Sunday, 25 April 2010 09:05 'The government is allowing illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to stay in the country because it fails to send staff to one in five appeal hearings. Figures obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws show that Home Office officials, who are supposed to defend decisions on asylum and immigration, failed to show up for 34,627 appeals last year, more than double the 2006 figure of 15,272. Half of these hearings resulted in a victory for the appellant, up from just over a third two years ago. Many led to people staying who had been refused the right to remain. The failure of the Home Office to send officials to fight its case was described as “inexcusable” by Chris Grayling, the Conservative shadow home secretary.' Read more: Home Office Surrenders to Illegal Immigrants Sunday, 25 April 2010 08:29 'A Top-secret US unmanned drone used to locate Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in Pakistan and Afghanistan could soon be patrolling over British cities to search for hidden terror cells. The controversial move would allow MI5 and GCHQ, the Government's eavesdropping centre, to step up surveillance operations over the UK. Until now, the £23million Global Hawk aircraft has not been available for foreign sale. However, US policy has been quietly changed and Britain is now negotiating to buy the drones. America is keen to supply them for British patrols after a string of terror plots threatening the US and its citizens.' Sunday, 25 April 2010 08:22 'European authorities have seized on this week’s airline crisis to fast-track their control of airspace, but they appear to have less interest in helping airlines pay the bills left by the volcanic ash cloud. European transport commissioner Siim Kallas will next week present recommendations learned from a week of aviation chaos, which the airline industry says cost it about $1.7 billion in lost revenue, though it also saved some $660 million in costs such as fuel. Unifying Europe’s airspace is likely to top the list of proposals ahead of a meeting of EU transport ministers on May 4. “We need a fast coordinated European response to such crises,” said Kallas. “Instead we have a fragmented patchwork of 27 national airspaces. Without a central regulator, Europe was operating with one hand behind its back".' Sunday, 25 April 2010 08:08 'Charity youth workers have been criticised after offering free condoms to children as young as eight who were playing in a park. Angry mother Samantha Fuller says her 13-year-old daughter was given the contraceptives - but she also claims her eight-year-old nephew was asked if he wanted some. Mrs Fuller, who found the condoms in her daughter's bedroom, says Hull-based charity Cornerhouse is effectively encouraging under-age sex and undermining her role as a parent. The taxpayer-funded organisation has confirmed workers give contraceptives to children, but only to those over 13.' Read more: Mother's Fury as Children as Young as EIGHT are Being Offered Free Condoms Sunday, 25 April 2010 07:54 'Households have been told to separate cardboard from paper, and plastic bottles from glass, tins and aerosols. The regulations have prompted fierce criticism, with people complaining that the scheme is too confusing and their homes do not have space for the various different bins and bags.' Read more: Nine-Bin Recycling System Introduced Sunday, 25 April 2010 07:42 'You may think LaWanda and her 43,000 blue-gloved colleagues at airport checkpoints couldn’t sink any lower than humiliating a little boy wearing braces on his legs. Or forcing a woman to stand on her sprained ankle, thereby fracturing it. Or yanking the crutches from a passenger crippled by polio and threatening to charge her with assault for reflexively grabbing at them – after ordering her to drop her trousers (not to worry: they promised to shield her privacy with a sheet, sorta like the whole-body scanners that blur our faces while strip-searching us). Ah, but you underestimate LaWanda et al. These brutes boast a limitless reservoir of cruelty – as Nadine Hays, her elderly mother, and a friend who was helping to care for the aged lady discovered at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, CA, last April. Before our public servants finished with them, Mrs. Hays would be in jail, her mother in emotional and physical distress, and her friend in tears at the savagery visited on them.' Sunday, 25 April 2010 07:26 'The first town in Britain to scrap fixed speed cameras has seen no increase in accidents, it was revealed yesterday. But the number of motorists prosecuted for speeding there dropped by more than 40 per cent. Swindon switched off its cameras over claims they were a ' blatant tax on the motorist' which did nothing to improve safety. Yesterday, supporters of the move hailed the figures as proof they were right. Now the Conservative-run council has urged other authorities to follow suit, saying the money can be better spent on other measures to cut casualties.' Read more: Town That Scrapped 'Motorist Tax' Speed Cameras Sees No Increase in Accidents Sunday, 25 April 2010 07:23 'Have you driven a Ford lately? That might be a good idea, as it seems that GM's claims to have repaid its TARP loans in full and ahead of schedule are, well, bullshit. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointing out that GM has apparently paid back its TARP money with...more TARP money. Here's some of Grassley's query: During his testimony [Inspector General for TARP Neil] Barofsky addressed GM’s recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says "The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account."...'
Sunday, 25 April 2010
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