Seen in the News

[Tizer]

Sorry, I hadn't seen your dam message before I posted about it in the climate thread.

The Russians are getting desperate now that the US has started sending more armour and missiles to Ukraine...
`Russia using chemical choking agents in Ukraine, US says' LINK

Here's a news story for Tripps. I hope it's not his GP!
`GP prescribing opioids in 'high amounts' needs to improve' LINK

[Stanley]

I read that link on the opiates Peter. Did you notice they talk about a business manager and 'leaders' whatever they are. No mention of doctors. This is the brave new world of health care, lots of 'leaders' and 'practitioners' and no doctors in sight.....

[Tripps]

I have just learned (whilst watching the preliminaries to the Kentucky Derby since you ask) that 'Breaking' (Break Dancing) is now an Olympic event and will feature in the forthcoming Paris Olympics. Olympic Breaking

Good grief as Snoopy would surely say. . . .

[Stanley]

I think I knew that but had forgotten..... Do they still have artistic streamer waving as well?
I agree.... Good Grief!

I saw THIS BBC report and find it even more unbelievable.
The NHS needs more doctors, and this year saw a record number of applications from medical students to start junior doctor training. But problems behind the scenes have meant many have not yet been found jobs. What has gone wrong? When the email of congratulations arrived in her inbox last month, Emma could not have been any more excited. Inside was meant to be the details of her first job as a junior doctor. On the brink of graduation from Warwick Medical School, the 29-year-old was due to find out about where she would working for the next two years. But despite the email being titled congratulations, next to each of her placements for her two-year foundation course, the first rung on the doctor training ladder, was the abbreviation TBC.
(I think TBC means 'To Be Confirmed'.)

[Tizer]

This is long but worth reading....
`North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger' BBC
...especially this paragraph about the missile they investigated:
It was bursting with the latest foreign technology. Most of the electronic parts had been manufactured in the US and Europe over the past few years. There was even a US computer chip made as recently as March 2023. This meant that North Korea had illicitly procured vital weapons components, snuck them into the country, assembled the missile, and shipped it to Russia in secret, where it had then been transported to the frontline and fired - all in a matter of months.

[Stanley]

Is it any wonder that one of the recurring themes of the 20th Century was the responsibility of arms manufacturers for the major conflicts. Every time I hear that more money has been given to Ukraine I mentally add "To the armaments manufacturers you mean!"
So the news in the report doesn't surprise me but does depress me Peter.

I saw THIS news report this morning and reflected once more that Northern Ireland is a different place than the rest of the UK. Look at the image and reflect that he went to hospital with two lumps of wood nailed to his hands. Bizarre and horrifying.
A man has been taken to hospital following a serious assault in a car park in Bushmills, County Antrim in the early hours of Sunday morning. The man in his 20s was found nailed to a fence, with a nail through each hand, shortly after midnight. Two vans, one belonging to the injured man, were found on fire in the car park near Dundarave Park. Police said paramilitary involvement was one key line of inquiry. Graffiti on nearby public toilets has been linked to the assault and arson. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the man was left with potentially life-changing but not life-threatening injuries. Police said it was a "sinister attack."
You can say that again!

[Big Kev]

Russia to hold 'Nuclear drills'. Sabre rattling? The BBC making a story out of 'gossip'? Are we back to the (not so) cold war?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5npwdv3wzo

[Stanley]

No political news here Kev so they have to scrape something up from somewhere. You can tell when things get really bad, they start reporting on themselves....

See THIS morning's top headline for a bit of a change.
The personal information of an unknown number of serving UK military personnel has been accessed in a significant data breach, the BBC understands. The hack targeted a payroll system used by the Ministry of Defence, which includes names and bank details of both current and some past armed forces members. In a very small number of cases, the data may include personal addresses. It is unknown who is behind the hack or what the data may be used for. The data, described as "personal HMRC-style information", relates to current and former members of the Royal Navy, Army and Air Force over a period of several years. The system was managed by an external contractor and no operational MoD data has been obtained.
How can this happen? Surely they were using the most up to date hardware and software to protect sensitive information......

[Tizer]

The system was managed by an external contractor...

There lies the clue. Everything gets put out to a contractor these days, and the contractor will often be sub-contracting all or part to another business. The authoritarian regimes keep it in house.

[Stanley]

'Outsourcing' is a handy way of shifting responsibility for any mistakes onto other shoulders. Buttressed by the myth that private industry is more efficient. (See the railways for a comprehensive rebuttal of that argument!

