So-called ‘real wages,’ taking into account inflation, plunged3.2 percent between fall 2010 and 2012. The latest analysis,commissioned by Labour Party, puts Britain as seeing thefourth-worst decline in median pay across the eurozone – ranking24th out of the EU’s 27 nations.According to Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls MP, the UK figuresdemonstrate “just how far Britain is falling behind the rest ofEurope under this Government.””Urgent action is needed in the Budget to kick-start ourstagnant economy and help people on middle and low incomesstruggling with the rising cost of living,” Huffington Postquoted MP Balls as saying.The recession makes yet a stronger impact when compared to Bulgariaand Romania which proved to be Europe’s champions, with Bulgariansand Romanians celebrating 12 and 6 percent rises in wages,respectively.According to Eurostat data, real wages in France have gone up by0.2 percent, and Germany saw a healthy 2.4 percent increase. Swedenand the Czech Republic both boasted gains of 3.4 and 3.3 percent,respectively.Across the EU, an average pay decline of 0.7percent was reported:Italy suffered a 2.2 percent drop, Spain a 1.1 percent plunge andIreland a modest 0.2 percent fall. … Read More
The Future by Google’s Eric Schmidt: Cyber wars, terrorism and ethnic cleansing
Eric Schmidt (Reuters / David Moir) Cyber-terrorists targeted by government drone strikes, online identities, which are taken hostage and held for ransom, and parents, who explain online privacy to their children long before the subject of sex. That’s how Google’s boss sees the future.”For citizens, coming online comes to mean living with multiple identities; your online identity becomes your real identity. The absence of a delete button on the internet will be a big challenge. Not just what you say and write, but also the websites you visit, and do or say or share online. For anyone in the public eye, they will have to account for their past,” Guardian newspaper has quoted Schmidt as saying at Cambridge University.He mentioned his recent trip to North Korea, and compared the population of the country to the 5 billion people worldwide, who are yet not connected to the net and live in an “utter information blackout”. Connectivity would bring them enormous benefits and transform their lives, but it would also be exploited by sinister forces as online identities became a bigger element of our real-world identities, he said. The Executive Chairman of Google predicted virtual kidnappings, ransoming one’s ID for real money, underlining the importance of online IDs.He said, that some hackers already take over a user’s computer and encrypt its hard drive, locking them out. Want everything back to normal – make a payment to the hackers. By hacking more and more e-mail accounts, cyber-criminals expose the online life of others.Schmidt believes the problems could go further as other technologies become cheaper. ”Terrorists and criminals could use drones to carry IEDs [improved explosive devices] – that could result in conflict between civil and military drones,” he suggested, though adding, that “the future will be much more disruptive to terrorists than everyone else”.Online communication between terrorists could make it hard for them to hide.”If they connect, they leave some sort of digital footprint. And that makes them detectable,” Schmidt pointed out, giving as an example the case of one target, who had said on a phone call that he was going to a family wedding, naming the place – and getting caught as a result. Online privacy earlier than sex edSpeaking about online IDs, Schmidt underlined the growing importance of online privacy. Parents would have to speak to their children about the perils of digital life much earlier than any conversation about the birds and the bees.”It might be when they’re eight years old, you’ll be saying ‘don’t put that onlline! It’ll come back to bite you!’ and then have to explain why,” he said.Schmidt admitted, that one of his biggest worries was not about children using digital devices for entertainment.”Do they have an off button? They all do,” he said.There will be more laws protecting anonymity. Europe is the current leader in managing its regulation, according to Schmidt, who also believes, that dependence on safe online IDs will be huge. He also believes there will be a thriving black-market for those IDs. He even suggested that repressive regimes might seek to carry out “online ethnic cleansing” – “where people from a certain group the government doesn’t like have their online payments slowed or even stopped, where their tweets are deleted, they can’t connect.”Still making world betterSchmidt also shared his views on the good side of being online in future, saying that the rise of the connected world, especially through mobile phones with data services, would reduce corruption and undermine repressive regimes. The arrival of the internet was always beneficial, he said. “There’s no country where the situation has worsened with the arrival of the internet. Citizens can use their mobile phones to raise the c
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ost of corruption. And even in China, the regime can be shamed – when there was a train crash recently the government tried to hush it up, but people began posting pictures on [the Twitter-like chat service] Weibo, and the story got out,” Schmidt pointed out.Concluding his speech, Schmidt expressed a concern that the digital age was intellectually superficial, and that something has been lost with the demise of books. “I worry a lot that nobody’s doing that, that nobody’s getting what comes from the deep reading of a book,” Schmidt said. … Read More
Fireworks welcome 2013
AFP Photo / Antony Dickson (89.3Mb)embed videoAfter a failed Mayan doomsday prophesy, many people across the globe are meeting the new 2013 with a sign of relief but most definitely with a bang, as city’s skylines across the world ignite in festive spirit.Sydney’s celebrations have set the tone for the first iconic images of the new year, which started sweeping across the Pacific with stunning displays of light shows. The biggest Australian city was lit by 7 tons of fireworks fired from rooftops and barges.Fireworks splashed over Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour once the clock struck midnight on January 1, the largest display in six years.Russia, from Moscow to its Far Eastern frontiers is engulfed in the New Year’s spirit, as President Vladimir Putin called for unity following the turbulent 2012.In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated New Year’s Eve vespers in St Peter’s Basilica, voicing solidarity with the poor and calling on believers to pause to reflect from time to time despite busy lives.While Brussels and the rest of the European Union capitals are prepared to welcome the New Year with fireworks and a sign of hope in the coming year.Across the Atlantic, the New York Times Square and its over one million spectators will celebrate the stroke of midnight with the traditional ball drop, where South Korean pop sensation Psy will join a host of American music stars.In Rio de Janeiro, officials have promised a bumper 16-minute, 24-tonne display opposite Copacabana Beach. … Read More
