London Latest News July-October, 2009

Health MoTs every five years on NHS as Government guarantees 18-week wait limit on treatment

Pledge: Andy Burnham, Health Secretary, said he will give patients rights in new NHS constitution, and patients forced into long waiting lists will earn a right to private care

NHS patients are to be guaranteed treatment within 18 weeks of referral by their GP, it was announced yesterday. Under the move, ill people could be treated in the private sector, if necessary, said Gordon Brown, who was joined by Health Secretary Andy Burnham. They also set out further guarantees of access to a cancer specialist within two weeks and free MoT-like' health checks every five years for the over 40s. 'Its is part of the move away from a target-led approach that was needed to raise the standards and to give more power to patients and frontline staff,' said Brown. MORE

Grandfather arrested at dawn and held in a police cell for SIX hours for swearing once at council official

A grandfather was arrested at dawn and held in a police cell for six hours for using a single swear-word in front of a council official. Thomas Catcheside, 67, had his fingerprints and DNA taken, before being issued with an £80 fixed-penalty notice. His arrest followed a dispute with a council official about 'dangerously slippery' communal stairs in his block of flats in Cambridge.

Angry: Tom Catcheside, 67, who was arrested in a dawn raid and was held in a cell and had his DNA taken for using a single swear word in front of a Cambridge City Council official. With him is his wife Deb.

Mr Catcheside, who is chairman of his residents' group, has been campaigning for three years for safety improvements. But when an official visiting the site prevented him from listening to a phone call to his supervisor on October 30, he finally lost his temper and said: 'Don't you tell me what I can and can't do in my own ****ing place.' The official complained of feeling 'threatened' and six days later Mr Catcheside was arrested at 5.35am on suspicion of 'causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place'.

The former lorry driver, still in his dressing gown, was marched into his bedroom, where his wife Deborah, 62, was asleep, and ordered to get changed before being driven away in a police van.

He was then held in a windowless-cell for six hours before being given the fixed-penalty notice and released. Mr Catcheside, who has asthma and high blood pressure, was so distressed that he suffered a panic attack and had to be seen by a police doctor.

Mr Catcheside was held in a cell and had his DNA taken. He said: 'My wife and I were asleep when the police arrived. I opened the door and they just barged in. 'I told them to wait a minute but they followed me into my bedroom where my wife was in bed. She was so embarrassed she hid behind a cushion.

'I was frightened and angry as I felt like I was being criminalised. It was so heavy handed. 'The police seem to have trouble catching proper criminals and here they were dragging me down to the station for defending my rights. 'I admit I swore, but I was frustrated because we have been fighting to get these stairs improved for years, writing letter after letter, and the council has taken no notice.'

A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said they had been following 'national policy' in their response. She added: 'We were responding to reports of an assault, which is a serious offence. 'The suspect was arrested at the earliest possible opportunity, which happened to be at 5.35am. 'There was not enough evidence to suggest he had committed an assault but he admitted to being abusive and was issued with a fine and words of advice about his behaviour.'

Robert Hollingsworth of City Homes, a housing association which runs council housing for Cambridge council, said they had reported the incident to the police because their representative had felt 'threatened'. 'My department has been dealing with Mr Catcheside's complaint for a long time,' he said. 'Despite the fact the stairs are not a danger and no risk has been found, we are looking into covering them with a plastic-like surface which would improve their appearance.'

Mr Catcheside replied: 'We don't want the steps to look better, we want them to be safe.' 

It is time to play

This photo taken Nov. 7, 2009 shows kittens learning to socialize and play with other cats during a kitten kindergarten class at the Houston SPCA in Houston.

                                    World's most expensive cities

                            Where in the world is the most expensive city? According to a latest survey, Tokyo is it.

                          Dubai is ranked at number 20 in the global Cost of Living index compiled on an annual basis by        international human resources consultancy Mercer.

