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string(1541) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R6RqkMzku8I/AAAAAAAAAJ8/OK2wPnqSdws/s1600-h/spanishcivilwar.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162368243018808258" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R6RqkMzku8I/AAAAAAAAAJ8/OK2wPnqSdws/s200/spanishcivilwar.jpg" border="0" /></a> The Wise and Foolish Dreamers: Wales and the Spanish Civil War exhibition is now on display at the Welsh Centre for International Affairs, Temple of Peace, in Cardiff.<br />The centre’s links to the Welsh involvement in the Spanish Civil War go back to the 1980s when it began to manage a special fund donated by Welsh veterans of the International Brigade.<br />The money was to be used to maintain links between young people in Wales and Spain.<br />Wise and Foolish Dreamers is the biggest project so far carried out with the help of the fund, and it is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.<br />It includes a touring exhibition, a DVD, and a book, which pupils from three schools had a hand in helping to design and produce.<br />The project was launched in May 2007. This exhibition, which consists of 6 large panels and a short film, has already been displayed at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Ammanford Library, the National Eisteddfod in Flintshire, Rhondda Heritage Park, Trehafod and Pyle Life Centre in Bridgend.<br />It is at the Temple of Peace until February 12, where there will also be a major conference on February 9-10. Speakers will include Professor Paul Preston."
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string(24) "2008-08-15T16:05:00.002Z"
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string(2935) "The International Olympic Committee awarded Germany the 1936 Games before Hitler came to power.<br />But once German Chancellor, he seized the Olympics as a powerful propaganda tool.<br />Governments, including those of the United States and the UK, rejected calls for a boycott, even though Jewish athletes had been removed from Germany’s Olympic and Davis Cup teams.<br />However, international opposition to the Berlin games was great and it is a little known fact that ‘counter-Olympics’ were planned in a number of places.<br />The biggest of these was to be in Spain. History has forgotten it, not least because the proposed People’s Olympiad never took place.<br />In the summer of 1936 Spain saw the rise of its own branch of fascism. General Franco moved to seize power and the Spanish Civil War began.<br />The People’s Olympiad had to be cancelled.<br />Seven decades on, though, and with another Olympics underway, the spirit of the event is being recalled.<br />Members of the National Clarion Cycling Club had been expected to take part in the alternative Olympiad in Spain.<br />After it was cancelled – and with the war in full swing - two decided to undertake an amazing ride from Glasgow to Barcelona to raise money for the Spanish Republic (two other club members were to be killed in the civil war).<br />That was in 1938. On Wednesday, July 30, 2008, a group of 14 riders left Scotland to begin a 20-day ride on the cyclists’ 70-year-old trail.<br />They are due to arrive in Barcelona on Tuesday, August 19.<br />Anna Martí and publisher Alan Warren, who have done so much to keep alive the memory of Welsh veterans of the Spanish Civil War, are on the team.<br />Maite de Paul Otxotorena, who was born in Spain’s Basque country but now lives near Ammanford, is there in support and has organised the Spanish leg of the route.<br />Maite says the event ties together not only the 1936 Olympics and those currently being held in Beijing (which have been controversial in their own way too) but also Barcelona’s Games in 1992.<br />“I was a child in Franco’s military Spain when our memory of our history had been lost,” she says. “Events like the 1992 Olympics and the Expo put an international focus on Spain. People started to research our history.<br />“But as I have been contacting the mayors and the cycling clubs in the places we will be travelling through no one has heard of the other Olympics planned for 1936.<br />“Events like this are part of the end of our amnesia.”<br />I spoke to Anna Martí before the ride as she took a break in her training for the 2,000km journey.<br />“I have been told to take plenty of clothes for Scotland,” she told me. “But when we get to Spain we come through an area which is like a desert.<br />“It will be like cycling towards the centre of the Earth.”<br />:: First published in <em>The Big Issue Cymru</em>, July 28, 2008"
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string(24) "2008-07-07T20:31:00.003Z"
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string(33) "More than just the usual suspects"
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string(4571) "<span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >A bill presented by Cardiff Central MP Jenny Willott has had its first reading in the House of Commons.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Ms Willott wants information about innocent people removed from the Government’s ever-growing DNA database.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Unfortunately, I’m told by people who understand these things, the bill has no chance of becoming law.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />At the moment one million people who have not being convicted of any crime have their names on the database. More than 100,000 of them are children.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“As well as the loss of civil liberties, all the evidence shows that continuing to take, analyse and store innocent people's DNA has not improved crime detection rates,” said the Lib Dem MP. “In fact the cost of doing so means fewer resources for frontline policing.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“Our criminal justice system was built on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. We need to bring that principle back by allowing innocent people to get their DNA removed from the database.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Last October, Preseli Pembrokeshire Tory Stephen Crabb raised the case of 75-year-old Geoffrey Orchard.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mr Orchard had been wrongfully arrested and had received a written apology from the police - but he couldn’t get his DNA removed from the database.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mr Crabb tackled Meg Hillier, of the Home Office.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“Does she really understand the enormous extent to which good will and support for the police and for her department are being undermined by a system in which DNA information is being recorded aggressively, but removed in a haphazard way and on a discretionary basis, dependent on police force area?” he asked in Parliament.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />He added recently: “I have never questioned the usefulness of this tool for the police, but have grown increasingly concerned at the energetic way in which DNA profiles are collected, even from completely innocent parties with no connection to a crime scene.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />In Wales, the use of DNA technology in eventually solving the murder of Lynette White, killed in Cardiff in 1988, is often highlighted in support of the database.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But it’s worth noting that Lynette's horrific murder was not solved because an innocent person's DNA was held. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />During that </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3044282.stm" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:100%;">re-investigation</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> officers and forensic scientists made a partial match of DNA found at the murder scene with that of a teenager from whom a sample had been taken following arrest. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />The match meant the teenager – not even born when Lynette was killed - had to be related to the killer.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mrs Hillier told Stephen Crabb last year: “It is worth stressing that a person's DNA being on the database does not suggest guilt.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Worth stressing also that we are citizens, or subjects even, but not suspects.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">:: Big Issue Cymru, June 30 - July 4, 2008<br />:: Update of 'Protecting Our DNA'<br /></span>"
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string(12) "War is Peace"
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string(4228) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdX6GS5FCI/AAAAAAAAALY/NmK-8SVA8To/s1600-h/DTR+1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217235348965889058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdX6GS5FCI/AAAAAAAAALY/NmK-8SVA8To/s200/DTR+1.jpg" border="0" /></a>Who will be training their soldiers at the new Defence Training Academy at St Athan?<br />It’s a question that’s been exercising campaigners who feel the development is not just pledging Wales to a future of “militarism”, but wondering to whose military we are making that pledge.<br />I mean, we are never going to stop people killing other people. But does it look like we even want to?<br />Especially if private security companies – like the ones fighting wars for ‘us’ by proxy in Iraq – will be getting trained there.<br />I contacted the Ministry of Defence under the Freedom of Information Act to ask if, for instance, the MoD would ban any particular nations from using the training camp.<br />And what about private security companies – would they be able to send personnel there?<br />After a short delay I received an email from Brigadier Geoff Nield, a project leader with the Defence Training Review.<br />Under this privatised scheme, it seems, the first decision on who comes in from the outside for training is down to the Metrix Consortium – a group of arms/defence companies and educational establishments like the Open University. <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdW7gbRJiI/AAAAAAAAALA/K1cCl97EYUk/s1600-h/DTR+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217234273648584226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdW7gbRJiI/AAAAAAAAALA/K1cCl97EYUk/s200/DTR+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />“The MoD is content that Metrix may deliver training and accommodation services to third parties as long as certain contractual conditions and restraints are met,” said Brigadier Nield.<br />“These include, for example, not impairing the delivery of military training to the MoD, meeting security requirements and maintaining military ethos on-site.<br />“Furthermore, MoD reserves the right to approve or forbid the use of training assets (including facilities) for third parties.”<br />So, could a regime like Burma for instance, on paying the right fees, get its soldiers trained here? After all, Britain kindly sold more than 40 Hawk aircraft to the Indonesians during the 1980s and 1990s before world attention suggested that helping the country suppress the East Timorese did not make Britain either great or a land of much hope and glory.<br />“The MoD…prioritises those countries that receive training on a case by case basis. Where there is a mutual agreement between the UK and countries of interest, agreed scheduled training courses can be attended by those invited, subject to availability and appropriate security clearance.”<br />There is, some might say, an Orwellian feel to the response. The MoD insists on calling the centre a “college” and the non-UK attendees, “students”.<br />In addition, the MoD also states that the training of private contractors and foreign armies is actually about making a stable world for our children’s children.<br /><div><div><div><div></div><div></div><div>“A key ten<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdXrssxd-I/AAAAAAAAALQ/RmztEGu7pss/s1600-h/DTR+3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217235101576951778" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdXrssxd-I/AAAAAAAAALQ/RmztEGu7pss/s200/DTR+3.jpg" border="0" /></a>et of UK foreign policy is to encourage diplomatic engagement with foreign countries so as to not only serve UK interests but also develop long term stability throughout regions of the world,” said the brigadier. “The MoD supports this policy in different guises, one of which is to train foreign students, both in UK and abroad as arranged through overseas embassies and high commissions.”<br />War is peace, then, after all.<br /></div><div> </div><div><br />::The Big Issue Cymru, June 16-22, 2008</div></div></div></div>"
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string(490) "Can there really be a person of integrity at the heart of British politics?<br />Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP to force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency.<br />He'll fight the by-election on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit and as a fight against the Government's erosion of civil liberties.<br />"I will argue in this by-election against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government," he says."
