Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9418000/9418956.stm
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Wednesday, 31 August 2011
New Amazon stingrays discovered
Two new species of tropical freshwater stingray have been discovered in the Amazon basin.
Hard-up young bankers in search of new ventures
Driven to consider more lucrative careers by their appallingly low bonuses, investment bankers are opting for a radical change of direction. No, not really
Investment banking is not what it used to be. Three years after the height of the credit crisis, bankers are still as reviled as ever, and it seems there are still too many of them. Last week alone, UBS announced 3,500 redundancies, ABN Amro said it would cut up to 5,000 jobs, and it emerged that Goldman Sachs was negotiating pay cuts for some of its London staff.
So perhaps it's not surprising that Wall Street's latest generation of recruits are a disillusioned bunch, according to a survey published last week by headhunters Capstone Partnership.
Among the 2,000 young bankers Capstone spoke to, more than two thirds said "disappointment with compensation" meant they were thinking about leaving the industry. Bonus payments have indeed declined, according to official figures, falling to a paltry $20.8bn (�12.8bn) last year, from $22.5bn a year earlier.
It's tempting to think that's good news. For at least a decade, the sharpest, brightest, most entrepreneurial graduates from the world's finest universities have been hoovered up by Wall Street and the City, lured by the adrenaline, the power, but most of all ? let's be honest ? the extraordinary financial rewards.
It was one of the most obvious manifestations of the out-of-kilter, financialised, over-indebted economy that a job engineering leveraged buyouts became infinitely more attractive than a job in plain old engineering. But as Capstone's Rik Kopelan told Bloomberg, "it's been a rough couple of years for them. Fewer and fewer plan on making it a career, because they're working these long hours and not getting paid as well as they were."
Will these highly educated graduates now take a leaf out of Steve Jobs's book and go off to start innovative new businesses, instead of spending their careers staking the public's hard-earned savings on whopping great corporate takeovers? Well, er, yes ? and no: more than half of the young bankers with itchy feet said they were considering throwing it all up and moving into ? venture capital.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/28/investment-banking-heather-stewarts-business-comment
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Flamingos
Flamingos are wading birds with a very specialised diet - they filter feed, straining out tiny brine shrimps from the water with their specially evolved beaks and tongue.
It may look as if a flamingo can bend its knee backwards but what you're seeing is actually its ankle.
It may look as if a flamingo can bend its knee backwards but what you're seeing is actually its ankle.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Flamingo
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Revealed: Tony Hancock screenplay that the troubled star turned down
The Day Off, by writing team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, was unearthed during research for a new biography of the duo
They wrote some of the funniest, most memorable British comedy of the 20th century. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's scripts for Tony Hancock had lines so brilliant, characters so absurd and jokes so sublime that they embedded themselves in the national consciousness.
Fans should prepare themselves for a treat, though, because the best may be yet to come. The Observer can reveal that Galton and Simpson completed a feature-length film script for Hancock that has never been made public. The Day Off, the gut-wrenching tale of a hapless bus conductor who just can't get anything right, has been hailed as a lost masterpiece and "the holy grail of comedy".
"It's probably the best thing they ever wrote," said Christopher Stevens, the author and journalist who stumbled on the yellowing pages at the back of a filing cabinet in Galton's house. "It's not just very, very funny and archetypally Hancock ? you can hear his voice in every line ? but it's also desperately sad. They'd reached this artistic peak which they developed with Steptoe and Son, where they made you laugh through tears."
Dreamed up in 1961 by the writers of Hancock's Half Hour and the comic's debut film The Rebel, The Day Off was supposed to be the second movie that would launch him as a global star. But to Galton and Simpson's disappointment, Hancock rejected it, asking for something "more international". Before long he had split with his agent, Beryl Vertue, and, by implication, with the writers as well. It was the start of a long decline that would end in his suicide in 1968.
Hurt by Hancock's dismissal of their work, Galton and Simpson put the script to the backs of their minds and moved on to other projects, such as Steptoe and Son, the enduringly popular sitcom, which began the following year. The Day Off took on a quasi-mythical status ? most comedy historians assumed it had never progressed beyond a sketch. "And that was it, really: we didn't think any more of it," said Galton, who is now 81. Simpson, who is the same age, added: "When we did split with him, which was soon after, that was just put in the forget-me box and that's where it's been all the time."
The script was rediscovered last year when Stevens found an unmarked folder in Galton's cellar and asked Malcolm Chapman, a comedy historian who had been collating the archives, what it was. When he was told, said Stevens, he "dropped it on the floor. I couldn't quite process what Malcolm was saying."
Stevens ? whose book on Galton and Simpson, The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe, is published this week ? was bowled over by the script, which comes complete with camera angles and scene-settings and tells the story of an under-confident romantic in a 1960s industrial town whose day off sees him become involved in a series of slip-ups, embarrassments and a failed attempt at love. "It should be filmed. I'm quite certain nothing is further from Ray and Alan's mind at the moment, but in a wonderfully perfect world it would be recreated as a 60s movie," he said.
Paul Merton, who has remade some episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, and Jack Dee were examples of contemporary comedians who could be suited to the leading role, he suggested.
Speaking to the Observer, Dee said the comparison with Hancock was "flattering" and that he would "love to read" the script. However, he warned that an actor would have to be careful about taking on such a role. Galton and Simpson, he added, "were brilliant. They had such subtlety to them, as well as being able to do such big comedy, and that's quite rare in comedy writers, I think."
Stevens, who includes a section of the script in his book, is right to say that the duo are not yet keen for The Day Off to be made. "You've got to bear in mind that neither of us have read it for 50 years. We've got to get it out and re-read it," said Simpson. He added: "I suspect it's too long, because everything we wrote in those days was too long. It probably needs half an hour taken out of it." Uncut, Stevens reckons The Day Off would run to over three hours.
For the writers, Hancock remains a genius. "He was a great performer. He never put a foot wrong," said Galton. "Anything we wrote for him he could read perfectly? His first reading of a script would be absolutely correct. We never had to say: 'No, no, not this way Tony, do it like that.' Never."
Although they do not appear to want to linger on the issue, there is no sign of bitterness about the film that Hancock turned down. Galton said that they had "never got around to discussing" what Hancock had thought of the script, and that they had little contact with him afterwards. The second series of Steptoe, they recalled, had opened on the BBC the same evening as the first episode of Hancock's eponymous, and critically savaged, ATV series. "It was all very sad from his point of view," said Galton.
Stevens said: "They pick their words very carefully. They don't want to impute blame to Tony because they know he was going through awful times emotionally. And they loved him."
Christopher Stevens will interview Galton and Simpson on stage at the Lyttelton Theatre in the National Theatre on London's South Bank at 6pm on Thursday 1 September. Tickets cost �4
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/aug/27/tony-hancock-screenplay-day-off
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In bloom
Increase in jellyfish blooms could disturb the marine food chain
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-13647970
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Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Jerry Leiber's last lyrical masterpiece to celebrate the many sides of Oscar Wilde
Days after the death of the master songwriter, plans revealed for musical about Irish writer
As the rock world mourned lyricist Jerry Leiber last week, it fondly remembered classic hits such as Jailhouse Rock and Stand By Me, for which Leiber wrote the words and Mike Stoller the music. Now Stoller has revealed that the best may be yet to come.
The 78-year-old Stoller has revealed that, in collaboration with writer Michael Bywater, the pair had recently written 11 new songs for a musical about Oscar Wilde that was nearing completion. He told the Observer: "We both felt that it was probably among the best things we'd ever written."
The project began when Leiber and Stoller were approached by Ken Hughes, who directed acclaimed 1960 film The Trials of Oscar Wilde, with Peter Finch in the title role. Hughes wanted to follow his cinematic success with a stage show and contacted the famous partnership after hearing their music. "I have written a play about Oscar Wilde," he wrote. "I heard a recording in a restaurant of Peggy Lee and Mirrors ? Whoever wrote this must write the musical."
Hughes died in 2001 and the project was shelved until a couple of years ago, when Stoller met Bywater on holiday. Though devastated by the loss of his friend and writing partner Leiber, the composer is determined that the show should go on. He is now completing the musical with Bywater.
Although Leiber had been ill, his death came as a shock because the three men had been planning to resume work. Bywater said: "[Jerry] was not particularly well ? but this was the one thing that he was really excited about. Then fate stepped in. So we're cracking on. The songs, both musically and lyrically, are superb. It has been extraordinary working with these two legendary figures."
He said the songs embraced an eclectic mixture of styles ? "music hall with a slight touch of Kurt Weill", including a "most beautiful ballad" that Constance Wilde sings to her husband, and "roaring comedy numbers". He added: "The ballads are absolutely beautiful ? you'd expect nothing else ? but they've produced something that fits absolutely into that fin de si�cle feel but nevertheless doesn't sound contrived, deliberately antique or period. It's theatrical music that will work beautifully on stage."
Among the few people who have heard the Wilde songs are actor Julian Holloway and singer-songwriter Judith Owen. Holloway described the musical as "yet another arrow in [the Leiber-Stoller] quiver of remarkable work". Owen said the songs were "moving, touching and incredibly melodic ? the kind of music you leave the theatre singing".
The Leiber-Stoller partnership began when they were teenagers in Los Angeles. They made their name in the 1950s with songs of love and rebellion to which teenagers could relate, defining a generation. Elvis Presley (with Hound Dog), Buddy Holly, Aretha Franklin and Jerry Lee Lewis had hits with their songs.
Bywater has extensive notes from meetings with Leiber and Stoller that will allow perhaps another five or six songs to be completed, and he hopes to have drafted their structure by next month. "We have one number sketched out musically, and I am, as we speak, pulling together the strands of the lyric, from discussions with Mike and with the notes from our last meetings with Jerry."
The production will be set in a music hall, as "a sort of Christmas Carol", in which Wilde is "brought to see his life as it actually was". Believing that Wilde has often been misrepresented, Bywater said: "He was a fragmented man. Therefore people could choose the Oscar that they wanted. Some people think [of] 'the aesthete', some think 'the family man', some think 'the gay activist', when he was nothing of the sort. There are so many Oscars."
Stoller said that the completed Wilde songs reflect "Jerry's insight", as in Is That All There Is?, a hit in 1969 for Peggy Lee. The premiere may be as soon as next spring, in London.
Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, who learned last week of the musical, said that he was looking forward to it: "What a pedigree. If they can't pull it off, whoever could?"
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/27/jerry-leiber-oscar-wilde
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Parade ? review
Southwark Playhouse, London
Just four years after a superb chamber production at the Donmar Warehouse in London, Jason Robert Brown's unlikely musical gets a deserved revival, and it's a cracker. Alfred Uhry's book is inspired by the story of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn Jew who moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his wife to take up the post of superintendent at a pencil factory. In 1913 he was accused of murdering one of his workers, a 13-year-old girl. His case became a cause celebre for northern liberals, who hadn't previously taken much notice of the defeated south's propensity for dishing out rough justice to its black population.
From its haunting opening number, Old Red Hills of Home, the play pits the soaring nature of the music against the harsh reality of the narrative. Director Thom Southerland's fluid staging recognises the piece's savvy cocktail of musical manipulation and weighty subject matter: giving us a jarring jolt in the final minutes lest we mistakenly try to comfort ourselves with the thought that love conquers all.
As you'll have guessed, this is not your average, jaunty, feelgood musical. But its power lies not just in its fabulous score ? which draws on blues numbers, spirituals and hymns ? but also in the fact that it dares to deal with ugly racism, political machinations and mass hysteria, and does so using ambiguity rather than certainties. In Alastair Brookshaw's fine performance, the nervy, uptight Leo is hardly a sympathetic fellow.
The show doesn't quite carry the courage of its convictions into the second, more traditional half, when the love story between Leo and his wife (the superb Laura Pitt-Pulford) is foregrounded. But it feels churlish to complain about a musical that deals with issues normally only tackled in plays. At its best, this show (which at times resembles a musical version of The Crucible) packs a real punch as it demonstrates a cruel truth: that individuals fall victim to societal pressures and political expediencies.
The acoustics are not always harmonious, but the gloomy vaults add to the atmosphere of John Risebero's clever design. Besides the leads, there are some terrific performances, particularly from Mark Inscoe, Hugh Dorsey and Terry Doe, who leads the chain-gang blues number, Feel the Rain Come, in compelling style.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/aug/30/parade-southwark-playhouse-review
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Notting Hill carnival draws hundreds of thousands of revellers and 6,500 police
Officers patrolled the carnival in one of the capital's biggest ever operations amid fears of trouble following the riots this month
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Notting Hill on Monday to enjoy Europe's largest carnival, which organisers said was on course to be one of the best in years.
Scotland Yard said the event was "very peaceful" as a record number of more than 6,500 police officers patrolled the streets for its second day. The celebrations passed without a repeat of the trouble following the riots and looting that hit London and other English cities.
But a man thought to be in his twenties was in a serious condition in hospital last night after being found with stab wounds to the abdomen in nearby Ladbroke Grove.
Three men have been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. The Metropolitan police said 132 people had been arrested by 8pm on Monday, bringing the total to 214 over two days ? down from 243 last year. But a Met spokesman stressed that policing had been "relatively straightforward".
Organisers said up to 800,000 people attended the carnival on Monday ? with more than a million enjoying the party over the two days.