Dubai: Where in the world is the most expensive city? According to a latest survey, Tokyo is.

Mercer's 2009 Worldwide Cost of Living survey said that cost of living in Tokyo, Japan is up 13.1 per cent from 2008. Japan's capital is followed by Osaka and Moscow, which held the top spot in last year's rankings. Geneva comes in fourth.                                                            

World's Most Expensive Commutes       

1. London $4.33                    and                                     2. Tokyo $3.25

Mass-transit-taking residents in these cities pay most to get to work.

Our data come from Mercer's Worldwide Cost of Living 2009 survey. In the comparative study of the cost of mass transit, analysts at Mercer selected the most convenient and popular means of transportation between bus and subway in a given city and gauged the price based upon a ride in the city center for one adult, according to the Mercer analysis team. Mercer's annual survey has been designed to cater to the multinational companies and governments that use the study's results to help determine appropriate compensation packages for employees sent abroad. One of the world's most comprehensive cost of living surveys, Mercer's study takes 143 cities across six continents and compares the costs of over 200 items in each location. The goods and services under inspection--including housing, transportation, food, leisure and household supplies--are representative of executive spending patterns, and the selection of the cities reflects the request for corresponding data from the groups that use the study's findings. After too many rides through the Tube, you might find yourself in a bend--a financial one, that is. That's because London's single-ride fee costs $4.33, the highest among 20 geographically diverse cities recently measured in U.S. dollars. Tokyo falls behind at $3.25 per metro ride, and Berlin third at $2.69. Among its European counterparts, London is far and away the costliest: Commuters in Brussels, Paris, Dublin and Amsterdam can expect to pay within the $2.00 range--or about half of what London charges--for their bus or metro ticket. MORE

Maldives officials hold underwater meeting to highlight threat of global warming

Maldives officials holding an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the threat of climate change and global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

Girifushi, Maldives. President Mohammad Nasheed and 13 other officials donned scuba gear and used hand signals at a table on the sea floor - 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi. The Cabinet hopes to draw attention to fears that rising ocean levels could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level. Saturday's meeting comes ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference in December in Copenhagen at which a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will be negotiated. Greenhouse gases are blamed for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

East African Bribery Index 2009: The Kenya Police is the most corrupt institution in East Africa

Kenya police are infamous for their corruption and in every ethnic language in Kenya he answers to his generic title: 'polisi'. His motto is Utumishi kwa wote' meaning service to all in Swahili

The Kenya Police is the most corrupt institution in East Africa, this is according to the first ever East African Bribery Index published by Transparency International-Kenya, Transparency Uganda and Tanzania Transparency Forum. The survey conducted between April 16th and May 15th this year, indicates that Kenya has the highest incidence of corruption at 45% while the level of corruption in Uganda is 34%. According to the index, Tanzania is the least corrupt country in East Africa with a corruption incidence of 17.8%.

The survey sampled 10,517 respondents across all the administrative provinces in the three countries.

Corruption in public service

Over half of those polled across the region, indicated that they had paid bribes to access services. 68% of those who paid bribes in Uganda did so to facilitate the delivery of services which are already catered for by their taxes while 51% of the Kenyans sampled reported paying bribes to get services. A similar trend was replicated in Tanzania where 55% of the respondents were asked for bribes while seeking services. The ranking of key public service delivery agencies, for instance the police, judiciary, immigration departments, local authorities, power utility companies, water ministries and hospitals shows that the public service in East Africa is riven with corruption.

“Graft in these institutions is increasing the cost of doing business in East Africa. Given the fluidity of international finance and trade, the East African Community has to create the right environment if the member countries are to attract and retain foreign domestic investments,” said the Transparency International–Kenya, Executive Director, Job Ogonda

The police force in the three East African countries top their respective aggregate indices. The judiciary has also performed dismally with Tanzania’s being ranked fourth in the regional aggregate index, Kenya’s is eighth while Uganda’s is 14th. This highlights a dire need for reforms to improve the services given by the two institutions that are tasked with enforcing law and order.