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string(1539) "Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott was today due to present a private Bill in the Commons to reform the way the DNA register is run.<br />The Cardiff Central MP says innocent people should have their DNA taken off the Government database.<br />Ms Willott told the <em>Western Mail</em>: “If you are not charged or you are acquitted then your DNA should be removed. People who have voluntarily given samples, say to help in a police investigation, can’t have their DNA taken off the register either, so potentially there are a lot of people affected.<br />“I don’t think the public realise quite how far it’s going.”<br />The <a href="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/06/11/take-innocent-people-s-dna-off-database-says-welsh-mp-91466-21054479/"><em>Western Mail</em> also reports that</a>: “Although the use of DNA technology has led to the clearing-up of several unsolved murders, including that of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White, killed in 1988, there are fears that the database is a breach of civil liberties.”<br />But it’s worth noting that Lynette's horrific murder was not solved because an innocent person's DNA was held.<br />During that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3044282.stm">re-investigation</a> officers and forensic scientists made a partial match of DNA found at the 1988 murder scene with that of a teenager from whom a sample had been taken following arrest.<br />The match meant the teenager – not even born when Lynette was killed - had to be related to the killer."
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string(24) "Keeping Faith in the USA"
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string(3563) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SEpneR5B8bI/AAAAAAAAAKw/RrcfP83tXag/s1600-h/bruce+hat.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209089688903741874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SEpneR5B8bI/AAAAAAAAAKw/RrcfP83tXag/s200/bruce+hat.bmp" border="0" /></a>On Saturday June 14, Bruce Springsteen plays at the Millennium Stadium.<br />It will be his first concert in Wales, although he's been coming to the UK since 1975.<br />Back then, a huge amount of hype surrounded his third album, Born to Run.<br />"At last, London is ready for Bruce Springsteen," boasted the record company's posters – some of which Springsteen himself climbed up onto billboards to rip down.<br />In 1984 and 1985 he rode the hype, and indeed contributed to it himself, for the Born in the USA album and tour, a period so overblown that for many it still dominates his image.<br />Hardcore fans, and he inspires dedication most artists can only dream of, know there is much more to him than that.<br />In his writing he's covered every subject from the economic despair of many of America's industrial heartlands, to the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the atrocities of September 11.<br />The plight of refugees, and immigrants to the United States from Mexico in particular, have been central to his work.<br />"For everything the North gives, it exacts a price in return," warns one Mexican father as his sons head across the Rio Bravo.<br />Campaigning journalist John Pilger called Springsteen a "fine humanitarian artist", real praise from someone who has charted so much that has gone wrong in US foreign policy.<br />In February 1999 a 22-year-old West African immigrant named Kadiatou Diallo died in a hail of police bullets in New York.<br />Springsteen wrote a song about it, causing the city's police department to boycott his gigs at Madison Square Garden.<br />But where are the major artists covering the significant events in Britain's social and political life?<br />Why did no artist see the 2005 shooting of unarmed Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by London police officers as a subject for protest?<br />Billy Bragg has said: "Springsteen makes me keep faith in America".<br />Bragg is a dedicated Springsteen fan. So are James Dean Bradfield, of the Manic Street Preachers, and Swansea-born comedian Rob Brydon, who already has his ticket for the Millennium Stadium gig.<br />And so am I.<br />I think we all need Bruce – not just America.<br /><br />(Bruce fans go <a href="http://www.springsteeninireland.blogspot.com/">here</a>.)<br /><br />Ana Lucia Pinzon is the most senior female trade unionist in Colombia.<br />And being a trade unionist – of either gender - - in Colombia takes a special kind of courage. An estimated 2,600 have been killed over the last 20 years.<br />The US and the UK have poured weapons into this deeply divided country, claiming to be fighting a war against drugs.<br />But Justice for Colombia, a British-based NGO, and others, claim the weapons are instead used in a bloody counter-insurgency war.<br />And according to Amnesty International, all sides in the conflict, including the army and army-backed paramilitaries, have been "responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity".<br />I only know what I read. Ana will describe all this first hand when she gives a special talk at the Memorial Hall, Bodhyfryd, Wrexham, at 2.30pm on Saturday (June 7).<br /><br />::First published in <em>The Big Issue Cymru</em>, June 2-8, 2008"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4467967341166363278"
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string(24) "2008-05-31T15:23:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-06-11T16:12:17.539Z"
["title"]=>
string(23) "Archbishop Tutu in Gaza"
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string(279) "<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7426813.stm">This short report</a> on Archbishop Desmond Tutu's visit to Gaza is only two minutes and three seconds long.<br />Watching it won't take up much of your weekend. But his words might stay with you for much longer."
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string(68) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/05/archbishop-tutu-in-gaza.html"
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string(58) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-632913261951309295"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-05-30T09:44:00.002Z"
["updated"]=>
string(24) "2008-05-30T10:07:57.846Z"
["title"]=>
string(31) "WAG's asylum point of principle"
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string(2098) "There was a predictable outcry when the Welsh Assembly Government decided recently to allow asylum seekers, who have been refused permission to stay in the UK, access to hospital treatment.<br />It was the usual knee-jerk reaction. One has to wonder what these people would do if they came across someone in pain, or suffering a life-threatening illness, but who they suspected to be from abroad.<br />Would they check first whether they should be 'here', whether they pay their taxes?The Tories, as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/betsanpowys/2008/05/mwy_1.html">Betsan Powys</a> of the BBC, pointed out, got very confused over the new policy.<br />Obviously, they didn’t want to appear soft on foreigners – heaven forbid – but the true blues are a little wet over this side of Offa’s Dyke, a little too caring.<br />Today, in an excellent letter to the <em>Western Mail</em>, Cathy Owens, programme director for Amnesty International in Wales, describes the “outrage from the usual quarters about queue-jumping and fairness for British taxpayers”.<br />Some of this is based on valid argument, she says, but some is based on “misinformation and xenophobia”.<br />Asking readers to put themselves into the shoes of some of the 3,000 asylum seekers in Wales – many of whom have fled repression and war - she says: “A few hundred may not win the right to stay, but may find it very difficult to return – they may not be able to travel back to Afghanistan, Darfur or Zimbabwe.”<br />If they fall ill, they can go to a GP but cannot be treated as inpatients at hospital.<br />Last year, only 11 people in this situation needed treatment in Welsh hospitals – a small number when you consider that more than 300,000 operations take place in Wales every year.<br />“For each of those 11 people behind the headlines, it could have been the difference between life and death,” writes Owens.<br />WAG’s decision was a point of principle – that we don’t refuse help to anyone who is ill or dying. And it was one that makes our nation a little more humane."
