Scientists have found that London has the highest concentration of cocaine in its sewage system, closely followed by Amsterdam, according to test results from 50 European cities.
The EU’s drug monitoring body has determined that the average daily concentration of cocaine in London’s sewer system was 737mg per 1,000 people in 2014.
Measuring the concentration of drugs in waste water helps scientists monitor the level of illicit drug use in major metropolitan cities.
For instance, the amount of cocaine in London’s waste water drastically rises on Fridays and Sundays and falls back down on Sundays and Mondays, while in Amsterdam, consumption rises later in the weekend, peaking on Sunday.
Wastewater analysis is a “rapidly developing scientific discipline with the potential for monitoring real-time population-level trends in illicit drug use,” the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said in its research.
The study also shows that Amsterdam’s sewers have much greater concentrations of cannabis, and London has the fourth highest daily concentration of ecstasy.
At the same time, drugs like cannabis, methamphetamine, and amphetamine were not found in London’s waste water.
Oslo in Norway and Dresden in Germany had the highest levels of methamphetamine in their sewage.
According to recent statistics, there were 2,995 drug related deaths in 2013 (involving both legal and illegal drugs), according to the UK Office of National Statistics’. This is up from 2012, when there were 2,597.
Hundreds of people marched through Brixton to protest police brutality and racism, and to show solidarity with the people of Baltimore, US. Baltimore has been seeing a surge in protests after a 25-year-old African American died in police custody.
At least 500 signed to attend the event on its Facebook page and video footage showed hundreds moving down Brixton streets in South London.
“No justice, no peace”, “Africans have a right to resist” and “Reclaim Brixton”, the banners read. The protest was addressed by speakers from families, whose members died in police custody, the London Black Revs, Latin American solidarity groups and others.
Brixton is a multiethnic community, with a large portion of its population being of African and Caribbean descent. It has seen a number of riots over the years. Brixton was one of the scenes of the 2011 riots in the UK capital.
In Baltimore, a curfew was lifted on Saturday after scores of arrests were made over the week, with over 3,000 security forces on the ground, backed up by the National Guard.
The tensions there eased after six policemen involved in Freddie Gray’s death were arrested and charges were brought against them.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv security forces fired pepper spray, stun grenades during a protest against racism and police violence, staged by Jews of Ethiopian descent in Tel Aviv. Some 23 policemen and at least 23 protesters have been injured in the clashes.
Thousands gathered and protesters tried to break into the City Hall, according to Haaretz. Demonstrators also overturned a police car and threw bottles and stones at officers in riot gear at central Rabin Square.
At least 26 protesters were arrested following clashes, according to Israeli Police Foreign Press Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. At least 46 people were injured, including 23 police officers, Haaretz reports.
They shouted “not black, not white, we’re all human beings” and “a violent cop should be jailed.”
“Being black, I have to protest today. I never experienced police violence against me personally, but it is aimed at my community which I have to support,” 34-year-old protester Eddie Maconen told AFP.
This is the second such protest in a week: On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators blocked streets and the Jerusalem Light Rail, and marched on the prime minister’s home.
Swedish prosecutors have asked for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s approval to question him in London where he is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, the prosecutors said on Friday.
The prosecutor is also asking to conduct a DNA test.
Assange has been stuck inside the South American country’s London embassy since June 2012 to avoid a British extradition to Sweden. Sweden wants to question him on allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he denies.
The Australian says he fears that if Britain extradited him to Sweden he would then be extradited to the United States where he could be tried for one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.
The Austrian state audit court says the central bank should address the concentration risk of storing 80% of its gold reserves with the Bank of England, Standard reports, citing draft audit report.
The court has advised the central bank to diversify storage locations, and contract partners, Bloomberg reported.
The Austrian central bank is currently reviewing gold storage concept, and doesn’t rule out relocating some of its gold from London to Austria.
Standard cited unidentified central bank officials.
The gold reserves of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and their deposits in the UK and in Switzerland are a recurring theme in political discussions.
