When Gordon Brown called on the British Library to stage an exhibition about Britishness he perhaps envisaged a patriotic celebration of the national identity.

A spokesman for the British Library said: Downing Street initially suggested a display of iconic British ideas. We took our lead from that idea but the team has developed it.

What he would not have expected is the resulting event, Taking Liberties, which encourages visitors to contemplate the perilous state of civil liberties in modern Britain under his Government.

The exhibition, which is the most ambitious in the British Library's history, is in direct response to a call from Brown for the institution to hold a display of patriotism, and critics have described it as a "snub" to the Prime Minister.

Visitors will be asked their views on issues such as ID cards and detention of suspects for up to 42 days, both of which are key Government policies.

Exhibits will be displayed in space in the shape of a clenched fist. As visitors progress through the exhibition, the space gets smaller and smaller to give the impression of confinement. Each visitor to the exhibition will be given a personal ID number.

David Davis, the former shadow Home Secretary who recently stepped down from the Parliament to force a by election on the issue of civil liberties, said: It is an astonishingly good idea but is clearly a snub to the Prime Minister and must be accurately embarrassing for him. Gordon Brown likes to talk about Britishness a lot without understanding that liberty is at the core of Britishness. It is our institutional DNA. Our history and tradition of freedom run longer and deeper than any other country.

A spokesman for the British Library said: The Taking Liberties exhibition is very much our own idea. Obviously we listened to the Prime Minister's initial thoughts but we decided in what direction we should go. Of course its a risque subject but the Library wanted to come up with something that was relevant to modern Britain.

The exhibition opens on October 31. The opening night will feature a display by Gerald Scrafe, the cartoonist and a performance by the band the Levellers.

Town hall snoopers are demanding access to people's bedrooms. Officials say they need to enter and inspect properties where a council tax discount is claimed.

Seven and a half million people are entitled to 25% off their annual bill because they live on their own.

The Conservatives warned that householders are being pressured into signing a declaration agreeing to an internal inspection of their homes in order to prove they really are single.
council tax

One form, produced by Thurrock Council in Essex, reads: To be completed and returned immediately if you wish to continue to claim single person discount... I authorise the Council or its agents to make enquiries to corroborate this claim. I will permit the Council or its agents to inspect the property on request... If you do not do so, we will have to cancel your discount and send you a revised bill for the increased amount.

Shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles said there was evidence that other councils were making similar demands. He said the move raised the prospect of town hall officials entering law-abiding people's homes looking for evidence of a 'hidden partner'.

Government guidance encourages councils to undertake 'spot check' internal inspections of properties, giving practical tips how to 'maximise their time spent on inspections'.

Pickles said: Day by day under Labour, the rights and liberties of law-abiding citizens are being undermined, with more and more state officials trying to enter and spy on people's homes.

It may be appropriate for local authorities to check that council tax discounts are not wrongly claimed. But it is wholly disproportionate to threaten higher council tax bills if residents do not allow state officials into their bedrooms. This is another worrying sign of function creep.

Government powers to access millions of people's private phone records are set to be extended to email accounts and website records, ministers have said.

The news means that councils or quangoes could access private email accounts or examine internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers.

It has emerged that Sir Paul Kennedy, the spying watchdog, said they were not using their powers to examine phone bills and call records enough.

Since last October phone companies have had to retain information about all landline and mobile phone calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to more than 650 public bodies and quangos.

The move, approved by Parliament last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism but was then extended to enable council use to investigate trivial offences.

The Home Office said it wanted to extend the powers to include people's access to websites, email accounts and even phone calls made over the internet using services like Skype.

A Home Office consultation document on implementing an EU directive on electronic communications said the data would only be made available to assist in the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime. [The government have also been busy redefining lesser crimes as 'serious']

The cost of the new plan is likely to be borne by internet and telecommunications companies, although the Home Office said this would form part of the consultation.

The move has been heavily criticised, with claims that extending the powers was further evidence of a "snoopers' charter".

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: Ministers have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with sensitive data, but they seem intent on pressing ahead with this snoopers' charter. We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if RIPA powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins. Once again, the Government seems prepared to be more invasive than its EU counterparts in seeking to hold phone records for two years rather than six months.

Guy Herbert, a spokesman for the No2ID campaign, said the information would be made available to hundreds of official bodies responsible under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. He said: As ever with the database state this is a mass-surveillance measure for the retrospective convenience of officialdom in general.

The Home Office said that enforcement officers would only have access to where emails were sent or received from and not their content. A spokesman said: This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime. Communications data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time. It also gives investigators the potential to identify other forensic opportunities, identify witnesses and premises of evidential interest. Many alibis are proven or refuted through the use of communications data. Without the directive investigative opportunities will increasingly be lost.

The new BJP Government tightening the screws on nightlife in Bangalore, protestors are calling it ‘Bangalore bleeding’.

With the Bangalore police deciding to go strictly by the book again all restaurants with live bands and dancing have been banned. Over the past two Sundays musicians, artistes, disc jockeys and Bangalore’s partying public have been protesting the reinforced ban at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in central Bangalore. Participating in this Sunday’s protests, writer and theatre personality Girish Karnad said the decision to ban live music lacked logic. It will affect artistes adversely. Instead of going after criminals the police are going after musicians.