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string(75) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/05/wags-asylum-point-of-principle.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-6248474225731490137"
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string(24) "2008-04-27T11:21:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-27T11:23:55.661Z"
["title"]=>
string(45) "Questions at university over military academy"
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string(3033) "Protesters say they’ve found the first chinks in the armour of the arms and defence consortium behind the new St Athan training academy.<br />Much is being made about the educational courses which will be on offer at the massive base – and the Open University’s involvement in the Metrix Consortium is key to that.<br />The OU has a commitment to “social justice”. But as one campaigner put it to me: “How will the OU feel if in a few years time Burmese troops are being trained at St Athan?”<br />It seems people within the OU have been asking similar questions.<br />Following a demonstration outside the OU offices in Cardiff recently its Wales director Rob Humphreys said its involvement was about “delivering the highest possible quality of support” to Britain’s armed services.<br />However, when I pressed the OU on claims that staff had been contacting demonstrators with messages of support and that there might even have been discussions about leaving the consortium, the OU was less bullish.<br />“Any community as large in number and as diverse in opinion as the Open University will include people who hold differing views about some of their organisation’s activities,” came the response from its Milton Keynes HQ.<br />“More than anywhere else, it is in a university that such diversity of opinion and discussion of issues are – and should be – found. In this case, a very small number of staff have raised concerns about the University’s involvement, and their concerns are noted.<br />“The involvement of the University in all major projects with external partners is reviewed regularly by senior managers as part of good business practice. The University’s participation in the Metrix Consortium is no different.”<br />Watch this space then, as the old gossip columnists used to say.<br /><br />Comedy’s hot property at the moment is Wales-made ‘Gavin and Stacey’ and in a recent programme Gavin and his mum had problems at the Severn Bridge when they couldn’t find cash.<br />“Don’t they take card?” said mum. “Everyone takes card.”<br />Welsh Lib Dem leader Mike German spotted an opportunity for a press release.<br />“Gavin and Stacey may be a comedy, but it highlights a very serious issue, one that hits the people of Wales hard,” he said. “The Welsh Liberal Democrats have repeatedly called for changes to the Severn Bridges Act to allow road users to pay by credit or debit card.”<br />Far better for Mr G to continue with his other campaign – reported only four months ago – to get the charges scrapped.<br />As he pointed out then, the tolls on both bridges have already raised £684m – more than double the cost of the 1996 second crossing.<br />And there’s no sign of a free crossing for some time to come.<br />In February UK transport minister Rosie Winterton said the tolls would have to raise £995,830,000 before motorists would stop shelling out.<br />No laughing matter at all.<br /><br />::Big Issue Cymru, April 21, 2008"
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string(82) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/questions-at-university-over-military.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4401443552120869766"
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string(24) "2008-04-23T16:07:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-23T16:16:44.914Z"
["title"]=>
string(14) "Airman Missing"
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string(1708) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SA9gwhBHKNI/AAAAAAAAAKU/hXVSy5Pq_Rc/s1600-h/Hiding+in+the+woods+-+John+Evans+is+front+right,+wearing+the+hat.+(Greg+Lewis).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5192475281994492114" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SA9gwhBHKNI/AAAAAAAAAKU/hXVSy5Pq_Rc/s200/Hiding+in+the+woods+-+John+Evans+is+front+right,+wearing+the+hat.+(Greg+Lewis).jpg" border="0" /></a>Back in the 1970s the BBC produced a critically-acclaimed drama series called <em>Secret Army</em>.<br />The programme followed the exploits of a group of ordinary Belgians who ran an evasion line, helping Allied airman return to Britain after being shot down.<br />The series was based on the Comet Line, a network established by a young Belgian girl, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/10/18/db1801.xml">Andrée de Jongh</a>, who died last year.<br />One of the men saved by the line was John Evans from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire.<br /><em><a href="http://newmanbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/newman-books-is-about-publishing-books.html">Airman Missing</a></em> (see left) tells the story of John’s life behind enemy lines and, in particular, pays tribute to the brave volunteers who saved his life.<br />It also describes how he tracked many of them down after the war. There were some tearful reunions.<br />And there were sadly others who had not survived to be reunited with those they had protected during the dark days of Nazi occupation.<br />:: Pictured John Evans (in the hat) hides out in a Belgian wood in 1944 with fellow airmen and escaped Russian prisoners of war."
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string(59) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/airman-missing.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4871685307403230777"
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string(24) "2008-04-17T13:53:00.007Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-21T08:00:49.368Z"
["title"]=>
string(32) "The Open University and St Athan"
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string(1098) "The Open University is apparently facing pressure from its own staff over its part in Metrix Consortium, the developers behind the St Athan military training academy.<br />I've spoken to OU about these concerns and about whether it is considering pulling out of the consortium - the full report is in the Big Issue Cymru (April 21).<br />Thanks to <a href="http://lutherapblissett.blogspot.com/2008/03/open-university-st-athan-ethics-row.html">Luther ap Blissett</a> for flagging this up.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/080416terror.shtml">Hold The Front Page</a> has reported journalists' concerns about provisions in the Counter-Terrorism Bill which could affect media investigation and reporting.<br />These include new offences of eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of the armed forces, new search and seizure powers and new ministerial controls over inquests.<br />The Newspaper Society has written to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.<br />:: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm">Photographer or terrorist?</a>"
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string(73) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-university-and-st-athan.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-3439351208710259311"
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string(24) "2008-04-16T10:52:00.004Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-16T11:13:50.144Z"
["title"]=>
string(29) "The goats who lord it over us"
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string(1450) "<a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2007/07/threat-to-minimum-wage-in-wales.html">Digby Jones</a> is poised to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/16/gordonbrown.labour">leave</a> Gordon Brown's government of all the talents (Goat) before the next election.<br />Perhaps future goats brought in by the Labour Party will represent areas of society which have less access to power than Lord Jones' friends.<br />Jones, after all, is hardly a champion of the voiceless and the vulnerable.<br />A corporate lawyer by background, his previous senior corporate advisory positions have included senior advisor to Barclays Capital, chairman of the Deloitte Industries Group, corporate and governmental affairs advisor to Ford of Europe and Premier Automotive Group, advisor to JCB and member of the advisory board of Aggregate Industries.<br />His period in government has given big business the ear of Gordon Brown.<br />But it has surely helped the individual too - particularly, if that individual is Lord Jones. His <a href="http://www.cityspeakersinternational.co.uk/speakers/speaker_digby_jones.php?PHPSESSID=apsf2dvv96m">consultancy and after dinner fees</a> are certain to rise.<br />He also, of course, got a peerage out of his entry into government. Will he now hand that back, <a href="http://www.birminghammail.net/2008/04/16/birmingham-mp-khalid-mahmood-urges-lord-jones-to-quit-97319-20770643/">as suggested by one MP</a>?"
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string(70) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/goats-who-lord-it-over-us.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-1178902117681940374"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-04-11T11:57:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-11T12:09:50.881Z"
["title"]=>
string(15) "Remembering Ama"
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string(1108) "There will be a demonstration in memory of <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/amas-death-on-britains-conscience.html">Ama </a>Sumani later this month in Cardiff.<br />Ama died in Ghana on March 19 after being removed from the University Hospital of Wales while receiving treatment for cancer.<br />Campaigners hope that the event will be both a tribute to Ama and a message to the authorities.<br />“This protest is important because we have to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again” said Janet Symmons, Ama's friend and co-ordinator of the campaign.<br />“Ama's tragedy touched a lot of people, but it is important to understand that there are hundreds of people in similar situations right now. I know a Zambian lady who has a baby daughter with brain damage, a Cameroonian boy with Hepatitis – all have the threat of deportation hanging over them.”<br />The demo takes place at 1 pm at the Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Cardiff, on Saturday, April 19.<br />* Thanks to <a href="http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/">Respectable Citizen</a> for highlighting this event."
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string(24) "2008-04-11T11:51:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-11T11:56:12.769Z"
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string(42) "Four Nations football tournament confirmed"
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string(745) "The Football Association of Wales has announced that the Four Nations tournament is likely to commence in 2011.<br />One nation is set to host the tournament on a rotational basis with matches to be played as double headers on the same day.<br />The associations of Wales, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland met recently and have agreed the competition is likely to take place between February and May 2011, according to the FAW.<br />One nation is set to host the tournament on a rotational basis with matches to be played as double headers on the same day.<br />The tournament will take many of us back to the Home Internationals that we enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s - but will the tournament be as enjoyable without England?"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-8360148831387770694"
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string(24) "2008-03-21T11:17:00.003Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-21T11:27:26.585Z"
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string(39) "Swansea lifer speaks from jail - UPDATE"
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string(720) "The programme on Swansea's <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/swansea-killer-speaks-for-first-time.html">Richard Davies</a>, who is serving a life sentence for murder, is now available to watch on the internet.<br />If you would like to see it go <a href="http://www.itvlocal.com/wales/programmes/">here</a> and follow the link for <em>Wales This Week</em>, March 17, 2008.<br />Richard's family - along with the family of John Roden, convicted of a double murder in Risca - last night attended a meeting of South Wales Against Wrongful Conviction (formerly South Wales Liberty).<br />This campaigning group is always looking for new members. If you might be interested post here and I'll put you in touch."
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:37:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:46:44.282Z"
["title"]=>
string(37) "Ama's death "on Britain's conscience""
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string(1107) "The death of cancer patient Ama Sumani will be on the conscience of this nation, <a href="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/03/20/ama-s-death-is-on-the-conscience-of-nation-91466-20651761/">according</a> to the Archbishop of Wales.<br />Ama Sumani, 39, died yesterday in Korle-Bu hospital, Accra, Ghana, after she had been forcibly removed from Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales in January.<br />The widowed mother-of-two had been taken from her hospital bed in Cardiff while undergoing treatment because her visa had expired.<br />The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said today: “I am enormously sad to hear of the death of Ama Sumani.<br />“I believe her death is on the conscience of this nation because we removed her when it was against every humanitarian instinct to do so.<br />“My thoughts and prayers are with her family.”<br />:: Ama's deportation and the treatment of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants in Wales has been discussed extensively on <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/01/asylum-decisions-in-air.html"><em>What Is Wales?</em></a>"
["link"]=>
string(78) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/amas-death-on-britains-conscience.html"
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string(10) "Greg Lewis"
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[16]=>
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-5617758795576025269"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-03-15T12:24:00.003Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:45:31.827Z"
["title"]=>
string(24) "Poor Position On Poverty"
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string(3491) "Ten years ago Britain had the worst record on child poverty of any major European nation.<br />At the time the numbers living in poverty had soared over the previous two decades.<br />Since then the trend has been reversed. <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R9vAtQSm90I/AAAAAAAAAKM/vxzknzGfWZQ/s1600-h/BIssue.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177944080292181826" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 122px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 66px" height="87" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R9vAtQSm90I/AAAAAAAAAKM/vxzknzGfWZQ/s200/BIssue.gif" width="122" border="0" /></a><br />According to a new report from the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee there are now around 2.8 million children living in poverty. This is down from 3.4 million in 1999 when Tony Blair announced a plan to halve child poverty by 2010.<br />But the new figures show the Government is well off target to reach its overall aim of eradicating child poverty completely by 2020.<br />The committee reported: "There is a mass of evidence…that poor children have constrained lives, poorer health, worse diets, colder and more dilapidated housing conditions, higher risks of accidents and injuries, experience more physical abuse and more bullying and have less access to childcare. They also do less well at school, and their outcomes in terms of skills and employment are worse."<br />So what's the situation in Wales?<br />Welsh Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott, who is a member of the select committee, says: "There are still around 140,000 children in Wales living in poverty.<br />"Poverty is particularly high amongst children of lone parents and disabled parents and within ethnic minorities."<br />One-in-five families with a disabled child are so hard up they cut back on food.<br />The issues behind poverty are complicated but one thing the committee's report throws up is public attitude.<br />There's a perception that because our country is economically stable that there is no excuse for poverty.<br />Sympathy for the poor, the committee notes grimly, is at a "low level".<br />And as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported recently the public are a "long way from supporting an anti-poverty agenda in the UK".<br />Quite astonishing, but that is Britain in 2008. Nearly three million children in poverty – and a large number of us don't particularly care.<br /><br />Another Commons' committee has highlighted the "serious mismanagement" of a compensation scheme for sick miners.<br />In 1998 a court ruled that the British Coal Corporation – therefore the Government - was liable for lung disease caused by coal dust and hand injuries relating to the use of vibrating equipment.<br />Over 10 years the Government has settled 650,000 claims, leaving 128,000 outstanding.<br />Lawyers loved the scheme.<br />While ex-miners have received £4.1bn in compo, solicitors and administrators have received £2.3bn for handling the claims.<br />Solicitors have now been ordered to pay back millions.<br />Labour MP for Islwyn Don Touhig has highlighted the case of one miner given just 50p in compensation.<br />The miner in question was marked down because he was a smoker who only worked underground for two years.<br />The lawyers who handled his claim, though, still rubbed their hands.<br />A root through the report reveals their pay for handling the 50p payment came in at £1,974.<br /><strong>::<em>Big Issue Cymru</em>, March 10-16, 2008</strong>"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4208632005118552441"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-03-15T11:53:00.006Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-21T08:41:06.052Z"
["title"]=>
string(45) "Swansea lifer speaks from jail for first time"
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string(1232) "Wynford and Joan Davies believe their son is innocent of the murder for which he is serving life in jail.<br />Richard Davies was jailed six years ago for the 2001 killing of his friend Jason Williams in Loughor. Williams' body has never been found.<br />The couple spent the first few years of his sentence in a state of shock but, after attending a meeting of Liberty, they learned of the Innocence Project at Cardiff Law School.<br />Lecturer Julie Price is overseeing the only such project in Wales. On it, law students give their time to investigate possible miscarriages of justice.<br />After reading notes on Richard's case they took it on.<br /><em>What Is Wales?</em> reported on the case <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2007/06/little-legal-aid.html">last year</a>. This Monday, ITV Wales' <em>Wales This Week</em> programme continues to follow the students as they work to uncover fresh evidence.<br />There are major developments - including a five-figure reward for new information and the first ever interview with Richard Davies as he talks from Gartree Prison about coping inside and about the night he is alleged to have killed his friend.<br /><em>::Wales This Week</em>, ITV Wales, Monday, March 17, 8pm"
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string(81) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/swansea-killer-speaks-for-first-time.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-9104550910417368315"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-02-24T14:48:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:46:23.588Z"
["title"]=>
string(14) "Hearing Voices"
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string(2816) "Just read a new memoir by Studs Terkel.<br />If you haven't heard of Studs, you should check him out.<br />Studs is now 95 and has therefore, obviously, been around.<br />He's done a lot in that time, radio presenter, writer, oral historian.<br />For years he took out his tape recorder and interviewed people, "ordinary people", about the experiences of the Great Depression, racism, the Second World War.<br />His memoir, <em><a href="http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1547">Touch and Go</a></em>, takes its title from <em>Under Milk Wood</em> by Dylan Thomas, or more precisely the Rev Eli Jenkins' prayer. "For whether we last the night or no/I'm sure it's always touch and go".<br />With nine decades under his hat, Studs would be forgiven for having little more than lasting the night or no on his mind.<br />But he's not that sort of guy.<br />After listening, really listening, to people for God knows how many years, he now has a few observations of his own.<br />One should strike a cord in offices up and down the country. It's a lament for "human noise".<br />Studs cites the newspaper office as an example. Once, he points out, the city desk of any paper was a place of voices, people hollering back and for, running this way and that.<br />Today, it isn't so. And many journalists would agree.<br />"The young journalists are seated side by side, staring into their terminals," he writes. "They are a foot away from each other, yet miles apart."<br />I suppose they are emailing each other, one reason why human noise has become quieter.<br />Studs tells a story to illustrate something else that's taken over.<br />He's at an airport where they have just installed trains to the terminal. The train is packed. A robotic voice comes over the PA system to say where they are: "Concourse One", etc.<br />Just as the doors are closing a couple rush in and pull them aside. They collapse with their bags.<br />The robot voice booms: "Because of late entry, we are delayed thirty seconds".<br />Everyone in the carriage glares at the late-comers.<br />Studs smiles, he's had a drink, and he cups his hand over his mouth. "George Orwell, your time has come and gone!" he booms back.<br />There is silence. The crowd now takes Studs into its stare. He realises there are suddenly, in his words, "three of us before the firing squad".<br />The human voice is cowered, but not Studs.<br />There is a little baby sat in the lap of a Mexican woman. Studs bends down. "Sir or Madam," he says addressing the babe in arms, "what is your opinion of the human species?"<br />There's a pause. And then the baby giggles.<br />"Thank God," says Studs. "A giggle. The sound of a human voice. There's my hope."<br />:: <em>Big Issue Cymru</em>, February 11-18, 2008"
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string(10) "Greg Lewis"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-7392678105855385834"
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string(24) "2008-02-02T13:04:00.000Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:47:02.918Z"
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string(1541) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R6RqkMzku8I/AAAAAAAAAJ8/OK2wPnqSdws/s1600-h/spanishcivilwar.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162368243018808258" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R6RqkMzku8I/AAAAAAAAAJ8/OK2wPnqSdws/s200/spanishcivilwar.jpg" border="0" /></a> The Wise and Foolish Dreamers: Wales and the Spanish Civil War exhibition is now on display at the Welsh Centre for International Affairs, Temple of Peace, in Cardiff.<br />The centre’s links to the Welsh involvement in the Spanish Civil War go back to the 1980s when it began to manage a special fund donated by Welsh veterans of the International Brigade.<br />The money was to be used to maintain links between young people in Wales and Spain.<br />Wise and Foolish Dreamers is the biggest project so far carried out with the help of the fund, and it is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.<br />It includes a touring exhibition, a DVD, and a book, which pupils from three schools had a hand in helping to design and produce.<br />The project was launched in May 2007. This exhibition, which consists of 6 large panels and a short film, has already been displayed at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Ammanford Library, the National Eisteddfod in Flintshire, Rhondda Heritage Park, Trehafod and Pyle Life Centre in Bridgend.<br />It is at the Temple of Peace until February 12, where there will also be a major conference on February 9-10. Speakers will include Professor Paul Preston."