See THIS for another example of the genre....
A "nationwide issue" which caused huge delays at passport e-gates has been resolved, the Home Office has said. Airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Manchester all confirmed a Border Force problem was causing delays with arrivals late on Tuesday. Pictures and videos on social media showed long queues. A passenger in Manchester said he had queued for 90 minutes, while another in Heathrow described "chaotic scenes".

[Stanley]

It's a pleasure to be able to draw attention to THIS BBC report.
A UK girl born deaf can now hear unaided, after a groundbreaking gene-therapy treatment. Opal Sandy was treated shortly before her first birthday - and six months on, can hear sounds as soft as a whisper and is starting to talk, saying words such as "Mama", "Dada" and "uh-oh". Given as an infusion into the ear, the therapy replaces faulty DNA causing her type of inherited deafness. Opal is part of a trial recruiting patients in the UK, US and Spain. Doctors in other countries, including China, are also exploring very similar treatments for the Otof gene mutation Opal has.
Imagine the pleasure this gives everyone connected with the treatment. Lovely.... a nice change from the usual news we have!

[Tizer]

Unfortunately this is the usual type of news these days...
`Half of Gaza water sites damaged or destroyed, BBC satellite data reveals' LINK

`Neom: Saudi forces 'told to kill’ to clear land for eco-city' LINK

[Stanley]

See THIS for more evidence that if you are rich enough you can get away with murder.
Saudi authorities have permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for a futuristic desert city being built by dozens of Western companies, an ex-intelligence officer has told the BBC. Col Rabih Alenezi says he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line, part of the Neom eco-project. One of them was subsequently shot and killed for protesting against eviction. The Saudi government and Neom management refused to comment. Neom, Saudi Arabia's $500bn (£399bn) eco-region, is part of its Saudi Vision 2030 strategy which aims to diversify the kingdom's economy away from oil. Its flagship project, The Line, has been pitched as a car-free city, just 200m (656ft) wide and 170km (106 miles) long - though only 2.4km of the project is reportedly expected to be completed by 2030.

[Stanley]

See THIS for the news you have all been waiting for.
Swiss singer Nemo has won the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, with their song The Code. A compelling hybrid of opera and hip-hop, it topped the jury vote, helping the 24-year-old gain an impressive score of 591 points. The singer becomes the first non-binary artist to win Eurovision. Fittingly, they wrote the song to explain how they came to terms with their identity. Croatia, which led the public vote, came second with the raucous party anthem Rim Tim Tagi Dim, while the UK's Olly Alexander was consigned to 18th place, out of 25. The Years and Years singer received the dreaded "nul points" from the public, but was saved from last place by the jury vote. They awarded his song, Dizzy, 46 points.
There is much more about why the Dutch contestant Joost Klein was disqualified from the contest on Saturday, after he was accused of making "unlawful threats" to a female member of the production crew if you are interested......

[Stanley]

I have said many times that I was lucky enough to experience the glory days of driving and the older I get the more I realise that this applies to many other things.
See THIS for more evidence that our kids are going to have a rougher ride than we did.
Hundreds of thousands of homeowners have taken out mortgages in the last three years that they will still be paying off into retirement, estimates suggest. A surge in mortgage terms beyond state pension age has been seen, particularly in new home loans made to the under-30s. Figures from the Bank of England show how the share of new mortgages with a later end date has increased. Higher mortgage rates have led many people to choose an extended repayment period to control costs.
Did you clock the dreadful report into prison conditions and the Justice System? See THIS BBC report.
England's second-biggest prison is stricken with severe overcrowding, vermin and rising violence among inmates, inspectors have found. Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has issued an "urgent notification" about conditions in HMP Wandsworth. Wandsworth was the scene of an alleged escape by Daniel Khalife last year. The prison's governor, Katie Price, resigned during the inspection earlier this week.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the NHS.
The government is spending £5.5bn less on health in England than it suggested it would be at this stage, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says. Plans set out in the 2019 election campaign indicated the budget would increase by 3.3% a year above inflation during this Parliament, the IFS said. But despite extra being put in to cover the high inflation seen, spending had risen by only 2.7% a year on average. The government defended its record, saying it was making extra investment. Funding had reached record levels and was making a "real difference" in cutting waiting lists, the Department of Health and Social Care said. The health budget for this year stands at £179.6bn.
Most of this is going on the NHS but it also includes money for public health, social care and training.

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS and then ask yourself whether these privatised water companies are as efficient as we were assured they would be when the government sold them off for 30 pieces of silver.....
Millions of litres of raw sewage were illegally pumped into one of England's most famous lakes after a fault, documents seen by the BBC have revealed. United Utilities failed to stop the illegal pollution of Windermere, in the Lake District, for 10 hours in February and did not report the incident to the Environment Agency until 13 hours after it started. An almost identical incident occurred at the same location in 2022. The firm says it took urgent steps to resolve the incident in February. A pumping station in Bowness-on-Windermere, in Cumbria, normally sends sewage to Windermere Wastewater Treatment Works. But United Utilities documents, obtained by the BBC, show how a telecoms fault on the night of 28 February caused the main pumps to stop. A separate set of emergency pumps then discharged untreated sewage into the middle of Windermere, which is part of a Unesco World Heritage site. It is England's largest lake and one of the country's most popular natural attractions.
Note the cause, 'a telecoms fault'. It's a disgrace and deserves something more than a slap on the wrist.
Insiders at the water company told the BBC the company would have automatically received notification of the fault shortly after it occurred. They say if an out-of-hours team had been promptly sent to the site, most of the pollution could have been prevented. Instead, an engineer arrived at the pumping station 10 hours later and stopped the pollution shortly after.

[Stanley]

THIS is what caught my attention. This is Britain today.....
When Heidi Dodson discovered she was going to be evicted, she reached out to her local council of Thurrock in Essex for help. But it rejected her application for priority housing and said she would cope if she ended up on the streets. Two weeks after being evicted, Heidi is homeless and sleeping in a park. Every evening Heidi Dodson reads her grandchildren a bedtime story and wishes them good night. Then she quietly packs a rucksack with a torch, biscuits and some toilet roll, and makes a flask of tea, before making her way to a local park to spend the night. “You think about what you had - the safety of your own home, key, roof over your head,” Heidi says. “It’s these things that are going through your mind when you are out in the cold and sleeping on a park bench.” The 57-year-old former shop assistant was recently served a section 21 “no-fault” eviction after seven years living in a private rented property she had secured through the council.
We solved this problem at one point in history with a well organised universal provision of Council Housing but Tory dogma about owning your own home gave is 'Right to Buy' and over the years since the government has devolved the provision of housing to the private sector because it is more 'efficient'.
I leave you do decide for yourselves how efficient it is........

[Stanley]

See THIS for another example of how Austerity is biting into the fabric of Society....
Thousands of children in England with complex needs are missing out on support as councils fail to meet care plan deadlines, BBC News has found. Councils have a legal time limit of 20 weeks, in most cases, to issue an education, health and care plan (EHCP), after a parent or school asks for one. BBC News has found eight councils met the deadline in fewer than 5% of cases, from April to December last year. Councils say growing demand and insufficient funding cause delays. An EHCP sets out the extra help a child needs to access education, on top of what is available through special education needs support. Examples of extra support might include one-to-one lesson time, or help to learn at home for those with such complex needs that school is unsuitable.Sarah Kilgariff, who lives near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, applied for an EHCP for her son Freddie last July, after the five-year-old suffered a stroke because of a complication from chickenpox. Ms Kilgariff says Freddie now suffers from fatigue, struggles to regulate his emotions, and is back to wearing nappies. She says because of his needs, her son cannot attend school full-time. The family are still waiting for their EHCP - more than five months after the 20-week deadline. "It's horrific because I can't do anything because it's out of my control, and that's really frustrating," she says. "He's been neglected for a year. He's been completely forgotten about by the system."
When the deadly duo of Cameron and Osborne established austerity as their key economic remedy for the faltering economy after the credit crisis I forecast that this would lead to the erosion of standards in society and that's what we are looking at here. Have you ever asked yourself where this will end? Cases like Freddie's show us how services have deteriorated. It is shameful......

[Stanley]

We're used to seeing criticism of the privatised water companies for their mismanagement of waste but see THIS for a different and scary cause for concern.
People living in the area affected by a waterborne parasite outbreak in south Devon have described the impact on their lives as "terrible" and a water company's response to the situation as "poor". The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said 46 cases of cryptosporidiosis, an illness that causes prolonged diarrhoea, had been confirmed in the Brixham area, along with more than 100 other people reporting symptoms of the illness. South West Water (SWW) said it believed it had found the source of the issue and said it was sincerely sorry for the impact the incident was having.
I see one man has said that the offer of £115 compensation was an insult and I think I would agree with him.

See THIS also for another matter which caught my attention.
A defence lawyer who “repeatedly crossed the line” while questioning a woman during a rape trial has been fined and ordered to pay her compensation. A Faculty of Advocates committee found Lorenzo Alonzi’s behaviour amounted to unsatisfactory professional conduct in six of 11 complaints made by rape survivor Ellie Wilson. The committee said Mr Alonzi did not appear to clearly and unequivocally accept any wrongdoing or offer an unreserved apology. Ms Wilson said he seemed more concerned with “the damage to his reputation than the harm he’s caused”.
I simply don't understand how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Did nobody in the court recognise what was happening?

[Stanley]

See THIS. Another harrowing story about the effects of the infected blood used by the NHS.
By Jim Reed. Health reporter.
It was February 2017 when the message arrived on Facebook. "There's a much bigger scandal that you need to look into," it read. "Thousands have died and still nobody talks about it." That was the first time I heard from Su Gorman and Steve Dymond. I'd been working on a story about hepatitis C treatments. But they wanted me to go to Ramsgate, in Kent, to meet them about something else. A few days later, a heavy bundle of A4 papers arrived: handwritten notes, photocopies of old documents, press clippings from the Kent Messenger newspaper. I quickly learnt that Su was not someone you could easily argue with - or put off with an excuse.
The rest of the article is well worth reading. We should not forget these people. The government, or rather, the Treasury, is hanging back and not setting an early date for full compensation. Meanwhile, victims die, cutting back on the eventual bill. This is cruel and disgraceful.

[Stanley]

See THIS Report on the amount of money taken out of the UK water industry since privatisation.
Shareholders in some of the UK's largest water companies have taken out tens of billions of pounds but failed to invest, new research claims, with firms planning to raise household bills to fund future spending. Investors have withdrawn £85.2bn from 10 water and sewage firms in England and Wales since the industry was privatised more than 30 years ago, analysis by the University of Greenwich suggests. Companies are under pressure following sewage spills and water leaks, which critics have blamed on under-investment in the country's infrastructure.
I seem to remember some of us protesting against privatisation of the major utility companies but being told by the government that the private sector would be more efficient. Oh yes? They have certainly been efficient at sucking money out of the industry and this current study is just another part of the evidence against them.

See THIS BBC report on the helicopter crash in Iran.
There is "no sign" of life coming from President Ebrahim Raisi's helicopter, state TV says. Reuters has also reported that the helicopter was "completely burned" in the crash, citing an Iranian official. "President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash... unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead," the official said.
News is still coming in as I write.

[Tripps]

I read that we are under threat from an unseasonal episode of Norovirus.

"Experts" (sic) have put the current spike down to cold snaps in May and lingering effects of the pandemic, advising those unlucky enough to catch it to maintain a rigorous hygiene routine and stay home from work. Amy Douglas, a Norovirus Epidemiologist at the UKHSA, said: "Norovirus levels were higher in April than we would usually see at this time of year and have been increasing. This is likely due to a combination of factors, but the colder weather we have had won't have helped."

We were told a few days ago that April this year, was in the top ten hottest Aprils since records began. I wasn't convinced.

The same newspaper also warns yet again, against Chinese red ants, Mitten crabs, and Asian hornets.

Probably best to stay permanently indoors - or stop reading newspapers.

PS One of the techniques to avoid Norovirus is said to be to clean surfaces with bleach. Members could have told them that they were preaching to the converted on here.

[Stanley]

A picture is worth a thousand words.....

I heard the report about norovirus and then saw THIS in the news this morning.
Human faeces in our rivers is putting the public in danger and the risk will increase without action, the UK's top engineers and scientists have warned in a report. The report led by the Royal Society of Engineering called for an upgrade of the UK's sewage system and more widespread testing of the country's waterways. Prof Chris Whitty - the UK's chief medical officer - said it was a "public health priority as well as an environmental one".
Could there possibly be a connection?

[Stanley]

Did you see THIS report yesterday?
A woman in her 50s has died after she was attacked by her two registered XL bullies at a house in east London. The woman was treated by paramedics at the home in Cornwall Close, Hornchurch, but died at the scene on Monday afternoon. The two dogs were seized by armed officers after being contained in a room. It is believed to be the first fatal attack by XL bully dogs that were known to have been registered under new laws. A blue forensic tent was put up outside the woman's home in the small residential street following the attack.
Why would anyone want to have two dogs like that? I have never been able to understand it. It must have been horrific.