charge” on frontier traffic in La Linea de la Concepcion because it would fall within current EU legislation.
======================
Sinon, tous les bateaux se Sa Majesté sont arrivés à bon port… http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02647/GIBRALTAR_2647979b.jpg
La frégate HMS Westminster, au premier plan, masquée par les bâtiments, les deux bâtiments de soutien logistique, Lyme Bay, à quai et Mounts Bay, manœuvrant pour accoster
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Si le Royaume-Uni accuse le gouvernement espagnol d’entretenir la tension pour des raisons intérieures (faire oublier les scandales de corruption), on notera que de son côté, un ancien conseiller de Margaret Thatcher, intervenant régulier de Fox News, constate très objectivement dans le Telegraph que le candidat premier ministre de l’opposition est une c… molle…
Ed Miliband’s spineless stance on Gibraltar does not bode well for a Labour government – Telegraph Blogs
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100231899/ed-milibands-spineless-stance-on-gibraltar-does-not-bode-well-for
What has Ed Miliband, the Labour Party’s great hope for 2015, said about Spain’s mounting attempts to intimidate the people of Gibraltar? Absolutely nothing.
(…)
The Gibraltar issue has further underscored Ed Miliband’s shortcomings as a leader, both at home and abroad. His failure to support the inhabitants of Gibraltar and their right to self-determination is disturbing, and raises serious questions over the future of British policy on both Gibraltar and the Falklands should he become prime minister.
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Enfin, on notera que l’on va peut-être se trouver devant un premier (?) conflit à caractère écologique…
Les 70 blocs de béton, déclencheurs du conflit (et dont le retrait conditionne aujourd’hui une reprise de dialogue pour les espagnols), ont été immergés (presque…) uniquement pour des raisons d’écologie…
Spain tells Britain to remove Gibraltar reef - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/gibraltar/10253964/Spain-tells-Britain-to-remove-Gibraltar-reef.html
The Gibraltar government says the concrete reef in the Bay of Gibraltar will regenerate marine life and argues that the Spanish raked for shellfish there illegally in its waters.
Et que la riposte espagnole risque d’être une vertueuse #écotaxe.
Conspiracy to commit journalism » Pressthink
http://pressthink.org/2013/08/conspiracy-to-commit-journalism
From Reuters:
The Guardian’s decision to publicize the government threat – and the newspaper’s assertion that it can continue reporting on the Snowden revelations from outside of Britain – appears to be the latest step in an escalating battle between the news media and governments over reporting of secret #surveillance programs.
This battle is global. Just as the surveillance state is an international actor — not one government, but many working together — and just as the surveillance net stretches worldwide because the communications network does too, the struggle to report on this secret system’s overreach is global, as well. It’s the collect-it-all coalition against an expanded Fourth Estate, worldwide.
Those who would expose and oppose the security state also need good judgment. What to hold back, when not to publish, how not to react when provoked, what not to say in your own defense: alongside the forensic, the demands of the prudential. All day today, people have been asking me: why did The Guardian wait a month to tell us about, ”You’ve had your fun. Now we want the stuff back?” Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post asked Rusbridger about that. His answer: #
“Having been through this and not written about it on the day for operational reasons, I was sort of waiting for a moment when the government’s attitude to journalism –- when there was an issue that made this relevant,” Rusbridger said.
That moment came after Sunday’s nine-hour airport detainment of David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist at the center of the NSA surveillance story.
“The fact that David Miranda had been detained under this slightly obscure schedule of the terrorism act seemed a useful moment to write about the background to the government’s attitude to this in general,” Rusbridger said.
Hear it? The holding back. The sensation of a political opening, through which the story can be driven. The alignment of argument with information. The clear contrast between a terror anyone can identify with — being detained for nine hours while transiting through a foreign country — and the state’s obscure use of terrorism law. These are political skills, indistinguishable from editorial acumen. In a conspiracy to commit journalism we must persuade as well as inform.
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs | Strike! Magazine
http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
Uncharted territory : amateur cartographers fight to put their communities on the map (Wired UK)
Une carte parfaite du Monde...
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/05/slum-mapping-google-maps-cartography
via la fantastique @cdb_77 toujours
In May 2013, Google’s vice president took to stage and announced that Google was aiming to build “a perfect map of the world”. An honourable notion with almost utopian connotations — and why shouldn’t it? After all, Google has been at the forefront of leading the biggest change to mapping since the 15th century, when maps went from manuscript to print. Now they’re online and taking advantage of satellite imagery, maps are more detailed, accurate and multi-dimensional than they’ve ever been, but could such a thing as the perfect map ever exist?
Revealed: how UK water companies are polluting Britain’s rivers and beaches | Environment | The Observer
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/03/water-companies-polluting-rivers-beaches
The most persistent and frequent polluters of England’s rivers and beaches are the nation’s 10 biggest water companies, an Observer investigation has revealed.
The companies, which are responsible for treating waste water and delivering clean supplies, have been punished for more than 1,000 incidents in the past nine years, but fined a total of only £3.5m.