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string(58) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-348518178756296487"
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string(24) "2008-02-01T08:44:00.000Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:45:59.438Z"
["title"]=>
string(24) "St Athan on Dragon's Eye"
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string(1536) "The BBC's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/programmes/sites/dragonseye/">Dragon’s Eye</a> entered the fray last night to raise questions about the actual number of jobs to be created at the St Athan military training academy.<br />The programme probed claims that the base would create 5,000 jobs. The PCS union claims the privatisation of training services is about “job relocation rather than job creation”.<br />Vale of Glamorgan MP John Smith remained bullish, having staked his reputation on the development. He claims the 5,000 jobs figure might even be an under-estimate.<br /><em>What Is Wales?</em> has long felt the 5,000 new jobs claim just doesn’t add up.<br />As long ago as <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-defence-for-arms-trade.html">July 2007</a> I focused on a report by Cardiff University’s Stuart Tannock which questioned how "many high quality new jobs" will actually be created for locals.<br />As I pointed out, politicians were slow to raise these questions themselves because, as we have seen in Wales, “No-one dares criticise job creation, be the creator a dodgy call centre company, a shaky Korean technology firm or the arms industry.”<br />In August in the <em>Big Issue</em>, I asked: “Just how many jobs will the academy really create? A cursory investigation reveals that many jobs will be relocated from elsewhere. Hundreds of others will be in the base's construction.”<br />Local people might feel they deserve further proper scrutiny of the St Athan project."
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string(68) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/02/st-athan-on-dragons-eye.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4874634093774073326"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-01-31T16:34:00.000Z"
["updated"]=>
string(24) "2008-03-20T13:45:31.828Z"
["title"]=>
string(24) "Keeping it in the family"
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string(1055) "The suspension of Derek Conway MP from the House of Commons has prompted the parliamentary commission to remind politicians that they should always publicly declare when they employ relatives.<br />A friend emails me to say how fine the <a href="http://www.assemblywales.org/register-27-11-07-e.pdf">register</a> of members’ interests is down at the National Assembly.<br />The recently-updated record notes that Tory William Graham (South Wales East) employs his son as an assistant researcher, while North Wales colleague Mark Isherwood’s wife is one of his constituency assistants (5 hours a week).<br />Conservative Andrew R.T. Davies (South Wales Central) employs his other half on a part-time basis as part of his Assembly support staff.<br />Labour’s Janice Gregory (Ogmore) employs her husband part-time to do some admin, and the partner of John Griffiths (Newport East) also does some part-time administrative support.<br />The spouse of Plaid Cymru’s Jocelyn Davies (South Wales East) is a part-time assistant at her constituency office."
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string(65) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/01/keeping-it-in-family.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4766477197191572089"
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string(24) "2008-01-26T17:29:00.000Z"
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string(24) "2008-01-26T17:38:25.558Z"
["title"]=>
string(20) "Accident at Caerleon"
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string(961) "<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R5tvmMzku7I/AAAAAAAAAJ0/KV4ofoWcdRI/s1600-h/Caerleon+1919.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159840500146289586" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/R5tvmMzku7I/AAAAAAAAAJ0/KV4ofoWcdRI/s200/Caerleon+1919.jpg" border="0" /></a>Here's a great snap. It shows a road traffic accident from almost 90 years ago.<br /><div>Even with so little traffic on the road in those days, this crash was certainly unusual enough to be marked and turned into a postcard.</div><div>The card is captioned "Army (<em>I think</em>) Lorry Accident Caerleon Bridge, October 6, 1919".</div><div>It was given to me before Christmas by Mrs Margaret Rumsey, of Abergavenny.</div><div>By the way the people are casually crossing the bridge, it appears the lorry must have been suspended in that strange position for sometime.</div><div>Any Caerleon historians out there?</div>"
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string(65) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/01/accident-at-caerleon.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-3517569044942689049"
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string(24) "2008-01-25T15:59:00.000Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-20T13:45:31.828Z"
["title"]=>
string(25) "Tower Colliery's farewell"
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string(963) "Farewell to Tower Colliery – and best wishes to all the miners who made the final march from the pit today.<br />Tower, a workers’ co-operative, was the last deep coal mine in South Wales. It is a remarkable story, which has been told many times. Despite the understandable mythologizing, the colliery has always been about basic realities: a desire to work and to maintain a vibrant local economy.<br />As such the miners are already thinking about the future of the site and finding new ways of creating employment.<br />As chairman Tyrone O'Sullivan told the BBC <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7200432.stm">today</a>: “I believe our company can leave a legacy to the community that will see today's toddlers able to find a job up in the valleys when they're 16 or 17, instead of having to leave the area.<br />“It will be the greatest tribute that the workers could give. We'll be leaving jobs, not statues.”<br />A towering legend indeed."
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string(69) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/01/tower-collierys-farewell.html"
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string(24) "2008-01-21T19:30:00.000Z"
["updated"]=>
string(24) "2008-03-20T13:45:31.829Z"
["title"]=>
string(18) "Post Office defeat"
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string(293) "Sadly, it seems the residents of Llantrisant, who fought hard to save their post office, have <a href="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/cardiff-news/2008/01/19/review-sounds-last-post-for-village-branch-91466-20368720/">lost</a> their battle.<br />The official announcement is due tomorrow."
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string(63) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/01/post-office-defeat.html"
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["title"]=>
string(33) "What Is Wales And What Is It For?"
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string(24) "2008-08-15T16:05:00.002Z"
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string(2935) "The International Olympic Committee awarded Germany the 1936 Games before Hitler came to power.<br />But once German Chancellor, he seized the Olympics as a powerful propaganda tool.<br />Governments, including those of the United States and the UK, rejected calls for a boycott, even though Jewish athletes had been removed from Germany’s Olympic and Davis Cup teams.<br />However, international opposition to the Berlin games was great and it is a little known fact that ‘counter-Olympics’ were planned in a number of places.<br />The biggest of these was to be in Spain. History has forgotten it, not least because the proposed People’s Olympiad never took place.<br />In the summer of 1936 Spain saw the rise of its own branch of fascism. General Franco moved to seize power and the Spanish Civil War began.<br />The People’s Olympiad had to be cancelled.<br />Seven decades on, though, and with another Olympics underway, the spirit of the event is being recalled.<br />Members of the National Clarion Cycling Club had been expected to take part in the alternative Olympiad in Spain.<br />After it was cancelled – and with the war in full swing - two decided to undertake an amazing ride from Glasgow to Barcelona to raise money for the Spanish Republic (two other club members were to be killed in the civil war).<br />That was in 1938. On Wednesday, July 30, 2008, a group of 14 riders left Scotland to begin a 20-day ride on the cyclists’ 70-year-old trail.<br />They are due to arrive in Barcelona on Tuesday, August 19.<br />Anna Martí and publisher Alan Warren, who have done so much to keep alive the memory of Welsh veterans of the Spanish Civil War, are on the team.<br />Maite de Paul Otxotorena, who was born in Spain’s Basque country but now lives near Ammanford, is there in support and has organised the Spanish leg of the route.<br />Maite says the event ties together not only the 1936 Olympics and those currently being held in Beijing (which have been controversial in their own way too) but also Barcelona’s Games in 1992.<br />“I was a child in Franco’s military Spain when our memory of our history had been lost,” she says. “Events like the 1992 Olympics and the Expo put an international focus on Spain. People started to research our history.<br />“But as I have been contacting the mayors and the cycling clubs in the places we will be travelling through no one has heard of the other Olympics planned for 1936.<br />“Events like this are part of the end of our amnesia.”<br />I spoke to Anna Martí before the ride as she took a break in her training for the 2,000km journey.<br />“I have been told to take plenty of clothes for Scotland,” she told me. “But when we get to Spain we come through an area which is like a desert.<br />“It will be like cycling towards the centre of the Earth.”<br />:: First published in <em>The Big Issue Cymru</em>, July 28, 2008"
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string(24) "2008-07-07T20:31:00.003Z"
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string(33) "More than just the usual suspects"
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string(4571) "<span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >A bill presented by Cardiff Central MP Jenny Willott has had its first reading in the House of Commons.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Ms Willott wants information about innocent people removed from the Government’s ever-growing DNA database.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Unfortunately, I’m told by people who understand these things, the bill has no chance of becoming law.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />At the moment one million people who have not being convicted of any crime have their names on the database. More than 100,000 of them are children.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“As well as the loss of civil liberties, all the evidence shows that continuing to take, analyse and store innocent people's DNA has not improved crime detection rates,” said the Lib Dem MP. “In fact the cost of doing so means fewer resources for frontline policing.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“Our criminal justice system was built on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. We need to bring that principle back by allowing innocent people to get their DNA removed from the database.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Last October, Preseli Pembrokeshire Tory Stephen Crabb raised the case of 75-year-old Geoffrey Orchard.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mr Orchard had been wrongfully arrested and had received a written apology from the police - but he couldn’t get his DNA removed from the database.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mr Crabb tackled Meg Hillier, of the Home Office.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />“Does she really understand the enormous extent to which good will and support for the police and for her department are being undermined by a system in which DNA information is being recorded aggressively, but removed in a haphazard way and on a discretionary basis, dependent on police force area?” he asked in Parliament.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />He added recently: “I have never questioned the usefulness of this tool for the police, but have grown increasingly concerned at the energetic way in which DNA profiles are collected, even from completely innocent parties with no connection to a crime scene.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />In Wales, the use of DNA technology in eventually solving the murder of Lynette White, killed in Cardiff in 1988, is often highlighted in support of the database.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But it’s worth noting that Lynette's horrific murder was not solved because an innocent person's DNA was held. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />During that </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3044282.stm" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:100%;">re-investigation</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> officers and forensic scientists made a partial match of DNA found at the murder scene with that of a teenager from whom a sample had been taken following arrest. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />The match meant the teenager – not even born when Lynette was killed - had to be related to the killer.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Mrs Hillier told Stephen Crabb last year: “It is worth stressing that a person's DNA being on the database does not suggest guilt.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Worth stressing also that we are citizens, or subjects even, but not suspects.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">:: Big Issue Cymru, June 30 - July 4, 2008<br />:: Update of 'Protecting Our DNA'<br /></span>"
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string(24) "2008-06-27T10:22:00.002Z"
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string(12) "War is Peace"
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string(4228) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdX6GS5FCI/AAAAAAAAALY/NmK-8SVA8To/s1600-h/DTR+1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217235348965889058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdX6GS5FCI/AAAAAAAAALY/NmK-8SVA8To/s200/DTR+1.jpg" border="0" /></a>Who will be training their soldiers at the new Defence Training Academy at St Athan?<br />It’s a question that’s been exercising campaigners who feel the development is not just pledging Wales to a future of “militarism”, but wondering to whose military we are making that pledge.<br />I mean, we are never going to stop people killing other people. But does it look like we even want to?<br />Especially if private security companies – like the ones fighting wars for ‘us’ by proxy in Iraq – will be getting trained there.<br />I contacted the Ministry of Defence under the Freedom of Information Act to ask if, for instance, the MoD would ban any particular nations from using the training camp.<br />And what about private security companies – would they be able to send personnel there?<br />After a short delay I received an email from Brigadier Geoff Nield, a project leader with the Defence Training Review.<br />Under this privatised scheme, it seems, the first decision on who comes in from the outside for training is down to the Metrix Consortium – a group of arms/defence companies and educational establishments like the Open University. <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdW7gbRJiI/AAAAAAAAALA/K1cCl97EYUk/s1600-h/DTR+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217234273648584226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdW7gbRJiI/AAAAAAAAALA/K1cCl97EYUk/s200/DTR+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />“The MoD is content that Metrix may deliver training and accommodation services to third parties as long as certain contractual conditions and restraints are met,” said Brigadier Nield.<br />“These include, for example, not impairing the delivery of military training to the MoD, meeting security requirements and maintaining military ethos on-site.<br />“Furthermore, MoD reserves the right to approve or forbid the use of training assets (including facilities) for third parties.”<br />So, could a regime like Burma for instance, on paying the right fees, get its soldiers trained here? After all, Britain kindly sold more than 40 Hawk aircraft to the Indonesians during the 1980s and 1990s before world attention suggested that helping the country suppress the East Timorese did not make Britain either great or a land of much hope and glory.<br />“The MoD…prioritises those countries that receive training on a case by case basis. Where there is a mutual agreement between the UK and countries of interest, agreed scheduled training courses can be attended by those invited, subject to availability and appropriate security clearance.”<br />There is, some might say, an Orwellian feel to the response. The MoD insists on calling the centre a “college” and the non-UK attendees, “students”.<br />In addition, the MoD also states that the training of private contractors and foreign armies is actually about making a stable world for our children’s children.<br /><div><div><div><div></div><div></div><div>“A key ten<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdXrssxd-I/AAAAAAAAALQ/RmztEGu7pss/s1600-h/DTR+3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217235101576951778" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SGdXrssxd-I/AAAAAAAAALQ/RmztEGu7pss/s200/DTR+3.jpg" border="0" /></a>et of UK foreign policy is to encourage diplomatic engagement with foreign countries so as to not only serve UK interests but also develop long term stability throughout regions of the world,” said the brigadier. “The MoD supports this policy in different guises, one of which is to train foreign students, both in UK and abroad as arranged through overseas embassies and high commissions.”<br />War is peace, then, after all.<br /></div><div> </div><div><br />::The Big Issue Cymru, June 16-22, 2008</div></div></div></div>"
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string(24) "2008-06-12T14:17:00.003Z"
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string(22) "Fighting for liberties"
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string(490) "Can there really be a person of integrity at the heart of British politics?<br />Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP to force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency.<br />He'll fight the by-election on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit and as a fight against the Government's erosion of civil liberties.<br />"I will argue in this by-election against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government," he says."