Organiser Chris Boothman said the carnival had allowed Londoners to "reclaim the streets" in the wake of the riots. He added: "People have really come out to support the carnival and it shows once again that London can put on large events."
Police launched their "robust" strategy for the carnival in the runup to the event, making more than 40 pre-emptive arrests.
In addition to the 6,500 officers patrolling in Notting Hill, the Met said another 4,000 were on duty in other parts of London.
On Sunday, the London mayor, Boris Johnson, called for "the true spirit of London to shine through" during the carnival in the hope that it would help "heal wounds" left by this month's riots.
On Monday , the mayor staged a mini-walkabout amid the food stalls. Earlier, hundreds of thousands of spectators had lined the route of the procession, cheering the floats, dancers and drummers. Many more danced in side streets at scores of sound systems.
Suzzie Morgan, 21, said it was her third carnival. "We didn't even think about not coming after the riots," she said. "It is just as good an atmosphere as always and I think everyone is here for a party."
Despite the upbeat mood, the increased police presence was not welcomed by everyone.
During the day, on the streets leading to the carnival route, officers using special stop-and-search powers granted under a section 60 order stopped hundreds of people ? mostly young men ? looking for "drugs, weapons and anything that could cause problems", according to one officer.
Nathan, 21, from Peckham, south-east London, was one of those stopped. "They've got a job to do but there's no need to treat us like that," he said.
"We've come here today for a party and hopefully to get some girls, not for anything else."
This year's event started and finished early on both days. On Mondaylarge numbers of people began to leave the area after about 6pm, and the sound systems were turned off at 7pm.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/29/notting-hill-carnival-revellers-police
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Let the EDL racists march | Nina Power
By denying one group its right to public protest, the government moves closer to banning us all
Last Friday Theresa May, the home secretary, agreed to the Metropolitan police's request for a ban on all marches in five London boroughs for a period of 30 days, beginning on 2 September. The ostensible reason is Saturday's English Defence League march in Tower Hamlets, but the ban will cover not only the large counter-march planned to oppose the EDL but also a whole range of events scheduled to take place over the next month in Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Islington and Hackney. This could include East London LGBT Pride, a march against cuts to Homerton Hospital, and, most ironically, an event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street.
While the government banning marches is nothing new ? and there have been many such bans issued since the Public Order Act of 1936 ? this latest blanket ban raises serious questions: is banning marches the best way to tackle racists and fascists? Will a ban be specific enough to affect only the EDL? Will a ban even stop the EDL coming to Tower Hamlets? All these questions could be answered with a simple "no", but political reality, as usual, is more complicated.
A petition asking May to ban the EDL march was signed by 25,000 people, including the mayor of Tower Hamlets, council leaders, residents and trade unionists. In the wake of the mass murders committed by the Norwegian Islamophobe Anders Behring Breivik, who wanted to set up a Norwegian Defence League and corresponded with members of its English version, a total ban on the group's activities seems appealing, perhaps especially to those in Tower Hamlets who would suffer most directly from the group's presence.
It is clear to everyone that the EDL's motivation for marching in Tower Hamlets is far less about exercising its right to freedom of expression than it is to harass and intimidate the local Muslim population. The EDL itself has no qualms about attacking other protesters. The EDL's leader, Tommy Robinson, explicitly threatened student demonstrators last December, and the group violently attacked an anti-racist meeting in Barking in May, hospitalising a female NHS worker.
Calling for a ban on the EDL march has its attractions. But there is a question about who is being asked to impose a ban, and what consequences a ban might have beyond the resolution of an immediate situation. It is increasingly clear that the coalition government is doing its best to punish protesters of all stripes. Students who protested against fee rises last year were subjected to kettling and charged by mounted police, while many are still being dragged through the courts on serious counts; 30 UK Uncut protesters are still being "symbolically" prosecuted for peacefully occupying Fortnum & Mason on 26 March; and anyone who attended the 30 June strike would have been aware of police "snatch and grab" tactics used against anyone they had decided were potential troublemakers.
Following the student protests, police chiefs have called for extended powers to use rubber bullets and water cannon, while the recent riots have seen the courts impose very harsh sentences, refuse bail and fill cells to breaking point.
Asking for a ban on specific marches is dangerous: given the government's obvious fear of people on the street, it is just as likely to ban everyone as it is to ban a few. And what of Labour arguments regarding the ban? A recent letter sent to the Guardian, signed by Labour MPs and councillors, argued that "while we have no doubt that the Met could contain [the EDL] demonstration, the cost of policing it ? would simply be too great".
Calling for a ban on marching because of cost is incredibly foolhardy ? the next time trade unionists march, or students protest, will we see the government deny them the right for "economic reasons"? The debate over banning is better framed in two separate but interlinked ways: in terms of civil liberties (particularly articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights, which protect the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly) and, more importantly, in terms of practical opposition to fascism and racism wherever they emerge.
The ban on the EDL will not stop the group holding a "static protest" in Tower Hamlets on 3 September. It won't stop their lies and attempts to intimidate. Those who abhor the EDL and everything they stand for should come out on the streets to oppose them if they can, rather than calling on the government to step in and stop them, a tactic that can only further the government's evident quest to eliminate public protest in general.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/30/let-english-defence-league-march
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Monday, 29 August 2011
Labour could be ruined by proposed cap on political donations
Annual limit on funding would affect all major parties, with Labour facing a potential deficit of �13.5m
Labour could face financial ruin under plans being developed to cap the biggest donations to political parties, a Guardian analysis shows.
The independent standards watchdog is said to have agreed to recommend a new limit on donations, introducing an annual cap with figures ranging from �50,000 to �10,000 being considered. Such a move, in an attempt to clean up political funding, would end the six- and seven-figure donations to the Labour party from its union sponsors, as well as the Tories' reliance on the richest city financiers.
An analysis of five and a half years' worth of donations to the parties reveals the move would most dramatically affect Labour's funding base. If the �50,000 limit had been in place over the period, Labour's donations would have been reduced by 72%, the Conservatives' by 37% and the Liberal Democrats' by 25%.
A source close to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which has been reviewing the party funding system and is due to report in October, said it was trying to find a way to impose a cap without bankrupting any one party.
Some committee members are arguing for more public funding for political parties, but most believe this is not achievable in the current economic climate. The debate now appears to rest on whether union money should be treated as single large donations or as multiple small donations from individual members' affiliation fees, and whether those affiliation fees should automatically go to Labour.
Union members could be given the option to donate their fee to another party in what would be the most radical shakeup of Labour's relationship with the unions in a generation, which would be fiercely opposed by union leaders.
"The thing we are going to have to decide is whether to bite the bullet and suggest public funding," the source said.
The committee, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, is due to meet on Thursday to decide the core issues. Nick Clegg, who is responsible for political reform, has promised to start cross-party talks on funding reform after the committee reports.
There is deep suspicion in Labour that senior ministers want to use the reforms to destabilise the financial foundations of the party. A spokesman said: "We would expect the Conservatives to stick to their promise that they will recognise that this issue needs to be resolved through cross-party consensus.
"We value the link with the trade union movement and any attempt to rewrite our constitution and deprive Labour of millions of working people's voices would leave politics a poorer place."
A Conservative spokeswoman said: "If the purpose of a cap is to deal with the perception that money can buy influence then it must apply equally to individuals, companies and trade unions, from whom the Labour party receives 85% of funding and who get extensive policy concessions in return."
A Liberal Democrat spokesman insisted that the coalition would not impose a deal on the parties. "The history of party funding reform is littered with corpses. You have to do it in consultation with the other parties," the spokesman said.
The analysis also reveals the impact a potential cap of �50,000 would have on all the political parties' already fragile balance sheets. Party accounts show that the Conservatives' extravagant spending at the last election ? outspending Labour by two to one ? and restructuring of their pension liabilities left them temporarily more in deficit last year, with a shortfall of �6.2m in 2010, which would jump by around �13m to �19.6m had their donations been capped at �50,000.
Despite its lower spending, the potential impact of the changes on Labour finances would be more severe, with more than �16m of funding disappearing from party coffers, transforming a surplus last year of �3.2m into a �13.5m deficit.
The Liberal Democrats' deficit of �335,000 expands to �1.9m. Labour separately has outstanding debts of nearly �10m, the Tories �2.6m and the Liberal Democrats �411,000.
Previous negotiations over funding failed in 2007 with the parties unable to agree a cap. Those were chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips, a former civil servant.
Phillips said the problem of the party funding system was "chronic". He urged the parties to make changes before the next scandal emerged.
But he warned that the hurdles facing reform have grown, because of the perceived closer links of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to the unions and because the economic climate makes it harder to justify public funding.
"When I produced my report and negotiated with the parties, public funding wasn't a big bone of contention. I think there would be much more reluctance now even though I still believe it is the right solution. The political party system is essential to democracy. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to provide a stake in the way parties are is funded."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/30/labour-ruined-by-cap-donations
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Crossrail delays competition for �16bn train manufacturing contract
The move reduces the chances of a repeat of the Bombardier row, where its Derby factory missed out to a German rival for the �1.4bn Thameslink contract
Britain's next train manufacturing contract could be awarded to a UK-based business after the �16bn Crossrail project delayed a competition to build new carriages.
The move reduces the chances of a repeat of the Bombardier row, where the company's Derby factory missed out to a German rival for a �1.4bn government contract. As a consequence of the delay, the Crossrail tender will include recommendations from a government review of public procurement that was announced in the wake of the Bombardier decision.
Crossrail said the primary reason for pushing the award of the carriage contract from late 2013 to 2014 was to save costs, but said it would also allow "the conclusions of the government's review of public procurement to be taken into account". Under European Union rules member states are forbidden from showing domestic bias in selecting the winners of government-funded contracts, which exposed the UK government to sharp criticism when the �1.4bn contract for carriages on the London Thameslink route went to Siemens of Germany rather than Bombardier, whose Derby factory is the UK's last remaining train manufacturing plant.
In a carefully worded statement, Crossrail indicated that a UK-based business will be in a stronger position for the new contract than it was in the Thameslink contest. "The review of public procurement is examining whether the UK is making best use of the application of EU procurement rules, as well as the degree to which the government can set out requirements and evaluation criteria with a sharper focus on the UK's strategic interest and how the government can support businesses and ensure that when they compete for work they are doing it on an equal footing with their competitors."
Bombardier has announced plans to cut more than 1,400 jobs in Derby after Siemens was selected as preferred bidder in the Thameslink process. The Canadian-owned group is conducting a review of its UK businesses that could result in the closure of the Derby plant, with the loss of a further 1,600 jobs.Bombardier said: "The fact that the Crossrail rolling stock procurement is to be rescheduled is welcome news in the light of recent events. The rescheduling will give time to ensure that the ITT [invitation to tender] will allow the results of the government's review of procurement to be included." The Crossrail contract is for 60 trains, which will operate on the UK rail network from May 2017 before being put into service on Crossrail when the route, which runs between Heathrow and Canary Wharf, opens around 2019.
A source close to the Unite trade union, which represents workers at the Derby plant, said: "Putting the UK's strategic interests first gives hope that jobs and skills are at last the priority." One industry source said a UK-based manufacturer's chances of winning the Crossrail contract would be enhanced further if the tender emphasised socio-economic factors including the effect on regional economies and reducing the focus on bid financing, with the latter factor apparently playing a major role in Siemens's success with Thameslink. The producer of the Thameslink trains is still expected to have a strong chance of winning the Crossrail order, because both routes are expected to require similar rolling stock.
There are no signs, however, that the government will back down from the Thameslink decision. In a recent letter to Chris Williamson, Labour MP for Derby North, David Cameron refused to start the process again or meet a delegation from Derby on the issue. Cameron wrote: "I am afraid that neither I nor the secretary of state for transport can ? justify stopping the procurement process to re-invite tenders. This would cause substantial delays to the programme and moreover, would not help Bombardier which, even if it were successful at re-tender, would still not have the work for several more years."
According to a recent poll, Labour could win back the South Derbyshire constituency because voters have been angered by the government's refusal to reconsider.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/29/crossrail-train-manufacturing-contract
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Insects make food germ-free
Scientists confirm that burying beetles coat their young's food with an antibacterial substance to guarantee their survival.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-14669012
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What the battle for my park tells us about Britain today | Stephen Pritchard
The East End's Hermitage Wharf memorial garden should stay open to everyone
Ever heard of the Dead End Kids? When German bombers began 76 successive nights of raids on the London docks in 1940, Patsie Duggan and his team of tin-hatted teenagers, including his 13-year-old sister, Maureen, ran around Wapping, in east London, dodging flying debris, pulling people from burning buildings and doing their best to douse the flames.
By the time the Blitz was over, two lads had been killed and Patsie injured, but they had saved many lives.
Fast forward to today and Wapping is another country, a tranquil backwater now the docks are long closed. What the Luftwaffe failed to destroy, developers have transformed into expensive riverside flats; bright steel and glass apartment blocks rise alongside them, their reflections dancing in a far less polluted Thames.
Does the spirit of Patsie's daring team live on in Wapping's firmly multi-cultural teenagers today? Not if you believe some of the new East Enders. Residents of those shiny temples to modernity are lobbying for a riverside park to be fenced around and locked every evening against vandalism and rowdy behaviour.
Only this isn't any old park. The Dead End Kids would have been familiar with one of Wapping's bigger air-raid shelters at Hermitage Wharf. It took a hit in 1940 and again in 1944, when a doodlebug killed five ARP wardens. Then, just a few months before the end of the war, a V2 rocket blew it apart, killing six and injuring many others.
