politics

  • Vous n’êtes pas Charlie

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

    Today an anti-terror rally is being held in Paris in memory of those killed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo (posts passim) and at a Kosher supermarket in recent days.

    It is said that up to 1.5 mn. people are attending the rally.

    Amongst the attendees are many politicians, led by President Hollande. Many foreign politicians are also attending.

    Charlie Hebdo was a beacon of free speech and freedom of the press. Several of the foreign politicians in attendance represent regimes whose treatment of the press is less than enlightened. They include:

    Hat tip: Daniel Wickham.

  • Bristol – European fly-tipping capital?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    In the world of the city’s great and good, Bristol is off to a flying start celebrating its year as European Green Capital.

    Plans are already well advanced to spend thousands on spurious ‘green‘ arts projects, such as dumping a load of old boats in picturesque Leigh Woods.

    According to the blurb on the European Green Capital website, the “European Green Capital Award (EGCA) has been conceived to recognise and reward local efforts to improve the environment, the economy and the quality of life in cities.”

    However, it would appear that there’s been little local effort – apart from protests by local residents and councillors – to improve the environment and quality of life in inner city areas such as Easton, Lawrence Hill and St Pauls, judging by the amount of fly-tipping that still goes on daily on our streets with no sign of a slackening or any meaningful enforcement efforts or action by Bristol’s seemingly impotent or uninterested city council.

    The photographs below were taken this morning by local resident Hannah Crudgington and are typical of the grottiness we inner city residents have to endure every day. All the photographs were taken within a couple of hundred metres of each other in the BS5 postcode area.

    fly-tipping at Twinnell House

    fly-tipping on Stapleton Road

    fly-tipped mattress on Goodhind Street

    Was Bristol awarded the European Green Capital award on false premises? Some in the city believe that to be the case. Judging the evidence of my own eyes, awarding Bristol with the European Green Capital award would have been more appropriate.

    Do you agree? Please feel free to comment.

  • Latvian man spends 4 weeks in jail due to interpreter problem

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    image of scales of justiceA Latvian man spent 4 weeks in jail for an offence that would normally have attracted a non-custodial sentence, the Shropshire Star reports.

    Rolands Etjantens pleaded guilty on 8th December to a charge of common assault, but was remanded in custody by Telford magistrates to await assessment by the probation service to see if he was suitable for community punishment.

    According to his solicitor, Etjantens’ lack of English also meant he was not suitable for unpaid work in the community or supervision by the probation service as both of these would also require the use of interpreters.

    District Judge Andrew King ultimately sentenced Etjantens, of no fixed abode, to 42 days in prison, meaning that he would be released within a few days.

  • Je suis Charlie

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

    Social media has responded quickly to the horrific attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, which resulted in 12 deaths and 5 injured. Four of those killed were Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Tignous and Georges Wolinski.

    The press office of Amnesty International in France has described that attack as “A black day for press freedom”.

    Many Twitter accounts changed their avatar to the Je suis Charlie image shown below, whilst many tweets were also tagged with the #JesuisCharlie hashtag.

    Je suis Charlie

    Some of the harshest condemnations of the attack have come from the attackers’ co-religionists. The imam of Drancy, Hassen Chalghoumi, is reported to have said: “Their barbarism has nothing to do with Islam”.

    My deepest condolences to the victims and their families.

  • Friend deputises when Capita interpreter fails to show

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    image of scales of justiceOn 29th December the Grantham Journal reported on the case of a Romanian man appearing before Grantham Magistrates Court charged with the theft of £2,000 worth of chewing gum and other items from two Lincolnshire supermarkets.

    31 year-old Ionut Dumitru Nae of Coventry, had pleaded guilty on 24th November to attempting to take £900 worth of gum and other items from Morrisons in Stamford and then stealing more packs of chewing gum, champagne and other products to the value of pound;1,500 from Asda in Grantham.

    However, the defendant had to rely on the assistance of his English-speaking friend to translate in court when no interpreter turned up.

    Hat tip: Linguist Lounge.

  • Want to bash immigrants? Use interpreters! The Express does!

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    The Daily Express, once described by Prince Philip as a “bloody awful newspaper“, is not well known for its love of foreigners.

    One has to wonder whether there are any limits the depths to which it will sink in its xenophobia.