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string(18) "Protecting our DNA"
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string(1539) "Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott was today due to present a private Bill in the Commons to reform the way the DNA register is run.<br />The Cardiff Central MP says innocent people should have their DNA taken off the Government database.<br />Ms Willott told the <em>Western Mail</em>: “If you are not charged or you are acquitted then your DNA should be removed. People who have voluntarily given samples, say to help in a police investigation, can’t have their DNA taken off the register either, so potentially there are a lot of people affected.<br />“I don’t think the public realise quite how far it’s going.”<br />The <a href="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/06/11/take-innocent-people-s-dna-off-database-says-welsh-mp-91466-21054479/"><em>Western Mail</em> also reports that</a>: “Although the use of DNA technology has led to the clearing-up of several unsolved murders, including that of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White, killed in 1988, there are fears that the database is a breach of civil liberties.”<br />But it’s worth noting that Lynette's horrific murder was not solved because an innocent person's DNA was held.<br />During that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3044282.stm">re-investigation</a> officers and forensic scientists made a partial match of DNA found at the 1988 murder scene with that of a teenager from whom a sample had been taken following arrest.<br />The match meant the teenager – not even born when Lynette was killed - had to be related to the killer."
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string(24) "2008-06-07T10:47:00.002Z"
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string(24) "Keeping Faith in the USA"
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string(3563) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SEpneR5B8bI/AAAAAAAAAKw/RrcfP83tXag/s1600-h/bruce+hat.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209089688903741874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SEpneR5B8bI/AAAAAAAAAKw/RrcfP83tXag/s200/bruce+hat.bmp" border="0" /></a>On Saturday June 14, Bruce Springsteen plays at the Millennium Stadium.<br />It will be his first concert in Wales, although he's been coming to the UK since 1975.<br />Back then, a huge amount of hype surrounded his third album, Born to Run.<br />"At last, London is ready for Bruce Springsteen," boasted the record company's posters – some of which Springsteen himself climbed up onto billboards to rip down.<br />In 1984 and 1985 he rode the hype, and indeed contributed to it himself, for the Born in the USA album and tour, a period so overblown that for many it still dominates his image.<br />Hardcore fans, and he inspires dedication most artists can only dream of, know there is much more to him than that.<br />In his writing he's covered every subject from the economic despair of many of America's industrial heartlands, to the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the atrocities of September 11.<br />The plight of refugees, and immigrants to the United States from Mexico in particular, have been central to his work.<br />"For everything the North gives, it exacts a price in return," warns one Mexican father as his sons head across the Rio Bravo.<br />Campaigning journalist John Pilger called Springsteen a "fine humanitarian artist", real praise from someone who has charted so much that has gone wrong in US foreign policy.<br />In February 1999 a 22-year-old West African immigrant named Kadiatou Diallo died in a hail of police bullets in New York.<br />Springsteen wrote a song about it, causing the city's police department to boycott his gigs at Madison Square Garden.<br />But where are the major artists covering the significant events in Britain's social and political life?<br />Why did no artist see the 2005 shooting of unarmed Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by London police officers as a subject for protest?<br />Billy Bragg has said: "Springsteen makes me keep faith in America".<br />Bragg is a dedicated Springsteen fan. So are James Dean Bradfield, of the Manic Street Preachers, and Swansea-born comedian Rob Brydon, who already has his ticket for the Millennium Stadium gig.<br />And so am I.<br />I think we all need Bruce – not just America.<br /><br />(Bruce fans go <a href="http://www.springsteeninireland.blogspot.com/">here</a>.)<br /><br />Ana Lucia Pinzon is the most senior female trade unionist in Colombia.<br />And being a trade unionist – of either gender - - in Colombia takes a special kind of courage. An estimated 2,600 have been killed over the last 20 years.<br />The US and the UK have poured weapons into this deeply divided country, claiming to be fighting a war against drugs.<br />But Justice for Colombia, a British-based NGO, and others, claim the weapons are instead used in a bloody counter-insurgency war.<br />And according to Amnesty International, all sides in the conflict, including the army and army-backed paramilitaries, have been "responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity".<br />I only know what I read. Ana will describe all this first hand when she gives a special talk at the Memorial Hall, Bodhyfryd, Wrexham, at 2.30pm on Saturday (June 7).<br /><br />::First published in <em>The Big Issue Cymru</em>, June 2-8, 2008"
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string(23) "Archbishop Tutu in Gaza"
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string(279) "<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7426813.stm">This short report</a> on Archbishop Desmond Tutu's visit to Gaza is only two minutes and three seconds long.<br />Watching it won't take up much of your weekend. But his words might stay with you for much longer."
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string(58) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-632913261951309295"
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string(24) "2008-05-30T09:44:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-05-30T10:07:57.846Z"
["title"]=>
string(31) "WAG's asylum point of principle"
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string(2098) "There was a predictable outcry when the Welsh Assembly Government decided recently to allow asylum seekers, who have been refused permission to stay in the UK, access to hospital treatment.<br />It was the usual knee-jerk reaction. One has to wonder what these people would do if they came across someone in pain, or suffering a life-threatening illness, but who they suspected to be from abroad.<br />Would they check first whether they should be 'here', whether they pay their taxes?The Tories, as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/betsanpowys/2008/05/mwy_1.html">Betsan Powys</a> of the BBC, pointed out, got very confused over the new policy.<br />Obviously, they didn’t want to appear soft on foreigners – heaven forbid – but the true blues are a little wet over this side of Offa’s Dyke, a little too caring.<br />Today, in an excellent letter to the <em>Western Mail</em>, Cathy Owens, programme director for Amnesty International in Wales, describes the “outrage from the usual quarters about queue-jumping and fairness for British taxpayers”.<br />Some of this is based on valid argument, she says, but some is based on “misinformation and xenophobia”.<br />Asking readers to put themselves into the shoes of some of the 3,000 asylum seekers in Wales – many of whom have fled repression and war - she says: “A few hundred may not win the right to stay, but may find it very difficult to return – they may not be able to travel back to Afghanistan, Darfur or Zimbabwe.”<br />If they fall ill, they can go to a GP but cannot be treated as inpatients at hospital.<br />Last year, only 11 people in this situation needed treatment in Welsh hospitals – a small number when you consider that more than 300,000 operations take place in Wales every year.<br />“For each of those 11 people behind the headlines, it could have been the difference between life and death,” writes Owens.<br />WAG’s decision was a point of principle – that we don’t refuse help to anyone who is ill or dying. And it was one that makes our nation a little more humane."
