politics

  • Ashton Gate station petition

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    One transport project which is moving closer to realisation in the Bristol area – and is popular with locals too – is the reopening to passenger traffic of the railway line to Portishead (which is currently only used by freight trains to and from Portbury Dock. Ed.).

    The project will entail building a new station at Portishead and reopening Pill station.

    However, there’s also a petition to rally support for the building of a new station at Ashton Gate to replace the now-vanished original Ashton Gate station.

    The site of the original Ashton Gate station
    The site of the original Ashton Gate station. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    The petition reads as follows.

    We are local residents and organisations (big and small) in BS3 campaigning for a new railway station in Ashton Gate on the Portishead branch line.

    We want a new station opening in 2019 with two trains an hour in both directions – towards Portishead and Temple Meads.

    In 2019 the Portishead rail line will be upgraded for new passenger services linking Bristol, Bath, Avonmouth and Portishead. New stations are being built at Pill and Portishead. Four trains an hour will pass through Ashton Gate.

    A station linked into the local bus network would encourage visits to the area and promote the local economy. We believe trains must stop at Ashton Gate to allow residents, workers and visitors to come and go easily and comfortably whilst decreasing the strain on the heavily-used local road network.

    A new station would bring substantial, long-term benefits to South West Bristol. Local people are increasingly turning to public transport and more rail services help to promote the city as a European Green Capital.

    Sign the petition.

  • Lampeter: fears of council divide over language

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Lampeter Town Council crestLampeter Town Council could have translation at its council meetings to allow more Welsh to be spoken after the mayor said she felt “guilty” that the council doesn’t use enough Welsh, according to a report in Cambrian News Online.

    Mayor Cllr. Elsie Dafis is reported as saying that her term in that office had brought home to her the fact that the council could do more to promote the Welsh language and stated that the town council must do more, starting by enabling more Welsh to be spoken at council meetings.

    Nevertheless, Cllr. Ellis’ idea did not find favour with a colleague – Cllr. Kistiah Ramaya. The latter had concerns that the move could divide the council and was concerned that having translation could sideline councillors who didn’t speak Welsh and might even dissuade non-Welsh speakers from joining the council.

    Cllr. Ellis informed her colleagues that council could have a translator and equipment at their meetings for under £1,000 a year. However, Cllr. Ramaya said that while he supported the Welsh language, he felt that discussions could move on before non-Welsh speakers had received the translation of comments made.

    Lampeter is the smallest university town in the UK, with a population including the university of some 4,000 people.

    According to Wikipedia, Welsh is no longer taught at undergraduate level at the University of Wales in Lampeter.

    Hat tip: Yelena McCafferty.

  • The birds are nesting; time to fell more trees

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    The weather is warming up, summer migrant birds are returning to the UK to breed in the trees, shrubs and other traditional nesting sites; and as regular as clockwork, Bristol City Council sends workmen out to destroy those same traditional nesting sites, as witnessed this morning at the junction of Lawrence Hill and Croydon Street.

    three mature trees being felled by city council contractors

    During the few minutes it took me to buy a tin of coffee up the road, the two trunks seen standing in the photo had been felled, joining a previously felled companion. All three felled were – as far as I could see – healthy specimens.

    As regards protecting breeding birds and mitigating harm during the breeding season, Natural England’s advice (PDF, p. 4) is as follows:

    The main mitigation route to reduce the likelihood of harm to breeding birds is to undertake clearance or destruction of any vegetation or structure which may be used as a breeding site outside the bird breeding season when breeding birds are unlikely to be present (based upon habitat features) or where survey work has confirmed their absence. Avoidance of such features is best achieved through timing of work (see below) but may also be possible by temporarily preventing birds from using these features, before they start doing so. Examples include physical exclusion (preventing access to potential nest sites) or use of visual or audible deterrents. Such measures should only be undertaken following the advice of a suitably experienced ecologist, taking account of relevant legislation and welfare considerations.

    The bird breeding season will be dependent upon weather conditions and will vary from year to year, but in general is the period between early March and late August.

    Natural England acts as an adviser to central government on the natural environment, providing practical science-based advice on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of all.

    By carrying out such works at this time of year, Bristol City Council is not only disregarding the advice given by Natural England, but also its own advice which it gives to community groups (PDF) carrying out conservation works involving trees. Page 2 of this document clearly states in relation to coppicing that this should be carried out between October and February. In the exact words of the guidance (page 2), this

    Should be done during the dormant season and outside the bird nesting season.