Especially after the example of the Deutsche Bundesbank the Austrians are serious about bringing gold home.
Given the “high concentration of risk in the Bank of England” the bank is also reviewing the “actual spread of the storage locations”.
Austria has 280 tons gold reserves, according to 2013 annual report, but only a small part (17 percent) is kept in Vienna, while 80 percent of the reserves are located in London, and three percent in Switzerland.
In comparison, the German Bundesbank has 3400 tons of gold, about half of it in the United States.
The decision was taken to resettle half of the gold to Germany.
Hundreds, mostly white people have gathered around the US Embassy in London, condemning the grand jury verdict not to charge US white police officer who killed African-American teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, BBC reported Thursday.
The Stand Up To Racism and London Black Revolutionaries Group organized protests around the US Embassy in London, condemning the grand jury verdict over Darren Wilson, a police officer who shot an African-American teenager in Ferguson.
According to the news agency, the protest campaign was organized by Stand Up To Racism and London Black Revolutionaries Group.
The vigil is intended to raise protest against non-indictment verdict for the US police officer Darren Wilson, which was delivered by the grand jury in Ferguson on Monday, the statement on the Stand Up For Racism official website says. The statement adds that the US jury’s decision comes on the day of similar incident in Cleveland, where a policeman shot dead 12-year-old African-American Tamir Rice, who was carrying a toy gun.
The court decision not to charge Wilson over the August 9 shooting has led to a wave of protests across the United States, raising issues of race discrimination and police brutality within the US law enforcement system. Demonstrations took place in 38 US states, Washington DC and over 170 other US cities on Tuesday.
Top fashion house Louis Vuitton is being sued over racism claims after a boss at a flagship store allegedly told an African employee: “Black people are slaves who eat dirt off the floor.”
Sales associate Oliver Koffi claims he was in a stock room packing a pair of shoes for a customer when his manager began the shocking race rant in front of stunned staff.
He alleged that the manager called Barack Obama a “muppet” and said America would be better off with “Miss Piggy” as its president because “Muslim people… don’t eat pork”.
Mr Koffi says he was left humiliated by the “black slaves” slur while working at the label’s store in Central London.
Details of the allegations emerged in papers which will be presented to a Central London Employment Tribunal on July 18.
Mr Koffi is suing Louis Vuitton for racist discrimination and harassment.
He claims his manager’s tone of voice was “cold and serious” as he made the comments during a discussion on the origins of the English language with him and three other members of staff in December last year.
Mr Koffi said: “During this discussion, my manager quite randomly stated that ‘black people are slaves and eat dirt off the floor’.
“This comment was grossly offensive and extremely humiliating.
“His reference to slavery in this day and age with regards to black people is quite frankly revolting.”
Mr Koffi was a contract worker at the Louis Vuitton Townhouse at London’s iconic Selfridges department store at the time of the incident.
He says he recorded the offensive comments on tape after concerns over the manager’s alleged “racist conduct”.
He added: “He went on a rant about black people and other races and religions. He jumped from subject to subject, making comments about other races and religions. He made comments about Barack Obama.
“All of his comments were derogatory and a clear illustration of his prejudices towards other races and religions.
“His comments were offensive and degrading. I confronted him about his statement that ‘black people are slaves and eat dirt off the floor’.
“I told him that I was offended by his comment. He did not deny making the comment. He apologised and claimed it was a ‘joke’. It was not a joke at all.”
Mr Koffi says the manager, who left his job following a disciplinary proceeding, had previously questioned him about his nationality, asking, “where are you originally from?” and often referred to customers by their skin colour.
He alleges that the manager’s frequent remarks about Asian people and his comments about some Louis Vuitton products being “s***” because they were “made in China” created a “hostile and intimidating” working environment.
His solicitor Lawrence Davies, of Equal Justice solicitors, said: “The case will set the 21st century bar as to what employers have to do to prevent racism in the workplace.”