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-6248474225731490137"
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string(24) "2008-04-27T11:21:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-27T11:23:55.661Z"
["title"]=>
string(45) "Questions at university over military academy"
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string(3033) "Protesters say they’ve found the first chinks in the armour of the arms and defence consortium behind the new St Athan training academy.<br />Much is being made about the educational courses which will be on offer at the massive base – and the Open University’s involvement in the Metrix Consortium is key to that.<br />The OU has a commitment to “social justice”. But as one campaigner put it to me: “How will the OU feel if in a few years time Burmese troops are being trained at St Athan?”<br />It seems people within the OU have been asking similar questions.<br />Following a demonstration outside the OU offices in Cardiff recently its Wales director Rob Humphreys said its involvement was about “delivering the highest possible quality of support” to Britain’s armed services.<br />However, when I pressed the OU on claims that staff had been contacting demonstrators with messages of support and that there might even have been discussions about leaving the consortium, the OU was less bullish.<br />“Any community as large in number and as diverse in opinion as the Open University will include people who hold differing views about some of their organisation’s activities,” came the response from its Milton Keynes HQ.<br />“More than anywhere else, it is in a university that such diversity of opinion and discussion of issues are – and should be – found. In this case, a very small number of staff have raised concerns about the University’s involvement, and their concerns are noted.<br />“The involvement of the University in all major projects with external partners is reviewed regularly by senior managers as part of good business practice. The University’s participation in the Metrix Consortium is no different.”<br />Watch this space then, as the old gossip columnists used to say.<br /><br />Comedy’s hot property at the moment is Wales-made ‘Gavin and Stacey’ and in a recent programme Gavin and his mum had problems at the Severn Bridge when they couldn’t find cash.<br />“Don’t they take card?” said mum. “Everyone takes card.”<br />Welsh Lib Dem leader Mike German spotted an opportunity for a press release.<br />“Gavin and Stacey may be a comedy, but it highlights a very serious issue, one that hits the people of Wales hard,” he said. “The Welsh Liberal Democrats have repeatedly called for changes to the Severn Bridges Act to allow road users to pay by credit or debit card.”<br />Far better for Mr G to continue with his other campaign – reported only four months ago – to get the charges scrapped.<br />As he pointed out then, the tolls on both bridges have already raised £684m – more than double the cost of the 1996 second crossing.<br />And there’s no sign of a free crossing for some time to come.<br />In February UK transport minister Rosie Winterton said the tolls would have to raise £995,830,000 before motorists would stop shelling out.<br />No laughing matter at all.<br /><br />::Big Issue Cymru, April 21, 2008"
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string(82) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/questions-at-university-over-military.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4401443552120869766"
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string(24) "2008-04-23T16:07:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-23T16:16:44.914Z"
["title"]=>
string(14) "Airman Missing"
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string(1708) "<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SA9gwhBHKNI/AAAAAAAAAKU/hXVSy5Pq_Rc/s1600-h/Hiding+in+the+woods+-+John+Evans+is+front+right,+wearing+the+hat.+(Greg+Lewis).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5192475281994492114" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_C89KDlTM2Fg/SA9gwhBHKNI/AAAAAAAAAKU/hXVSy5Pq_Rc/s200/Hiding+in+the+woods+-+John+Evans+is+front+right,+wearing+the+hat.+(Greg+Lewis).jpg" border="0" /></a>Back in the 1970s the BBC produced a critically-acclaimed drama series called <em>Secret Army</em>.<br />The programme followed the exploits of a group of ordinary Belgians who ran an evasion line, helping Allied airman return to Britain after being shot down.<br />The series was based on the Comet Line, a network established by a young Belgian girl, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/10/18/db1801.xml">Andrée de Jongh</a>, who died last year.<br />One of the men saved by the line was John Evans from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire.<br /><em><a href="http://newmanbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/newman-books-is-about-publishing-books.html">Airman Missing</a></em> (see left) tells the story of John’s life behind enemy lines and, in particular, pays tribute to the brave volunteers who saved his life.<br />It also describes how he tracked many of them down after the war. There were some tearful reunions.<br />And there were sadly others who had not survived to be reunited with those they had protected during the dark days of Nazi occupation.<br />:: Pictured John Evans (in the hat) hides out in a Belgian wood in 1944 with fellow airmen and escaped Russian prisoners of war."
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string(59) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/airman-missing.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-4871685307403230777"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-04-17T13:53:00.007Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-21T08:00:49.368Z"
["title"]=>
string(32) "The Open University and St Athan"
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string(1098) "The Open University is apparently facing pressure from its own staff over its part in Metrix Consortium, the developers behind the St Athan military training academy.<br />I've spoken to OU about these concerns and about whether it is considering pulling out of the consortium - the full report is in the Big Issue Cymru (April 21).<br />Thanks to <a href="http://lutherapblissett.blogspot.com/2008/03/open-university-st-athan-ethics-row.html">Luther ap Blissett</a> for flagging this up.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/080416terror.shtml">Hold The Front Page</a> has reported journalists' concerns about provisions in the Counter-Terrorism Bill which could affect media investigation and reporting.<br />These include new offences of eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of the armed forces, new search and seizure powers and new ministerial controls over inquests.<br />The Newspaper Society has written to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.<br />:: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm">Photographer or terrorist?</a>"
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string(73) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-university-and-st-athan.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-3439351208710259311"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-04-16T10:52:00.004Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-16T11:13:50.144Z"
["title"]=>
string(29) "The goats who lord it over us"
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string(1450) "<a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2007/07/threat-to-minimum-wage-in-wales.html">Digby Jones</a> is poised to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/16/gordonbrown.labour">leave</a> Gordon Brown's government of all the talents (Goat) before the next election.<br />Perhaps future goats brought in by the Labour Party will represent areas of society which have less access to power than Lord Jones' friends.<br />Jones, after all, is hardly a champion of the voiceless and the vulnerable.<br />A corporate lawyer by background, his previous senior corporate advisory positions have included senior advisor to Barclays Capital, chairman of the Deloitte Industries Group, corporate and governmental affairs advisor to Ford of Europe and Premier Automotive Group, advisor to JCB and member of the advisory board of Aggregate Industries.<br />His period in government has given big business the ear of Gordon Brown.<br />But it has surely helped the individual too - particularly, if that individual is Lord Jones. His <a href="http://www.cityspeakersinternational.co.uk/speakers/speaker_digby_jones.php?PHPSESSID=apsf2dvv96m">consultancy and after dinner fees</a> are certain to rise.<br />He also, of course, got a peerage out of his entry into government. Will he now hand that back, <a href="http://www.birminghammail.net/2008/04/16/birmingham-mp-khalid-mahmood-urges-lord-jones-to-quit-97319-20770643/">as suggested by one MP</a>?"
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string(70) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/goats-who-lord-it-over-us.html"
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["id"]=>
string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-1178902117681940374"
["published"]=>
string(24) "2008-04-11T11:57:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-11T12:09:50.881Z"
["title"]=>
string(15) "Remembering Ama"
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string(1108) "There will be a demonstration in memory of <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/amas-death-on-britains-conscience.html">Ama </a>Sumani later this month in Cardiff.<br />Ama died in Ghana on March 19 after being removed from the University Hospital of Wales while receiving treatment for cancer.<br />Campaigners hope that the event will be both a tribute to Ama and a message to the authorities.<br />“This protest is important because we have to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again” said Janet Symmons, Ama's friend and co-ordinator of the campaign.<br />“Ama's tragedy touched a lot of people, but it is important to understand that there are hundreds of people in similar situations right now. I know a Zambian lady who has a baby daughter with brain damage, a Cameroonian boy with Hepatitis – all have the threat of deportation hanging over them.”<br />The demo takes place at 1 pm at the Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Cardiff, on Saturday, April 19.<br />* Thanks to <a href="http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/">Respectable Citizen</a> for highlighting this event."
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-8942964332376593666"
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string(24) "2008-04-11T11:51:00.002Z"
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string(24) "2008-04-11T11:56:12.769Z"
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string(42) "Four Nations football tournament confirmed"
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string(745) "The Football Association of Wales has announced that the Four Nations tournament is likely to commence in 2011.<br />One nation is set to host the tournament on a rotational basis with matches to be played as double headers on the same day.<br />The associations of Wales, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland met recently and have agreed the competition is likely to take place between February and May 2011, according to the FAW.<br />One nation is set to host the tournament on a rotational basis with matches to be played as double headers on the same day.<br />The tournament will take many of us back to the Home Internationals that we enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s - but will the tournament be as enjoyable without England?"
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string(77) "http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/04/four-nations-football-tournament.html"
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string(59) "tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18080986.post-8360148831387770694"
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string(24) "2008-03-21T11:17:00.003Z"
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string(24) "2008-03-21T11:27:26.585Z"
["title"]=>
string(39) "Swansea lifer speaks from jail - UPDATE"
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string(720) "The programme on Swansea's <a href="http://whatiswales.blogspot.com/2008/03/swansea-killer-speaks-for-first-time.html">Richard Davies</a>, who is serving a life sentence for murder, is now available to watch on the internet.<br />If you would like to see it go <a href="http://www.itvlocal.com/wales/programmes/">here</a> and follow the link for <em>Wales This Week</em>, March 17, 2008.<br />Richard's family - along with the family of John Roden, convicted of a double murder in Risca - last night attended a meeting of South Wales Against Wrongful Conviction (formerly South Wales Liberty).<br />This campaigning group is always looking for new members. If you might be interested post here and I'll put you in touch."
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