It's now the site of a memorial garden for East End victims of the Blitz, civilians who died in a nightly terror we find hard to imagine today. Open round the clock and well stocked with shrubs and young trees it's a welcome green space in a densely built area, with panoramic views up the river to Tower Bridge. Its crowning glory is a graceful dove of peace which stands as a symbol of hope after so much misery. This dove was cruelly vandalised last year, shocking local people. It's now fenced around but that's not enough for some. They want the park "caged" and locked at night because young men occasionally use it as an impromptu outdoor pub and make too much noise ? as young men do. I know: I live in the area and am sometimes woken by their irritating carousing. But dialogue is better than denunciation. I talk to these youngsters and see a different side to them. They're not bad ? they're just bored.
And to those who feel they would never be heirs to the brave Dead End Kids, I have seen them transformed by the need to act. Walking in the park one evening I saw a middle-aged man fall 20ft into the low-tide mud below, breaking several bones. These apparently feckless young men sprang into action, calling the rescue services and staying close by, calling down encouragement to him until help arrived and frankly thrilled at being useful.
Locking them out of the park will punish everyone and solve nothing, simply moving the problem to another area. The old East End could take nightly bombardments from the Luftwaffe but the new East End can't take the occasional bit of noise.
This seems curiously symbolic of modern Britain, where the mantra of education, education, education has been replaced with exclusion, exclusion, exclusion. And ask Tottenham where that leads.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/28/dont-exclude-young-people
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Open door: Phone-hacking herograms
The letters editor on ... readers' letters of praise for the Guardian's work on the News of the World
For a couple of weeks in July one of our office walls sprouted with a new decoration. Spreading out from the editorial noticeboard, a collage of printed emails and letters, thanking, congratulating and commending us for our ground-breaking reporting on the phone-hacking scandal, took over the wall. Though we published two or three or these on the letters page, it's worth noting both the volume of these "herograms" and the feelings they expressed.
The revelation that the News of the World had hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler was made by the Guardian's Nick Davies on Monday 4 July, sparking off a chain reaction that ended with the closure of the NoW on Thursday 7 July, as advertisers took fright. For some readers 4 July was the start of independence from Murdoch day. On Friday 8 July, Roger Jinkinson commented in a published letter with one word: "Gotcha."
On Saturday, 9 July, we printed a letter from Ray Golland, which seemed to sum up the feelings of the many readers who were now writing in. "As a long-standing Guardian reader, I just wanted to say how immensely proud I feel of the fantastic public service which that my paper has rendered society, finally forcing this disgraceful business out into the full glare of public scrutiny. Hats off to Nick Davies, nothing less than Reporter of the Year will do."
Many unpublished letter writers simply wanted to identify themselves with the paper: "Proud to be a Guardianista," wrote Jenny Bowie. Many more compared the Guardian's journalism with that exposed at the News of the World: "Very proud that my paper has cracked Murdoch. Brilliant incisive investigative journalism, and editorial courage. Well done!" commented Pat Hood of Orford. Though some wanted to make it clear plaudits were not universally deserved: "Your coverage of Moto GP is rubbish, but your unmasking of NoW villainy is a tour de force of journalism. Proud of you all," said Laurence Garrett from Bude.
And the praise came not just from Britain. "We would like to see a third front opened up in Australia," David Rowatt emailed from the antipodes. From San Antonio, Texas, Gina de Miranda wrote: "It is time to restore the real role of the media in our societies. We need our media to be gatekeepers not president makers. We need our media not to be cosy with our politicians, but with the needs of citizens." While Marcelo Lagares wrote from Buenos Aires: "I hope the best for the future ? a fan of the Guardian (please could you consider a website in Spanish??)."
The letters page was dominated for the next two weeks by the flood of letters commenting on and arguing about the many issues raised by the developing scandal, from privacy to press regulation and corporate power, but we kept the herograms for internal consumption, in line with the reticence of our Unitarian founders, who would undoubtedly have frowned at such frivolous excesses. And arguably we were doing no more than our job. We were also conscious that 200 people or more were losing their jobs and a newspaper was closing down. Certainly no cause for celebration.
A page full of letters that just flattered would not be very enlightening (though some colleagues might not agree!). But ? in modest doses ? praise is part of the proper mix of readers' responses. One recent example unrelated to the phone-hacking scandal was Victor Connor's letter at the end of July in response to a Comment piece Mike Marqusee wrote about his cancer and the wonders of the NHS: "I've felt all his emotions, but cannot hope to express them so powerfully. I've rarely been so moved by a piece," Connor wrote.
But for the most part we will continue just to pass letters and emails of praise on to the journalist or department ? if only to see hard-bitten hacks come over all kittenish with gratitude. Because encouragement for a job well done or a phrase well turned is appreciated. Perhaps we need the equivalent of a Facebook "wall", where readers can "like" an article. Disagreement is always more likely to generate a letter, or response on a thread, than nodding approval. But in the difficult debate to come over the future of news media, we should remember that in the end corrupt journalism was exposed by good journalism. And maybe readers need to show which kind they support a bit more often.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/28/open-door-phone-hacking-herograms
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Sunday, 28 August 2011
A truly shameful week for football | Kevin McKenna
We should bring on home-grown talent rather than relying on imported has-beens
On days of national mourning in Scotland, we have taken to turning to the back page of the Daily Record. Last Thursday's publication carried a picture of a tombstone: "Here lies Scottish football: Died of shame on 25 August 2011". The previous evening Celtic had been beaten in the Europa League, the second-best continental competition, by the fourth-best side in Switzerland while Rangers fell to the Slovenian champions.
The week before, Hearts had been humiliated at home by Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs are far richer than Hearts. Even so, they would have faced a stiffer test in most other countries than they did in Scotland's capital that night. In the first half, the game was so one-sided that it resembled a training session where cardboard dummies are provided for real players to run around.
The economy of Scottish football is not impoverished, though it does not bear comparison to the obscene wealth of the Premier League. Of the Celtic and Rangers players who surrendered so meekly last week, around a dozen will take home salaries of around �1m a year. Each has a stadium and a swanky out-of-town training facility that compares with the best in Europe. Most other football clubs on the Continent are envious of the amount of people who pay lots of money to watch them every week and purchase all their merchandise.
Most of the other clubs in the top tier of Scottish football are solvent and can pay handsome salary and bonus packages to their players. Yet, for the first time since 1956, when European club competitions began, every Scottish club has been eliminated at the first hurdle. This is indeed shameful and embarrassing and should not be dismissed by those perverse and rebarbative people among us who claim not to have any interest in the game. It matters because football, whether you like it or not, affects the lives of many people and our ability to play it properly has become a measure of our self-worth as a nation.