    In another city council document (PDF) entitled Tree Management Standards, page 4 clearly states:

    Nesting birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (and other related wildlife law).

    All this is happening in the year when Bristol is allegedly European Green Capital. However, the city council seems more interested in press stunts than in sound environmental practice that protects the environment and wildlife.

    Readers with long-term memories may remember that scrub clearance took place last year nearby at Lawrence Hill roundabout (posts passim).

  • Courts interpreting fiasco rumbles on… expensively

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Although it may not be hitting the headlines in the way it was a couple of years ago, Capita Translation & Interpreting’s cack-handed execution of its interpreting contract for courts and tribunals with the Ministry of Justice continues to waste public money, as well as delay and deny justice (contrary to one of the few clauses of Magna Carta still in effect. Ed.), as evidenced by this cutting from the latest edition of Private Eye.

    cutting from Private Eye

    Hat tip: Sarrf London.

  • Non-English and non-Welsh speakers to be charged premium rate by DVLA

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    In what appears to be a last-ditch swipe against foreigners, motorists who don’t speak either English or Welsh and want to use DVLA’s translation service will pick up the costs under changes announced on 25th March 2015 (the day before Parliament was prorogued. Ed.) by Transport Minister Baroness Kramer.

    telephone
    Picture courtesy of Holger Ellgaard and Wikimedia Commons
    The changes, which take effect from 29th April 2015, mean callers who request a translation service will now pay for the cost of the call. Currently, the cost of providing a translation service is covered by DVLA.

    Transport Minister Baroness Kramer said: “The vast majority of calls to DVLA are either free or charged at local rate. However, it is only right that the cost of using translation services is paid for by those who use them. The change will help encourage individuals who don’t speak English very well to learn the language and also help when accessing government services.”

    Under the changes, those who need a translation service will need to call the premium rate numbers, which will be publicised by DVLA closer to the implementation date of 29th April.

    The numbers will be available from 8am to 7pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 2pm on Saturday. Calling these telephone numbers will cost £1.03 per minute from a landline and may cost considerably more from a mobile.

    All other public calls to DVLA contact centre are either free or charged at local rate.

    Hat tip: Yelena McCafferty.

  • Evolve OS changes name to Solus

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Politics, Tech

    This blog reported yesterday that the developers of the Evolve OS Linux desktop operating system had received a letter from lawyers acting for the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation & Skills informing them that BIS’ OS trade mark was being infringed and that the developers would have to pick a new name.

    Evolve OS screenshot

    Ikey Doherty of the development team has now posted the following statement on Google+:

    Thank you, everyone for helping us in the naming process! In that time, one name cropped up time and time again. A name we do own, and one indicative of our history and roots. Most importantly, the longevity, history and direct, traceable link of this name provides absolute and irrefutable evidence of prior art, and all rights to the name within this context. We have purchased solus-project.com and solus-project.net. Thus, Evolve OS will now be known (once again) as Solus. The full name for the operating system component of the project (i.e. the Linux distro) is Solus Operating System – the entirety of the project is the Solus Project.

  • Petition to end copyright rustling

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities

    No Peanuts for Translators has posted a petition on Change.org to collect signatures for an end to copyright rustling – the deliberate deprivation of intellectual property rights for translators of literary works. Under copyright, literary translations are considered to be derivative works and their authors are entitled to royalties.

    sheriff with copyright rustler wanted poster

    The text of the petition reads as follows:

    Recent research shows that translators’ copyrights are “rustled” one third of the time in trade and commercial publishing—and eighty percent of the time in university-press publishing.

    Simply put, copyright rustling happens when a book publisher takes something from a translator that rightfully belongs to the translator alone: copyright to his or her work.

    Some of the biggest copyright rustlers in 2014 also happened to be some of the biggest publishers of translations in English—Europa Editions, Atlantyca, New Vessel Press, Gallic Books, Columbia University Press, Skyhorse Publishing, Yale University Press, Bloomsbury, Routledge, and others. (See Copyright “Rustling” in English-Language Translation: How Translators Keep (and Lose) Rights to Their Work—Data from Translations Published in 2014; http://tinyurl.com/lzpz2cm.)**

    Copyright rustling is not inevitable. It is not “standard industry practice.” It is not necessary for the translator-publisher relationship to function nor does it help publishers “afford” to publish translations.

    Let’s cut through the nonsense. Copyright rustling is a symptom of translators’ lack of negotiating power and of publishers’ willingness to exploit that weakness to their own advantage.