“The three countries have expressed their economic development, governance and social development plans elaborately. For these plans to be realised, investors must be confident of the respect for the rule of law as concerns their commercial interests. Trade disputes that arise must be judiciously and expeditiously settled. This can not happen where the judicial systems of the three countries are corrupt as indicated in this report,” said Mr. Ogonda.

The index also reveals that there is widespread graft in the three revenue authorities. The Uganda Revenue Authority is listed as the seventh most corrupt institution in the region, the Kenya Revenue Authority is 25th while Tanzania’s holds the 38th position.

The high unemployment rate and harsh economic climate could have contributed to the increase in the incidence of bribery in the region. Cases of employment-related bribery in Kenya rose from 6% in 2008 to 11% in 2009 while the value of bribes paid to access job seeking-related services soared by 279%. In Tanzania 41% of the total value of bribes paid were for employment-related issues.

Reporting of corruption cases

Apathy to bribery and corruption seems to be reducing. The propensity to bribe and not report fell from 64% in 2008 to 56% in 2009. The scenario is the same in Tanzania and Uganda. In Tanzania only 8% of the bribery incidents were reported; indicating a lack of public confidence in the institutions which are supposed to address such complaints. In Uganda the reporting pattern was quite low with 70% of those who paid bribes failing to report the incidents. The major reasons for not forwarding corruption–related cases were similar across the board. While some respondents believed that no action would be taken, others feared intimidation by the concerned authorities while others did not know where to report such cases.

Entrants and exits

Some institutions that were adversely mentioned in the Kenya Bribery Index 2008 are not listed in the current one. They include: the Kenya Ports Authority and private universities.

The Ministry of Defence which was not ranked in the 2007 and 2008 indices has made a strong comeback, taking the second position in the current index. The other institutions that were not previously ranked but are back in the index this year include: the Ministry of Public Works (4), the Teachers Service Commission (13), the National Hospital Insurance Fund (27) and the National Social Security Fund (28).

The Chair of the TI-Kenya Board, Dr. Richard Leakey, urged the institutions adversely mentioned in the index to seek the support of the private sector and civil society in entrenching accountability and transparency. “TI-Kenya has been engaging institutions mentioned in previous indices, with the intention of designing interventions that will enhance their capacity to interpret and discharge their mandate in a way that is most beneficial to the common good.” 

Six killed in tower block blaze

London Tower plaze

Three children and three adults have died after a fire swept through a tower block in south-east London. About 30 people were rescued from the blaze at the 12-storey Lakanal House on the Sceaux Gardens Estate in Camberwell. A three-week-old baby, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old and a woman in her 30s were among those who died. At least 20 people have been taken to hospital, with 18 having now been released. One woman later died at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital, and two other victims died at King's College Hospital. Fire crews have been searching the flats and everyone is believed to have been removed. MORE

Vicar held as police probe wedding con

Father Alex Brown

A vicar has been arrested on suspicion of organising 180 sham weddings for illegal eastern Europe immigrants. Father Alex Brown – a popular figure in his parish in St Leonards, East Sussex, for nearly 20 years – was detained in a dawn raid on his rectory home. A 32-year-old Ukrainian man, a Latvian woman, 27 – believed to be one of the brides – and an Armenian man of 36 were also held. Thirty-five officers from the UK Border Agency and Sussex Police arrested the suspects at four addresses following an 18-month investigation. The weddings were allegedly arranged to allow people from outside Britain and the EU to stay in the country illegally by claiming residency through marriage. Applications for residency were suspended for people married at St Peter and St Paul Church when the investigation began. Just days before his arrest, 61-year-old Brown said he would be retiring next month to move north to be nearer his family. A member of his congregation said today: 'If he has thrown away his long, loyal service to the church to do something so stupid I will be devastated.'