Louis Vuitton accepts that the racist comment was made but defends the claim on the basis the company had taken all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the racist comment.
High-end fashion has recently faced a barrage of racism claims, with models Naomi Campbell and Imam supporting worldwide diversity campaigns.
Yesterday a spokeswoman for Louis Vuitton said: “Louis Vuitton has a zero-tolerance policy to harassment of any kind.
“This reported sentiment is in total violation of the Louis Vuitton Ethical charter.
“This issue was investigated, and the manager in question no longer works within the company.” – The Daily Mirror
In its continued push to make the yuan a global currency, China’s central bank said Sunday it plans to designate clearing banks for its currency in Paris and Luxembourg, as the two financial centers battle with London to become the leading European offshore yuan-trading city.
The People’s Bank of China announced the move in two separate statements Sunday. It didn’t say when it would designate the clearing banks.
The French and Luxembourg central banks said Sunday they had signed agreements with PBOC allowing for greater cooperation in the oversight of their domestic yuan market.
The weekend moves are the latest salvos in the race to win a major share of business in cross-border transactions in the Chinese currency. Singapore and Sydney are also vying for a significant share of the global yuan market, which is expected to expand rapidly along with China’s fast-growing economy.
On June 18, the PBOC appointed China Construction Bank Co., one of the country’s top-four state-owned banks, to clear yuan-related transactions in London. It became the first yuan clearing bank in a European country.
Opening a clearing bank is a critical step in developing an offshore yuan-based business. The designated banks will be able to supply yuan liquidity in case of a shortage by directly accessing China’s onshore currency market.
The Chinese central bank said that setting up the clearing banks will benefit Chinese, French and Luxembourg ” businesses and financial institutions in using the renminbi [yuan] for cross-border transactions and in further promoting trade and investment.”
French authorities have openly pushed for Paris to become a center for yuan transactions.
In March, China also granted 80 billion yuan ($12.9 billion) of quotas to French financial institutions that enable direct investment in the Chinese domestic financial market.
The Bank of France said Sunday the latest decisions by the PBOC “confirm the prominent role of the French market place” in cross-border use of the currency.
Luxembourg, home to a powerful asset-management industry, has built strong ties with Chinese investors in recent years and currently hosts the European headquarters of China’s three leading banks.
Last year, former Luxembourg Finance Minister Luc Frieden cited figures showing that the country was the leading center for yuan business in the euro zone, with some 40 billion yuan in deposits, 62 billion yuan in loans from Luxembourg banks and 220 billion yuan under management in the fund industry.
For China, the move to allow the yuan to be used more freely abroad aims to boost demand for the currency and reduce the amount of dollars entering the country. China still maintains a tight grip on the yuan’s value, with its trading strictly controlled in the mainland market.
Picture of Romanian gypsies ‘setting up camp’ on London’s Park Lane
The London Daily Mail reports that Romania’s prime minister has told Britain not to treat Romanians as ‘second-rate citizens’ when curbs on Romanian and Bulgarian workers are lifted on January 1.
Victor Ponta said last night that research showed no evidence that there would be large numbers of migrants moving from his country to the UK, despite mounting fears.
And he reiterated the claim, made elsewhere, that Romanians were more likely to seek work in southern European states like Italy and Spain, where the language is far more similar to Romanian.
David Cameron this week announced measures to toughen welfare rules for migrants from the European Union amid concern that migrants from Romania and Bulgaria would exploit the benefits system.
He has claimed that one million people from Central and East Europe are living in Britain with migration at a level not seen since wartime.
But, in a statement released last night, Mr Ponta slammed the move. He said people should be punished for abusing the welfare system, but restrictions should not be used to ‘generate or justify abuse or discrimination’.
‘We will not accept being treated as second-rate citizens,’ Mr Ponta said, adding that research showed ‘there is no reason for concern regarding a migrant wave’ from Romania to Britain.
Millions of Romanians had already chosen to work abroad in ‘southern Latin states’, referring to Spain and Italy which have a Latin-based language like Romanian.
