Wednesday, July 02, 2008


The Times leads with the story that gang life is replacing family life.According to the paper

A leading chief constable has issued a stark warning that tribal loyalty has replaced family ties for an “almost feral” generation of angry young people.
A gang culture based on violence and drugs has become a way of life in deprived parts of many larger English cities and cannot be tackled by policing alone, she says.
Barbara Wilding, the longest-serving female chief constable, said that social breakdown was giving rise to “enormous concerns about the future of young people”. Ms Wilding, the Chief Constable of South Wales, said:“In many of our larger cities, in areas of extreme deprivation, there are almost feral groups of very angry young people.


The Independent has a similar theme on its front page

Cherie Blair: 'I fear for my children'

Cherie Blair admitted yesterday that she fears for the safety of her children when they go out on the streets. She also claimed that government figures drastically underestimate the scale of knife crime among children in Britain.
In a dramatic intervention, the wife of the former prime minister told MPs that while chairing a "street weapons commission" she found alarming evidence of rising violence involving knives among children


The Telegraph looks at Dental treatment

The shake-up of NHS dentistry has been a disaster with standards of care dropping and almost one million fewer people being treated on the health service under the new system, a damning report by MPs has found.
adds the report

Instead of improving access to NHS dentistry the reforms have made it worse, the report by the House of Commons Health Select Committee found.


The Mail also looks at health

Now we can ALL be NHS health tourists and shop around EU for best treatment

Every NHS patient is to be given the right to go abroad for free treatment.
They will be able to escape queues and the fear of superbug infections and head anywhere within Europe under a blueprint for 'health tourism'.
In almost all cases, they will be able to send the bill to the NHS - prompting fears that its finances could be thrown into chaos.
Previously, patients who chose to pay for better treatment in France, Germany, or other EU countries had to mount legal action to make the NHS reimburse them


There is plenty of bad news on the economy

House prices – the market collapses says the Independent

The figures show that Britain is following the US into a widespread and possibly protracted housing recession, with the average value of a British home slipping by almost 1 per cent last month, to £172,415. According to the Nationwide Building Society, prices are 7.3 per cent off the peak they reached last year, a decline in wealth of £13,500 for the typical family.


The Express meanwhile claims

POLICE officers will vanish from patrolling the beat on Britain’s streets within 15 years, a chief constable warned yesterday.
Roger Baker, head of Essex Police, delivered his prediction amid a national outcry over gun and knife crime.
He also said police forces are not doing what the public wants.


A poll in the Guardian says that Climate is more urgent than economy,

Voters think that taking action against climate change matters more than tackling the global economic downturn, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. The results, which will delight green campaigners, suggest that support for environmental action is not collapsing as feared in the face of possible recession
.

The Telegraph meanwhile report

Hundreds of hauliers are expected to bring London to a standstill in what is expected to be one of the largest ever protests over rocketing fuel prices.Police-escorted convoys of up to 1,000 lorries will travel to the heart of London to lobby MPs over fuel bills.

The Guardian looks at the situation in Zimbabwe

African Union calls for national unity government

After two days of angry exchanges at an AU summit in Egypt that revealed deep rifts over democratisation, African leaders put together a joint statement that ignored appeals to get directly involved in Zimbabwe's political conflict, leaving the task of mediation to Zimbabwe's neighbours. It appeared to put Mugabe under little pressure to step down.


Robert Mugabe cements grip as African Union ducks censure says the Times

African Union leaders ended their summit in Egypt yesterday refusing to condemn President Mugabe, cementing his hold on power even as they urged the establishment of a national unity government in Zimbabwe.
“He has come here as President of Zimbabwe. He will go home as President of Zimbabwe,” George Charamba, Mr Mugabe’s spokesman, said.
adding

The AU’s final resolution fell short of the full censure sought by the Zimbabwean Opposition and came as both camps signalled that any prospect of talks leading to possible powersharing had faded


The continuing battle in the Church is revealed in the Independent which reports

Three gay rights protesters say they were punched while being forcibly removed yesterday from a conference at which rebel bishops were trying to attract recruits to a network for Anglicans who believe all same-sex relationships should be condemned.
The protest, led by Peter Tatchell, comes as the Anglican communion goes through what is possibly its greatest crisis in 450 years, with many senior clergy predicting that a split in the Church is almost inevitable.


