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One of my favourite orchid areas is less than a kilometre from our house. One would think, therefore, that it would be a small area I repeatedly visit but it is not straightforward. My visits depend on the local fold (herd) of impressive Highland cattle, although ironically it is their selective grazing that makes it such a rich site. Last week I made sure the bull and cows with calves were not there before I ventured out.

The cows, as usual, just looked at me inquisitively and yet it was difficult to look at the orchids and keep an eye on them at the same time. The commonest orchids were the fragrant and their rosy or reddish-pink flowers were easy to see. These days I have to lie down to take in the clove-scented fragrance which is supposed to vary according to the weather and age of the flowers. In the past I have found pure white fragrant orchids there but they seemed absent for some reason.

In the slightly damper areas they were growing side by side with the heath-spotted orchids, which showed great variation in the number of spots on the leaves and the amount of tiny crimson blotches on the flowers. At first I thought there would be no small white orchids but then, as is often the case with this plant, once you see one then the eye catches on. Last year the site only held two of these orchids but this year there were around 30.

As the name suggests, the flowers are small, only about 2-3mm in diameter, and even the spur is only up to 2.5mm. The tiny flowers are ivory white, bell-shaped and in tight clusters which can make them difficult to see. I searched in vain for the frog orchid which I have found there in the past but it is possible I missed them as the cows started to move around and it was time to leave.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/country-diary-strathnairn-orchid

A withering email to a “bad mannered” bride-to-be from her future mother-in-law has gone viral, prompting comparison between its author and the sitcom snob Hyacinth Bucket.

In the email sent to Heidi Withers, a PA from West London, last month, Carolyn Bourne describes her stepson Freddie’s fiancee as “an ideal candidate for the Ladette to Lady television series“, a reality TV show where drunken, foul-mouthed young women are taught the points of etiquette.

But Bourne has found herself compared to the show’s comically sour-faced disciplinarians Mrs Harbord and Mrs Shrager – and the social climbing Bucket – after Withers forwarded the disparaging remarks to a few friends, which led to the email being sent on to thousands of people.

In the email, Bourne, 60, from Dawlish, Devon, apparently rebukes Withers, 29, for her behaviour during a visit to the family in April, which she describes as “staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace”.

Bourne, whose company website describes her as a breeder of “award winning perfumed Pinks and Dianthus”, seemingly exemplifyies the worst stereotypes of mother-in-laws and stepmothers by berating Withers for staying in bed too late, drawing attention to herself and wanting to get married in a castle. She also implies that the PA is marrying above her station and is a potential gold digger.

She writes: “If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family, I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste.”

“Here are a few examples of your lack of manners: When you are a guest in another’s house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat – unless you are positively allergic to something.

“You do not remark that you do not have enough food. You do not start before everyone else.

“You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

“When a guest in another’s house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early. You fall in line with house norms.

“You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public.

“You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

“If your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

“One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.”

Bourne, who is Freddie Bourne’s stepmother, and her husband Edward, 63, have declined to comment on the email. “We have nothing to say,” they told the Evening Standard.

The prospective bridegroom Freddie Bourne, 29, from Putney, London, would also not be drawn on the apparent spat.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/30/mother-in-law-email-viral

A British man serving a life sentence in the US for murdering his wife and baby daughter at their Massachusetts home has filed an appeal against his conviction.

Neil Entwistle, 32, was jailed in June 2008 for shooting Rachel, 27, and nine-month-old Lillian in Hopkinton on January 20 2006.

He is now arguing he should receive a new trial because police searched his home without a warrant when they came to check on the well-being of his family.

In his appeal brief, filed at the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, his lawyer Stephen Paul Maidman argued that evidence taken from the home was seized illegally.

Maidman argues in the appeal that two searches were done without warrants and that the evidence seized as a result should have been suppressed during Entwistle’s trial.

“The two warrantless entries into the defendant’s house by the police violated the federal and state constitutions,” he wrote in the brief.

But prosecutors have said police were justified in entering the home because they were responding to the pleas of concerned relatives and friends.

They say Entwistle had become despondent after accumulating tens of thousands of dollars in debt and had complained about his sex life with his wife.