He said he hoped Cameron was not trying ‘to attack the fundamental principles of the EU, among which the freedom of movement is one of the most important values’.
Mr Cameron’s benefits proposals were criticised on Wednesday by European employment commissioner Laszlo Andor as an ‘unfortunate over-reaction’.
Warning that Britain risked becoming the ‘nasty country of Europe, he said plans to curb benefits for migrants were were fuelling ‘hysteria’ and accused the PM of distorting the truth about immigration.
‘The point is that the British has not been given all the truth and the full truth about this subject,’ Mr Andor told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Brussels is facing a growing revolt over its no-borders immigration policy, with France and Germany also suggesting they want curbs on EU migrants’ rights.
Mr Cameron, who has been criticised for refusing to give an estimate of how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to Britain next year, has outlined plans to limit the rights of temporary workers to housing benefit, and a 12-month bar on those fund begging and sleeping rough.
The measures were announced shortly after the Daily Mail published the results of a poll which suggests that four in five Britons do not want unrestricted access to the UK for Romanians and Bulgarians. – dailymail.co.uk
Britain has relaxed stringent rules for Chinese banks willing to set up in London. Beijing in turn opened up its markets to British-based investors, marking the latest move to establish the yuan as one of the world’s key currencies.
“A great nation like China should have a global currency,” said UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, during his official five day visit to China. And the UK is gladly willing to contribute “through the international center of finance: London”.
Under the agreed pilot program, China sanctioned London-based investors to buy up to 80 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) of stocks, bonds and money market instruments directly, avoiding Hong Kong transactions, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, Britain will let Chinese banks set up wholesale branches in London, easing regulations the country had imposed after the financial crisis broke out. Since 2008, Britain has insisted that most foreign lenders should set up their UK operations as “subsidiaries” rather than branches, which provides greater protection for depositors and taxpayers. Less regulation will be welcomed by Chinese lenders who have always complained the rules made it hard to operate in Britain, prompting them to move much of their business to Luxembourg.
On top of that, London and Beijing will trade the yuan against the dollar directly, avoiding the dollar.
“The Chinese currency, the renminbi, is not terribly well known in Britain at the moment. But over my lifetime I think it’s going to become almost as familiar as the dollar, and I want British businesses involved in trading it, investing in it,” Osborne told BBC television in China.
Currently London accounts for 62 percent of yuan trades outside China and Hong Kong, according to data from financial services provider SWIFT. The latest move will give the renminbi a firmer footprint in Europe and strengthen London’s platform to develop the offshore RM (renminbi) bond market.
According to an HSBC forecast, within 5 years a third of China’s total trade will be in yuan, which will make it fully convertible and elevate it into the top 3 exchange currencies. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the yuan has already strengthened 36 percent against the dollar and 47 percent versus the pound since 2005. – RT
I went on my first protest march yesterday – another item checked on the ‘things everyone should do before they die’ list. I attended the Red October march. According to the media reports on the march I must have turned into a right wing, fascist, Nazi, apartheid supporting crazy since I moved here. That’s not true. I was brought up in London, one of the most diverse cities on the face of the planet and I marvel at the fantastic range of cultures that this earth plays host to. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t give a flying monkeys whether you are white, black or green with sky blue polka dots – AND THAT HAS NOT CHANGED.
I also don’t recognise the caricature of the protest that was presented by the media – maybe I’m mistaken and I turned up at a different protest….
I have to say, I was hesitant at turning up yesterday. I was worried that this event would be hijacked by racist groups looking for a publicity opportunity. I was worried that the message of Red October would be kidnapped.