Celtic were beaten 3-1 by a team called Sion last Thursday, whose ground can accommodate no more than 16,000 supporters. They were undone when their Swedish central defender, Daniel Majstorovic, beaten for pace (as he always is), made a clumsy tackle, conceded a penalty and was sent off. Not a minute had elapsed. I have witnessed learner drivers performing three-point turns in a narrow lane more quickly than the time it takes this player to change direction. You almost expect a foghorn to be sounded when the manoeuvre has been completed. Rangers spurned the opportunity to play in the Champions League the previous month when they were beaten by the Swedish team Malmo. They, too, went down to 10 men after a full back threw the ball into the face of an opposition player in the manner of an primary school pupil. This player, Steven Whittaker, had just been awarded a five-year contract by Rangers.
Yet there are so many limitations to his game that he would not have been considered good enough to be a ballboy at Ibrox a generation ago. Every few seasons at Rangers they unveil an assortment of overseas players who are, in the main, the mere unwanted offcuts and remnants of other clubs who know better.
Eleven years ago, Rangers spent �12.3m on the Norwegian player Tore Andr� Flo and then �7m on the Ukrainian winger Andrei Kanchelskis. When you add on wages and bonuses, this pair cost Rangers around �25m. Flo, having banked so much money in the deal, then played in a manner that suggested he couldn't wait to get back home to Norway and retire on it. Kanchelskis, having given his best years to other clubs, spent most of his time at Ibrox falling down and running away from defenders. At the end of his career, he, too, wanted to be in a fit state to enjoy his wealth. Rangers have never recovered from signing this pair.
At Rangers' training complex in Milngavie and Celtic's in Lennoxtown, around 200 Scottish youngsters ranging from eight to 16 have joined the clubs' youth programmes. Between them, they have the pick of the best young players in the country. Fewer than a handful of them will make it to the first team. What was always a difficult task became harder as both Celtic and Rangers have chosen to fill their squads with overseas players who, in general, aren't any better than the young Scots who have been told they are not good enough by coaches. Yet 44 years ago, Scotland came close to becoming the first nation to provide the winners of all three European cups. Celtic won the European Cup, Rangers were defeated after extra time in the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup and Kilmarnock lost narrowly in the semi-final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Every player representing these teams, apart from Kai Johansen, the Rangers full-back, was born in Scotland.
European football has changed but Scotland is still producing good footballers. Yet they are allowed to wither on the vine because their places are being taken by players such as Majstorovic and the Rangers new Spanish signing Ortiz, neither of whom is better than the best young players in the youth academies.
Once, the best Scottish players were signed by the top English clubs, each of whom had a solid backbone of men such as Billy Bremner, Dave Mackay, Denis Law, Charlie Cooke and Kenny Dalglish to add grit and skill to their sides. Up until last year, less than a handful of Scots were anywhere near a Premier League squad. Yet this isn't because Scotland has stopped producing good footballers, it's simply as a consequence of the best players in Europe flocking to the Sky-backed riches of the Premier League. This ought to have been good news for Scottish clubs. It hasn't turned out like that. Instead, the reputation of our clubs has never been lower at a time when we have more overseas players than ever.
Celtic and Rangers should start the recovery by allowing more of Scotland's best young players as good a chance as overpaid and third-rate continental players. These clubs now have nothing more to lose by it.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/28/scottish-football-all-time-low
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British army faces further inquiries into alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners
Other torture allegations remain to be heard after army cleared of systemic abuse in Baha Mousa case
The Baha Mousa report is not the only one to look into the question of the "systemic" abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
A second inquiry is to open later this year, examining disputed allegations that up to 20 men were tortured and murdered in British custody after a gun battle in southern Iraq in 2004.
That inquiry became inevitable after the high court severely criticised the Royal Military Police's investigation into the affair and said that courts should be wary of evidence given by the RMP's second in command.
The court of appeal is currently considering whether to order a third inquiry, into the military's entire detention and interrogation policy, after hearing arguments on behalf of more than 150 men who allege they were systematically tortured by the British army in south-east Iraq between 2003 and 2008.
The complaints include 59 allegations of detainees being hooded, 11 of electric shocks, 122 of sound deprivation through the use of ear muffs, 52 of sleep deprivation, 131 of sight deprivation using blackened goggles, 39 of enforced nakedness and 18 of being kept awake by pornographic DVDs played on laptops.
The Ministry of Defence's lawyers have conceded that the individual allegations "raise an arguable case of breach of Article 3" of the European convention on human rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. But, in its attempts to persuade the courts that a third inquiry is not needed, the MoD has set up a team of 80 investigators, half of them former civilian detectives, to examine the allegations.
The Iraq historic allegations team (Ihat) is now scouring MoD records, including hundreds of video recordings of military interrogations, and interviewing the complainants.
Many of the complaints centre on a secretive Intelligence Corps facility known as the joint forces interrogation team, or JFIT. Already, three men who served at the JFIT have been referred to the director of service prosecutions, who has been asked to consider war crimes charges under the 2001 International Criminal Court Act.
Nine other deaths in British military custody are also being re-examined.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/28/british-army-alleged-abuse-iraqis
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Hurricane Irene shuts down US nuclear reactors
Maryland reactor damaged by hurricane winds as other US nuclear plants take precautionary measures
A nuclear reactor in Maryland has been shut down because of wind damage, while others were either taken offline or operating at reduced capacity as precautionary measures before the arrival of hurricane Irene on Sunday.
A reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Lusby, Maryland, remained off-line on Sunday, after going into automatic shutdown when a piece of aluminum siding ripped from a nearby building damaged a transformer.
Constellation Energy, which operates the Lusby plant, said the facility was safe and that a second reactor was operating at full capacity. No power outages were expected because of the shutdown.
Maryland state emergency agency said the plant would reopen after inspection. "Number one will stay offline until they have folks that will crawl over every inch of it," its spokesman, Quentin Banks said.
It was the second complete shutdown caused by Irene, after authorities took a plant offline in New Jersey as a precaution before the storm.
Exelon Corporation decided on Saturday afternoon to take its Oyster Creek generator offline as Irene blew in. "It's really as a precaution, a conservative action, because we do expect hurricane force winds," Marshall Murphy, an Exelon spokesman, told reporters.
Fourteen nuclear plants from North Carolina to New Hampshire were in Irene's path when the hurricane headed up the east coast on Saturday.
In addition to the two shutdowns, some plants powered down as a safety measure ? which also contributed to widespread power cuts. Progress Energy powered down its reactors in Brunswick, North Carolina, and Dominion Resources cut production at one reactor at its Millstone plant in New London, Connecticut, by 70%. Another Dominion plant in Virginia, which had gone down because of last week's earthquake, remained offline for Irene.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/28/hurricane-iren-shuts-nuclear-reactor
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What made Steve Jobs a giant among the world's greatest communicators?