Entwistle’s lawyer also argues that judge Diane Kottmyer did not thoroughly question potential jurors to determine whether they were biased against Entwistle after the case received intense local and international news coverage.

“That there was extraordinary prejudicial pre-trial publicity in this case that was both saturating and inflammatory, by Massachusetts and even national standards, cannot be legitimately disputed,” Maidman wrote in the appeal.

Ms Kottmyer denied Entwistle’s request to move the trial out of Middlesex County.

“The defendant is entitled to a new trial utilising a jury selection process where there can be no question that the seated jurors are fair and impartial,” Mr Maidman wrote.

Middlesex district attorney Gerry Leone, whose office prosecuted Entwistle, said he received a “true and just” trial however.

“The crimes committed by Neil Entwistle against his wife Rachel and daughter Lillian Rose are to be condemned as horrific and unspeakable acts,” Leone said in a statement.

“He received a commendable defence and a fair and just trial under our laws.”

Entwistle, a former IT consultant from Kilton, Worksop, left the US the day after the killings and later told police he had departed because he wanted to be consoled by his parents in the UK.

He said he found his wife and daughter cuddled together in bed, dead of apparent gunshot wounds, after he returned home from running errands.

Friends giving evidence said that the couple appeared to have had a happy marriage and were both thrilled with their daughter.

Entwistle was sentenced at Middlesex County Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts, for what Ms Kottmyer described as “incomprehensible” crimes.

She also imposed a 10-year probation sentence for two firearms offences and ordered that Entwistle should not profit from his crimes by writing a book.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/30/neil-entwistle-appeals-us-murder-verdicts

There are around 650 active dissident republican terrorists determined to destroy Northern Ireland‘s power-sharing settlement, police officers warned on Wednesday. The numbers from the Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI) are the first hard figures on the size of the anti-ceasefire republican movements to be released in recent years.

Over recent months there has been an upsurge in violence from the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and Oghlaigh naEireann – the three groups opposed to the peace process. In April a faction of the Real IRA in Co Tyrone said they carried out a car bomb attack that killed Constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh.

Terry Spence, the chairman of the PFNI, said governments both at Westminster and Stormont should stop underestimating the scale of the dissident threat.

Spence said it was “common knowledge that they number around 650 – hardly the microscopic numbers officially suggested in official circles”.

He revealed that since last year there have been 200 gun and bomb attacks against his officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Addressing the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, Matt Baggot, the PSNI chief constable, and the Stormont justice minister, David Ford, as well as his delegates, Spence said: “Let me be absolutely clear. The Police Federation for Northern Ireland is frustrated at the seeming unwillingness of the executive and the PSNI to face up to the fact that we need to bring every resource that can be made available to us to bring the growing terrorist threat to an end.”

He also singled out the Garda Síochána for praise in countering the dissident republican threat from across the border.

“Thanks to their magnificent efforts over 170 people from both sides of the border have been arrested for terrorist offences over the past 12 months. Last weekend’s explosives discovery in Louth was a particular example of their good work.”

Two men in their 50s were arrested last weekend after a police raid on a farm house close to the border with Northern Ireland.

Detectives found parts for a mortar bomb launcher and a significant quantity of home made explosives. The Garda later said they believed they had foiled a major terrorist attack being planned for somewhere across the border.

But in Northern Ireland, Spence said the authorities had been “blindsided by the growth in terrorism” both republican and loyalist.

Referring to the recent attacks by a unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force on a Catholic community in east Belfast, Spence said more robust action needed to be taken against those loyalists still engaged in violence.

“If being a proscribed organisation is to mean anything then action must be taken. The behaviour of the UVF demands that active members released under the Belfast Agreement on license should be recalled to prison by the secretary of state.

“We cannot tolerate paramilitary groups creating public havoc because they think they have no voice in how Northern Ireland is governed.

“They have exactly the same access to the ballot box and opportunity to stand for election as the rest of us.”

The secretary of state retains the power to re-arrest and imprison any of the paramilitary prisoners who were freed early as part of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

During two nights of disturbances last week the UVF attacked police lines as well as residents’ homes in the Catholic Short Strand district of east Belfast. Dissident republicans also opened fire towards the loyalist side and wounded the Press Asociation’s photographer Niall Carson.