According to the Guardian

Hundreds of English clergy appear poised to defect from the Church of England to join a new conservative movement after a conference led by rebel archbishops was swamped with delegates in London yesterday.
The 750 delegates attending the meeting in central London were asked to pledge their allegiance to a 14-point manifesto issued last weekend in Jerusalem by the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), a coalition of traditionalist clergy who have challenged the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury.


The McCann's return to the front pages

'Now clear our names': McCanns make a plea as Portuguese police close the file on Maddie reports the Mail

Madeleine McCann's parents yesterday demanded their names be cleared amid reports that Portuguese detectives have ended a 14-month investigation into her disappearance.
The inquiry has apparently failed to find any evidence to support the decision to name Kate and Gerry as official suspects, or arguidos.
The McCanns, both 40, hope to be formally exonerated within days


The Mirror says

The 426-day police investigation into the four-year-old's case ended yesterday and detectives are thought to have found nothing linking the couple to her death or abduction.
The McCanns, who have vowed to never give up the search for their daughter, are now desperately hoping they will be allowed to see police files for information on potential leads.


It is difficult to escape Andy Murray in the papers this morning,the Telegraph reports

The thrill of homegrown talent at Wimbledon so far into the tournament has caught the British imagination, as tickets for Andy Murray's next match sell for more than £1,500


The Sun meanwhile tells us how to make your own Murray muscles

ANDY Murray spent years in a gym perfecting the bulging biceps needed to do “The Muscle” pose – but Sun man Gordon Tait shows how you can do it in just five minutes.
by

Get a tennis ball, some white paint and two elastic bands.


Meanwhile the Mirror says

He was awesome, he was magnificent, but I can't pretend I've suddenly fallen in love with the fiery Scot. His anti-English remarks cannot be forgotten so easily. No doubt there are other Englishmen and women who will feel differently because everyone loves a winner But despite his incredible performance on Monday I still can't confuse him with Bobby Moore


The Mail reports that a Lottery winner's brother hanged himself out of shame

The brother of a millionaire lottery winner hanged himself the day before his family was due to be evicted because he could not bear to ask his sister for another handout.
Father-of-two Duncan Wilby, 36, had faced final notices on his mortgage payments twice before.


Tory councils told: 'Say no to Labour' reports the Guardian

The campaign is part of a new Tory strategy "to say no" to demands from the centre, and has drawn fierce criticism from ministers, who believe it is "political hubris" and assumes Labour has lost the election two years before polling day.
Dozens of the Tories' most powerful council leaders were told about the plan during a closed meeting in Nottingham with Eric Pickles, the shadow communities and local government secretary.


The Telegraph reports that Peter Mandelson and Poland spoil Nicolas Sarkozy's first day at EU helm

Mr Sarkozy suffered a fraught day on the first day of the French presidency of the EU. Lech Kaczynski has insisted it was pointless to sign the treaty, rejected by Irish voters last month, even though Poland's parliament has already ratified it.
On BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Mandelson attacked Mr Sarkozy in a row over a World Trade Organisation deal that would cut subsidies to French farmers


The Times adds

The French President admitted that his six months at the head of the EU were going to be tougher than expected and on Day 1 his grand plans were already looking over-optimistic.


Finally the Guardian reports on Da Vinci for the laptop generation

With a glint of a dagger and a blaze of celestial light, Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper burst into new life on Monday night after Peter Greenaway finally secured permission to reinvent the crumbling, 510-year-old masterpiece as a sound and light show.
In a remarkable coup for the British film director, the Italian authorities allowed Greenaway to wheel a battery of projectors, computers and speakers into the usually hushed and air-sealed refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where the image of Christ telling the apostles one of them will betray him decorates an end wall. Inside, Greenaway unveiled a provocative vision of one of Christianity's most sacred and fragile paintings, reimagined "for the laptop generation".

No comments: