Head of the screening department of the Nihon Ethics of Video Association (NEVA) Katsumi Ono was indicted last week on charges involving failure to screen two DVDs that did not comply with obscenity standards.

NEVA’s panel of scholars, former journalists and film experts screens adult videos produced by 90 Japanese production companies to determine if they comply with standards and regulations.

Ono was arrested, in the beginning of March, on suspicion of assisting the sale of the explicit DVDs after approving the videos. The movies, which were released in June 2006, were allegedly approved for sale without proper screening for potentially obscene content.

The two videos contained scenes showing genitalia which were pixellated, but according to authorities, viewers could still make out body parts.

Reportedly, three other men have also been indicted in the incident.

The UK's treatment of asylum seekers falls seriously below the standards of a civilised society, a report says.

The Independent Asylum Commission, led by a ex-senior judge, said the system denied sanctuary to some in need and failed to remove others who should go.

It said the treatment of some asylum seekers was a shameful blemish on the UK's international reputation.

It spent a year researching the report and spoke to former home secretaries, policy makers and asylum seekers.

The commission was established after calls from community organisations and charities for an authoritative examination of asylum after a decade of political battles over immigration.

The report praised immigration officials for recent reforms to how they manage asylum applications - but it warned that a culture of disbelief was leading to perverse and unjust decisions.

The commissioners said policymakers were at times using "indefensible" threats of destitution to try to force some asylum seekers to leave the UK.

See full article from the Scotsman

Meanwhile pressure is mounting on the UK Government to reverse its decision to deport a gay Syrian teenager from Scotland to his homeland, where he faces almost certain imprisonment and torture.

Scotland on Sunday revealed last week that 19-year-old Jojo Jako Yakob was being held in Polmont Young Offenders' Institution awaiting deportation, despite evidence he had been tortured almost to death in Syria, where homosexuality is illegal.

Shirley-Anne Somerville, a Nationalist MSP for the Lothians, has lodged a parliamentary motion in support of our campaign to let Yakob stay in the country. It has already been supported by several MSPs.

Pete Wishart MP, the SNP's home affairs spokesman, has taken up the case at Westminster and has vowed to make representations to the Home Office.

He said: After Mr Yakob's terrible ordeal in Syria, it is unacceptable that the Home Office would consider sending him back. There is a very real risk that he would suffer further ill treatment or even possibly death. He has sought asylum in Scotland and I will make an immediate representation to the Home Office in an effort to overturn their ruling before his final hearing in May.

Yakob has appealed against the Home Office deportation order and has instructed top Scottish QC Mungo Bovey to fight his case. Yakob will appear before a full immigration hearing in Glasgow on May 7, when his fate will be determined.

Jojo fled his homeland two years ago after surviving a harrowing ordeal at the hands of Syrian police and prison guards, when he was arrested for distributing anti-government leaflets. Following his transfer from police interrogation, prison guards soon discovered that Jojo, a member of the repressed Kurdish minority in the Arab state, was homosexual. He then suffered horrific beatings and was assaulted so badly that he fell into a coma.

An Internet campaign to ban Britain's treasury chief from the country's pubs seems to be striking a chord.

Earlier this month, treasury chief Alistair Darling raised taxes on cars and cigarettes.

But it is his new alcohol duties - which raised the price of a pint of beer - that have Britons' backs up.

So when a pub landlord in Darling's home town of Edinburgh barred the chancellor from his establishment, drinking holes across the country followed suit.

Many are posting pictures of the white-haired, bespectacled treasurer above the big red word "barred."

Bar manger Andrew Little at the Utopia pub, which kicked off the campaign, says the poster is "tongue-in-cheek." But, he says, it seems to have "touched a nerve."

Hundreds have joined Internet groups devoted to running Darling out of every pub in the country, and establishments from the Tap And Spile in the north England town of Lincoln to the Plough Inn in Finstock, near Oxford, said Darling would not allowed to partake of their booze.

The government has raised taxes on alcohol by 6% above the rate of inflation, which translates to an extra 4p for a pint of beer, 13p for a bottle of wine and 55p a bottle for spirits such as whisky.

The duties are scheduled to rise by another 2% above inflation in each of the next four years.

A detailed manual overseeing the world's oldest profession is to be introduced in Western Australia soon and will explain how to run a brothel and the safest way to work as a prostitute.

The 50-page draft policy, titled Code of Practice: Occupational Health and Safety in the Sexual Services Industry, will be completed soon after long-awaited prostitution laws pass through Parliament, expected to be early next month.

The code of practice, the first of its kind for WA's sex industry, covers issues that prostitutes, brothels and escort workers encounter on a regular basis, including regular health checks and safe sex practices.

The guidelines recommend prostitutes not be on duty for more than 12 hours, have three-monthly health checks for sexually transmitted infections and be vaccinated against hepatitis A and B.

New sex workers should be given induction training on how to handle difficult clients, how to refuse services, deal with workplace violence, sexism and harassment, how to put on a condom properly and what to do if a condom breaks during sex.

Unclean or faulty equipment such as spas and sex toys, condom breakage, escort work to unknown or unsafe locations and unchanged linen are identified as industry hazards.

Industry insiders have welcomed the imminent introduction of the code, saying it is long overdue.

The draft code was developed last year by a group consisting of sex workers, medical experts, local government and Health Department representatives. Ms Forrester said the group would meet again soon after the laws were passed to finalise the code.

Push kid... I've got to get it into 34inches

The sight of men sucking in their bellies to hide expanding waistlines just got a lot more serious in Japan, where the government has introduced mandatory "fat checks" for the over-40s.

Aimed at trimming bulging annual health costs of more than $3bn, the Health Ministry says from next month 56 million people must start keeping waistlines tucked in or be asked to change diet, see a doctor and possibly pay higher insurance costs.

But critics say the plan for the potbelly police, which sets a waist limit of 85cm (34in) for men and 90cm for women, will do more harm than good. It's a comedy, Professor Yoichi Ogushi told The Japan Times. If you follow the government's logic, you can do whatever you want as long as you have a slim waist.

The fight-the-flab campaign has already claimed at least one victim. Last year, a 74-year-old local government official in rural Mie Prefecture collapsed while jogging in an effort to cut his 100cm waist. He was in the government's weight-loss programme.

We have to bring medical costs down, said Toshi-yuki Sato, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, who denied the plan would encourage crash-dieting and pill-popping. Dieting badly will eventually cause medical costs to rise even more, so we hope the metabolic tests will be properly supervised.

Plans to fingerprint millions of passengers a year at Heathrow's new fifth terminal have been put on hold hours before it opens for business.

BAA, the airport operator, took the decision after being warned by the Government's Information Commissioner that the move could breach the Data Protection Act.

It has left BAA is facing huge embarrassment at a time when it was hoping that public attention would be fixed on the long-awaited £4.3 billion terminal when it handles its first passengers tomorrow.

The controversial scheme meant that, for the first time ever, travellers would be fingerprinted before being allowed to board a plane. It would have affected about four million domestic passengers a year who use the terminal, which will become the British Airways base at the airport.

A BAA spokesman said that it will hold further talks with both the Information Commissioner and the Border and Immigration Agency before deciding its next move.

For the time being instead of leaving a fingerprint before passing through security - which is verified at the departure gate - passengers will be photographed.

Although BAA is keen to press ahead with the plans, no date has been fixed for when it will be able to do so. The decision to fingerprint all domestic passengers at the terminal was triggered by the demands for heightened security by the Home Office. With domestic and international passengers sharing the departure lounge at the terminal, it was feared that this would make it possible to bypass border controls.

The scheme hit the buffers late last week when David Smith, the Deputy Information Commissioner, questioned its necessity. He said photographing – the option now being adopted – would be far less intrusive.

Even the Home Office, which had put pressure on BAA to tighten security, distanced itself from the move. This was despite officials previously demanding some form of biometric tests in addition to photographs – and having approved the fingerprint scheme during months of negotiations.

At the Digital Living Room conference, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads.

Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.

I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secrets...

The legal age for buying alcohol could be raised to 21 under proposals being examined by the Scottish Government.

Ministers are considering raising the minimum age from 18.

Shona Robison, the public health minister, is due to present a number of proposals later in the year.  Robison yesterday said nothing had yet been ruled in or out: The Scottish Government is currently in the process of developing a long-term alcohol strategy and as part of this we have been looking at a range of issues including availability, accessibility and age of purchase.

People in Scotland are twice as likely to die from alcohol-related deaths than elsewhere in the UK.

It is clear that people traveling into and out of the US have a lower expectation of privacy at the border. Perhaps more accurately, a governmental search at the border is more likely to be considered "reasonable."

The agents get to do things they can't do if, for example, they simply stop you on the street. They can question you, they can rifle through your unmentionables, and even examine documents you are bringing with you. The agents can even disassemble your gas tank, looking for hidden compartments that you could be using to smuggle things. In the Arnold case, the government argued that its search authority at the border is "plenary" or unrestricted, except that to do an invasive body cavity search, it would have to have some kind of suspicion.

But searches of things? Well, they can do whatever they want it would seem.

The customs agents' job is to protect the nation from "anything harmful," to gather intelligence, prevent terrorism, and to enforce all of the laws, including child pornography and copyright laws. The computer is no different from any other "closed container" that the agent may search. Just as the agent needs no probable cause to search your underwear, they need no probable cause to rummage through your laptop. And besides, they are doing it to protect the country and enforce the laws and prevent terrorist attacks. You don't have any privacy rights at the border anyway, so what's the problem?

...Read full article

If ever you hear of British people  enjoying themselves, let us know, and we will put a stop to it

The politician in charge of Britain's licensing regime has announced he will review legislation which has opened the door to a string of fully nude lap-dancing clubs in Brighton and Hove.

Gerry Sutcliffe, the Minister responsible for licensing, told parliament he was concerned about the situation in the city and promised to consult with ministerial colleagues over a permanent change to the law.

He made the comments following a meeting with Hove MP Celia Barlow and city councillor Gill Mitchell to discuss supposed problems with the licensing act which has left nutters of Brighton and Hove City Council virtually powerless to stop clubs opening.

He said: We continue to review what can be done. We have made the right move in delegating the matter to local government, because it is right that local councillors and local government have the right to determine what goes on in their area. It is important that we look at the planning process and its objectives, and I am particularly concerned to hear that in Brighton, six lap-dancing clubs have been established in a very short time.

That problem will start to spread throughout the country, so I appreciate my honourable friend raising the matter. I will be happy to meet colleagues again to consider what can be done to ensure that [SOME!] local people get what they want in their local area.

Since the new licensing regime was introduced in November 2005, six clubs have been granted licenses for fully-nude dancing, although only four currently put on lap-dancing. Until that point only two operated in the city and nudity was not allowed.

Spearmint Rhino added to its international empire by opening the first fully nude club on East Street last year. The licence was approved by magistrates on appeal, overturning the council's initial rejection. Magistrates ruled that police could not establish the link between strip clubs and disorder and threw out the council's decision not to grant the East Street venue a licence.

Ms Barlow and the mean minded David Lepper, MP for Brighton Pavilion, both raised the supposed problem during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.

She said: I am extremely encouraged by the minister's announcement. The current licensing act is wholly ineffective when it comes to regulating lap dancing clubs. These clubs have sprung up in the hearts of our communities, and I also welcome the announcement to contact local authorities over what more can be done under the current law to prevent these clubs from opening.

Controversial British author Sebastian Horsley was denied entrance into the United States as he arrived to promote his memoir of drug addiction, sex and his dysfunctional family, his publisher has said.

Seale Ballenger, spokesman for HarperCollins Publishers, said Horsley was stopped by immigration officials at New York's Newark airport after flying in from London to promote his latest book Dandy in the Underworld.

He said the flamboyant writer was accused of "moral turpitude" in connection with his former drug use, pro-prostitution stance, and controversial self-crucifixion in the Philippines in 2000.

Horsley claims to have slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes, worked as a male escort, and been in and out of rehab to treat drug addiction, with video interviews of him talking about his drug use and sex life posted on the Internet.

Ballenger said after several hours of questioning by immigration officials, Horsley was put on a plane and returned to London.

The New York Times quoted a customs spokeswoman, Lucille Cirillo, saying she could not comment on individual cases. But in an e-mail to the newspaper she explained that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, travellers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.

Publisher Carrie Kania, from the HarperCollins' unit Harper Perennial that published the book in the United States, said she found it hard to understand why Horsley would be denied entrance into the U.S. for "his notoriety."

Horsley's memoir was published last September in Britain with reviewers calling it both amusing and revolting.

If British men persist in enjoying life... we're gonna cut off their bollocks

On the 7th March all the usual Fem Nazis got together in a conference to finalise their plans to criminalise the purchase of sex

It was a radical feminist only cast list with many of the usual suspects:

• Vera Baird QC, MP, Solicitor General
• Professor Jalna Hanmer - Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Sunderland Conference Chair
• Professor Liz Kelly - Director of CWASU, Roddick Chair in Violence Against Women
• Julie Bindel - POPPY Project Consultant and Guardian Journalist
• Marianne Eriksson - Swedish MEP
• Ann Hamilton - General Manager, Policy & Development, Glasgow Community & Safety Services
• Professor Roger Matthews - Professor of Criminology, London South Bank University
• Hannah-Jo Besley - Community Safety Officer, Ipswich CDRP

The Government were represented by Solicitor General, Vera Baird and she certainly spoke giving the impression that the criminalisation of buying sex is a done deal. From her presentation:

Tackling The Demand For Prostitution And Trafficking For Sexual Exploitation

To understand the government’s developing approach to prostitution we have to look, largely, through the prism of people trafficking. I don’t call it developing because it is new, recently the Home Office held a consultation under the direction of then Minister Fiona Mactaggart, which produced “Paying the Price” – a forward policy document.

Since then we have decided to look again at some aspects only largely because of the advent of trafficking and, for me, because of new research from Liz Kelly and others causing a refocus onto the issue of demand for prostitution.

...

Our measures on trafficking will be futile if we do not tackle the demand for sexually exploited women and children. Otherwise in reality once we have closed one trafficking network, another may move in and take its place; once we have rescued one victim another one is put in her place.

I know that some may argue that there is an element of choice, where those that have worked in the sex industry in their home countries come here to make more money. Though personally I have reservations about accepting the concept of choosing to be a prostitute at all. No doubt this may occur.

However let me be clear; for trafficked women there is no real informed choice. How many of them have a realistic impression of the situation they will end up in? How many are told just how many men they will have to have sex with? Or that they will be sold from one exploiter to another; moved around the country; be subject to never-ending debt bondage or that they will be kept isolated and forced to live in squalid conditions?

This cannot continue to happen. So what are we doing about it?

At the end of 2007 we announced a six month review to explore what more we can do to tackle the demand for prostitution. The review began earlier this year with a visit to Sweden and will include a review of the approach taken by a range of other countries, including the Netherlands.

On 10 January, I visited Sweden with Home Office Minister, Vernon Coaker, and the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality, Barbara Follett, and a small team of officials.

The trip was set up so we could talk to the Swedish authorities specifically about their legislation which criminalises those who pay for sexual services – including the debate in Sweden that led up to the change in their legislation in 1999 and its implementation.

...

We are also intending to visit the Netherlands soon to meet with their Ministers and law enforcement agencies. The Dutch legislation is in direct contrast to Sweden - prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands in 2000. Controlled “tolerance zones” have been set up away from residential areas and there are licensed brothels.

However, it is increasingly clear that prostitution has not been restricted to the policed areas and rendered safe but these arrangements have, if anything, increased demand and there is a “twilight” sex industry too. The Dutch Government has recently announced that they are to review their legislation this year and we are very interested in talking to the Dutch authorities about their experiences and the issues they are facing.

As part of our Tackling Demand Review, we will research the legislation in other jurisdictions, particularly those with contrasting approaches to prostitution, including New Zealand. In New Zealand, the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 decriminalised prostitution. The Act requires every operator of a prostitution business to hold a certificate and removed the requirement for massage parlours to be licensed. It is not illegal for a person under the age of 18 to be a prostitute but it is illegal for anyone to have sex with them.

...

So, as you can see, there is a diverse approach to prostitution from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and it is right that on behalf of the public we consider these various approaches, and the impact they have had, very carefully, so that we can learn from them and use their experience to inform our own policy.

In particular, we are looking at how our current policy can be strengthened to ensure we robustly tackle the demand for prostitution – and this includes considering the impact that it will have on sex trafficking.

We will consult with stakeholders as part of the review. We also intend to conduct an audit of enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing practice, and in particular we will be interested in identifying any regional variations. We will also be looking at the options for using existing legislation to tackle those who pay for sex.

...

As many of you will be aware the clauses concerned with prostitution in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill have just been removed from the Bill. They were firstly to end use of the term “common prostitute” and secondly to introduce a sentence for someone convicted of soliciting, which required her to attend three sessions with a counsellor or crisis worker to seek to assist her to exit prostitution. This is unfortunate but was necessary in order to help the passage of the Bill through the House in the available Parliamentary time. However, the removal of these clauses from the Bill in no way indicates a lack of commitment from the Government to tackle prostitution.

As soon as parliamentary time allows, we will look to reintroduce the legislative changes that have now been withdrawn, along with any new proposals for legislative change we feel to be necessary following the review into tackling demand.

...

I can see the argument that it is unpleasant to criminalise people we see, generally, as victims. However, there is something to be said for the leverage that retaining the offence can offer, in the context of these policies and the availability of diversion and so I would suggest that this is not entirely oppression by the state.

Further, we also have a responsibility to local communities and the wider public, and I believe that decriminalising prostitution altogether would send out the wrong message. It would imply that street prostitution is acceptable and in doing so remove an important safeguard.

So our overall aim must be to reduce street prostitution and all forms of commercial sexual exploitation, including trafficking.

Tackling demand is one of the areas where we think we can have the greatest impact. However, experience in Sweden appears to show that it is not just legislation that can tackle the demand for prostitution. It is also about challenging social attitudes and raising awareness about the realities of prostitution and trafficking. And specifically it is about changing the attitudes of men.

In the context of the review, we are considering a small scale targeted marketing campaign to raise awareness among sex buyers about the levels of exploitation in prostitution, including trafficking, violence, and the involvement of people under 18. The aim will be better to understand how to change attitudes towards buying sexual services.

By penalising those who organise prostitutes and make a living from their earnings and by targeting those who are persistent kerb crawlers, with the aim of preventing repeat offending, we are already deterring those who create the demand for prostitution. The penalties being applied in some parts of the country to persistent kerb crawlers include disqualification from driving, kerb crawler re-education schemes and fines, and the naming and shaming of those convicted in the local media. We will be examining the effectiveness of these approaches, and seeking to share “best practice”.

As part of the wider set of actions to tackle demand and trafficking, we felt it was important to address the issue of small advertisements in the back of newspapers which can fuel the demand for trafficked women.

In November, with other ministerial colleagues, I met with representatives from the newspaper and advertising industry and discussed with them how they could support our work to tackle the demand side of the problem of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. As a result, the Newspaper Society are updating their guidance to editors of local papers, which can help them avoid accepting personal advertisements which are, in effect, advertising this despicable trade in women.

Work is also under way on call-barring schemes aimed at eradicating prostitute carding. This will involve negotiations with the Mobile Broadband Group, British Telecom and OFCOM.

...

Returning to demand, I want to stress the importance of ensuring we drive home to the users and potential users of those exploited in the sex industry the real consequences of their actions. If they are knowingly buying sex from a trafficked woman, someone who they know has been forced to do something against their will - they should be under no illusions that they are committing rape.

And even if they do not know that the woman is trafficked, just by paying for sex they are contributing to organised criminality and their actions are keeping particularly vulnerable women trapped in exploitation.

And, of course, the pursuit of an end to the evils of trafficking is raising the issue whether in the 21st century a government, totally committed to gender equality with all the concomitant mutual respect and dignity that connotes, ought in any way to be permitting or sanctioning women being bought and sold for sex.

We look forward to working with some of the people present at this conference on our stakeholder group as we continue our review into demand and it is cheering to see that this event on prostitution is a sell out. I am sure that if we work together we can come to clear conclusions and start to make a difference.

Comment: Wimmin

Thanks to Alan, 21st March 2008

Interesting to see that Julie Bindel was among those consulted by the government for the punter-bashing proposal. I have often been tempted to think (hope?) that "Julie Bindel" was the invention of a comic genius, since the column appearing in the Grauniad under that name was so reminiscent of the lamented "Wimmin" column in Private Eye.

Her lack of self-awareness is extraordinary: she is happy to accept the benefits of society's current positive attitude towards her own lesbianism, but takes the attitude of a Victorian prude towards the sexual peccadilloes of men.

Since the kerb-crawling legislation came in, nobody’s drug dependency or rent arrears or benefit delays have magically cleared up overnight.

Women are still working on the streets, but with many of their regular clients avoiding the scene for fear of legal repercussions, they are seeing a greater proportion of unpleasant and violent clients, with a rise in requests for sex without a condom and services at insultingly low prices.

Some are resigned to being out all night, since business is slow, they still need to make money, and in some cases they haven’t a hope of meeting their curfews in homeless accommodation.

Clients want them to leave their traditional areas and meet them elsewhere, so that the clients won’t be targeted by police; as a consequence sex workers are working in greater isolation with a significant threat to their personal safety.

Bikini-clad pole dancers, mini-skirted hostesses and a deal on foreign exchange await customers at Passapoga, a Santiago nightclub, who pay with U.S. dollars.

At banks and foreign-exchange bureaus, $1 fetches less than 430 pesos. Passapoga pays 600 pesos.

This campaign has had considerable success, said Jaime Retamal the club's manager: Customers come from all over, but a lot from the U.S.

The dollar has lost a quarter of its value against the peso in the past three years. Passapoga is discounting the exchange rate to discourage Americans from cutting back on nightclub visits.

Drinks and exotic dances cost customers the same price in dollars as in 2004, when the demand for copper, Chile's biggest export, surged.

Passapoga's special exchange rate means a 14,000-peso drink with one of the club's 50 hostesses costs $23, instead of $32 at the market rate.

Patricia Kart, a Passapoga hostess for 2 1/2 years, said workers agreed to the plan even though it reduces their commissions. The promotion is bringing in more customers, she said.

We have to take what the house gives us, and our job is to do what it takes to make the clients happy, Kart, 28, said in a telephone interview from the club: They are very content.

Internet pornography, foreign prostitutes and a growing number of cheap dance clubs have been blamed for the closure of the oldest brothel in one of the world's most famous red-light districts.

Hotel Luxor, a family-run establishment set up in 1948 in the port-side district of St Pauli, will shut next month, its owner, Waltraud Mehrer, told the German press yesterday.

It's no longer possible to make much money from real sex here in St Pauli, said Mehrer, who has run the business for 21 years. The table-dance clubs are still in operation, but otherwise there's not much business to be done here any more. I blame it on the rise of internet porn, the popularity of call-girl services and the noisy discos and dance clubs, she said.

Customers were no longer willing to pay high prices for sex, and an influx of eastern European prostitutes had also caused prices to fall, she said.

n the 1970s demand was so high that Hotel Luxor stayed open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and employed 12 prostitutes. Now it has four prostitutes and is open four nights a week.

Dutch council officials will permit gay sex in public areas but fine dog owners who let their pets off the leash in Amsterdam's Vondelpark.

Paul van Grieken, an Alderman in the Oud-Zuid district of the city, has startled many Amsterdammers, despite their famously liberal attitudes, with plans to allow public sex as part of this summer's new rules of conduct for the country's best-known park.

Why should we try to impose something that is actually impossible to impose, which also causes little bother for others and for a certain group actually means much pleasure?, he said.

The park's rose garden has become famous as a trysting spot for gay men looking for uncomplicated sexual encounters. Mr van Grieken stresses that tolerance to "cruising" gays, aimed at protecting homosexuals from violence, will have "strict rules attached".

Thus, condoms must always be cleared away, it must never take place in the neighbourhood of children's playgrounds and the sex must be restricted to the evening and night-time, he said.

The new park rules have the blessing of the Dutch police, who have urged all Dutch parks to follow Amsterdam's lead.

Glasgow city leaders want Scotland to introduce some of the world's strictest prostitution laws. Council nutters have launched a campaign urging the Scottish Government to turn the spotlight on punters by introducing legislation banning the "purchase of sex".

Street prostitution is already illegal and new laws introduced last year targeted men by making kerb crawling and loitering for prostitution a crime. But Glasgow City Council says brothels are still not adequately covered by legislation as it's not illegal to visit a prostitute and pay for sex.

Deputy council leader Jim Coleman says the solution is to bring in an across-the-board ban on paying for sex. A similar system has been in place in Sweden since 1999 and is said to have led to huge falls in prostitution. This approach has also now being adopted by neighbouring Norway.

A delegation of Swedish law enforcement officials visited Glasgow to explain how similarly nasty legislation might work here. They met with nutter Coleman and officials and volunteers who work in support services for prostitution, trafficking and addiction.

Coleman says the council will now try to pull in support from as many different bodies as possible and lobby the Scottish Government. He said: A new law would send a clear message to men that it is wrong to buy sex. It would also directly target brothels.

Coleman said the laws which came into force last October and outlawed kerb crawlers, was a step in the right direction: For the first time we have a law that targets the men who fuel the demand for prostitution. There can be no question that prostitution is exploitative and abusive of the women involved

Do you mind answering a few questions? Splendid. Are you dressed revealingly? Is there a large toy crocodile in your hand luggage? While on this flight, do you intend to read pornography, emit offensive body odour or perhaps sing a topical football-based ditty?

If so, the chances are you’re going to get slung off. All the above offences have recently resulted in passengers being escorted from the plane by stony-faced airport-security bods. In fact, over the past few years, cabin crew have taken to turfing us out of planes in unprecedented numbers.

Only a few days ago, the otherwise blameless Dr Paolo Tomasi from London was unceremoniously dumped off a Ryanair flight for the heinous crime of talking to his eight-year-old son during the safety briefing.

Here is our guide to involuntary deplaning, all based on real and recent episodes.

• SING ABOUT FOOTBALLERS’ UNDERWEAR
  
  After a fine win over Cardiff last year, fans of Sunderland AFC boarded an EasyJet flight in buoyant mood and sang the praises of their chairman in time-honoured terrace fashion. In case you’re not a regular at the Stadium of Light, the lyrics, to the tune of ’Ere We Go, ’Ere We Go, ’Ere We Go, are as follows: “Niall Quinn’s disco pants are the best.
  
  They go up from his arse to his chest. They’re better than Adam and the Ants, Niall Quinn’s disco pants.” EasyJet staff, unused to Wearside poetry, called the police and had all 100 fans thrown off. Quinn himself shelled out £8,000 for taxis to get them home.
   
• PAY INSUFFICIENT ATTENTION TO PERSONAL HYGIENE
  
  A German man was chucked off a plane in Honolulu in 2006 for being excessively whiffy. After two hours’ chasing around a hot airport with heavy luggage, he took his seat, only to be asked to leave it when fellow passengers complained. He tried to sue the airline in a Düsseldorf court, and lost.
   
• BLOCK THE EMERGENCY EXIT WITH A HUGE STUFFED CROCODILE
  
  Last November, a woman on a Ryanair flight from Rome to Milan refused to move her metre-long cuddly toy crocodile, which the crew said was blocking the emergency exit. Both were removed.
   
• WEAR THE WRONG CLOTHES
  
  American Lorrie Heasley took her seat sporting a T-shirt that featured pictures of George Bush and friends, with a slogan based on the hit film Meet the Fockers – but with one crucial vowel altered. Airline staff were not amused, and she was dumped halfway through her journey at Reno, Nevada.
   
• DON’T WEAR ENOUGH CLOTHES
  
  That was the crime of Kyla Ebbert, a 23-year-old waitress at the subtly named Hooters chain of restaurants. She was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane in San Diego for being dressed too provocatively, in micro miniskirt and tight T-shirt – though she was let back on when she rearranged them to cover as much as possible. (It took a while. She’s a big girl.) “I was embarrassed and humiliated,” she said. To regain her dignity, she took everything off again for Playboy.
   
• ATTEMPT SEX
  
  A flight made an unplanned landing last November to eject a couple who were intent on joining the mile-high club. After “fooling around” in front of other passengers in their economy seats, the pair made for the lavatories. Instead of ending up in Las Vegas, as planned, they were dumped in Portland, Oregon. It is not known whether their love was consummated.
   
• SAY ‘BYE-BYE, PLANE’
  
  Last July, 19-month-old Garren Penland – who’d just endured an 11-hour delay at Houston airport – said those words repeatedly (as children will) during the safety briefing on a Continental flight. “The flight attendant said, ‘Okay, it’s not funny any more. You need to shut your baby up,’ ” claimed his mum, Kate. Unfazed, Garren kept going, and mother and son soon ended up on the tarmac.
   
• READ PORN
  
  In 2005, South African carrier Nationwide Airlines called a taxiing flight back to the terminal to eject AC Hoffman, a Cape Town businessman. He’d been perusing Loslyf, a local publication of liberated bent. “The air hostess snatched it off me, I told her she was f ***in’ rude, and they chucked me off,” he said. “This will not be the end of the matter. My hand luggage has not even been returned.” We think he meant the periodical. The airline’s chief executive, Vernon Bricknell, commented helpfully: “If you want to look at this kind of stuff, go and do so in the toilet.”

Britishness is... Emigrating to somewhere better

Young people leaving school would take part in ceremonies to mark their move from students of citizenship to active citizenship, says a Government review by Lord Goldsmith.

The former attorney general said the events would involve swearing an oath either to the Queen as head of state, or to the nation: The ceremony should be seen as a key stage in engaging a young person in the life of the community and the responsibilities of citizenship.

As an incentive to making this transition, students would be encouraged to join a National Citizens' Corps and take part in civil activity.

There is also a suggestion to add an additional public holiday to celebrate Britishness.

Although the United Kingdom's constituent nations each has a saint's day, only St Patrick's Day (March 17) is a public holiday, in Northern Ireland.

But Lord Goldsmith does not want a date laden with historical significance. His preferred model is Australia Day, which is used to celebrate what it means to be an Australian, the achievements of the country and…to identify the improvements that can be made.

Eliot Spitzer, the crusading New York Governor often tipped as a future American president, suffered a spectacular fall from grace yesterday when he was implicated in a prostitution ring.

Mr Spitzer, whose eight years as New York State’s Attorney-General earned him a reputation as “the sheriff of Wall Street”, reportedly told senior aides that he was a client of an international escort service that charged up to $5,500 (£2,750) an hour. Court papers hinted at risky sexual practices. He cancelled all his public appearances and met officials in his Fifth Avenue apartment before making a public apology to his family and the public.

I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and in a way that violates my or any sense of right and wrong, he said, with his wife Silda at his side. I apologise first and most importantly to my family. I apologise to the public, whom I have promised better. I am disappointed I have not lived up to the standards I have set for myself.

He did not immediately step down, but said that he needed to dedicate some time to regaining the trust of his family.

A source told The New York Times that Spitzer was one of the men identified in court papers as a client of the prostitution ring. Court papers say that the man identified as Client 9 had arranged to meet a prostitute in Washington on the night of February 13. An affidavit lists six conversations between Client 9 and a booking agent for the Emperors Club.

Client 9 was captured by a telephone tap setting up an appointment with a prostitute called “Kristen”, who travelled by train from New York to Washington to meet him.

In 2004 Spitzer voiced revulsion as he announced the arrests of 16 people for running a prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

See full article from Game Politics

Update: Resigned

13th March 2008

Eliot Spitzer, confirmed what had seemed all but inevitable since the news exploded of his illicit dalliances with high-price prostitutes: he is resigning his post and leaving politics.

I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I deeply apologise, he said in a brief statement. He added: The remorse I feel will always be with me... For those to whom much is given, much is expected.

Holidaymakers are ignoring environmentalists' calls to limit their air travel and are taking more "indulgent" long-haul mini-breaks than ever before.

Despite recommendations that they holiday closer to home, the number of Britons flying thousands of miles to spend less than a week in far-flung destinations was 3.7 million last year, according to a survey by Halifax.

The travel insurer is predicting that the number of what it has dubbed "breakneck breaks" will increase by more than a third this year, and expects 4.9 million British tourists to travel in 2008 to destinations including Thailand, Hong Kong, New York, and Rio de Janeiro for just a few days.

The Far East was the second-most popular destination, followed by the Indian subcontinent. Biggest takers of breakneck breaks last year were those living in South-east England, while those in Wales and South-west England were least likely to go off on such a trip.

However, Friends of the Earth was quick to criticise what it believes is an "indulgent" trend. Its aviation campaigner, Richard Dyer, said: These kinds of habits are going in exactly the wrong direction from what we need.

Exotic locations for stag and hen parties were cited as one factor for increasing travel.

Sweden's state-owned pharmacy chain Apoteket said it plans to help satisfy Swedes by adding sex toys to its shelves.

The one-year sales trial will start in June at 50 selected Apoteket stores around the country. It was not clear what type of products would be available.

Apoteket said customer surveys had showed that many Swedes found Apoteket a natural vendor for sex-related products. We want to de-dramatize the use of sex help tools, and help people to a better sex life, with or without a partner, Apoteket spokeswoman Eva Fernvall said in a statement.

The selection of sex toys has been developed in cooperation with the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education.

Millions of British airline passengers face mandatory fingerprinting before being allowed to board domestic flights when Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opens later this month. For the first time at any airport, the biometric checks will apply to all domestic passengers leaving the terminal, which will handle all British Airways flights to and from Heathrow.

The controversial security measure is also set to be introduced at Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow’s Terminal 1, and many airline industry insiders believe fingerprinting could become universal at all UK airports within a few years.

All four million domestic passengers who will pass through Terminal 5 annually after it opens on March 27 will have four fingerprints taken, as well as being photographed, when they check in.

To ensure the passenger boarding the aircraft is the same person, the fingerprinting process will be repeated just before they board the aircraft and the photograph will be compared with their face.

BAA, the company which owns Heathrow, insists the biometric information will be destroyed after 24 hours and will not be passed on to the police. It says the move is necessary to prevent criminals, terrorists and illegal immigrants trying to bypass border controls. The company said the move had been necessitated by the design of Terminal 5, where international and domestic passengers share the same lounges and public areas after they have checked in.

Without the biometric checks, the company says, potential criminals and illegal immigrants arriving on international flights or in transit to another country could bypass border controls by swapping boarding passes with a domestic passenger who has already checked in.

They could then board the domestic flight, where proof of identity is not currently required, fly on to another UK airport and leave without having to go through passport control.

Most other airports avoid the problem by keeping international and domestic passengers separate at all times, but the mixed lounges exist at Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow’s Terminal 1.

Civil liberties campaigners have raised concerns about the possibility of security agencies trying to access the treasure trove of personal data in the future.

There are also fears that fingerprinting will add to the infamous "Heathrow hassle" which has led to some business travellers holding meetings in other countries because they want to avoid the sprawling, scruffy airport at any cost.

Dr Gus Hosein, of the London School of Economics, an expert on the impact on technology on civil liberties, is one of the scheme’s strongest critics. He said: There is no other country in the world that requires passengers travelling on internal flights to be fingerprinted. BAA says the fingerprint data will be destroyed, but the records of who has travelled within the country will not be, and it will provide a rich source of data for the police and intelligence agencies.

Simon Davies, of campaign group Privacy International, suggested the photograph alone would be a perfectly adequate - and much cheaper - way of identifying passengers.

Massachusetts residents could spit on the sidewalk, give a tattoo, even commit blasphemy or adultery without fear of a fine or jail time under a bill being considered.

The bill would repeal nearly two dozen so-called "blue laws", laws that often deal with moral or religious issues. The laws are often considered outdated or even unconstitutional, but have remained on the books.

One of the laws mandates a $300 fine or year in jail for anyone who wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world.

Another sets a $20 fine for spitting. And even though tattooing is now legal in Massachusetts, there's still a law on the books mandating a $300 fine for anyone giving a tattoo who's not a doctor.

The bill also would eliminate laws declaring the Communist Party a subversive organization, making adultery a criminal offense punishable by three years in jail or a $500 fine, and barring anyone from acting in a suspicious manner around any steamboat landing, railroad depot, or any electric railway station.

The bill's sponsor, state Representative Byron Rushing, said there's more than just legal house-cleaning behind the legislation: There was a feeling that we shouldn't have laws that we never use. And there were a few laws that could be used and shouldn't.

Kris Mineau, a nutter of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said his group opposes removing the laws banning adultery and fornication, saying it sends the wrong message: If we remove these laws we are telling young people that adultery and fornication are acceptable.

Four days after a sex gadget shop that promised “guaranteed satisfaction” opened at a new Bacolod City mall, Philippines authorities raided the establishment.

Vibrators, condoms, sex dolls, and other paraphernalia were seized by police and City Legal Office personnel.

Police commander, Senior Inspector Luisito Acebuche, said they coordinated with the CLO to stop the sale of the sex gadgets after receiving complaints.

The police bought a gadget for P500 from Luigi Tan before they moved in and confiscated the shop’s merchandise, Acebuche said.

The display and sale of the sex gadgets are in violation of the Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code, prohibiting the show, sale, and distribution of pornographic materials, Acebuche said. Penalty for the offense ranges from a prison term of six years or a fine of P6,000 to P12,000, or both, he added.

Lawyer Vicente Petierre of the CLO said that aside from violating national laws, the shop was also operating without the necessary permits from the city’s permits and licensing division. Petierre said the mall management could not be held liable for the offense because it did not know of the actual products that the shop owners would sell when they rented them space since they did not declare them in their application.

Father Aniceto Buenafe, head of the Social Action Center of the Diocese of Bacolod, said business proprietors must be sensitive enough and respect the highly conservative and religious culture of most Filipinos.

Such commercial ventures promote extreme liberalization and they could send the wrong message to consumers, especially the youth, and contribute to moral degradation, he spouted.

Buenafe also called on parents to inculcate the right and correct moral values in their children.

A Blackpool lap-dancing club has been fined £14,000 after admitting breaching its licence by allowing supposedly indecent acts between performers.

One dancer who performed at Wildcats on Clifton Street told a police officer that there were "no limits" to what went on.

Blackpool Magistrates Court was told that when police visited the club they saw extensive physical touching between two female dancers, one of whom they later talked to.

Vicki Cartmell, prosecuting on behalf of Blackpool Council, said the dancer told an officer: No, there are no limits about what we can do, we can do what we want.

The club's owner Provocative Leisure of King Street, Leeds, admitted the offence. It was fined £14,000 and ordered to pay £415 costs.

Solicitor Tracy Langfield said: The club faces the suspension of its licence for four weeks and that could lose £40,000 in revenue and affect the jobs of 40 dancers and 13 door and bar staff. This club has a new manager and the police and council say there are no problems now.

A council licensing panel suspended the venue's licence for four weeks last month but it has appealed meaning it can remain open until the appeal is decided.

A 32-year-old man has been arrested in Wiltshire for allegedly simulating a sex act with a lamp-post.

A police spokesman said officers were called to a road in the town of Westbury on February 16 after they received a report of a man acting indecently outside a block of flats "occupied by several young women".

When they arrived they arrested him on suspicion of outraging public decency.

The man was released on bail, but following an investigation into the incident and several interviews with witnesses - including children - he was recalled for questioning. He has since been re-released pending further inquiries.

The Wiltshire police spokesman said: We are awaiting a decision as to whether there should be a prosecution.

Comment: Social Engineering?

Thanks to Steve

Note that the Boys in Blue questioned children about the event, no doubt concerned that the lamppost may have been under 16 years old.

I seem to have missed the sex with a Henry Hoover vacuum cleaner incident also mentioned in the article. This is probably a result of the government policy to stop people using prostitutes. Perhaps regular sex with domestic appliances will soon become the norm for men.

They are putting something in the bread, and it isn't folic acid.

Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On is set to unveil legislation that will potentially ban all media - including promotional pamphlets and "business cards" - from advertising prostitution services and providing possible clients with access to the sex industry.

Gal-On's introduction of the bill coincides with International Women's Day on March 8th.

The current law [on prostitution] gives legitimization to the advertising of sex clubs and prostitution in all variety of media, commented Gal-On, who heads the Knesset subcommittee on Trafficking in Women. Her bill has the backing of more than 20 other lawmakers from across the political spectrum: Such promotion in newspapers or with pamphlets and business cards are an inseparable part of the trafficking in women chain.

She continued: Allowing potential clients to receive information about the sex industry only increases women's suffering and generates millions of shekels a year for criminals.

Drafted by the Hotline for Migrant Workers legal adviser Nomi Levenkron, the legislation is intended to widen the existing scope of punishment for those who advertise and promote prostitution; increase jail time from six months to three years for those found guilty of advertising sex services; and up fines meted out.

These new restrictions have been created in order to protect the public sentiment on the basis of moral justice and not to eradicate prostitution completely, said Gal-On: The law will not ban prostitution but only makes it criminal to... promote the services."

Gal-On noted that despite a 2004 ruling against the country's three largest newspapers for advertising sex services, such ads were still regularly published: Ten years have passed since the original law banning the advertisement of sex services was implemented and nothing has changed.

The campaign group Rape Crisis Scotland is urging the Scottish Government to create a new definition of rape that includes having sex with trafficked prostitutes who work for pimps or in licensed saunas.

The SNP government is expected to publish a new bill this spring which will propose one of the biggest reforms of sexual offences laws in Scotland. The bill will be based on proposals drawn up the Scottish Law Commission. They include, for the first time, a clear definition of consent, which will require there to be "free agreement" to sex.

The proposals are currently out to consultation. In its response to the consultation, Rape Crisis Scotland has effectively called for a widening of the definition of rape. It claims that if rape is to be defined as the absence of "free agreement" to sex, this should include women forced to work in the sex industry. Circumstances in which the complainer had been trafficked for prostitution should be included as a situation where consent is absent, and intercourse constitutes rape, the submission states.

Sandy Brindlay, the national co-ordinator of Rape Crisis Scotland, said: Men who use trafficked women for sex are sometimes aware the women doesn't want to go through with it. In those circumstances, it's obvious the woman isn't consenting to sex. Men who have sex with women who have been trafficked are committing rape.

Last night, however, legal experts expressed concerns that such a law would be unworkable and would offer no protection for British prostitutes who were suffering the same kind of violence and intimidation.

John Scott, a human rights lawyer, said: (The new law] would mean the men could be guilty even if they didn't realise the women had been trafficked. It is unworkable.

Margo MacDonald, the Independent MSP for Lothian, who has campaigned for changes to prostitution laws, described the proposals as "impossible". She said: (The women] may have been trafficked and have paid to come to Britain, and some know they are going to work as prostitutes. You could hardly bring a (rape] charge if the woman has come to work in the sex industry in this country.

Extending the definition of rape to include sex with trafficked prostitutes would be controversial, as some men would claim they were unaware the women were working against their will.