I was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced; the protesters in Pretoria were respectful but wanted to get their point heard. I, personally, heard no bigoted racism, no derogatory name calling or incitement to violence. I saw people who were sick and tired of the fear that crime causes in this country – people who were saying enough is enough. I identified with the Red October cause after reading the content of the letter sent to the Presidency setting out the reasons for the protest:
Urgent attention to the lack of security on South African farms and the lack of attention to farm murders in general
Urgent attention to the continuing violence against women
Urgent attention to police action regarding murder and crimes committed against the people of South Africa by foreigners streaming across our borders
Urgent attention to the lack of quality education for all our children, respecting their culture, language, religion and heritage
Urgent attention to the lack of service delivery, the preservation of our natural water resources and the lack of control over the theft of electricity
Urgent attention to the legal processes and lack of justice with regard to the detaining of prisoners without proper due course
Urgent attention to expedient trials and harsher sentences of criminals found guilty of violent crime, i.e. murder and rape
Nothing racist in that lot – no calls for return to apartheid, no we’re better than you, no bigoted name calling, no incitement to violence, no mention that this should be limited to white people in any way, shape or form!
But when the protest was reported in the media it was characterised as a bunch of Afrikaners demanding special treatment over anyone else, making outlandish, untrue statements and generally being a bit racist. It was an eye opening experience of selective reporting and has taught me the lesson that the ‘news’ is actually about 99% opinion and spin and the remaining space left to fact is filled by cherry-picked information to back up the preconceptions of the person and/or agency presenting the story.
So, let’s answer the criticisms leveled at Red October.
In 2009 white people represented 1.8% of murder victims, but make up 8% of the population.
By this statement E news is trying to indicate that white people, especially Afrikaners, are not victimized and are, in fact, nice and safe and complaining about nothing. Anyone fearing ‘white genocide’ is clearly a delusional fantasist.
Up until this point, any figures quoted by groups worried about the degree of violence focused on white populations were discredited as the South African Police Service does not routinely collect data on the ethnicity of victims and perpetrators of murder. Obviously that doesn’t make nice convincing TV news, so E has gone through the archives until they found a 4 year old statistic gathering dust in a corner. Want to disprove groups who spend an awful lot of effort trying to document murder rates through the devotion of their time to collating anecdotal reporting? Then where is your carefully researched analysis of murder over the past 19 years? Where is your statistical analysis of last year’s crime statistics that were released last month? Where is your evidence of the reliability of your single snapshot statistic from 2009?
So, let’s leave statistics aside – as Benjamin Disraeli reportedly said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
What is verifiable is the horrific brutality and savagery of farm murders in South Africa; if you have a strong stomach, Google it. Torture, rape, murder and mutilation are a legitimate and reasonable part of robbery or a wage dispute? I didn’t think so.
This march is ridiculous as it only focusses on crime against white people
I refer you back to the motivation for the protest above. This was against all crime, all murder, all rape, all violent attacks. No one in this country should have to live in fear. Yes, the focus shifted towards white victims of brutal farm attacks, but these were the people who could be bothered to get off their backsides and make a stand.
If all those who criticised the march on that basis stood up and arranged a protest against the complete lack of control that the ANC government has over crime in this country, then we’d attend that one too. But you haven’t, so we can’t.
The additional demand to scrap racial quotas such as Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment, etc, etc, proves that Red October is a front for racists who wish to return to apartheid.
It has escaped reporting, but organisers and speakers took great pains to point out that this is by no means a call to return to apartheid and that the system was fundamentally wrong.
All forms of discrimination are fundamentally wrong. None of them are positive. The ANC, however, insist on applying racial quotas and conditions on all areas of commerce and employment. How will it ever be fair that someone has to hand over large percentages of the business that they have worked hard to establish and make successful, just due to their skin colour?
The motivation for this protest also highlights the issue of education, asking for quality education for ALL children in this country. The ANC has had 19 years to focus on education, ensuring that every person can compete for jobs based on their abilities and qualifications rather than the melanin content of their skin. They have failed spectacularly – the government can’t even get textbooks into schools for the start of the school year! In order to cover for their incompetence and lack of motivation in this area, they impose employment quotas to give a thin veneer of success.
