SCOTLAND VOTES TO END BEDROOM TAX FOR ALL.

 

Scottish Parliament seating (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

82,500 Homes in Scotland will now not be liable for bedroom subsidy payments after Labour, Scottish National Party and  Scottish Liberal Party voted to absorb cost imposed by Westminster.                                                                                           The Scottish Government’s annual Budget was passed with £35 million set aside to fully mitigate against the impact of the welfare reform which affects almost 82,500 Scottish households. It means no Scot can now face eviction from their home over the “tax”, which sees cuts in housing benefits for those considered to have a spare bedroom.                                                                                                                                                                                        Finance Secretary, Mr Swinney’s Budget was passed by 108 votes to 15 with only the Tories voting against. It also confirms another year of the council tax freeze, support for free university tuition, free prescriptions and free personal care.                                                          Alex Salmond's ministers repeatedly cite it and other welfare cuts as clear evidence that Tory-led governments in London are introducing damaging policies alien to Scotlands liberal ethos.                                             Swinney told Holyrood that the bedroom tax would be abolished after independence, stating  "Our actions on the bedroom tax shows the values and priorities that matter in this parliament [as] when Westminster targets the most vulnerable as part of its austerity drive, we will do all we can to protect them"                                                                 This comes soon after the UN's special investigator Raquel Rolnik announced she wanted the UK government to scrap the bedroom tax. She was denounced by the Tory party chair Grant Shapps as "that woman from Brazil". Fellow Tory MP Stuart Jackson weighed in with the classy jibe: "Loopy Brazilian Leftie".with housing minister Kris Hopkins dismissing Rolnik's report as a "Marxist diatribe"

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• £12 million of extra cash will be used to tackle the so-called bedroom tax in Scotland, says Finance Secretary John Swinney
• Scotland wants to spend extra £15m on mitigating effects of bedroom tax
• Bedroom Tax: Hated Tory tax is banished from Scotland after vote lasting less than 10 seconds
• John Swinney calls for bedroom tax budget backing

NHS ENGLAND TO SELL OFF YOUR DATA.

An electronic medical record example (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

                                                           NHS ENGLAND THE COMPANY THAT EFFECTIVELY RUNS ALL OF THE HEALTH SEVICES IN ENGLAND ARE IN THE PROCESS OF UP LOADING PEOPLES HEALTH RECORDS WITH THE INTENTION OF SELLING IT TO PRIVATE COMPANYS OR INDIVIDUALS THAT DO RESEARCH INTO ILLNESSES OR TREATMENTS THAT MAY BE OF BENEFIT IN THE FUTURE.                                                                                                          
The project is being driven by NHS England, the new super quango, after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made it clear he wanted a data revolution in the Health Service.
Mr Hunt argues that sharing GP records with universities and private companies will  provide a valuable tool for medical research, monitoring flu outbreaks and screening for common diseases. The estimated charge for a persons medical records will be set at £1
The records – held for every person registered with a GP – will contain details of medical conditions, as well as ‘identifiable’ information including a patient’s NHS number, postcode and date of birth.                                                                                         GPs are NOT repeat NOT required to inform patients of this happening and until recently patients had no right to object to their files being used in this way but now they can opt out of the sharing of data by informing their GPs. (Maybe the process should have been to "opt in" rather than out)                                                                      Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: ‘The more people who have access to sensitive data, the greater the risk that it will not be protected properly. We’ve seen that on umpteen occasions in the past.
‘And when there’s a financial element involved, it introduces all sorts of incentives that are not necessarily about protecting privacy.’                                                                   Phil Booth, of campaign group medConfidential, said: ‘They are presenting this as some anodyne thing that’s only going to be used for health research. But this is a massive re-engineering of how everybody’s medical records are going to be used. It is an unprecedented threat to our medical confidentiality.’                                                    The prime minister said it was "simply a waste to have a health service like the NHS and not to use (sell) the medical data it generated ".  "Let me be clear" ( oh those words,let me be clear or to the best of my knowledge) " this does not threaten privacy, it does'nt mean anyone can look at your health records, but it does mean using anonymous data ( joke surely) to make new medical breakthroughs". " The end result will be that every willing patient is a research patient ( guinea pig ) and every time you use the NHS you are playing a part in the fight against disease at home and around the world"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Just for the record mr prime minister you can count me out.                                     