On Friday night several thousand loyalists will march in the same area where trouble erupted last week during an Orange Order band parade around east Belfast. Security forces will be on alert in case there is any repeat of last week’s sectarian disorder.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/29/northern-ireland-650-terrorists-police

More than 10,000 retail jobs face the axe as the British high street faces one of its most painful bouts of contraction since the second world war amid the biggest squeeze on household budgets for decades.

As the government’s austerity measures take hold, experts warned that the number of retailers going bust would continue to rise this year with a number of household names facing insolvency.

The confectioner Thorntons emerged as the latest high street casualty when it said on Tuesday it would close up to 180 stores, putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk. The flooring chain Carpetright followed suit, saying 50 stores could close as consumers shun purchases amid fuel and food price inflation and rising job insecurity, especially in the public sector.

Over the last week, a clutch of high street names announced they were in trouble. Habitat was among several to call in the administrators, putting 750 jobs on the line. The electronics retailer Comet is also shutting stores.

The department store chain TJ Hughes said it was planning to appoint an administrator after a slump in sales, raising a question mark over the future of 4,000 employees who work at its 58 stores in England and Wales.

The retail carnage will intensify the debate around the coalition’s spending cuts and, on Thursday, 750,000 teachers and civil servants hold a one-day strike to protest at reforms to pay and pensions which they claim will leave them worse off despite having to pay more to into their retirement plans. In parliament, Labour is lobbying for a cut in VAT payments to bring relief to consumers and cushion shops from spiralling rent bills.

Underlining the difficulties, final figures on growth in the first quarter of this year released on Tuesday showed it remained at 0.5%. With growth in the last quarter of 2010 at -0.5%, this means zero growth between the end of September last year and the beginning of April. Data also showed households ate into savings to make up for a squeeze on incomes.

The Bank of England governor, Sir Mervyn King, told the Treasury select committee: “I am definitely concerned by … the squeeze on real income. This is the way in which we as a country are adjusting to the consequences of a crisis, and the macro economic rebalancing that is necessary to get through that.”

There was some better news for workers when the administrator to the women’s fashion chain Jane Norman sold 33 of the company’s stores to Edinburgh Woollen Mill, saving hundreds of jobs. However, more than 1,000 staff at other shops face redundancy adding to a toll that includes nearly 3,000 staff and related employees at Homeform, which controls Moben Kitchens, Sharps Bedrooms and Dolphin Bathrooms, and which called in administrators last week. Several thousand jobs are also going at Focus DIY.

Maureen Hinton, senior retail analyst at Verdict Research, said: “It feels every bit as bad as at the height of the credit crunch when Woolworths collapsed. We are going through a retrenchment that is probably as severe as we have seen since the war.”

Supply was outstripping demand, she said, and weak operators were at a high risk of going to the wall.

“If you are not covering your costs and you are subject to upward-only rent reviews on leased properties, you are in dire straits,” she said.

Analysts said the British retail sector was at “saturation point” and companies were able to make money only by poaching custom from rivals as the underlying market was not growing.

Other operators viewed as vulnerable were specialists selling stationery or kitchenware, or those who confined themselves to footwear or other products when general retailers were diversifying.

Hinton said: “Even the supermarkets can see there are limits to how much they can expand in Britain, which is why they are looking to open businesses abroad.”

Mike Jervis, a restructuring expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that firms with mediocre management or who bought the wrong stock at the wrong time of the year “are probably toast”. He added: “I think the sector is going to have a very rough time over the next six months.”

Carpetright, Britain’s biggest floor coverings retailer, said it expected tough trading conditions to continue over the next two years as it posted a 40% fall in profits and axed the final dividend.

“Looking forward, over the next two years we expect the consumer environment to remain difficult and have adapted our plans accordingly,” said its chairman, Philip Harris.

Carpetright, which trades from about 700 stores in Britain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, has suffered from fragile consumer confidence.