The revelations have raised concern that the financial penalties are far too low to change the behaviour of an industry that generates billions of pounds in profits and shareholder dividends. The charge is backed by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, which is proposing major hikes in penalties.
Pollution incidents, which have included sewage illegally pouring into a harbour for more than a year, and managers destroying records, show no sign of declining, according to data obtained from the Environment Agency (EA) under freedom of information rules. Only a third of the 1,000 incidents led to a fine (of an average of just £10,800 ); the rest resulted in cautions.
“In law, the ’polluter pays’ principle is supposed to deter companies from damaging the environment, but in this case the penalties appear to be so pitiful that water companies seem to be accepting them as the price of doing business,” Joan Walley MP, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), told the Observer. “The sentencing council must ensure that courts take into account the profits made from environmental crimes, and that fines have a sufficient deterrent effect.”
Simon Hughes MP, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “These figures are another indictment of the failings of our privatised water companies in England. Many of them make large profits, pay huge dividends, increase prices and pay little tax. When, in addition, these figures show they don’t deliver clean water, the public is entitled to say that our monopoly water providers are neither good corporate citizens nor good stewards of our precious environmental assets.”
In November the Observer revealed that three of Britain’s biggest water companies paid little or no tax on their profits in 2012 while generously rewarding their executives and investors. The water industry was paid £10.5bn by customers in 2010-11, according to the latest Ofwat figures available, while making pre-tax profits of £1.7bn and paying dividends of £2.2bn, a 42% year-on-year rise. In 2013-14, water bills are rising by 3.5%, above both inflation and average pay rises.
(...)
The sentencing council’s draft guidelines direct that for deliberate pollution incidents by large companies and with the most serious environmental impacts, the standard fine should be £750,000 but could be varied between £250,000 and £2m depending on circumstances.
#eau #privatisation #pollution #amendes
Et pourquoi n’est-il pas question d’#emprisonnement ?
Bad immigration policy doesn’t spring from bad stats
It’s not our immigration data – or perceived lack of – that’s the problem, in fact we know far more than we did a decade ago.
“Disney World can keep better track of its visitors than Britain” was the Mail on Sunday’s summary of the public administration committee’s report on migration statistics. That’s probably true. But it’s hardly surprising; Disney World’s task is, for obvious reasons, rather easier. In particular, Disney doesn’t have to deal with the fact that well over 500 million people are free to come to the UK whenever they like, and stay for as long as they want.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/bad-immigration-policy-stats-data
#migration #politique_migratoire #statistiques #data #données
Daily Mail in £110k libel payout over Syrian chemical weapons story | Press Gazette
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/daily-mail-%C2%A3110k-libel-payout-over-syrian-chemical-weapons-stor
The Daily Mail has been forced to pay more than £100,000 in damages and apologise for a story linking a UK defence company with the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The paper has agreed to pat £110,000 plus legal costs and carry an apology on its website after it had falsely suggested that Britam Defence and two of its directors had been willing to sell chemical weapons to rebels fighting President Assad.
Mazloom, une pièce théâtrale
Mazloom is a portrait of a young refugee, Asef, alone in London, whose life is being torn apart by the impending prospect of deportation to Afghanistan.
The script came about as a result of an 8 month project run by Kieran Sheehan Dance Theatre in collaboration with Merton and Wandsworth Asylum Welcome. Sara Masters (writer) and Kieran Sheehan (director/choreographer) worked with a group of six young Afghan asylum seekers to create a piece of performance. This explored their experiences both before and after coming to the UK and their responses to turning 18 and losing their protection - their right to remain - in the UK.
PriyankFearful of their fragile positions in the UK and terrified of what life would be for them in Afghanistan, Mazloom is an intimate portrayal of an isolated young man on the brink. This was workshopped and performed at The Old Vic Tunnels and went on to be seen at a variety of venues, raising awareness of the dangers unaccompanied asylum-seeking children face, as they turn 18.
Mazloom - having been further developed by the Media Arts and Drama departments of Royal Holloway, University of London, and with new film footage and sound track by film-maker Sue Clayton (Hamedullah: the Road Home) - is now going on a national tour. Playing the part of Asef is actor Priyank Morjaria.
The tour has been made possible through the financial support of RHUL, National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Dover Detainee Visitor Group and Kent Refugee Action Network.
Mazloom is touring as part of Young People Seeking Safety Week 2013, the third annual week of celebration and action of the YPSS network.
For more information, contact info@mazloom.org.uk
http://mazloom.org.uk/images/mazloom2013ypss.png
#théâtre #spectacle #migration #réfugié #asile #Angleterre #Grande-Bretagne #Afghanistan #Londres
"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
"Basically the price of a night on the town!"
"I'd love to help kickstart continued development! And 0 EUR/month really does make fiscal sense too... maybe I'll even get a shirt?" (there will be limited edition shirts for two and other goodies for each supporter as soon as we sold the 200)