Newell News-round up, Week 4

Week 4 of the Newell News-round up and it has been another epic week of news, distraction and horror.

The main headlines have been dominated by the Boston Marathon bombings and the wall to wall coverage across nearly every news platform of the subsequent manhunt.

World

Our good friends iRan and North Korea are in the news again, this time because they aim to buy and sell oil between themselves. With the sanctions taking their toll on both nations is it any wonder that they would look to circumvent these measures?

A fertiliser plant in Texas blew up leaving fires burning for days. The press have reported numerous fatalities and injuries with a nearby sports field providing emergency care treatment for those in the initial blast. With this hot on the heels of the Boston bombings, thoughts gravitated to whether or not this was an act of terrorism or whether or not it was the fault of corporate terrorists. Naturally corporate terrorism has not been discussed in the mainstream news. A video of the second explosion can be found here.

Iraq had their first elections since the U.S. troop withdrawals but has been met with a series of devastating bombings across the country. Early reports stated 31 dead and over 200 seriously injured. Where is the voice of the Iraqi people? We have heard non stop, vomit inducing chest thumping from America but nothing from Syria, Iraq or Bahrain.

Syria's rebel army are to receive an extra $123m from the U.S. which will continue to perpetuate the civil war that has torn this country apart for the last two years. Anyone that has seen what has happened in Libya and Egypt since those rebel alliances were backed, or that remembers Rambo 3, will question the sense in jumping in behind the first rebel element that raises it head.

Anti rape demonstrations continue in India with further clashes and incidents taking place.

Technology

The House of Representatives have passed the cyber security act CISPA this week behind the scenes whilst the rest of the United States and the planet waited with baited breath whether or not the Boston Manhunt and Texas explosion would lead to some kind of state of emergency and martial law. The debate in the House mentioned the Boston bombings and seemed to seal the acts fate. This act allows governments to access a variety of additional personal information that they would not easily have obtained otherwise from service providers and apps. Where America treads, the UK follows, as the lap dogs have come up with their own draconian version of CISPA, the Communication and Data Bill. The UK Bill has some very serious consequences for everyone. Now we are all terrorists.

Health and Fitness/Welfare and the NHS

Ahead of the London Marathon this week we had a study that claimed the use of painkillers before the event to get you through was bad for you and would lead to a high propensity for cramping and other side affects. I wonder if these studies are being conducted in the light of two high profile fatalities in the last two years at marathons in the UK.

The ambulance service is at risk of being privatised or rather it is being privatised via the back door and the consequence of this is that you may well be getting an ambulance without fully trained (or qualified) people to deal with your emergency. Will they look to another blue light service to provide this or will they continue with the privatisation element?

Malcolm Grant, the head of the NHS has said that free NHS care may be a thing of the past if the economy does not pick up. What the hell are we paying all our taxes for then?

A report this week found that a man from Yorkshire committed suicide following the removal of his benefits following a brain hemorrhage some years ago had left him partially paralysed. Subsequent re-evaluation for working status found him to qualify on a number of points. This type of re-evalutaion is occurring more and more often with companies like Atos seemingly being able to find even Bob Hope fit for duty.

Food giant Nestlé are seemingly out to try and patent a naturally occurring healing fennel flower. Considering the CEO for Nestlé has said that a naturally occurring element such as water should be just like any other foodstuff, a chargeable commodity, is it any wonder they would try and patent flowers?

Education/Employment

Michael Gove has been upsetting the teachers again by claiming he wants a longer working day for children and an end to the six week summer holiday. Louise Mensch, the discredited former Tory MP who quit to live it up in America, has been supporting the notion and saying it will alleviate the burden of homework on mums and children, totally dismissing the fact that men are indeed parents too; and in some instances the only parent.

Another Tory MP has caused uproar with his comments that inner city students should not be taken to a village boarding school because they will require regular drug testing and would lead to a sexual volcano occurring in the woods. What century are these dinosaurs living in?