Julie Palmer, partner at Begbies Traynor, said the struggles of discount chains like TJ Hughes indicate that no retailer was immune to the problems facing the high street. She said: “The discount end of the retail market was previously thought to be recession-proof but now it is starting to show cracks as consumers cut down on even life’s little luxuries to pay for necessities like food.”

Kevin Green, chief executive at the recruitment and employment confederation, said the “feelgood factor in April and early May caused by the royal wedding and the bank holidays that gave retail a much-needed boost has now evaporated.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/28/austerity-high-street

A man with a fetish for surreptitiously cutting locks of hair from girls and women has been found guilty of murdering a British seamstress and now faces extradition over the killing of a teenager in Italy.

Danilo Restivo was convicted of killing his neighbour, Heather Barnett, at her Bournemouth flat and mutilating her body before placing a hank of someone else’s hair in her right hand and a clump of her own beneath her left.

Restivo showed no emotion as the verdict was delivered after five hours of deliberation.

Barnett’s daughter, Caitlin, who together with her brother Terry found their mother’s body when they returned from school, sobbed quietly as the guilty verdict was returned.

Outside court, Barnett’s sister, Denise, paid tribute to Heather as a feisty, hard-working woman and a loving mother. She said she would have been devastated at the way Restivo “designed” the crime so that her children would find the body.

She said Restivo had been “forensically aware” and had carefully planned the killing. She praised the police for the way they had found the evidence that convicted him. She added that she was grateful that the police had continued to watch Restivo to prevent him from attacking again.

During his seven-week trial at Winchester crown court, Restivo, an Italian national, was also accused of killing 16-year-old Elisa Claps in the loft of a church in Potenza, southern Italy, and leaving cut strands of her own hair in her hands and next to her body.

Both women suffered wounds to their chests but the jury was told the killer’s “hallmark” was to leave cut hair at the scene.

Restivo admitted he had a “fetish” for cutting hair from women and girls in the UK and Italy, often while they travelled on buses. The court was told he had cut the hair of 15 women in the UK and nine in Italy.

The family of Claps claimed Restivo should not have been at liberty in the UK to kill Barnett because the police ought to have caught him for the murder of the Italian teenager.

The teenager’s brother, Gildo, and mother, Filomena, claim the church where Elisa’s body was found was never searched properly and a search warrant to enter Restivo’s home nearby was not issued despite him being the last person to see her alive.

There are conspiracy theories in Italy that Restivo was protected because his father was the director of the national library in Italy and claims that many people in Potenza knew the body was hidden in the church but did nothing about it.

Mr Justice Burnett adjourned the case until Friday morning for sentence.

Restivo, 39, was born in Sicily and lived in Potenza before moving to Bournemouth in Dorset in May 2002.

Police quickly came to believe Restivo had killed Barnett, 48, in November 2002 and kept him under intense surveillance amid fears he would strike again.

But it was not until Claps’ body was discovered in the church loft where she had been killed in 2010 – 17 years after she vanished – that the British authorities felt they could make a case against Restivo largely based on the similarities of the two ritualistic murders.

The Italian authorities want Restivo extradited to face trial over the murder of Elisa Claps. Officers may also quiz him about other unsolved murders in Italy.

In the UK, the Criminal Cases Review Commission has been watching the Restivo trial because the legal team for a man called Omar Benguit convicted of killing South Korean student Jong Ok-shin in July 2002 three streets from Barnett’s home claim Restivo could also be guilty of that attack. Shin was also stabbed to death.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/29/hair-hand-case-danilo-restivo-guilty

The home secretary, Theresa May, is considering whether emergency legislation to stem growing concern among senior police officers over their ability to hold suspects is needed in the wake of a court ruling.

The ruling – made by a district judge at Salford magistrates court and backed by the high court on 19 May – could spell the end of the practice of releasing suspects on police bail and calling them back for further questioning, a common practice in most major police investigations.

On Wednesday, the West Yorkshire chief constable, Sir Norman Bettison, warned that the high court ruling on the “detention clock” was close to “a disaster” for custody sergeants, who face the prospect of having to release thousands of serious criminals without charge.

“We are running around like headless chickens wondering what this means to the nature of justice,” Bettison said. “It’s a mess.”

At a policing conference, May told Bettison she was also greatly concerned about the decision and was working with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Crown Prosecution Service on its ramifications for police forces across England and Wales.