    The latter was apparent in an article earlier this week on police use of interpreters in West Yorkshire (which are provided by our old friends and paragons of competence Capita Translation & Interpreting, according to the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. Ed.).

    Apparently the police had to resort to using interpreters 6,000 times for 75 different languages.

    The Express’ derisive attitude to foreigners is obvious in the report’s second sentence, as is its scant regard to skilled professionals such as interpreters being paid properly.

    The cost, believed to be rising because of a soaring number of immigrants, was not revealed but interpreters can command fees of up to £40 an hour.

    To support its xenophobia, the Express finds a willing accomplice in Bradford Tory councillor Michael Walls, who even goes so far as to suggest that officers with a second language assisting in interviews would be a cheaper option for the police than engaging a skilled professional interpreter. He is quoted by the Express as saying: “Police officers who have a second language would be more economical.”

    Clearly neither the Express nor Councillor Walls have heard of a minor impediment to such a scheme, one that’s called conflict of interest.

    Your correspondent wonders what the considered response of the Law Society would be to such a suggestion.

    The article is open to comments and Express readers are not backward in showing their xenophobia (and accompanying support for UKIP. Ed.) either. Indeed the first comment is quite definite, starting: “They should have to Speak English before we let them in!”

    How would that person feel if the tables were turned and he or she couldn’t go on holiday abroad because he couldn’t speak fluent, French, Spanish or Thai beforehand?

  • EU invests in free software

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

    EU flagGerman IT news site heise reports that the AT4AM free software package is to promote collaboration by NGOs in legislative processes within the EU. In addition, open source use within the EU is to be investigated in more detail.

    In the coming year the European Union wants to invest at least €1 mn. in free software. The 2015 EU budget, which was passed by the European Parliament on 17th December, makes provision for this. Two major projects are planned: firstly the open source AT4AM package, which is used by MEPs for drafing legislation, is to be extended to provide a tool for civil society to collaborate on lawmaking.

    In the “Governance and quality of software code – Auditing of free and open-source software” pilot project exposure to and the development of open source in the EU is to be aligned with the practices of free software projects such as the Debian community. In addition, an inventory will be made of the free software and open standards used in the EU and a code review of an open source software package used in the EU will be carried out as a showcase.

    This news has been welcomed by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). Its President, Karsten Gerloff, commented as follows:

    This is a very welcome decision. Like most public bodies, the European institutions rely heavily on Free Software for their daily operations. It is good to see that the Parliament and the Commission will invest at least a little in improving the quality and the programs they use. Taken together, these projects are a first step towards more transparent policy making in Europe. We will continue to work with the Commission and the Parliament to help them along the path of engaging more consistently and effectively with the Free Software community.

  • What do citizens gain when the public sector switches to free software?

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    The use and promotion of free software is becoming increasingly established in our country, writes Spain’s tusmedios.com. Major companies have joined together to promote this system, but open source software is gradually also gaining ground in the public sector, meaning that the citizen is seeing the real benefits of this migration in his or her daily life.

    In Spain, the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, the Junta of Andalusia and Zaragoza‘s city council are some examples of local and regional governments which have understood the advantages that come with the use of free software and the benefits it provides to society. Public sector organisations must be ready to respond to current challenges and needs, including the technological revolution. In addition to a costs saving, its implementation improves the quality of life of citizens, increases the efficiency and effectiveness of organisations and optimises productive processes.

    Mario Gómez Molina, tutor and adviser for the university master’s course in free software at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and project manager for the VASS consultancy explains that “the technological independence that free software assumes provides freedom of use, enables its tweaking, the incorporation of improvements and their unrestricted redistribution between citizens or employees. Besides providing greater security, it opens up the possibility of offering all citizens software that has been funded by public money and which can be useful, including for the private sector”.

    “One of the main reasons for our country’s public sector migrating to free software is adherence to universal standards,” Mario Gómez Molina points out. Since the European Union is promoting this change, there will be the possibility for different public sector organisations to share software for common problems.

    As Mr. Gómez explains, citizens have real life examples demonstrating the advantages to them from the use of this technology by public authorities. Education is a clear case. In a global economic environment in which the budget which families must allot is increasingly more restrictive, the use of this technology frees them from paying for proprietary software, but it also does so for schools, which are increasingly hit by budget cuts. On the other hand, there are already initiatives being put forward by certain autonomous communities where the free software to be used by schools has been agreed and that use has been supported so that its adoption has been widespread and both education departments and educational institutions has benefited, not just from a costs reduction, not solely from sharing the software itself, but the exchange of commonly-based experience that would otherwise have been very difficult to achieve”.