The Daily Hate Mail was busy telling us this week to prepare to work until we are incontinent. They are claiming that a fall in school leavers will mean us having to work through to our 70's and basically keep supplying the state with our labour in exchange for depreciated purchasing power until we die. How they have come about this figure, having previously reported record levels of youth unemployment  in the same newspaper just a couple of months earlier, is beyond me.

The UK is also looking at passing a 'shares for rights' bill whereby workers can trade off their employment rights in exchange for shares in their company. The sad thing is that people who are struggling in these times of austerity, having to make choices between food, utilities and pensions, will probably give up their employment rights. These rights, that have been fought for for decades and not given to us, will be passed up without a second thought. 

Science/Technology

Clothing may now hold the key to those frustrating moments when your phone battery is about to die. Instead of companies building things with superior batteries in the first place, or utilising Tesla's idea of wireless electricity, we will have to invest in the latest garments being pioneered, probably for military deployment first.

Not content with ruining our own planet we are looking to send a group of reality wannabe astronauts to go and live on Mars. I will have to continue my wait for my intergalactic space taxi back to civilisation.

Entertainment

North Korea has been taking a hammering in the cinema of late with both the Red Dawn remake and Olympus Has Fallen casting the spotlight firmly on them as the current aggressors we need to be weary of. Without knowing the filming time table for Olympus it was eery to hear the comments being made when this was being filmed, playing out live in real time today in the Western propaganda machine.

We finally buried Margaret Thatcher and George Galloway has said the funeral should be paid by sponsorship from Burger King causing quite the stir. Not as much of a stir as there was at the funeral itself with protesters turning up on mass and much debate being had about what she did or did not do for our country or the world. One former Paratrooper told me how she loved her armed forces. Of course she did. All tyrants love their military as they require the support of them in the event that they ever need to oppress their people. Booing ensued and I said to one protester that a better demonstration would have been a sound system playing the imperial march theme from Star Wars as the parade came up the hill. Perhaps they will do this for war criminal Tony Blair when his time comes.

The Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix also took place and inevitable protests have occurred. Ecclestone has commented stating that the Bahraini government were being stupid for allowing a Grand Prix and the attention it gives a pro democracy protest. Old Bernie has a habit of sticking his foot in it, such as his comments about Hitler "getting the job done". Strangely enough Bernie has said he would not hold a Grand Prix in Syria.

For all the bluster surrounding the Formula One, the people that have the real power are the drivers. If the drivers took ownership of the issue and refused to race there, it would have a massive impact on the situation and a much stronger one than any that the media could spin.

And Skunk Anansie played their first ever acoustic gigs in London this week and they were amazing.

**Statement of the bleeding obvious**

New to week 4 is statement of the obvious and this week it belongs to the Washington Post for their comments that "People who distrust Muslims are more likely to back the war on terror."

Newell News- round Up Week 2

Week 2 of the Newell News-round Up begun with April Fools' day and with it came a series of ridiculous stories that most of us wished were jokes.

Welfare state

Poet T.S. Eliot said in The Waste Land that 'April was the cruelest month' and he was not far wrong.
First up we have the bedroom tax which came into effect, or as the Tories want the BBC and other mainstream puppets to call it, removal of spare room subsidies, as Iain Duncan Smith launched a scathing attack on the BBC the week prior for "adopting the language of Labour and causing panic." He then went on to say he could live on £57 a week (his current annual wage is £134,565) and subsequently had a breakfast that cost £39, which would only leave him £18 for the rest of his week.

We also had a woman feature on ITV's This Morning, who had recently lost a child due to a brain tumour, where it seemed as though they were shamelessly exploiting her grief in the name of fair and balanced debate with some grotesque, overweight man debating the bedroom tax issue. The woman, who was still visibly grieving the death of her child, now faces paying for the room she wishes to keep as it is for the time being, or vacate the premises to somewhere smaller. Anyone who has lost a loved one will know the delicacy of the grieving process and that it has no time bar on it. Quite how or why Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby allowed the interview to continue is beyond me and is another example of how these governments go about their business with no thought about the wider implications their actions have.