“There may be an opportunity to appeal this decision,” she said. “We are also looking at whether or not it’s necessary to introduce legislation in order to deal with this issue. We are conscious of the concerns this judgment has brought in terms of operational policing.”

The ruling concerned the case of Paul Hookaway, a murder suspect who was released by the Salford district judge when police applied for an extension under section 44 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act after the original 24 hours they are allowed to hold someone for questioning. Extensions up to a total of 96 hours are allowed.

The district judge broke new ground in ruling, for the first time in the history of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, that the detention clock continues to run while the suspect is out on police bail.

Hookaway was first arrested at 12.40pm on 7 November last year. A superintendent granted permission for him to be detained for up to 36 hours for questioning, but he was released on bail after about 28 hours.

Five months later, on 5 April, police applied to the courts to extend the period of detention from 36 hours to the maximum 96.

But the district judge refused the application, saying the 96 hours had expired months before.

Greater Manchester police applied to the high court for a judicial review of the case, but Mr Justice McCombe upheld the district judge’s decision on 19 May and refused leave to appeal.

The force is now seeking leave to appeal to the supreme court.

Bettison said that unless the ruling was overturned, police could no longer put anyone out on bail for more than 96 hours without either being in a position to charge or release.

“It’s on the verge of a disaster now, because the question being asked by my custody sergeants is: ‘What do we do, boss?’” he said. “I cannot countenance turning people away from the charge office and telling them all bets are off and they are free to go.”

Professor Michael Zander, of the London School of Economics, recently said the decision was unfortunate and, if it was not quickly overturned on appeal, would need to be speedily reversed by legislation.

In a Criminal Justice article, he said that when the original Police and Criminal Evidence Act was passed, the then home secretary, Douglas Hurd, intended to protect suspects from being held for more than 96 hours without impeding police investigations.

He said it was not designed to enable a game of “cat and mouse” tactics to be played by the police.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/29/bail-ruling-theresa-may-considers-emergency-legislation

A man with a fetish for surreptitiously cutting locks of hair from girls and women will be jailed for life on Thursday for the ritualistic murder of his neighbour and is facing extradition over the killing of a teenager in Italy.

Danilo Restivo was convicted of murdering Heather Barnett at her Bournemouth flat in 2002 and mutilating her body before placing a hank of someone else’s hair in her right hand and a clump of her own beneath her left.

Restivo, an Italian national, has also been accused of killing 16-year-old Elisa Claps in the loft of a church in Potenza, southern Italy, in 1993 and leaving cut strands of her own hair in her hands and next to her body, which was not discovered until last year.

As well as being questioned over the killing of Claps, Restivo may also eventually be investigated over other murders in southern France and Spain. In the UK, the Criminal Cases Review Commission has been watching the seven-week trial amid claims that he might also be behind the killing of a student, Jong-Ok Shin, in Bournemouth four months before Barnett was murdered.

Outside court on Wednesday, Barnett’s relatives expressed relief that nine years after her death, Restivo, 39, had been brought to justice. But they were angry at what they see as failings in the Italian police investigation into the murder of Claps, pointing out that if he had been caught then he could not have killed Barnett.

Claps’s body was found in the church where she had last been seen and there are conspiracy theories in Italy that people in Potenza knew the body was hidden there. There have also been rumours about the role of the mafia and the church.

It has been a long ordeal for Barnett’s family, some of whom criticised British police on Wednesday for not being aggressive enough in the early stages of their inquiries.

The murder on 12 November 2002 of Barnett, a mother of two who worked as a seamstress from her home in Dorset, could hardly have been more brutal and disturbing. Barnett, 48, was battered around the head with a hammer-like object and dragged into her bathroom. Her throat was cut, she was partially stripped and her breasts were sliced off. The killer left a clump of another woman’s hair in Barnett’s right hand and some of her own beneath her left.

Her children, Terry, then 14, and Caitlin, 11, found their mother’s body on their return from school. Terry told how his sister “went absolutely ballistic” as she opened the bathroom door. When he peered in he was horrified. “I saw her lying on her back. I saw blood absolutely everywhere and I thought ‘Oh no.’”

When officers arrived at the scene Restivo was comforting Terry and both children were taken into his home while forensic scientists began work.

Detective Superintendent Mark Cooper, the senior investigating officer, said police were instantly suspicious of Restivo. “He was in the inquiry right from the start. From day one he was on our list,” said Cooper. Four days after the murder, police visited Restivo’s house and a detective sergeant asked what shoes he had been wearing on the day of the killing as police believed the killer’s footwear could have been contaminated with blood.

Restivo showed them a pair of trainers lying in the bath, which smelled of bleach. They had been dirty, Restivo said.

Police began to dig into Restivo’s background. He was born in Sicily but moved to Potenza in southern Italy when his father was hired to set up a prestigious library there.

The link to Claps propelled Restivo from person of interest to prime suspect. As a 21-year-old Restivo fell for Claps but she rejected him. On 12 September 1993 he met her at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Potenza. And then she vanished. In 1995 he was convicted in Italy of giving false information about an injury to his hand on the day Claps vanished.

Police and the Italian media suspected he had killed her but no body was found by that stage and there was no proof.

In May 2002 Restivo moved to Bournemouth having met a woman on the internet. Six months later Barnett, who lived opposite him, was dead.

Cooper said that by early 2003 Restivo had become the “sole focus” of the investigation. Police did not have the evidence to charge him and instead began intense surveillance. They were soon alarmed by his behaviour.

In May 2004 police watched Restivo at secluded locations observing or following women. On one occasion he was stopped by officers who found he had a large knife, a balaclava and two pairs of scissors. “He was an immediate and real danger to women,” said Cooper.

Police continued to watch Restivo, sometimes 24 hours a day. Meanwhile they were following up inquiries into the hair left in Barnett’s hand.

Detectives discovered that numerous women in Potenza and Bournemouth had complained of having hair snipped while on buses or, on one occasion, sitting in the dark of a cinema. There were 15 reports from women in the UK and nine in Italy.

Restivo would claim at his eventual trial that he started cutting hair at around age 15 for a bet. “I started liking it and I kept doing it. The problem was that I liked touching the hair and also smelling it. It was not a sexual attraction,” he claimed.

In November 2006 Restivo was arrested and his home searched. Police found a lock of hair tied with green cotton – which Restivo said must have been planted.

In 2008 scientists finally made a link between DNA material found on a green towel recovered from Barnett’s flat and Restivo. Still it was not judged strong enough to charge him.

Then in March 2010 the body of Elisa Claps was found a few metres from where she had met Restivo 17 years previously. Her remains had been hidden in the loft of the church beneath a pile of old tiles.

She had been stabbed and, most significantly, strands of her own hair cut from her head shortly after her death had been placed in each hand and locks of hair had been placed near her body.

Restivo was charged with Barnett’s murder two months later. He showed no emotion as the verdict was delivered. Barnett’s daughter, Caitlin, sobbed. Outside court, Barnett’s sister, Denise Le Voir, said the family feared Restivo, who continued to live in the same flat in Bournemouth after the killing, would return to murder Caitlin.

She criticised the Italian inquiry saying: “Elisa was found in the church where she had last been seen and I cannot understand why that church wasn’t thoroughly searched top to bottom sooner. It would appear someone was covering up.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/29/danilo-restivo-convicted-murder-mutilation

The coalition government faces the first industrial uprising against its austerity measures today as up to 750,000 public servants strike over planned changes to their pensions.

A third of schools are expected to close and two-thirds of universities have cancelled lectures. Benefits will go unpaid, court cases will be postponed, police leave has been cancelled in London and airports are bracing themselves for backlogs at immigration.

Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services union, said it was the most important strike in his union’s history. “Everything we have ever worked for is under attack,” he added.

The government was trying to avoid inflaming the situation . David Cameron told the Commons: “What we are proposing is fair: it is fair to taxpayers but it is also fair to the public sector because we want to continue strong public sector pensions.”

He said Labour was avoiding the issue, accusing the party of being “paid for by the unions [so] they can’t discuss the unions”. None of the four striking unions, with members in schools, colleges, universities and the civil service, is affiliated to the Labour party.

Nearly every other union is poised to move towards strike action by the end of the year if the bitter standoff over public sector pension reforms is not resolved.

Roads in central London will shut as thousands of people march in demonstrations that will be echoed across the country. Police leave has been cancelled so officers can cover for striking police community support officers, call handlers on the 999 lines and security staff.

Some groups calling for peaceful civil disobedience are planning events in the capital. There were suggestions on the web that anarchists may target the events.

Downing Street said it believed only one in five of the 500,000 civil servants would strike and predicted that a third of England’s 24,600 schools would close, a third would partially close and a third would be unaffected.

Nearly 8,000 state schools have confirmed that they will either close or reduce lessons. Liverpool will be the worst hit city, with three-quarters of schools affected. In Newcastle, 72% of schools will be short-staffed or closed and in Manchester and Birmingham around half are affected. Up to 20,000 teachers in private schools may also go on strike.

BAA said delays and disruption were possible at its airports, as up to 14,000 staff at the UK Border Agency affiliated to the PCS prepared to stage walkouts. UKBA advised airlines this week that passengers should rethink their travel plans amid fears of long queues at passport control, but then appeared to back away from that advice, saying it would work hard to keep delays to a minimum.

The PCS said it expected delays at the port of Dover and Heathrow, Manchester and Gatwick airports. Ryanair called on the government to allow the army or police to staff passport booths and customs desks and said what it called union “headbangers” should not be allowed to disrupt flight schedules. 

The business secretary, Vince Cable, said: “I don’t think the public will understand. The public view would be that we are negotiating and are willing to negotiate, so why would people be out on strike until that process has run its course?”

Cable said he was “optimistic” that pensions reform talks would succeed, saying: “Most trade unions are committed to negotiations. They asked for the talks and we are taking them seriously.” He also played down the scale of strikes, pointing to the “relatively” small number of unions taking part today.

But Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, is to say that the strikes are “hardly surprising” considering the scale of the government’s cuts to the public sector. “Nobody wants to see our schools and jobcentres closed. But our resolve is strong, our determination is absolute and we will see this through until we reach a just and fair settlement.”

Both the unions and government are watching keenly to gauge the public tolerance to today’s the disruption, to influence their future strategies. One senior Conservative source described the strike as a “test-case” of the strikes acknowledging that there are fears within government that the sustained strike action that some unions are threatening could ultimately damage the economic recovery. He said: “People are cautious, I’d say nervous. If there is a summer, autumn, winter of discontent the real worry is the effect on the economy. We’re waiting to see where public opinion goes on this and the strategy is to be non-confrontational, make the argument to the public but not provoke the unions.”

By one estimate the tTreasury could save £30m from the pay forfeited by the striking teachers today but business leaders warned that this was hugely outbalanced by the wider cost to the economy of hundreds of thousands of parents having to take the day off.

The British Chambers of Commerce said disruption will lead to many parents having to take the day off work to look after their children, losing them pay and hitting productivity.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/29/public-sector-strike-pensions-unions

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — A Pakistani court has indicted six soldiers and one civilian on murder and terrorism charges in the death of an unarmed man whose fatal shooting was caught on video.

The seven men pleaded not guilty, said Muhammad Khan, a public prosecutor in a special anti-terrorism court in the southern city of Karachi.

Teenager Sarfraz Shah was shot and killed by Rangers providing security at a public park this month.

A chilling video of the incident was played repeatedly on national television and became the latest in a series of human rights violations that horrified Pakistanis and eroded public confidence in security agencies.

In the video, an unarmed Shah begs not to be shot. He pleads with the men carrying automatic rifles. “I am helpless,” he cries. “Please do not fire.”

Then, two shots and screams of pain. Blood streams out onto the ground beneath him.

The Rangers are Pakistan’s paramilitary force primarily responsible for border protection, but at the request of provinces, it helps to maintain law and order in cities.

Karachi police said Shah tried to rob people at a park named in honor of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto by pointing a pistol and trying to steal cash and cell phones. He was handed over to park security and then to the Rangers.

A hearing on the case begins Thursday.

Journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/rmyKN2N3ZRU/index.html