Gary McKinnon will face no UK charges
Hacker Gary McKinnon will face no charges in the UK after his extradition to the United States was blocked, marking … Read More
UK refuses to sign UN internet treaty
The UK has joined the US and other key nations in refusing to sign a UN global telecommunications treaty over … Read More
‘UK losing war on drugs’: Deputy PM calls for strategic change
Cocaine from Britain’s largest ever cocaine seizure is displayed by UK Border Agency staff in London August 3, 2011.(Reuters/Stefan Wermuth)British deputy PM Nick Clegg is pushing for an inquiry into drugs law to be opened with a view to possible reform. He called for a new strategy in a war that claims thousands of lives every year, criticizing the “conspiracy of silence” surrounding the debThe leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrat Party has urged Prime Minister David Cameron to be courageous in the fight against drugs in Britain. Earlier in the week Cameron refused a request to open a royal commission into possible drugs reform, arguing that it was unnecessary and current measures were “actually working.”“We are losing the war on drugs on an industrial scale,” Clegg told UK newspaper the Sun. “If you were waging any other war where you have 2,000 fatalities a year, your enemies are making billions in profits, constantly throwing new weapons at you and targeting more young people – you’d have to say you are losing and it’s time to do something different.”Calling the current attitude to drugs in the British government “a conspiracy of silence,” Clegg highlighted the government’s reluctance to broach an all too “controversial” issue.He signaled the more liberal approach to drugs legislation, pioneered in Europe by Amsterdam and Portugal, as well Washington and Colorado in the US, hinting that the UK should perhaps follow suit. A report released by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee entitled “Drugs: Breaking the Cycle” on Monday suggested “alternative ways of tackling the drugs dilemma” based on models introduced in some Latin American countries. Uruguay passed a bill back in November to legalize the possession and production of marijuana. Professor David Nutt, author of “Drug harms the UK: A multi-criteria decision analysis” justified the de-criminalization of drugs, maintaining it would reduce the “rising tide of damage from alcohol.”“There is no doubt that a lot of people drink because it is legal and if there were an opportunity to use cannabis in a coffee shop-like model, they would not drink,” said Nutt to the Affairs Committee.’Anti-drugs, pro reform’Clegg is pushing for a more relaxed stance to drugs legislation, suggesting that a possible decriminalization of possession in conjunction with a crackdown on trafficking could be a viable option. Currently in the UK possession of an illegal drug is punishable with a minimum jail sentence of two years and a fine. “My view is that we’ve been waging the war on drugs for almost 40 years, and I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination it has worked,” stressed Clegg, expressing his belief that being anti-drugs meant ushering in reforms.Previously, Clegg’s party, the Liberal Democrats established a panel to discuss the decriminalization of illicit drugs. Mr Clegg moved quickly to play down his defiance of the Prime Minister Cameron’s refusal to open the enquiry, saying “he did not see this as a thing between myself and the prime minister.” … Read More
Litvinenko worked for ‘MI6 and gave Spain intel on Russian Mafia’ – widow’s lawyer
Aleksandr Litvinenko (AFP Photo / Martyn Hayhow)(29.8Mb)embed videoFormer FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko, who died in London of polonium poisoning in 2006, worked for the British foreign intelligence service as well aiding Spain in their fight against the Russian mafia, the UK inquest revealed Thursday.“At the time of his death Litvinenko had been for a number of years a regular and paid agent and employee of MI6 with a dedicated handler whose pseudonym was Martin,” Ben Emmerson QC, representing Marina Litvinenko, told the coroner. Emmerson said that MI6 “tasked” Litvinenko to connect with Spanish intelligence whom he provided with information on “organized crime and Russian Mafia activity in Spain and more broadly.” The information went directly to Spanish prosecutors.The agent was paid by both the British and Spanish secret services into a joint bank account he held with his wife, the hearing at Camden Town Hall, in London, was told.Litvinenko allegedly met “Martin” on October 31, 2006 – less than a month before his death, Emmerson revealed. The handler is expected to testify in the inquest, an investigation thats looking to find the reasons behind his death but not rule on anyone’s guilt.The QC and Litvinenko’s family stressed that such deep involvement of the agent with the British intelligence put even more responsibility on the UK government to protect himLitvinenko, who was aged 43 at the time of his death, died of polonium-210 poisoning after allegedly drinking tea with his two former colleagues at a central London hotel. He was a critic of Vladimir Putin and had sought to expose what he called wrongdoing within the FSB security service. Litvinenko had worked both for the FSB and its predecessor the KGB before he fled Russia in 2000. On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Putin for his demise.The death sparked massive alarm that such a highly toxic material could be brought into the UK without being traced. The case came to be branded as “nuclear terrorism.”The two Russians, who met with Litvinenko, were former KGB contacts Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. UK prosecutors have named the two as prime suspects in his death. Both deny involvement, while Russia refused to extradite them saying such a
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n extradition would contradict its constitution.Lugovoy, now a Russian MP, maintains that Litvinenko had acquired the polonium and ended up either poisoning himself or was killed by the MI6. A lie detector test in April also showed Lugovoy did not contribute to the incident.On Thursday, Hugh Davies, counsel to the inquest, concluded that the material released by the British government for the inquest “does establish a prima facie case as to the culpability of the Russian state in the death,” as quoted by British newspaper, The Mirror.Davies ruled out evidence against Boris Berezovsky, a Russian tycoon in self-exile who was accused of Litvinenko’s death by the agent’s father. He also dropped other suspects who have been named in conspiracy theories including the Spanish mafia, Chechen groups and several others.Russia says it would like to become an interested party in the inquest and have the chance to make submissions and cross examine witnesses. … Read More