In the face of a difficult and hostile job market, many white families have had to rely on their entrepreneurial abilities to make a living. If you can’t get a job, you have to work for yourself in order to survive. The new focus of the government has now been to attack white ownership of business, to demand that anyone who has worked hard to establish a successful, profitable company now hands over a percentage of what they built up to black ownership.
There is one group determined to keep race a flashpoint in South Africa and that is the ANC. The ANC are just as obsessed with race as apartheid was, possibly more so.
As the title of this piece indicated, this experience has been a real eye opener. Caricatures mindlessly spouted by the media are being used unfairly to silence people’s concerns. I guess there are none so blind as those that refuse to see, and deaf as those that refuse to hear.
You`ll find him sauntering through the streets of many a city in the West – especially in Commonwealth capitals like London, Dublin and Sydney.
And in the cities and towns of South Africa he is a common sight… the lone big Afrikaner man wearing the Springbok jersey with rightful pride. It is as if wearing the jersey of the national rugby team makes him the real Springbok player, that winner – if only for a moment.
And who can blame him? The Springboks – those gloriously sculptured athletes of a physical game perfectly suited for the rough-and-tumble Afrikaner man – are legends. They have always been one of the top two teams on the planet. It is a tremendous source of pride… for winners they are!
By wearing the Springbok jersey in public, Afrikaner men are finally receiving that positive recognition, that international ego-boost, which they have been denied ever since being blamed – by their peers in the West – for all the woes besetting blacks in South Africa.
It is, in fact, the only source of pride the Afrikaner is allowed to nurture… the sole recognition s/he may claim. For they find themselves in a socio-cultural and politico-economic environment that still regard them, their whole being, only in terms of Apartheid. Not unlike post-WWII Germans, the Afrikaner has, literally, been stripped of all his achievements – his very historical being – before Apartheid.
His unique language, Afrikaans – the third youngest Germanic language on the planet – is still being criminalized and marginalized as the “language of the oppressor” … and derided as the uncool “dumb Dutchman” language by arrogant native English-speakers in South Africa.
His legendary military prowess – as, once again, displayed in the Angolan War – has also been criminalized. Those brave young Afrikaner men – many of them 18-years old at the time – who helped win the Cold War for the West have been vilified as nothing but cruel Apartheid “killers” by the black-run ANC government… which actually rooted for the other side.
His remarkable performance and achievement in having built South Africa into the richest, most powerful and most developed country in Africa have been all but wiped from History by the black government and white liberals in the West – simply because they assume that South Africa`s blacks would have done so any case, had it not been for the “evil” Afrikaner’s Apartheid “intervention”.
Not even to speak of the Afrikaner’s incredible guts and determination for having literally pulled himself, without any help, from the ashes left by Lord Milner’s cowardly scorched-earth “warfare” during the Anglo-Boer War. A war in which the Afrikaner was outnumbered 10/1, a war that left 33 000 of his women and children dead in British concentration camps – and reduced the Afrikaner to the poorest white nation on the planet at the time.
In short; the Afrikaner’s whole historical being has suffered the same fate as his farms during Milner’s attempted genocide a century ago… except this time round it is his mind that has been scorched!
But this doesn`t bother the international community in the least. And most disturbing of all; it does not seem to bother the majority of the modern Afrikaner. Why? I mean, how come a unique people with an incredible history simply forget, as if nothing has happened?
Well, this is where rugby comes in. The recognition the (majority of the) Afrikaner gets through rugby seemingly suffices to keep him happy… even amid all the barbaric chaos in Mandelatopia.
The search for recognition (thymos) is one of the most powerful drives in the human psyche. So powerful that it has even been postulated as the motor of history, by Francis Fukuyama. His (rather trite) book, The End of History and the Last Man, had many a Western leader in hysterical glee, because it provided a utopian underpinning/validation for neo-liberalism, after the Cold War against Communism had been won.