Despite the protests featuring over 1000 people on Sunday, the Bangalore police cracked down on as many as 32 discotheques operating without valid licenses in the city.

The licensing order makes it mandatory for all places offering live entertainment to be licensed by the police after meeting strict standards. The Act prevents places serving alcohol from staying open beyond 11:30 pm and women from dancing in places where alcohol is sold.

Though, the state home department has indicated a move to modify the laws to reduce restrictions on nightlife, no legislative action has been taken yet. New Bangalore police commissioner Shankar Bidari has stated that he is willing to consider relaxation of nightlife rules if he receives sufficient representation from the public.

The existing laws has resulted in a tussle between owners of lower end dance bars and the upper end lounge bars and discotheques. The introduction of the licensing rules for cabarets, dance bars, discotheques and live bands in June 2005 had resulted in a clampdown on all forms of dancing at public entertainment spots in Bangalore.

However, in December 2005, following appeals by owners of establishments, the Supreme Court permitted live bands and dancing in restaurants and hotels on the condition that the establishments didn’t encourage prostitution or indecent shows. While the Bangalore police allowed dancing and live music shows at pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and discotheques, they imposed a more stringent curb on dance bars on the grounds that they encouraged prostitution. This discrimination has been challenged by owners of dance bars in the High Court resulting in a complete clampdown on all nightlife.

Swedish state-run pharmacies began to sell over-the-counter sex toys this summer.

Now the shops are being hauled before the Equal Opportunies Ombudsman, the government referee on sexual discrimination, after two men complained that the erotic toys – the bestselling are vibrators and vagina balls – discriminate against males.

The pharmacy chain, Apoteket, had a misguided and untrue view of sexuality whereby a woman with a dildo is seen as liberated, strong and independent, while a man with a blow-up plastic vagina is viewed as disgusting and perverted, said one of the petitioners.

Apoteket responded with a bollox claim that there are no products of good quality on the market for men.

The men were exercising their rights under a 2005 amendment to the Equal Opportunities Act, which was supposed to right the balance in a society in which women were seen as winning more and more ground.

It is said to be unlikely that the pharmacy chain will end up in court.

Swedish men have recently been railing against discrimination in favour of women. Hairdressers and taxis are no longer allowed to offer preferential rates to women. The entry age for clubs and discos has to be the same for men and women. Dating services also have to charge the same for males and females.

Western Australia's Opposition Leader Colin Barnett said hw would scrap laws legalising brothels. He said he would not allow brothels to spread across suburbs. He intended to regulate the industry by licensing brothels in designated areas.

If elected, a Liberal government will repeal the Prostitution Amendment Bill 2007, Barnett said: A Liberal government will not allow the spreading of brothels throughout the suburbs and towns of WA.'

Barnett and Opposition police spokesman Rob Johnson have been calling for changes to WA's new prostitution laws for months.

Johnson said only a few designated areas would be allowed in WA: We can't afford mini-brothels operating in residential areas where you have men coming and going all the time to satisfy their sexual pleasures. Legalising brothels hasn't worked in the east. Since legalising brothels, there has been a proliferation of legal and illegal brothels.

Despite its notorious reputation, the Reeperbahn is gaining some unexpected new residents. As property values have risen sharply in Hamburg during the past decade, smart residential buildings have increasingly crowded the area. The latest addition is the Bavaria, a 28,000-sq metre complex that includes dozens of luxury residences with panoramic views of the city, and a boutique hotel designed by architect David Chipperfield.

There was a time when real estate developers would not have considered building in an area with this kind of reputation, says Nina Riedel, a managing partner at Engel & Voelkers, a Hamburg-based property firm: Now we see more and more of them doing it and I really don’t believe it will stop any time soon.

...Read full article

Have you got a licence for that camera?

A man was labelled a terrorist after he took a picture of a police car parked at a bus stop.

David Gates found himself being questioned under the Terrorism Act after he spotted the BMW in the middle of the box reserved for buses, and decided to capture the image on his phone – apparently falling foul of the anti-terror law in the process.

Gates was then questioned by two officers who asked why he had snapped the picture of their vehicle, and they told him he was being quizzed under the Terrorism Act 2000 because the picture could pose a security risk.

They also said this law gave them the right to use stop-and-search powers.

He said: I explained I'd taken the picture as their car was parked illegally, and taking a photograph in public was not illegal. I told them I thought using the Terrorism Act and suspecting me of being a terrorist was ridiculous.

Gates said he co-operated with the officers and gave his details, which were checked. He was told the record of the incident would be kept on file for a year.

Mike Hancock, the Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South, said: 'The whole thing is quite bizarre. I don't have a problem with them parking at the bus stop, but I do have a problem with them using this legislation for something trivial like this and keeping it for a year.

Superintendent Neil Sherrington, the deputy commander for Portsmouth police, said: Officers are given powers under the Terrorism Act to stop and search. The act states that "this power can only be used for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism, and may be exercised whether or not the constable has grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind".

