A picture guide to every home in England will be used by council-tax spies in a drive to push up homeowners' bills.
The "illustrated guide" for council tax inspectors is the first full evidence of how far they are prepared to intrude into homes to collect the highest possible amount.
The 80-page book carries 168 pictures of types of homes, which are divided into 99 groups. Inspectors are instructed to place every home into one of these groups... (more)
Pictures of a polar bear floating precariously on a tiny iceberg have become the defining image of global warming but may be misleading, according to a new study.
A survey of the animals' numbers in Canada's eastern Arctic has revealed that they are thriving, not declining, because of mankind's interference in the environment.
In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-19... (more)
MOST people who take illegal drugs do not cause any harm to themselves or anyone else, according to a study which calls for the current "crude" ABC classification system be abandoned.
The two-year RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs argued that Britain's drug laws should be replaced by a system which recognises that drinking and smoking can cause more harm.
Current laws are "driven by a moral panic" and a more effective drugs policy would focus on harm reduction rather... (more)
AKARP, Sweden, March 9 - A Swedish woman has been sued for smoking in her own garden.
Her neighbor in Akarp in southern Sweden, a lawyer, demands 15,000 kroner ($2,000) in damages for her previous smoking plus another 2,000 kroner ($280) every time she lights up in the future, The Local reported. She has received a district court summons to respond to his complaint.
It makes me sad and angry, the 49-year-old single mom told Aftonbladet. Should somebody else be able ... (more)
The market plunge started with the decision of the Japanese central bank to raise interest rates from 0.25 to 0.5 percent. It was supposed to have little or no impact on the “carry trade,” the low-rate for borrowing capital via the yen and investing it in places other than Japan. Yet it turns out there is nothing in the global financial system that is not connected vitally to this yen carry trade.
In fact beyond Japan, there is $500 to $600 billion in investments which... (more)
Head teachers will today sound a warning over the growing mass of "intrusive" information held about pupils on school databases. They are now expected to collect detailed particulars ranging from heights and weights to family set-ups, religion, medical information and school travel arrangements.
They are often required to pass on the information to councils, quangos or central Government.
Head teachers' leader Malcolm Trobe will today urge sc... (more)
The Pentagon has refused to reveal which of its 14 "high-value" detainees were being examined by military lawyers in closed proceedings in Guantanamo Bay.
The military said the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), which began yesterday, were being held to assess 14 men transferred to the prison last September from secret "black hole" prisons operated around the world.
The decision to hold the hearings in private session, with the media and the men's lawyers ex... (more)
The Firefighters' Union is holding a bipartisan election forum on March 14, 2007. They have invited several presidential candidates, but not Rudy Giuliani. Here is an excerpt of a statement from the firefighters:
"His actions post 9/11 rise to such an offensive and personal attack on our brother and sisterhood — and directly on our union — that the IAFF does not feel Rudy ... (more)
POCOMOKE CITY - Carole Morison steps into a vast metal building where 27,200 chicks cluster in darkness around feeding machines. Pipes pump a gray, gravelly mush into round steel bowls.
Along with the corn, fat and protein being snapped up by the young birds is Roxarsone - a feed additive made from arsenic. Perdue Farms requires Morison to feed it to her chickens to fatten them and fight parasites.
"It's very disturbing to me that people are being exposed to this ar... (more)
Campaigners have condemned the Bush administration's plan to proceed with secret proceedings against 14 "high-value" terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of organising the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the ... (more)
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government has put average Americans under intense surveillance as part of terrorism investigations, says the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006 issued on Thursday.
According to a U.S. survey released in December 2006, "two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on their privacy rights," the report says.
And the U.S. Justice Department said in a rep... (more)
It comes as no great shock to learn that the military tribunals against 14 "high-value" terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media.
In my article “The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans,” I explained that the post–9/11 power to designate Americans as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror” has revolutionized America’s legal system by enabling the Pentagon to circumvent the rights and guarantees in the Bill of Rights. In ... (more)
CCTV footage has emerged showing a young black woman, who may have been having an epileptic fit, being punched five times by a police officer.
Toni Comer, 20, was arrested outside a Sheffield nightclub for vandalising a car when she was thrown out.
The officer involved, PC Anthony Mulhall, of South Yorkshire Police, has been removed from frontline duties after it emerged he hit Ms Comer "as hard as I am physically able" in order to subdue her so she could be handcuf... (more)
Nancy L. Simpson told police her 12-year-old nephew was "being bad," so she spanked him with a wooden back scratcher wrapped in electrical tape while the boy's mother watched, court records state.
The two women then left the screaming boy alone in Simpson's Marysville home and attended a parent-teacher conference on Nov. 9 at the Susquenita School District, the records state.
The boy's screaming was so loud that neighbors called for help. He was admitted to the ... (more)
The Pentagon's super snoop "Total Information Awareness" program is back in business, just as we predicted it would be.
Congress attempted to kill the ill-conceived DARPA program in 2003. But instead, the program, designed to somehow find terrorists from documenting everyone's credit card bills, car rental receipts and travel records, went underground and has now ret... (more)
Homeland Security officials are testing a supersnoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations.
The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations.
Yesterday Nightline featured a story about former AT&T technician and whistleblower Mark Klein. While working at AT&T headquarters in San Francisco, Klein discovered (and ... (more)
POLAND -- The CIA operated an interrogation and short-term detention facility for suspected terrorists within a Polish intelligence training school with the explicit approval of British and US authorities, according to British and Polish intelligence officials familiar with the arrangements.
Intelligence officials identify the site as a component of a Polish intelligence training school outside the northern Polish village of Stare Kiejkuty. While previously s... (more)
