Charity calls for aid link with child goals
The charity World Vision today publishes a report saying that nearly nine million children won’t see their fifth birthday.
8.8 million children die each year before the age of five, which equates to 24,000 deaths every day.
They say the main causes of these deaths are largely preventable – an estimated two thirds of children could be saved through simple interventions such as low-cost vitamin and mineral supplements to prevent malnutrition and comprehensive postnatal care to prevent post pregnancy complications and infections.
Most child deaths are accounted for by just four main causes: neonatal complications and infections, with 40% of children dying in the first 28 days of life, and pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, which together account for a further 34% of child mortality.
The charity has launched a ‘Child Health Now’ to argue that this situation as every bit as urgent as the acute humanitarian emergencies to which we routinely respond.
The main drivers of change have to come from the developing countries. They say countries which are poorly governed and ill coordinated with levels of internal corruption need help to make these important changes.
Any increases in the level of aid for health must be accompanied by far-reaching changes in where and how that aid is spent.
They argue that just 30 high burden countries account for over 80% of child mortality – or over 7 million deaths each year – yet these same countries receive less than half of global aid commitments for health.
Therefore, any increases in the level of aid for health, according to World Vision, must be accompanied by far-reaching changes in where and how that aid is spent.
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Tory rebel: I’m not sexist but these women…
Meet Tory ‘rebel’ Sir Jeremy Bagge. He is against Conservative Party leader David Cameron pushing his own preferred candidates into a local seat.
Today, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he is reported as saying:
“I personally feel that Central Office are dictatorial. They have shoehorned us, they have deceived us, they have betrayed us.” Sir Jeremy pauses before declaring: “I think they need a boot up the backside, a b—– good kick to wake them up, to be perfectly honest.”
Sir Jeremy, a member of the association executive, said: “I’m going to be there on Monday night. I’m only given two minutes to speak but I will say my bit. I might make a complete b—– idiot of myself but I will have done my bit and not done a u-turn.”
That is in response to him and his band of rebels challenging the Cameron ‘A List’ candidate Elizabeth Truss.
In return he has been called ‘Turnip Taliban’. Apparently he’s quite proud of that name:
I have a turban actually. I went to Pakistan a few years ago, and when I read ‘Taliban Turnip’ I put my b—– hat on. I’m proud to be called that. I prefer to be called Taliban Turnip than Tory Toff.
Sounds good to us. But could his vendetta against Truss be motivated by sexism? Absolutely not, he says:
“Sorry, no, I have never said I’m anti-women. I have got absolutely nothing against women.
“Who cooks my lunch? Who cooks my dinner? How did my wonderful three children appear? Women, you can’t do without them. My god, take my wife.”
What does she do for a living? “What does she do? She looks after me. Looks after the children. Runs the house.”
Oh dear. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel sorry for Cameron when he has these people holding him hostage.
The Sun does cyber-stalking too
“So how was your day?” — It’s a question which must get asked millions of times a day. Some surgeons may celebrate a successful operation; some police officers may toast the closing of a case; some bartenders may have enjoyed an evening’s banter with their regular punters.
However, if you’re John Coles, Ace Reporter for The Sun, your response to that question goes a little something like this:
Oh, my day was GREAT! I went on Facebook and stalked a 24 year old that nobody’s ever heard of. THEN, out of revenge for his Dad’s ‘zany’ statements about drugs, I publicly humilated him in a national newspaper!
Yes, the minds of tabloid journalists operate a little differently to the rest of us.
image by Beau Bo D’Or
So how did Coles’ intrepid cyber bullying increase his readers’ understanding of the world? Well, we’ve discovered that Steve Nutt either smokes weed or roll-ups (or maybe even both!); we’ve found out that he sometimes makes risque & inappropriate jokes to friends; we’ve learned that he has a sister who once drank booze at 16, and a brother who was once NAKED! In Sweden!
continue reading… »
Lamenting 40 years of The Sun
“We’re celebrating our 40th birthday in style”, announced the Sun yesterday.
With a series of self-congratulatory quotes (i.e. from people like Simon Cowell), Britain’s own bible belters have kickstarted a series of “sparkling birthday features”.
It’s undisputed that the Sun managed to push its way to the forefront of Britain’s contemporary culture. From shifting the nation’s attention towards mammary glands, through their contribution to harmony and cohesion, and all the way to reasoned and fact-based news reporting, the Sun has indeed become the epitome of British phlegm, “a national institution” (according to the Sun itself).
But to spare the Sun the risk of sliding into self-important back-slapping mode, which would be soooo unlike them, we’ve decided to help them celebrate the rag’s history with a short roll of honour of some of its most memorable moments.
continue reading… »
Poles Apart: coming near you
contribution by Daniel Hoffman-Gill
Last year, sick and tired of the endless dirge of bigotry, lies and anti-Polish sentiment coming from the right-wing press, me and my mate Mark decided to go to Poland. We wanted to get a job; to put our money where our mouth is and garner a small taste of what it means to be an immigrant. We wanted to single-handedly reverse the Eastern European immigration trend.