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INDIA REELS FROM ANOTHER CASE OF GANG RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Praying for recovery of rape victim India Gate-008 (Photo credit: ramesh_lalwani)

TRIBAL ELDERS ORDER THE HORRIFIC RAPE IN PUBLIC BY UP TO 12 MEN OF 20 YEAR OLD FEMALE FOR"UNAUTHORISED" RELATIONSHIP, POLICE SAY.                                                                                                                                   The horrific rape took place in Burbham district around 120miles from Kolkata, West Bengal and was punishment for her having an affair with a man from a different village and caste and then her subsequent failure to pay a fine of 50,000 rupee (£490) local media reported.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

“According to the woman, the [village head] summoned her and her [lover] on Monday and detained them through the day and night. After her family said they could not pay the fine, the [head] allegedly ordered the mass rape on Tuesday,” police superintendant C Sudhakar told The Hindustan Times newspaper.                                                                                                                                                                 The women ,who is now recovering in hospital, said she had lost count of the number of attackers, Eleven men, a number of which were her neighbours, have been arrested in connection to the rape, including the village head.                                                                                                                                                Gang rape in india seems to becoming ever more prevalent , only last week a 51-year-old tourist in Delhi was raped by at least five men on her way home on foot from a popular Delhi national museum and shopping center. The women who is now home in Denmark was also robbed and beaten in the attack. Delhi police confirmed that a robbery and rape case had been registered. "We are questioning a group of men," said Rajan Bhagat, a police spokesman.                                                                                                                                                                       Every week India's media describe attacks on women across the country, often involving several men and frequently resulting in the death of the victim. On Wednesday, newspapers reported the gang-rape of a teenager in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Last week a 13-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped, tortured and killed in Uttarakhand's Haridwar district. In southern Andhra Pradesh, nine men arrested earlier this month reportedly told police they had raped 59 women in the past two years.                                                                                                                                                                The United Nations asked India, the world's second most populous country, to ensure security for women. But although prison terms for rape have been stiffened, stalking made a criminal offence and gender sensitivity programmes introduced for some police officers, little appears to have changed on the ground.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

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• India police say village elders ordered gang-rape

BRITAINS SHAME IN PHILIPPINES CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE.

NCA NamePlate (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

100 BRITONS UNDER INVESTIGATION INTO LIVE STREAMING OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE.

                                                                                                                         Britains NCA ( national crime agency ) are investigating 100 people in connection over live child sexual has it occured in the phillipines, 17 have been arrested in over 12 countries in the investigation named Operation Endeavour. British police have joined forces with Australian and US investigators in a two-year operation focusing on what the UK's National Crime Agency calls "a significant and emerging threat", particularly in developing countries.                                                                                                                                  Andy  Baker from the NCA said "This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sex offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with"                                 "Being thousands of miles away makes no difference to their guilt. In my mind they are just as responsible for the abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas."                                                                                                               "Protecting the victims of abuse is our priority and that means attacking every link in the chain, from dismantling the organised groups who are motivated by profit through to targeting their customers."                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Another 3 investigations are at present underway with 139 britons said to be involved amongst the 733 suspects.                                                                                                              Northamtonshire Police visited registered sex offender Timothy Ford and searched his computer and found obscene videos and images of children which he was paying for to view "live to order" via the philippines. Ford was preparing to leave the UK and move to the Philippines and set up an internet cafe there. Instead he was arrested and jailed for eight and a half years in march of 2013.  Thomas Owen who was another member of the paedophile ring was found to have nearly 4 million images of child abuse victims on his computer was arrested and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in july of last year.

 In a statement the NCA said, "The use of webcams to stream live abuse, particulaly from the developing world is a significant and emerging threat according to the NCA's CEOP ( child exploitation and online protection ) command. Extreme poverty, the increasing availability of high speed internet and the existence of a vast and comparatively wealthy overseas customer base has led to organised crime groups exploiting children for financial gain"                                                                                                                                                                                                                     15 children in the age range of 6 to 15 have been identified as being victims of sexual abuse and rescued, Many of them having been sold to paedophiles by their relatives.                                                                                                                                  Of the 17 suspects arrested in the UK five have been convicted, nine are still in the process of being investigated , one has been released without charges being brought and two are dead. ( apologies for there only being two )

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• Operation Endeavor: Authorities Dismantle International Pedophile Ring That Live-Streamed Sex Abuse
• Police smash paedophile ring which streamed footage of child abuse live from the Philippines

HAITI EARTQUAKE, FOUR YEARS ON AND HOUSING STILL.NEEDED.

               Families still living in tents and makeshift accommodation,                                               Many families on the island of Haiti are still subjected to living in atrocious conditions despite prime minister Laurent Lamothe claiming headway following the devastating earthquake four years ago,                                                       With senior officials at his side PM Lamothe delivered a progress report on the eve of the anniversary, "i think ( the rebuilding effort ) has gone very well, enormously well, considering the enormous challenges and the enormous lack of resources that we had when we started" Lamothe told The Associated Press following his talk.   Many foreign governments and humanitarian groups promised billions in aid much of which has not materialised mainly because of infighting and government corruption but also in the global climate many are unwilling to give more.                                                                                                                                        Looking forward to new building projects there are around 10,000 groups that are non registered and no one seems to know what schedules they have and whether many of these groups are duplicated. Lamothe said his government has drafted legislation to require non-government groups to register and report their spending plans.                                                                                                                                                 Four years later after the 7.0 magnitude quake that toppled around 190,000 buildings and killed about 300,000 people, no one knows the exact figure, construction practices in the caribbean country have improved overall, with better materials being used for larger projects. A building code now exists and many big, well funded projects including more than a dozen hotels, supermarkets and schools are being built to international seismic standards.  But construction of smaller commercial buildings and homes is more haphazard, in large part because most people in the impoverished nation dont have the money to do things by the book. As much as 90 percent of Haiti’s construction is done without an architect or engineer, and much of it on unstable soil, according to a study last year by the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. “Seismic hazards maps are now available for the design of new buildings,” it said. “Unfortunately, few engineers in Haiti are very familiar with seismic design principles and dynamics of structures.” Neighbourhoods in the capital of 3million are filled with precariously rebuilt one- and two-story homes no more secure than the ones they replaced.                                                                             Of the families that were placed in new homes many were afforded free rent for a year but once the year was gone with little money many returned to the tents and makeshift buildings, there are an estimated 200,000 people living in slums.  Some 150,000 earthquake victims still live in about 300 camps and another 50,000 live in the new sprawling slums Canaan, Onaville and Jerusalem. Half of the camps have no sanitation services and only 8% are supplied with water, according to an October 2013 report from the UCLBP and the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM)/                                                            Haiti is a fragile, largely forgotten country. It’s possible that some natural or man-made crisis this year could push it back into the headlines. But sustained attention, with the kind of support from outside that Haiti still needs to rebuild and become more self-sufficient, is mostly gone.

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Related articles                                                                                                                                        

• Haiti, 4 years after the earthquake
• Haiti Remembers Victims of Big Quake 4 Years Ago - ABC News
• Haitians still homeless, "suffering in despair" 4 years after quake - Amnesty
• Why Are So Many Haitians Still Living In Tents?

    

                       

BEING ANNOYING COULD GET YOU A PRISON SENTENCE. U.K

YES, THATS RIGHT YOU COULD GO TO JAIL FOR BEING A LITTLE NUISANCE.                                                                                                                                            On Wednesday the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill reaches its report stage (close to the end of the process) in the House of Lords. It is remarkable how little fuss has been made about it, and how little we know of what is about to hit us.
The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.                                                                                                                         This also means that if the police "think" your behaviour  "might" cause offence, not that it has caused offence you could be arrested and hauled before the courts and sentenced.  The law at present, the  1998 Crime and Disorder Act, antisocial  behaviour orders (asbos) has meant that thousands of people, mostly young and poor, have been labeled as criminals already but the next step is to be able to remove anyone from public places, protestors,buskers,football fans singing on there way to the trains could be arrested at the polices behance.
The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.
While, as a result of a successful legal challenge, asbos can be granted only if a court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that antisocial behaviour took place, ipnas can be granted on the balance of probabilities. Breaching them will not be classed as a criminal offence, but can still carry a custodial sentence: without committing a crime, you can be imprisoned for up to two years. Children, who cannot currently be detained for contempt of court, will be subject to an inspiring new range of punishments for breaking an ipna, including three months in a young offenders' centre.                                                                                                   If you are young, poor, mentally ill,homeless,eccentric or by any chance, god-forbid doing any thing remotely enjoyable/annoying in a rather posh neighborhood of town or city center, be aware you could just be on your way to a prison sentence, of course if you are rich you will have nothing to fear.   
                                                                                                                     

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