Be that as it may; all of us crave recognition – some more (and on a larger scale) than others. The puberty-wing on the boot of a Ford Escort may be that thing which strokes your ego the most, or a beach house in Hermanus, or a Dr. title before your name, or a multi-national company that gets you invites to Davos (like Kdoos Bekker of Naspers). Whatever the size and shape of your ego, you will go through hell and high water to have it stroked. And when it finally gets stroked, you are that winner… you have craved to be for so long.
And that is exactly why Afrikaners are willing to live with a scorched mind in a lost kingdom run by “noble” savages. For winning in rugby is all the recognition he (thinks he) needs, because just like the Springboks he has never really lost. He is still the “Baas of the Plaas” in his mind.
The dastardly Old Empire Brits won the Anglo-Boer War, but they never succeeded in breaking the Afrikaner’s spirit. The Afrikaner won the Angolan War outright, even though they lost the peace, thanks to the treachery of their half-wit leaders. The Afrikaner never lost their “kingdom” to god-Mandela; they simply gave it to him – like the Springbok jersey they gave him at the closing ceremony of the 1995 RWC.
All in all, Afrikaners, as individuals, are still (on average) winners in Mandelatopia, and globally as expats – especially financially – just like their Springbok heroes and role-models.
The only problem is that rugby is a team sport, like a nation… like a civilization. Even the mighty Springboks can only remain winners, provided they play as a team. That is why fewer and fewer lone big Afrikaner men wearing Springbok jerseys will saunter pridefully through the streets of the cities of the West in the future.
Apple and other smartphone manufacturers are facing co-ordinated pressure from officials in London, New York and San Francisco to tackle the rise in phone theft that is increasingly blighting cities even as other crimes plummet.
While the US and Britain have both seen a dramatic decrease in crime over the past three decades – with UK data this week showing crime at its lowest since records began – “theft from the person”, or mugging, is surging.
Scotland Yard estimates these types of offences have increased by 15 per cent in the past year, and about 10,000 phone handsets a month are stolen in London. In New York, police say so-called “Apple-picking” is the fastest-growing street crime, with 113 devices snatched or lost every minute across the whole of the US.
Boris Johnson, London mayor, is hoping to join forces with New York and San Francisco to push for an industry-standard “kill switch” that would immediately disable handsets when stolen and so diminish their attractiveness to thieves. City Hall officials met their counterparts in New York this week to try to broker cross-Atlantic collaboration on the issue.
Mr Johnson has also written to the UK heads of Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Google’s Motorola, HTC, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Sony demanding action. One of his key concerns is that Apple and other retail stores are too lax in exchanging broken smartphones that could have been stolen for fresh models. Police say one individual was found to have exchanged more than 170 stolen devices for new ones in a single London store over the course of a year. Meanwhile, theft victims who are not insured often end up buying replacement handsets.
“Customers and shareholders surely deserve to know that business cannot and must not benefit directly from smartphone theft through sales of replacement devices,” Mr Johnson’s letter reads.
US federal and state security experts this week took part in a demonstration of new theft deterrent measures on Apple and Samsung devices, as part of a “Secure Our Smartphones” campaign led by New York and San Francisco.
New York’s attorney-general Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco district attorney George Gascón said that while they were “appreciative” of the efforts made by Apple and Samsung to improve security, they were “not going to take them at their word” and would interrogate the new systems against tactics commonly employed by thieves.
Stephanie Ong Stillman of the San Francisco district attorney’s office said public pressure forced Apple and Samsung to co-ordinate with them, which they hope will accelerate the development of a kill switch across the industry.
“The question is no longer if the technology can be implemented, but when,” she said. “We hope the progress made by Apple and Samsung spurs Microsoft and Google to get in the game.”
Apple said in a statement that it had “led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices”, since launching its Find My iPhone app in 2009.
BlackBerry and Microsoft, which also received Mr Johnson’s letter, declined to comment. – FT.com
George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” is enjoying a spike in sales in the wake of revelations on surveillance in the United States.
Amazon.com says the book, published in 1945, has gone from No. 13,074 to No. 193 on its selling list, and it is moving higher, The Guardian reported. To put it another way, sales are up 7,000 percent.