    Another example of the benefits provided to citizens of this migration is the development of business and entrepreneurial opportunities. When a public sector organisation makes this change, the building, repair, adaptation and improvement of the software can be carried out by local companies; this work is not restricted to the software’s owner. The development of professional in this sector is thus promoted, new jobs are created and company competitiveness is increased. This directly affects growth, in addition to reducing costs due to competition.

    The redistribution and optimum use of budgets is also an aspect that has a positive effect on society. It is estimated that with free software public sector organisations can save up to 70% on installation and licensing for computer applications. This assumes a better use of taxpayer’s money. For example, Zaragoza city council has estimated an annual saving of about €1 mn. per year due to the installation and use of free software.

    “Both the lack of staff trained to handle this technology and lack of awareness by society and the power wielded by the major proprietary software companies make it very difficult for us to see a complete public sector migration, but we shall doubtless see bigger and bigger steps being taken in this direction. In fact, there are many niches dominated by free software, both in the public and private sectors. This is the case with web servers, application servers, server operating systems, software development environments and programming tools,” comments Mario Gómez Molina.

    However, there is a need for public sector organisations themselves to promote the development and use of software to which they alone can contribute so there is an improvement in quality in this direction.

  • An idea from Yorkshire

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    I’m indebted to Up Our Street for the picture below.

    fly-tipping covered in Environmental Crime Scene tape
    Picture courtesy of Up Our Street

    It shows fly-tipping somewhere in Sheffield covered in tape bearing the wording “Enviro-crime scene“.

    The tape is being used in Sheffield and Rotherham in Yorkshire.

    According to the Rotherham Advertiser, the tape is being used to help make the public aware of the problem of illegal rubbish dumping.

    According to the mandatory council spokesperson quoted by the Advertiser, use of the tape “lets residents know that the council has responded and reassures the public that the council is aware of the items and that they will soon be removed.

    The spokesperson continues:

    It has also been our experience that once people realise that the council is on top of the matter it encourages residents to let us know who has been causing the problem.

    It also helps the cleaning team know that the item has been fully checked for evidence that could be used in prosecutions and indicates that it is ready to be removed.

    Can we get hold of some of this tape for Bristol’s BS5 area?

  • TidyBS5 at the Neighbourhood Forum

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    The regular meeting of the Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Forum took place in Barton Hill yesterday evening and once again the problems of litter and fly-tipping were a prominent item.

    I gave a brief summary of what had been happening campaign-wise over the last month and there were also some excellent contributions regarding future actions.

    One new development was a cleanliness petition which attendees were encouraged to sign by local councillors Hibaq Jama and Marg Hickman. The petition will be going online shortly and a link to it will be posted here when it’s available.

    One new angle to the cleanliness campaign is the Tidy BS5 Volunteer of the Month. The December winner is Angela Smith, who organised a Sunday litter pick in November in Bloy Street with her neighbours.

    Angela Smith receiving her award
    Angela Smith receiving her award. PiEdcture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    The local police also support TidyBS, as can be seen from the photo below.

    Police and local residents show support for TidyBS5
    Police and local residents show support for TidyBS5. Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    Bristol Mayor George Ferguson will be visiting Easton & Lawrence Hill wards in January and his minders for that visit will be making sure that the litter and fly-tipping problems which residents and those working in the area have to endure daily are well and truly to the fore in his itinerary.

    One related matter raised was recycling in the area’s high-rise flats. Young local people are trying to get then instated in some local tower blocks. At present, some blocks dating from the 1960s and with over 1,000 residents have no recycling facilities at all. (Not a very positive message or good example from a city that’s only a fortnight or so away from being European Green Capital for 2015. Ed.). However, Deputy Mayor Gus Hoyt has been talking to researchers at UWE about recycling in high-rise blocks. UWE’s researchers have found out that when flats are given recycling boxes, the average recycling rate is only about 10%. In reality it is more economical and efficient to collect rubbish together and then sort it at the waste depot. Gus’ research is continuing and will no doubt lead to changes in recycling practices sometime in the future

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