Steve Jobs rescued Apple from near oblivion and turned it into a byword for quality, production values and beauty
Steve Jobs's resignation was the most discussed in corporate history. Because his illness has been public knowledge for so long, and because Wall Street and the commentariat viewed his health as being synonymous with that of his company, for years Apple share prices have fluctuated with its CEO's temperature. If all the "Whither Apple without Jobs?" articles were laid end to end, they would cover quite a distance ? but they never reached a conclusion.
Still, you could understand the hysteria. After all, he's the man who rescued Apple from the near-death experience it underwent in the mid-1990s. When he came back in 1996, the company seemed headed for oblivion. Granted, it was a distinctive, quirky outfit, but one that had been run into the ground by mediocre executives who had no vision, no strategy ? and no operating system to power its products into the future.
Jobs came back because Apple bought NeXT, the computer workstation company he had started after being ousted by the Apple board in 1985. By acquiring NeXT, Apple got two things: the operating system that became OS X, the software that underpinned everything Apple has made since; and Jobs as "interim CEO" at a salary of $1 a year. But it was still a corporate minnow: a BMW to Microsoft's Ford. Fifteen years later, Apple had become the most valuable company in the world.
It was the greatest comeback since Lazarus. Because only an obsessive, authoritarian, visionary genius could have achieved such a transformation, it's easy to see why Wall Street has had difficulty imagining Apple without Jobs. He was, after all, the only CEO in the world with rock star status. And Apple is a corporate extension of his remarkable personality, much as Microsoft was of Bill Gates's. But Jobs has something Gates never had ? a reputation so powerful as to create a reality distortion field around him.
This field has blinded people to some under-appreciated facts. While it is true, for example, that Apple ? under Jobs's influence ? is probably the world's best industrial design outfit, it is also a phenomenally well-run company. Proof of that comes from various sources. For example, not only does it regularly dream up beautiful, functional and fantastically complex products, but it gets them to market in working order, on time and to budget; and it has continually done so despite exploding demand. Compare that with slow-motion car crashes such as Hewlett Packard's Touchpad, RIM's BlackBerry Playbook or Microsoft's Vista operating system.
Then there's the way that Apple ? in the teeth of industry scepticism ? made such an astonishing success of bricks-and-mortar retailing with its high-street stores. Or ponder the fact that it became the world's most valuable corporation without incurring a single cent of debt. Instead, it sits atop a $78bn (�48bn) cash mountain: enough to buy Tesco and BT and still have loose change. Compare that with the casino capitalism practised by so many MBA-educated company leaders in the US. And finally there is the stranglehold Apple now has on a number of crucial modern markets ? computers, online music, mobile devices and smartphones.
If you ask people what Steve Jobs is best remembered for, most will name a particular product. If they're from my (baby boomer) generation, it will probably be the Apple Macintosh, a computer that changed many of our lives in the 1980s. Younger generations will credit him with the iMac, iTunes and the iPod. Today's teenagers will revere him for the iPhone. But there's a good argument that Jobs's greatest creation is Apple itself in its post-1996 incarnation. If that's true, the great test of his career legacy is whether the organisation he built around his values will endure and remain faithful to them.
What are those values? He usually expressed them as aphorisms and, as news of his resignation spread , people began raking through them for clues. Many focused on what he said to John Sculley, CEO of Pepsi, when he was trying to persuade him to run Apple.
"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water," he asked, "or do you want to change the world?" (Sculley accepted the invitation, then presided over Jobs's expulsion.) But for Jobs it was a serious question. What he was asking, as the blogger Umair Haque put it, was: "Do you really want to spend your days slaving over work that fails to inspire, on stuff that fails to count, for reasons that fail to touch the soul of anyone?"
Jobs is famously fanatical about design. In part this is about how things look (though for him it also involves simplicity of use). When the rest of the industry was building computers as grey, rectangular metal boxes, for example, he was prowling department stores and streets looking for design metaphors. For a time he thought the Mac should be like a Porsche. At another stage he wanted it to be like the Cuisinart food-processor. When the machine finally appeared in 1984, Jack Tramiel, the grizzled macho-boss of Commodore, thought it looked like a girly device that would be best sold in boutiques. What Tramiel did not realise ? and Jobs did ? was that ultimately computers would be consumer products and people would pay a huge premium for classy design.
In that sense he is the polar opposite of the MBA-trained, bean-counting executive. "The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting," he said in 1996, when the company was on the rocks. "The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament." At another point he said: "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it."
This delight in elegant work has always been the most striking aspect of Jobs's celebrated speeches introducing new Apple products in San Francisco. As he cooed over the iMac or the iPhone or the iPad, words like "beautiful", "amazing" and "awesome" tumbled out. For once they didn't sound like cynical, manipulative corporation-speak. He spoke from the heart.
It goes without saying that he is impossible to work with; most geniuses are. Yet he has built ? and retained the respect of ? the most remarkable design team in living memory, a group that has been responsible for more innovation than the rest of the computer industry put together. For that reason, when the time comes to sum up Jobs's achievements, most will portray him as a seminal figure in the computing industry. But Jobs is bigger than that.
To understand why, you have to look at the major communications industries of the 20th century ? the telephone, radio and movies. As Tim Wu chronicles it in his remarkable book, The Master Switch, each of these industries started out as an open, irrationally exuberant, chaotic muddle of incompatible standards, crummy technology and chancers. The pivotal moment in the evolution of each industry came when a charismatic entrepreneur arrived to offer consumers better quality, higher production values and greater ease of use.
With the telephone it was Theodore Vail of AT&T, offering a unified nationwide network and a guarantee that when you picked up the phone you always got a dial tone. With radio it was David Sarnoff, who founded RCA. With movies it was Adolph Zukor, who created the Hollywood studio system.
Jobs is from the same mould. He believes that using a computer should be delightful, not painful; that it should be easy to seamlessly transfer music from a CD on to a hard drive and thence to an elegant portable player; that mobile phones should be powerful handheld computers that happen to make voice calls; and that a tablet computer is the device that is ushering us into a post-PC world. He has offered consumers a better proposition than the rest of the industry could ? and they jumped at it. That's how he built Apple into the world's most valuable company. And it's why he is really the last of the media moguls.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/27/steve-jobs-apple-ipod-ipad
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Supermarkets to tackle riot zones
Retailers will send managers to deprived communities to help boost local economies
Retailers Asda and Sainsbury's are among businesses that have signed up to a charity initiative that will see senior store and project managers despatched to work in deprived areas such as Tottenham and Lambeth, which were badly hit by this month's riots.