The iconic class structure image

The media's attention focused next on the great class debate. The classic depiction of working, middle and upper class, has given way to the new and revamped seven class system. There is a test for you to take and everything. This particular news item has been an almost daily feature with people climbing on the bandwagon to explain the way society has changed and how many more of us than ever have climbed out of the working class struggle. This is a great con because the definitions raised for the differing classes do not truly reflect the majority of the people's true position; that of the working class. Still the media and the politicians make it sound like it is something to be ashamed of and have pushed quite hard this message that we now have different levels within the class system. I believe if you cannot go without one or two pay cheques then you are not middle class. The latest great class debate just seems like it is another ruse.

Lastly on the welfare issue we have had the trial of Mick Philpott, who was found guilty for the deaths of his children, following a house fire started deliberately in an attempt to portray the hero by swooping in to rescue them. In true foot in mouth fashion the government then waded in with their oaf like feet and questioned whether the welfare state subsidised lifestyles like Philpott's. There was no mention of the celebrity he craved, the attention he seemed to desire and the role that media plays in this by Osborne or Cameron, just a tenuous link back to the welfare system.

The Economy

BBC Radio 4 had a lovely piece on the economy (covered back in January 2013 on BBC News) harping back to Alan Greenspan's famous statement that the sales of men's underpants reflected the health of the economy. This was previously covered back in 2009 by The Daily Mail. Interestingly the company the radio were talking to said they had previously experienced a drop in sales, in line with the economic recession since 2008 and were looking at another drop this quarter. Triple dip recession or a depression?

Technology

Motorola first market phone

The mobile phone was 40 years old this week and we have come along way from the early market mobile phones to the multi-function devices we have at our finger tips today, which goes to show that mans reach far exceeds his grasp.

Samsung new Galaxy S4

Tweeters will be glad to know that their tweets will be recorded by the British Library, along with their
Facebook status updates, which will make for some fascinating history lessons many years from now I am sure. One thing to wonder is whether the digital revolution will make history more accountable or will it continue to be his-tory? Alternatively there will be those of us who will be squirming at the idea of some of our previous posts being kept for eternity as the new Youth Police Crime Commissioner found out  this week. Previous Tweets have included gems such as: "Everyone on Made in Chelsea looks like a fag." But she of course denies being racist, homophobic or anything else for that matter, just guilty of being young and brash growing up in the social media age.

World

North and South Korea and the U.S. have been playing war games in the east. Every man and his dog has been pumping up their chests in grand displays of masculinity that have left some people worrying that the world is on the brink of war. Of course the British lap dogs have been sounding their ten pence worth with William Hague calling for calm after the UK Embassy staff were told to leave but have decided to stay. Perhaps they fancy being the unwitting stars of another movie like Argo.

The battle for Africa continues with the U.S. now offering $5m for the capture of 2012's most wanted man, Joseph Kony. Tony Blair and George W. Bush should be wanted for the deaths of thousands but one group decided to focus on Kony. You may remember the viral campaign video that was launched on March 5th 2012 where you were called to 'stop at nothing' to bring Kony to justice for his atrocities with the LRA, or you may not. Either way the U.S. have their boots on the desert and are now rolling out Defence Secretary John Kerry to call for his capture.

Science

Where are all the bees? The politicians have finally caught wind of the dangers we face with the declining bee population. Bees pollinate plants free of charge, and the way we repay them? By poisoning them with pesticides. The cost currently is being counted in monetary terms (in the millions) but the real cost is in our very own health, well being and existence.

And lastly but not least the UK is to become a net importer of wheat for the first time in over a decade as poor weather has resulted in poor crop harvests. I wrote about this topic a few weeks ago in the context of the issue of global food shortages with some interesting statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, National Union of Farmers and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs. The extreme rain followed by the harsh winter has lead to farmers effectively having to focus on preparing for next years crops and forget 2013.