    No Peanuts! calls upon all publishers of translations in English:

    * Take copyright off the table. Negotiate fair terms with translators for licensing the use of their copyright, but recognize that the translation belongs to the translator who is allowing you to use it.

    * Take copyright off the table. Recognize translators’ legal and moral rights to their intellectual property.

    * Take copyright off the table. Stop coercing translators by making copyright transfer a take-it-or-leave-it condition of publishing contracts.

    Mutual respect always. Copyright rustling never!

    (Learn more about this issue on the No Peanuts! blog: https://nopeanuts.wordpress.com/resistance/stop-copyright-rustling.) Or write: nopeanuts.fortranslators@gmail.com.

    ———————-
    ** At the close of the campaign, a copy of the petition & signatures will be delivered to the following publishers. If you’d like to contact them directly in the meantime, their addresses are listed in Copyright Rustling: http://tinyurl.com/lzpz2cm. Atlantyca, Bloomsbury, Cambridge University Press, Cistercian Publications, Columbia University Press, Duke University Press, Europa Editions, Fordham University Press, Gallic Books, Glagoslav Publications, Hackett Publishing, HarperCollins, Harvard University Press, Ignatius Press, Karnac Books, New Vessel Press, Palgrave/McMillan, Princeton University Press, Routledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Skyhorse Publishing, Stanford University Press, SUNY Press, Syracuse University Press, University of Chicago Press.

    Sign the petition and help prevent fellow linguists being ripped off.

  • Evolve OS name change forced by trade mark dispute with UK government

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    The Evolve OS desktop Linux distribution is being forced into a change of name due to potential trade mark problems with the UK government, Softpedia reports.

    Evolve OS screenshot

    The bone of contention is not the Evolve element, but OS, which is apparently a trade mark registered to registered to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whose trade mark agents are a company called Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP.

    In its headline, Softpedia describes this trademark registration as “stupid“.

    Writing yesterday on Google+, the developers stated:

    This is not an April Fools post

    We will be required to change the name of the Evolve OS project, to avoid unnecessary legal action. All I will say right now is that the dispute is UK specific, and I have been informed that the relevant trademarks are held by the Secretary of State.

    The letter goes beyond asking for a withdrawal of trademark application and asks we stop using the “mark”.

    Clearly this is going to be an expensive and painful road in either direction, so we shall go with a rename.

    The developers have also asked for the help of the free and open source community to come up with a new name that would be free of trademark infringements.

    Reposted from Bristol Wireless.

  • PI4J launches manifesto at election time

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    PI4J logoProfessional Interpreters for Justice (PI4J) is an umbrella group an umbrella group representing over 2,000 interpreters on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI) and 300 British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters.

    It has been campaigning since the Ministry of Justice signed an agreement with ALS (later Capita Translation & Interpreting) for the provision of interpreting services for courts and tribunals on the basis that reliable communication provided by qualified professional interpreters and translators is an essential resource which ensures that justice and human rights are upheld for non-English speakers and deaf people. This is put at risk if standards are dropped and quality is sacrificed for profit.

    To highlight the threats to justice and human rights by cost-cutting on the provision of interpreters in the justice system and against the background of the forthcoming general election, PI4J has published a 7 point manifesto (PDF), as follows:

    • The use of qualified interpreters: Only qualified and experienced Public Service Interpreters to be
      used within the current MoJ Languages Services Framework Agreement and in any future arrangements.
    • Full consultation with the interpreting profession: Future arrangements cannot succeed without the
      support of professional interpreters.
    • Sustainable terms and conditions to be offered to interpreters: to ensure the success of any future
      arrangements and quality of service.
    • Independent auditing of quality and performance: Credible scrutiny of contract management and
      adherence to its provisions is essential, and should be part of the role of an independent Quality
      Assurance and Quality Management body.
    • Independent regulators: Regulation and the maintenance of registers should not be in the hands of
      private providers. In line with government guidance, since 1 April 2011 the NRPSI has been a fully
      independent regulator of the profession, paid for by the interpreters and run solely in the public
      interest. PI4J is of the view that the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deaf Blind People (NRCPD) should also be independent.
    • Minimum levels of interpreter qualification: Interpreter training as well as language fluency with a minimum level of entry-level qualification must be required with skills maintained and developed
      through a programme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Provision should be put in place to encourage the supply of Rare Language interpreters.
    • Statutory protection of title: A working group must be set up to examine the feasibility of the
      introduction of statutory protection for the title of Public Service Interpreter.
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