Ten companies, including BT, Dairy Crest and Greggs, have signed up to the pilot scheme run by Business in the Community. So-called "business connectors" will be seconded to communities for at least six months to provide assistance to residents and groups trying to tackle issues such as youth unemployment, educational underachievement and a weak local enterprise culture. Its chief executive Stephen Howard said it was a "crucial time" for businesses to get involved in communities: "I believe healthy back streets create healthy high streets."
The project, backed by the government's Office of Civil Society, will start next month in 20 areas and will be supported by a social networking website to "broker" offers of support available in other parts of the country.
Retail experts have warned that without hasty intervention, the rioting could push some of Britain's most troubled high streets into a spiral of decline. Last week saw the launch of the High Street Fund, chaired by Sir William Castell, who is chairman of the Wellcome Trust. It will administer grants of up to �2,000 to small business suffering cash flow problems due to the violence. It has raised �3m to date but a target of �10m has been set to enable a second round of funding. "We need to rebuild our high streets quickly," said Castell. "They're under economic stress and don't have the footfall at the moment to balance the books."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/28/asda-sainsburys-join-charity-drive-in-deprived-areas
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Saturday, 27 August 2011
Disney factory faces probe into sweatshop suicide claims
Human rights campaigners say Chinese factories using children as young as 14 and that workers forced to do overtime
Disney's best-selling Cars toys are being made in a factory in China that uses child labour and forces staff to do three times the amount of overtime allowed by law, according to an investigation.
One worker reportedly killed herself after being repeatedly shouted at by bosses. Others cited worries over poisonous chemicals. Disney has now launched its own investigation.
It is claimed some of the 6,000 employees have to work an extra 120 hours every month to meet demand from western shops for the latest toys.
The factory, called Sturdy Products, makes toys for the giant Mattel company, which last month announced quarterly profits of �48m on the back of strong sales of Barbie dolls and Cars 2 toys. Sturdy Products, in the city of Shenzhen, also makes toys for US superstore chain Walmart. Among the brands produced are the Thomas the Tank Engine range, Matchbox cars, Cars, Toy Story, Barbie and Fisher Price products, Scrabble and the Hot Wheels sets.
The undercover investigation was carried out with the help of human rights group Sacom (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour), which helped to expose abuses in Apple's Foxconn plant in China this year.
Workers were interviewed away from the factory, and an investigator then spent a month working inside it to gather more information. He found evidence of the use of child labour and illegal working hours, along with concerns over the use of poisonous chemicals.
Sacom's accusations against the factory include:
? The employment of a 14-year-old. Staff also reported the presence of other child workers, according to the investigator.
? Routine excessive overtime. Employees produced a "voluntary" document they said they had to sign agreeing to work beyond the maximum overtime legal limit of 36 hours a month, along with wage slips that suggested they were averaging 120 hours of overtime a month.
? A harsh working environment in which workers complained of mistreatment by management. One worker injured on the production line was shouted at and ordered back to work despite needing medical treatment.
? Concerns about the chemicals in use and poor ventilation. Employees claimed three workers had fallen ill. They said they had to hide pots of adhesive and thinners during audits of the factory by its client companies.
? They also claimed that they were paid by the factory to give misleading answers during audits and that they were fined for failing to hit targets. The calculation of wages for different workers was described by Sacom as arbitrary.
Concerns were raised about conditions at Sturdy Products when a 45-year-old female employee, Hu Nianzhen, jumped to her death from a factory building in May after she was allegedly shouted at by managers.
Colleagues subsequently described the environment in the factory as tense and complained about the demanding workload. "A female worker committed suicide," one said, "because she was always scolded. However, I feel helpless because it is not easy for me to find another job."
The allegations are sure to concern many parents whose children are pestering them to buy the extensive range of Cars 2 toys launched to coincide with the movie, which hit UK cinema screens in July. Cars 2 has so far grossed �303m worldwide, overtaking the original movie despite being panned by critics. The poor reviews have not hindered sales of the merchandise, which Disney expects to exceed the �1.7bn spent last year on Toy Story 3 merchandise. Cars 2 toys will compete with Transformers and Smurfs items as the must-have Christmas toys.
But Sacom said that parents should think twice before buying the toys. A spokeswoman said: "Mattel, Walmart and Disney, the renowned toy companies, always claim they strictly comply with local laws and adhere to their respective code of conduct. The rampant violations at Sturdy Products, including excessive overtime, arbitrary wages, unfair punitive fines, child labour and negligence of occupational health, prove that the pledges are empty statements. There is no effective enforcement mechanism and remedies for workers at all."
She said the violations exposed the failings of the International Council of Toy Industries, which is supposed to police the industry.
"Consumers could never expect that the lovely toys which bring joy to children are manufactured in such deplorable conditions. They should convey messages to toy companies including Mattel, Walmart and Disney to launch remedial actions to compensate the wronged workers. Without remedies, there is no cost for labour rights violations."
She said the companies should already have been aware of the dangers of dealing with Sturdy Products after a previous investigation in 2007 uncovered similar problems. That investigation also found a six-day working week, with staff working up to 288 hours a month. During peak periods there was a compulsory seven-day week and the company was found to be failing to pay the minimum wage. Investigators said that some employees had attempted to raise awareness of the abuses by setting up their own group to inspire colleagues to fight for their rights.
Sturdy Products' parent company, Winson, failed to respond to requests to discuss the allegations.
Walmart issued a statement in which it said: "As soon as we learned of the allegations of human rights abuses at the Sturdy Products factory, we immediately launched an investigation. We are also in contact with the International Council of Toy Industries, a worldwide toy industry organisation that is also investigating this issue. We take reports like this very seriously and we will implement a corrective action plan if our investigations confirm any of the findings.
"We remain committed to sourcing merchandise that is produced responsibly by suppliers that adhere to Walmart's rigorous Standards for Suppliers code of conduct."
Disney said: "We take these matters impacting our licensees and business partners very seriously and will continue to evaluate this situation based upon the information available to us."
Mattel declined to comment directly on any of the allegations other than to note that the company was "deeply saddened" by the suicide but that, while it was "very tragic", it was an isolated event and local authorities had found nothing suspicious about the circumstances.
The company said it had carried out a detailed investigation. It said it was committed to working collaboratively through the International Council of Toy Industries' Care (Caring, Awareness, Responsible, Ethical) process "to achieve continuous improvements in factory working conditions".
Sacom's findings brought a rebuke from the International Council of Toy Industries' Care Foundation. "We are the first to concede that much more work lies ahead of us, but we refuse to accept the sensationalist, media-oriented declarations of any group, especially when they are carping and filled with incorrect information. It is simply counter-productive," the foundation said.
"The plain truth is that workers in many toy factories in China are better off now than they were before and that this is due in considerable part to the ICTI Care Process."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/aug/27/disney-factory-sweatshop-suicide-claims
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