So we got our CVs and covering letters translated (badly as it turned out) into Polish, put on our best interview clobber and made our way to Poland in a Vauxhall Astra.
We spent over two weeks as immigrants in Warsaw, ate a lot of lard and pigs feet and attempted to get any job we could, whether it be as a lift operator, a porn film star or a guttering and flues salesperson.
It was an amazing adventure that taught us much on the realities of life as an immigrant.
continue reading… »
Launch: What is radical politics today?
Debate and book launch
What is Radical Politics Today?
A crisis makes you re-think your life. The recent economic crisis is no exception. All of us are now thinking how the world could be run differently. Despite this, a radical alternative has hardly emerged to mobilise the masses, which begs the question: What is radical politics today?
In this book, leading academics, politicians, journalists and activists attempt to pinpoint an answer, debating the issues facing radical politics in the 21st Century. Rarely united in their opinions, they collectively interrogate the character and spirit of being radical in our times.
1.30pm, 25th November 2009 @ Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London, SW1Y 5BJ
Hosted by: Catherine Fieschi (Director of Counterpoint, British Council)
Jonathan Pugh (Editor and director, the Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network;
The discussion will feature Doreen Massey, Saskia Sassen and David Chandler
http://www.counterpoint-online.org/what-is-radical-politics-today/
RSVP to Counterpoint@britishcouncil.org
——
What is Radical Politics Today? Is published by Palgrave Macmillan and edited by Jonathan Pugh, Senior Academic Fellow, Newcastle University
Including original contributions from Zygmunt Bauman, Frank Furedi, Paul Kingsnorth, James Heartfield, Terrell Carver, Clare Short, Edward W. Soja, David Chandler, Hilary Wainwright, Dora Apel, Michael J.
Watts, Jason Toynbee, James Martin, Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, Doreen Massey, Gregor McLennan, Tariq Modood, Nick Cohen, Amir Saeed and David Bates, Alastair Bonnett, Ken Worpole, Sheila Jasanoff, Nigel Thrift, Will Hutton, Saul Newman, Chantal Mouffe, David Featherstone, Alejandro Colas and Jason Edwards, David Boyle, and Saskia Sassen.
Stewart responds to Fox News lies
Last week Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart caught out Fox News showing video from a previous rally to play up the number of people who attended a different rally against healthcare
Sean Hannity from Fox News then apologised.
This was Jon Stewart’s response on The Daily Show.
[via North of Westminster]
Can Greeks lead the way for the left?
Where in Europe has the left has made a popular breakthrough, has a chance of making a real difference, even if in highly adverse circumstances, and has a policy that combines openness, democracy and sustainability? The answer is in Greece, but is the British left capable of taking any notice?
After twelve years in power there has been a sorry reversion to post-45 parochialism, except that an obsession with America has replaced the Empire as if singing the international meant dancing to the tune of the White House.
Of course, one reason for this is that social democracy is in ruins across much of the continent of its birth. But George Papandreou’s PASOK party, having just last month gaining a surprising absolute majority, is different.
It is working to adopt a form of progressive government that combines green development, democratic openness and international reconciliation. How does New Labour measure up when seen in this modest comparative light? It is a painful question.
continue reading… »
Ex-Soldier facing jail for handing in shotgun
From the file marked ‘sometimes the law is a complete and utter ass‘…
A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”.
Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.
The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon.
Unfortunately for Mr Clarke the weapon, which had been dumped over a fence into his garden in a black plastic bag, was a sawn-off shotgun, the possession or handling of which was made a strict liability offence with a minimum penalty of five years imprisonment by amendments to section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968 contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
And so, simply by handing it in to a local police station, Paul Clarke left himself wide open to arrest, conviction and, when sentenced on December 11th, to a minimum five year prison sentence.
An alternative explanation for the likely circumstances of Clarke’s arrest is given here by ‘Brit Cop’ which seems plausible enough as an explanation of how and why Clarke finds himself in his current predicament.
It does, however, take the view the law is the law and must be obeyed without making any attempt to address the question of whether this prosecution, and likely sentence, is just and proportionate response to Clarke’s apparent offence, which appears to amount to not much more than that of being a bit of an idiot.
Jack of Kent is now covering this story in his usual incisive fashion.
The real story from Glasgow North East
The story of the Glasgow North East by-election is not that Labour won an overwhelming victory, although it would have been if they’d lost, in what is a modern rotten borough for the party. It also isn’t that the Conservatives received only 1,075 votes, or indeed that the British National Party was only 62 votes behind, although it might be if Chris Dillow’s observation that heroin is probably more popular than the Tories was more widely disseminated.
Nor is it that unsurprisingly, being a “celebrity”, isn’t an automatic vote winner: John Smeaton got 258 ballots while Mikey Hughes, a former Big Brother contestant, got 54. It also isn’t, although it’s again interesting, that the Socialist Labour vote completely collapsed on the 2005 result, when they got an astounding 4,036 votes, down this time to an appalling 47, most likely because Labour was on the ballot when it wasn’t previously as a result of Michael Martin standing as the “Speaker”.
continue reading… »
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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