Turkey's ruling AKP plans to register all purchases of pornographic material with a new draft law.

According to the draft law, those purchasing pornographic publications would be obliged to provide the retailer with their citizenship number and signature, the report added.

Those names would be later handed to the Youth Sports General Management, according to the regulation, Milliyet said.

AKP Deputy Edibe Sozen, who prepared the draft law in one year based on laws in Germany, has sent her work to State Minister Murat Basesgioglu, it added.

The draft law also foresees the construction of places of worships for students from all religions at schools,

The new draft law is expected to raise eyebrows in Turkey as the country awaits the ruling party to take steps to soothe concerns over secularism after the court ruled that it undertakes activities that harm secularism but stayed short of closing the party.

Confidential personal details of millions of passengers flying into and out of Britain should he handed over according to Government ministers.

Immigration minister Liam Byrne is also likely to say that these powers to probe passenger records should be extended to other forms of travel like the Eurostar train service between the UK and the Continent.

The news will alarm critics of the so-called Big Brother state which has seen the Government encroach further into the private lives of British citizens.

There were 200 million so-called passenger movements across UK borders last year. By 2015 this figure is likely to have risen to 300 million.

Currently European Union regulations restrict the use of so-called of "Passenger Name Record" data, including names and addresses, to Governments to fight the threat from terrorists and organised crime.

However the Home Office has said that it believes these rules are too narrow and enforcement officers should be able to use the information to battle "any serious crime".

This would include immigration and revenue and customs offences. Ministers are expected to agree that a firm definition of what is a "serious crime" should be agreed across all member states.

The UK wants the information to be made available for domestic flights and those between EU states. Currently the information can also only be downloaded for flights between a European Union state and a third country.

The Government will set out its position on using personal data from passenger lists in a response to a House of Lords EU committee report on passenger name records. In the report, which was published in June, the peers warned the passenger records should only be used to identify terrorists either in the planning or aftermath of an attack.

They warned that if the Government proceeded to push the boundaries of what officials could use the information for, officials could lose the co-operation of other EU states.

They said: They may find that the ability to use PNR data to assist in the combating of more routine crime, including immigration, revenue and customs offences, is insufficient to use data collected by other member states.

The majority of Finns believes that the 2006 partial outlawing of the purchasing of sexual services hasn't put a damper on prostitution.

Some 60% of Finns deem that prostitution has not decreased since the enactment of a law in 2006 that criminalised the purchasing of sexual services in circumstances involving pimping or human trafficking, finds a poll by daily tabloid newspaper Iltalehti.

73% of men would not fully criminalise the procurement of sex, whereas about half of women would like to see a total ban on prostitution enforced, state poll results.

The majority of the people interviewed likened prostitution to exploitation. A third of women said buying sex is equivalent to inflicting abuse; however, only a tenth of the interviewed men held the same opinion.

Over 1,000 people were interviewed in the poll carried out by pollster Taloustutkimus and commissioned by Iltalehti.

This spring, the 69-year-old physician and his wife, Alison, were trying to upgrade the Internet service in their summer place in Rehoboth Beach, Del. They had dial-up. They wanted DSL.

When it was time to enter their user name and create an e-mail address, Verizon wouldn't let them complete the job.

This is how Dr. Herman I. Libshitz remembers it:

We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philippines who told us: "We can't install it because your name has 'shit' in it."

The doctor asked to speak with a supervisor.

The Libshitzes got the same answer from the supervisor, who suggested they try misspelling their last name. That wouldn't do, either.

The couple uses Libshitz in its e-mail address with Prodigy. So there had to be some way around the rules, the two figured.

Several days later, Libshitz received a letter from Verizon's customer-relations desk in Everett, Wash., informing him that he could not have the user name because it didn't comply with company rules.

So the couple returned the Verizon DSL kit. If I can't use my own name, I'm going to stay with my AT&T dial-up, the doctor said: The hell with them.

I called Sharon B. Schaffer, a Verizon spokeswoman, who offered a refreshing answer to my question as to how this happened: I don't have a clue. Actually, I'm kind of surprised. If this is Dr. Libshitz's name, your name is your identity. He's had this his entire life. . . . I think he needs a little bit of personal attention.

A couple days later, she e-mailed me a formal response:

As a general rule (since 2005) Verizon doesn't allow questionable language in e-mail addresses, but we can, and do, make exceptions based on reasonable requests. The one from Dr. and Mrs. Libshitz certainly is reasonable and we regret the inconvenience and frustration they've been caused.

The doctor said he was willing to try again, but grudgingly: These people have no trouble putting me in their phone book. They send me mail with that name, they send me a bill routinely, and they cash my checks with Libshitz on it. They just offended me.

Padua has become the second big Italian city to boost fines for clients who use street prostitutes.

Both Padua and Verona have now brought in fines of 500 euros for clients caught with streetwalkers enabled by greater powers given to city mayors by the government's emergency security decree.

'The security decree allows mayors to apply a range of fines from 50 to 500 euros, depending on the gravity of the behaviour of the person committing the crime,' explained Verona Mayor Flavio Tosi.