In the novel, Orwell imagines a world divided into three large states, all of them exercising near-constant surveillance on their subjects. The government manipulates the news, history and the language.
The novel is set in London, the city where Orwell spent much of his adult life. But his primary target appears to be the Soviet Union, although he was also concerned about trends he saw in the United States and Britain.
It was “1984” that made “Orwellian” a common adjective in English. It is one that has been used a lot since news broke of National Security Agency monitoring of Internet and telephone traffic.
“What does our Constitution mean? What kind of country do we want to be? Kids will grow up knowing that every damn thing that they do is going to be recorded somewhere in a file, and I think that will have a very Orwellian and inhibiting impact on our lives,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., said in a recent interview.
Orwell died in 1950 at the age of 46. But the book remains under copyright in Britain and the United States, so his estate benefits from its new popularity. – UPI
More than 600,000 white British Londoners have left the capital in a decade.
Census figures show that between 2001 and 2011 the level of ‘white flight’ reached 620,000.
It is the equivalent of a city the size of Glasgow – made up entirely of white Britons – moving out of the capital.
White Britons are now a minority in the country’s capital with 620,000 leaving in a decade
The figures, reported by the BBC yesterday, mean that for the first time, white Britons are now in a minority in the country’s largest city.
At the same time, the census shows, some rural areas have seen a rise in the proportion of people who describe their ethnicity as ‘white British’.
Some 3.7million Londoners classified themselves as white British in 2011 – down from 4.3million in 2001 – despite the city’s population increasing by nearly one million over the decade to 8.2million.
Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch thinks that the BBC should have addressed such a serious issue less trivially
White Britons now make up 45 per cent of the population, compared with 58 per cent in 2001.
London’s population has been boosted by immigrants. Three million foreign-born people now live in the capital.
Five London boroughs saw the proportion of white Britons fall by more than a quarter. The largest decline was in Newham, East London, where the decrease was 37.5 per cent.
In Barking and Dagenham, on the East London/Essex border, 80 per cent of residents were white British in 2001 but by 2011 the proportion was 49 per cent.
There were also big falls in Redbridge, Harrow, Brent, Enfield, Ealing and Waltham Forest. The BBC website was criticised by readers for its depiction of the change as a ‘story of success’ in which many white Britons had moved out to live by the sea or in the countryside.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The BBC make a very serious mistake in addressing an issue of such importance to the British public in such a trivial and superficial manner.
‘It’s surely obvious that the main reason for white flight is because people are not willing to live in an environment which has changed beyond recognition and against their own wishes.’
Ralph Baldwin, a Tory councillor in Barking and Dagenham, said: ‘I think people left for a variety of reasons.
‘If you look back to the early 2000s many people were able to retire to Clacton-on-Sea and they saw their friends going and followed.
‘But people also watched all this demographic change going on between 2000 and 2010 and they thought, “We don’t know where we are living any more”.
‘One day they are in a place that they think is Essex and then they are living in another place.
‘It has never been an issue of race. It’s about the inability of people to affect change. The world was changing around them and they couldn’t do anything about it.’
Behind white Britons, the largest ethnic group in London is now Asians – including those born here and those arriving from overseas – who make up 18 per cent of the population.
Black Londoners – including Africans, black Britons and those from the Caribbean – make up 13 per cent.
The census shows the proportion of white Britons in South Derbyshire went up by 13.7 per cent over the decade.
Other rural boroughs that saw big increases included North Kesteven and West Lindsey in Lincolnshire, Uttlesford in Essex, East Northamptonshire, East Cambridgeshire, Mid Suffolk, South Norfolk, Mid Devon and Forest Heath in Suffolk.
The census shows the population of England and Wales was swollen by nearly four million immigrants in a decade of sweeping social change.
In 2011 there were 7.5million people who were born abroad living here, of whom more than half had arrived since 2001. – Daily Mail
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