'In this case we have decided to apply the maximum sanction of 500 euros for the violation of our anti-prostitution order: a deterrent that's much stronger than the 36 euros for holding up traffic circulation that mayors had to make do with before the security decree,' Tosi said.

At the moment only the exploitation of prostitution - pimping - is illegal in Italy, but city mayors combat the phenomenon through the use of fines, often via road traffic or public decency laws.

Padua was the first city to introduce an experimental scheme last year harassing clients and introducing fines of 50 euros, which resulted in prostitutes demonstrating against the measure in the streets and offering anyone slapped with a fine a ''free service''.

'We fined around 500 people under the scheme, but we've always said it wasn't effective because the sum was too low. Now with a sanction ten times higher we hope to see street prostitution reduced to zero,' said Padua's city policing assessor Marco Carrai.

Although the centre-right government is mulling over plans to criminalise both soliciting and using prostitutes, these have yet to get out of the starting box. Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna and Interior Minister Roberto Maroni co-authored a new prostitution bill in July which has still not been brought before cabinet for approval.

Under the bill, prostitutes and clients could be fined up to 3,000 euros, while repeat offences would be punishable with 5-15 days in jail.

It also includes harsher penalties for pimps and those who have sex with minors, as well as ''assisted repatriation'' for minors without a legal guardian in Italy.

Right-wing politician Daniela Santanche' is meanwhile convinced that reopening brothels is the only way of getting prostitutes of the streets. In June she announced she would begin collecting the 500,000 signatures necessary for a referendum to overturn the 1958 Merlin law - named after bill sponsor and Socialist senator Angelina (Lina) Merlin - which closed down Italian brothels.

A survey for the Donna Moderna magazine in the same month showed that 85% of Italians are in favour of reopening brothels.

According to a recent study there are some 100,000 prostitutes in Italy, 65% of whom work on the streets and 35% in private residences or clubs.

The study also calculated that prostitutes in Italy charge an average of 30 euros per customer and generate a turnover in the neighborhood of some 90 million euros a month. Clients were said to number around nine million.

Travellers to the U.S. could have their laptops and other electronic devices seized at the airport under new anti-terror measures.

Federal agents have been granted powers to take such devices and hold them as long as they like. They do not even need grounds to suspect wrongdoing.

The Department of Homeland Security said the policies applied to anyone entering the country by land, sea or air, including U.S. citizens.

The extent of the new powers, which have been secretly in place for some time, was revealed in the Washington Post.

They cover hard drives, flash drives, mobile phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes, as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials, the report said.

Federal agents must take measures to protect business information and lawyer-client privileged material.

Copies of data must be destroyed when a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information. But agents are allowed to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and 'other reasons'.

The new powers came to light under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups after increasing numbers of travellers reported that they had laptops, phones and other digital devices removed and examined.

The development was described as 'truly alarming' by Wisconsin Democrat Senator-Russell Feingold, who is investigating U.S. border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.

Guidance issued by the Government has told councils to impose fixed penalties of "no less than £75" and up to £110, potentially a more severe penalty than the £80 fine that police often hand out to those guilty of drunk and disorderly conduct and shoplifters.

The Conservative Party condemned the move as a "new stealth tax" after uncovering the guidance contained in the Flycapture Enforcement manual produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Offences for which the spotfines can be imposed include leaving a wheelie bin lid ajar, putting the bin out on the wrong night or leaving it in the wrong place.

The Flycapture Enforcement guidance says penalties for "waste receptacle" offences must range between £75 and £110 and suggests a standard fixed penalty of £100.

Earlier this year Gareth Corkhill, a bus driver from Whitehaven, was given a criminal conviction after being taken to court when he refused to hand over a £110-on-the-spot fine by council inspectors, who found the lid of his wheelie bin open by four inches.

He was originally asked for the fine when he was confronted by inspectors, from Copeland Borough Council in Cumbria, wearing stab-proof vests and armed with photographic evidence of his crime.

Eric Pickles, the shadow local government secretary, said Labour was creating an army of municipal bin bullies hitting law abiding families with massive fines while professional criminals get the soft touch. It is clear Whitehall bureaucrats are instructing town halls to target householders with fines for minor breaches.

In the 12 months up to April last year, nearly 44,000 were fined because they failed to close bin lids, put their rubbish out on the wrong day, or left extra black bags alongside their bins.

As soldiers prepare to be deployed on Italian streets, a city mayor has been accused of Fascism after he passed an edict banning groups of more than three people congregating in parks and public gardens.

The anti-gathering laws were enacted as thousands of soldiers were due to take to the streets of Italian cities for the first time on Monday under a controversial move by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to fight crime.

Massimo Giordano, a member of Italy's anti immigration Northern League party, defended the anti-gathering motion and claimed it would cut down on unruly behaviour.

However opposition councillors said it was reminiscent of Benito Mussolini's edict of the 1920's which banned groups of five or more people.

The ban will not affect courting couples who flock to parks and gardens in the northern Italian city of Novara, where Giordano holds power, but if anyone is caught in a group of three or more they face a fine of 500 euro (£350).

Giordano said that the edict would ban gatherings in a bid to protect public decorum and prevent damage to public parks and gardens from people who gathered in them at night.

Novara, which has a population of 100,000, is not seen as a particularly crime-ridden or violent city but the mayor passed the law after several elderly residents complained of noise.

He has also banned the consumption of alcohol at the city's station after 6pm and closed a immigrant cultural centre.

Opposition councillor Sara Paladini said: There is no emergency situation in Novara - there is no need for such a Fascist edict. There are other better ways to tackle the city's problems.

Around 3,000 troops are expected to begin patrolling streets of major cities - including Rome, Milan, Naples, Bari, Palermo and Venice - on Monday as part of a government clampdown on crime.

The capital has been earmarked for the highest number of troops - 1,000 will patrol high-profile locations such as stations, embassies and diplomatic residences.

Have you got a licence for that camera?

Photographic Privacy International's fated struggle to stop the Google spy car stalking this country's streets has reminded me of my own brush with London's photography police recently.

I was being photographed in Covent Garden. As I followed the photographer's instructions and tried to come up with a smile that would get people running to the nearest shop to buy my book, a security guard on patrol around the piazza walked up and stood between the photographer and me. The guard was quite a determined professional; he put one hand in front of the camera lens and muttered darkly into his walkie-talkie.

Why would a potential terrorist (or people exhibiting suspect behaviour, as the Met likes to describe them in its anti-terror publicity) pose in front of an organic cosmetics stall and religiously follow the instructions of a white, female professional photographer who looked nothing if not an infidel? The photographer tried to test the resolve of the security guard by stepping out of the covered area and making me pose in front of a column. But the guard followed and covered the lens again; he looked like a man with a mission to save London from desperate debut writers and their collaborators in the photographic professions.

In the ensuing hour we were chased away from Nehru's bust outside the Indian High Commission, and Citibank. Even the folks at Australia House descended on us after we had set up the tripod, I had perfected my writerly pose and we were only waiting for the clouds to part.

Update: Unlicensed Hoax

Thanks to Andrea, 18th August 2008, see article from The Register

The following apology was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday August 2 2008

Contrary to a statement we made in the column below, the Metropolitan Police do not require professional photographers operating in central London to hold a police permit and wear a radio-linked ID tag. The material on which this part of the column was based was a hoax. This has been corrected. We apologise for its use.

This referred to a section of the Guardian article:

The photographer, very bitter by now, told me that the police treat anyone with professional photography equipment as a suspect. According to the professional group Editorial Photographer UK, if you want to take pictures in central London you have to apply for a permit at Charing Cross police station. The approval can take up to 28 days. Then, as a part of Photo Safety Identity Checking Observation you are required to wear "a thin fluorescent waistcoat" kitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. The Met has assured the photographers that RFID is a cheap and "passive device that needs no batteries".

A spokesperson for the Met told the photographers' group earlier this year that cameras are potentially more dangerous than guns.

According to reports coming from France, sunbathers on the Cote d'Azur, who once adopted a "laissez faire" attitude to nakedness, have turned against displaying too much bare flesh.

Even regulars at La Voile Rouge beach club on Pampelonne's Beach, in St. Tropez, where it all started prefer to keep their top on.

The development has sparked a minor debate in the country which has always prided itself on being less prudish than its Anglo-Saxon neighbours.

For some it is simply a change in fashion, for others it marks a new conservatism sweeping France. Yet others say it is to do with increased health concerns about skin cancer and sensitivities to the growing Muslim community.

Four transvestites arrested in a raid on a beauty pageant have appealed a one-week jail sentence imposed by a Malaysian Islamic court for dressing as women.

Islamic officials last week detained 16 transvestites competing in the "Miss Universe Asia 2008" contest at a beach resort hotel in the northeastern state of Kelantan, which is ruled by the fundamentalist PAS party.

Mohamad Abdul Aziz, chief assistant director of enforcement in the state, told AFP that four transvestites were found guilty by the Islamic Sharia court: Four of them were charged in the Sharia court Sunday for wearing female outfits. The court found them guilty and imposed a seven-day jail sentence and a fine of 1,000 ringgit (310 dollars).

But they appealed against the jail sentence and the court freed them on bail. Mohamad said one transvestite was released because he wore a Malay traditional outfit. The other 11 who were wearing evening gowns will be charged on August 24. They are also on bail.

Mohamad said the beauty contest attracted many participants because the first prize was a trip to Indonesia's island resort of Bali. He said it was the first time that authorities had made such a mass arrest in the state

Beat: Life on the Street is a documentary funded by the Government following the lives of PCSO's. The Government-funded propaganda portrayed PCSOs as dedicated, helpful and an effective adjunct to the police

The Government has spent almost £2 million to fund programmes that are all but indistinguishable from regular shows, The Sunday Telegraph has established.

But unlike normal documentaries, the programmes are commissioned by ministers with the purpose of showing their policies or activities in a sympathetic light.

The media watchdog Ofcom has disclosed that it had opened an investigation into one of the programmes, Beat: Life on the Street to see whether it breached its broadcasting code.

Media freedom campaigners, broadcasters and opposition politicians expressed alarm over the Government-funded documentaries.

The Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow said: I find it extraordinary. So the Government is funding commercial television productions highlighting government policy? Presumably they don’t criticise government policy.

The Government has funded at least eight television series or individual programmes in the past five years. Subjects range from an Army expedition to climb Everest to advice for small businessmen on how to improve their company’s fortunes.

However, the show about PCSOs and a newly commissioned programme about Customs and Immigration officers are particularly controversial because they deal with sensitive political issues and policies.

Beat: Life on the Street, which was supported with £800,000 of funding from the Ministry of Propaganda. One Whitehall source admitted of the documentary: It allows the Government to have more air time and get its message across to people. Ministers are so pleased with the way the series, which drew in audiences of three million people on ITV and changed the public’s perception of the officers, that they commissioned a third series, to be broadcast next year.

But The Sunday Telegraph established that the programmes appeared to break Ofcom’s broadcasting code by not making it clear that they were funded by the Ministry of Propaganda.

In a further apparent breach of Ofcom rules, this time on independence, Ministry of Propaganda officials were directly involved in the making of the series. They were allowed to view a second edit of individual programmes and were able to suggest changes to some of the “terminology” and “language” used in the narration.

David Ruffley, the shadow police minister, said: People want the Government to put police on our streets, not propaganda on our television sets.

Reading the Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Report into Harmful content on the Internet and in Video Games, there is an evil, ill thought out recommendation which should be thoroughly condemned::

Controlling conduct-based risks and cyberbullying

138. We note that mobile phone call records would make it possible to establish that a particular phone had been used to upload content onto a video-sharing website at a particular time but would not necessarily identify the images uploaded or the person who had used the phone to upload them.

Given that images or videos taken by mobile devices may be uploaded to social networking sites or video sharing sites on impulse, it would seem important to be able to have a record of the nature of content handled, should it be offensive, harmful or even illegal.

It may be that the mobile phone industry could develop technology which would allow images uploaded by mobile devices to be viewed, thereby helping in the process of assembling evidence if inappropriate conduct has taken place.

We recommend that network operators and manufacturers of mobile devices should assess whether it is technically possible to enable images sent from mobile devices to be traced and viewed by law enforcement officers with the appropriate authority.

If such currently non-existent technology is developed in the UK, presumably by magic, since the Committee has not come up with any research and development funding, what will prevent this selfsame mobile phone image tracking technology from being abused, in say, China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Pakistan etc. to hunt down political dissidents and opponents of those authoritarian regimes ?

Innocent photographers in the UK already suffer from illegal harassment by Police Constables, Police Community Support Officers and Private Security Guards. Why should they welcome their mobile phone retained Communications Traffic Data being trawled, just in case their copyrighted images might of interest in a Police investigation ?

Why should mobile phone photographers be hunted down and identified, if the Police or shyster lawyers representing rich and powerful people or organisations, try to suppress their images?

The dreadful dictatorship appeasing commercial monopoly of the International Olympic Committee springs to mind. They already seem set to inflict Beijing 2008 style monopoly enforcement on the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Would a woman ever pay to have sex with a man at a brothel? If you believe Heidi Fleiss, the clearly unstable yet strangely charming former “Hollywood madam” (she served 21 months in federal prison for tax evasion related to her dial-a-hooker business), the answer is yes.

Hence the ultra-modern, oyster-shaped complex she has designed to be constructed just outside a town in the Nevada desert with the very unsexy name of Pahrump. Fleiss is convinced that the frustrated housewives of America want nothing more than to drive to one of the most godforsaken places on the planet to pay hundreds of dollars to be groped by an off-duty and probably homosexual Chippendale.

Her ideas are detailed in a sadly compelling new HBO documentary, Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal (Crystal being the name of the proposed brothel location, as well as a snide reference to crystal meth, to which Fleiss appears hopelessly addicted).

As Fleiss mentally and physically disintegrates throughout the film, you get the feeling The Stud Farm might have been one of the greatest PR con-jobs of all time. But for all the suggestions that Fleiss was planning to open the place up to gays, thus guaranteeing profitability, I like to think she was genuinely interested in the brothel as a social experiment. For that reason alone I hope she cleans up and gets her licence.

After a full day of sightseeing, Diane set out to do what she came to Toronto for: I went to Club Hers and they were having a blast.

I went to Wicked and there were lots of pretty people there. Diane is into "the lifestyle," and Toronto is her sexual playground: I try to get here once every other month.

The Greater Toronto Area i(GTA) s now home to at least a dozen establishments that describe themselves variously as "swingers' clubs," "hedonists' clubs" and "lifestyle clubs," and which are increasingly drawing clients from afar.

Ménage à Quatre, a new lifestyle club, has just opened in Etobicoke, bringing the total number of such establishments in the GTA to at least 12. The sex clubs have been proliferating since 2005, when a Supreme Court decision rewrote the definition of indecency, ruling that clubs that offer group sex and partner-swapping are legal because they cause society no harm.

Wicked, Club Hers and Ménage à Quatre are all "on-premise" establishments, meaning that clients can engage in sexual activities in the club - and just about anything, as long as it is consensual, goes.

On-premise clubs are illegal in some U.S. states, but even in states where they are technically legal, such as New York, the practice isn't well tolerated, says Richard Pollara, proprietor of Ménage à Quatre.

Although in operation only two months, Pollara's club already has 400 members: I would say that 25 to 30% of the people who are coming to the club are coming from more than an hour away, and the vast majority of them are coming from two or three hours away.

Wicked, which has been in operation for almost six years, claims 30,000 members. Ms. Benzion says membership spiked following the Supreme Court's ruling. The legitimization drew a lot of traffic from south of the border, she says. But membership swelled locally as well. The media coverage brought the lifestyle to people's attention, while the ruling legitimized it for people who might not have risked it.

Wicked's clientele is a far cry from most preconceptions of traditional swingers: over-tanned and over the hill, bobbing in a hot tub. Wicked does have a Jacuzzi, but the similarities end there. The crowd on a recent Saturday evening was multicultural, relatively young, and obviously well-groomed for the occasion.

Mr. Benzion, a savvy businessman, is aware of the revenue his establishment brings to the city. I'd like to see more backup from the municipal government. The same way as they're backing up Pride. In future, if we are doing good for the city, I'd like to see some recognition.

The WI Guide To Brothels, C4, August 3, 10pm

WI members will go on a whirlwind tour of some of the world’s brothels in a new Channel 4 documentary.

Hampshire WI members Jean Johnson and Shirley Landels met the working girls in a licensed Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada and visited a upmarket prostitution co-operative in New Zealand.

On their return they try to create a version of the perfect British brothel.

The documentary The WI Guide To Brothels is part of a Women’s Institute campaign calling for the legalisation of brothels in Britain and the reform of prostitution laws.

It’s been made with investigative journalist Nicky Taylor who in the film talks to women who sell their bodies on British streets and work in illegal brothels.

Nicky also talks to lap dancers, helps a prostitute’s maid, mans an X-rated phone sex line and tries to sell her body in a Winchester shop window.

In Auckland, the ladies accompanied an inspector to the "gentleman's retreat" Purely Blue brothel and said: It was lovely.

And at the Bonton, a boutique-style venue in a suburban house, workers had degrees and professional jobs.

Magnificent, was the verdict from the British visitors: Very discreet, no one would know what was happening. What I liked was there were two girls there, which provided safety for each other. It's what they call a small owner-operated brothel. And the hours were so civilised - 10am to 7pm Monday to Friday. Just like a regular job, really.

The pair said it was a perfect model for a British brothel: clean, safe and not seedy in the least.

Comment: Purely Blue

From Donald

This is the brothel they talk about
the Purely Blue Brothel in Auckland, New Zealand,
 
NZ$120 for 30mins  is £45
interesting, they have their own coffee brand!

See also Auckland's brothels receive rave reviews in new Brit documentary

Courting couples smooching in the back row at the movies could become the unwitting stars of a new genre of romantic film after the installation of Big Brother-style cameras at cinemas.

Odeon, the UK's largest cinema chain, has put CCTV cameras in nine cinemas across the country.

Gareth Crossman, the policy of Liberty, the human rights campaigners, said: Film-goers should be informed of the presence of the cameras so that they can go elsewhere if they are unhappy with being filmed themselves.

An Odeon spokesman said the cameras had resulted in a dramatic fall of disruptive incidents. He added: The camera system and subsequent footage is solely for the safety and security of guests and footage recorded is automatically erased after 31 days.

There is prominent signage throughout cinemas informing guests that CCTV is in operation, with a telephone number provided for further information.

The European Union's top court has ruled that non-EU nationals married to EU citizens are entitled to live in their spouse's country.

The court overruled a law in the Republic of Ireland, which grants residency only to those who have previously lived in an EU member state.

The European Court of Justice said the Irish refusal of residence permits contradicted an EU directive.

The right of a national of a non-member country who is a family member of a Union citizen to accompany or join that citizen cannot be made conditional on prior lawful residence in another member state, the ruling said.

The (EU) Directive applies to all Union citizens who move to or reside in a member state other than that of which they are a national, and to their family members who accompany them or join them in that member state.

The case against the Irish justice ministry was brought by four African men married to EU citizens resident in Ireland. The men had been refused residence permits.

Southampton City Council has apologised to two women pensioners after a worker reprimanded them for photographing a deserted paddling pool over fears about paedophiles.

The council said staff would now be advised to use their discretion when seeing people taking photographs at the pool on Southampton Common, the council said today.

Betty Robinson and Brenda Bennett had taken snaps of the pool area when the female council worker ordered them to stop.

Mrs Robinson told the Southern Daily Echo: It's absolutely ridiculous. After asking why we couldn't take photos she told us those were the rules. It's pathetic - bureaucracy gone mad.

Mike Harris, head of leisure and inanity at Southampton City Council, said in a statement: 'I'm sorry if we have caused any offence on this occasion: A lot of people are more concerned about the safety of their children these days so it is appropriate that our staff are aware of who is taking photos.

Residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have lost their legal bid to ban the use of the word lesbian to describe gay women.

The group had argued that the word insulted their identity.

Lesbos was the birthplace in 7BC of Sappho, whose love poems inspired the term lesbian.

An Athens court said the word did not define the identity of the residents of the island, and so it could be used validly by gay groups in Greece and abroad.

The ruling also ordered the three plaintiffs to pay court expenses.

Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, said: This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere. A court in Athens could not stop people around the world from using it. It was ridiculous. Chirdaris said the plaintiffs are free to appeal against the decision in a higher court.

Two Britons accused of having sex in public on a Dubai beach have been charged with the most serious offences open to the authorities.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors had hoped to escape with a caution after they publicly apologised to the police officers involved in the case.

But the pair, who as part of their bail conditions are unable to leave Dubai, have been charged with three offences which could mean a maximum sentence of six years in prison if found guilty.

The triple charges are indecent behaviour, having unmarried sex and having consumed alcohol.

Update: Just Kissing

16th August 2008

The couple were summoned to appear before Dubai's Court of First Instance yesterday in a hurried hearing organised in a bid to ward off the intense media interest the case has generated both in the Muslim country and abroad.

They admitted consuming alcohol but denied the other offences. Legal sources said that unusually, they have opted to represent themselves in the case.

Judge Hamad Abdul Latif yesterday adjourned the case and both Palmer and Acors were ordered to stay in the country until the next court hearing, which according to some reports will be on September 2.

Council leaders in Manchester will discuss the proposals, which have been backed by health officials.

They are asking for special powers to put "restrictive" ratings on films that they believe encourage smoking.

This could mean films that have PG ratings elsewhere in Britain are rated 18 in Greater Manchester's cinemas. Children could even be banned from watching cartoons such as 101 Dalmations because it shows people smoking cigarettes.

Local councils have the power to overrule BBFC cinema certificates.

A report by the Greater Manchester Health Commission, to be discussed by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA), says town halls should take into account smoking when giving a classification to film.

 

Very talented, rich, world renowned and a smoker... Thanks to DavidT

The region's 10 councils may also cut funding to theatres that put on plays involving smoking.

The GMHC's report also urges the Government to ban drivers from smoking, to reclassify all films featuring smoking to be rated 18 and to ban smoking in television programmes.

Neil Rafferty, of pro-smoking lobby group Forest, said: It is nannyism of the worst kind.

The BBFC insisted there was no need to classify all films as 18 just because they showed characters smoking. A spokesman said: If we see smoking in films which is actively promoting smoking to young people we would take action against them, give them a higher rating if necessary. But there is less and less smoking in films these days simply because people are unable to smoke in public locations.

Teenage foreign brides and bridegrooms are to be barred from entering Britain on marriage visas under measures announced yesterday.

The minimum age at which British citizens can sponsor a foreigner to enter the country as a spouse is to rise from 18 to 21, as is the minimum age at which a bride or groom can themselves enter on a marriage visa.

But proposals to force foreign spouses to learn English before they arrive have been watered down after running into opposition. Instead, spouses will be required to promise to take basic English lessons within six months of arriving in the UK or risk the revocation of their marriage visa allowing them to stay.

Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, said the introduction of English tests before spouses moved to the UK remained the Government's medium-term goal. The Home Office claimed it would be impractical to demand that people sat tests before they arrived because English lessons are not widely enough available overseas, particularly in rural areas.

Yesterday's measures, many of which will be implemented by the end of the year, follow growing concern at the extent of forced marriages and at the abuse of the marriage visa route by people who would otherwise find it very difficult to qualify for entry.

A total of 47,000 people entered Britain in 2006 as a spouse or fiancé(e), more than double the number a decade earlier. The measures will hit hardest 17,000 spouses and fiancé(e)s from the sub-continent.

In addition to raising the age for sponsoring a marriage visa to 21, and barring teenage spouses from entering Britain until they are 21, Britons will have to register their plans to sponsor a marriage visa before they leave the country. This is intended to stop young people being taken abroad and coerced into marriage.

Young people in such circumstances will have to name their prospective partner before travelling abroad and possibly undergo a face-to-face interview with an immigration officer. This will give a person who may be fearful of causing trouble with their family the opportunity to inform the authorities that they are being forced, bullied or have reservations about the marriage.

In a move intended to stop the abuse of marriage visas, a spouse who enters Britain and then abandons their partner, or who is suspected of misusing the marriage visa to gain settlement in Britain, could be stripped of their right to remain.

The Home Office admitted that teenage spouses who will no longer be able to enter Britain with a marriage visa because of the higher age limit could try other routes, such as a visitor or student visa.

The timetable for introducing the English language requirement will be published in the autumn but the measure is likely to be in force by the end of the year, a Home Office spokeswoman said.

Ministers are to consider requiring sponsors of marriage visas to provide much more information about the relationship on application forms.

Plans to give greater powers to local communities to determine whether lap dancing clubs should be set up in their area will be unveiled by the Conservatives today.

Theresa May, Shadow Minister for Women, will announce that the Tories will give local authorities the power to decide whether a lap dancing club is appropriate.

A three month consultation with local authorities, starting today, will determine the most effective way of changing the current regulations, she says.

Local communities should be able to decide whether it is appropriate for lap dancing clubs