A group of mostly left-leaning Nordic MEPs have in a letter urged the European Parliament to only patronise Strasbourg hotels that pledge not to tolerate use of prostitutes, with one French NGO swiftly welcoming the symbolic gesture.

[We] strongly propose that the EU parliament without delay follow the Nordic Council and decide that the EU parliament only use hotels that issue a guarantee that the hotel is not involved in the sex trade, and that all staff have written guidelines on this issue, the letter, addressed to parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering and signed by 37 MEPs, says.

The Danish, Swedish and Finnish deputies mostly come from the Socialist, Liberal and Green factions in the parliament and include former Danish Prime Minister and the current president of the European Party of Socialists, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Two conservative MEPs, Sweden's Charlotte Cederschiold and Finnish deputy Eija-Riitta Korhola, also joined the initiative.

The Copenhagen-based Nordic Council was founded in 1952 as a forum for Nordic parliamentary co-operation. It adopted the measure on prostitution and hotels in 2006.

Prostitution is legal in Denmark and Finland. It is also legal to sell sex in Sweden but against the law to buy it.

There is plenty of anecdotal material that some well-paid European Parliament workers and MEPs, away from their partners for the week, pay for sex during the monthly plenary session in Strasbourg. But evidence is scarce.

Hotels deny they would ever help a guest find a prostitute, while some smaller guest-houses exclude prostitutes who normally live with them in order not to put off EU clientele during the plenary sessions. But the manager of one large Strasbourg hotel told EUobserver: If a guest brought back somebody, they would be very discreet.

The Strasbourg office of French anti-sex trade NGO Mouvement du Nid said the European Parliament has no impact on levels of street prostitution: The parliamentarians are not interested in street prostitutes. They prefer escort girls, call girls of a slightly higher level. They find little adverts and make telephone calls. That's how they take care of business, the NGO's Isabelle Collot said.

Some non-government organizations in Davao City will be observing October 5 as the day of No Prostitution.

It's a day of no prostitution that includes no pornography, phone sex, cyber sex, mail-order bride services, trafficking, strip dancing, sex tours and prostitution in massage parlors, on the streets.

The no prostitution campaign is the culminating activity of the First Mindanao Conference of Women and Children in Prostitution.

Figures from the City Health Office showed that there are 2,411 registered prostituted women in the city while an NGO cited some 4,000 prostituted women doing their freelance job.

These groups are against the government's schemes that encourage prostitution including the occupational permit and appointment cards which are issued to women to work in clubs, and other establishments.

The nutter groups also urges the city council to pass a resolution in the passage of Senate Bill 2066 or the Anti-Prostitution Bill which seeks to decriminalize the victim of prostitution and punish the perpetrator.

Jacqui Smith has unveiled the UK's new identity card.

The credit card-sized plastic cards carried a picture of a bull - in common with other European Union identity cards - as well as five stars drawn from the stars on the official flag of the EU.

The card is to be initially issued to people outside the EU renewing their permission to stay in the UK as students or on the basis of marriage.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 cards, which will initially cost £30 each, will be issued by the end of next March and ministers predict one million a year will be handed out from 2010.

The cards contain the individual's name, their photograph, the card's expiry date and details of how long they can stay in the country.

Other information includes people's date and place of birth, their gender, nationality, and whether they are entitled to benefits.

Biometric data, including copies of all of the person's fingerprints, will be stored on a special security chip.

The card will start to be issued on November 25 to foreign nationals at offices in Croydon, Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham and Cardiff.

From next year anyone working in the restricted areas in Britain's airports would need to have an ID card and it will be made generally available to British citizens from 2011. Those cards, which will be voluntary, may look different and display different information but they will enable the holder to travel without a passport around the EU.

The Conservatives reaffirmed the party's commitment to scrapping ID cards if they win the next election, likely in 2010. Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more safe. It is high time the Government scrapped this ill-fated project.

Suspicious! He got the green light from the scanner! ...Normal people get all hostile over aggressive treatment from border operatives

The US Department of Homeland Security is testing a type of body scanner that seeks out invisible clues that a person might be harbouring criminal intent, such as raised body temperature, pulse and breathing rate.

The system, called MALINTENT, uses a raft of "non-invasive" sensors and imagers to detect such factors remotely - subjects are not hooked up to anything. It also evaluates a person's facial expression to help to gauge whether they could be planning to commit an attack or crime.

The technology, developed by the Human Factors division of Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, would be used at border checkpoints, airports and special events that require security screening.

Unlike current technology which aims to detect devices such as guns or explosives, it focuses on the person who could pose the threat.

The technology, dubbed Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, deploys a range of innovative physiological and behavioural technologies to pick up indications of malintent or the intent or desire to cause harm, according to the DHS.

It would take imaging and sensor technologies to observe physiological changes that might indicate intent to harm, such as skin temperature, pulse, respiration and gestures, said Amy Kudwa, a DHS spokeswoman.

She added it would be capable of distinguishing between someone with a hostile intent and a plane passenger, for example, who was merely stressed about missing a connection.

We're still very early on in this research, but it is looking very promising, John Verrico, a DHS spokesman, told New Scientist. We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception.

If the sensors pick up anything considered alarming, analysts can decide whether to subject a person to questioning.

Hundreds of bar owners and workers in the Nepalese capital blocked traffic and vandalized vehicles Wednesday to protest new closing hours imposed by the government.

The Home Ministry earlier this month issued an order that night entertainment establishments would have to close by 11 p.m. in the Thamel area, a tourist hub and nightlife center in Katmandu. The ministry said it was 'necessary' to impose an earlier closing time in order to control growing crime in the city.

Hundreds of people working in bars, nightclubs and discotheques forced shopkeepers in the main markets to close their stores. Some protesters vandalized taxis and public vans whose owners had defied their call for a general strike.

The Organization of Nightlife Business entrepreneurs said in a statement their protests would continue until the government withdraws the new closing hours.

Clubs in the past have remained open past midnight until the early hours of the morning.

Update: Providing Jobs

29th September 2008

Prominent women rights activist Sapana Malla Pradhan today cautioned that closure of dance bars and night clubs could force a large number of women currently employed there into prostitution.

"The problems won't be solved without offering alternative jobs to women who have been eking out their living by dancing," said Pradhan who is also a CPN-UML Constituent Assembly member. "The government should provide jobs or else it will prove that the government is forcing these women into prostitution."

Speaking at a program "Questions at policy level vis-à-vis HIV and AIDS" organized by several organizations including the European Union here in Pokhara, she demanded that the government regulate such dance bars with necessary laws, instead of pulling their shutters down forcefully.

Update: Prohibiting Off Sales

29th September 2008

Nepal has also begun cracking down on the sale of alcohol and tobacco goods in the Himalayan republic, closing duty-free spirit shops at the sole international airport and confiscating bottles stowed away in passengers' luggage.

The internal revenue department issued the first notification late last week, warning shops that stock essential goods for daily use, like groceries, that they have till Nov 17 to comply with the new rules or face stiff punishment.

Earlier, liquor was available freely in shops throughout Nepal and there was no drinking age limit. Only licensed sellers can now sell alcohol. However, even they need to renew their licence for the current financial year.

Department stores will have to construct separate rooms to display their spirit and tobacco products. Ordinary shops selling essential goods will either have to acquire a licence and build a separate room for alcohol and tobacco products or return such goods to the manufacturers.

Human Rights Abuser

Home Office press release:

THINK TWICE ABOUT PAYING FOR SEX

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith today announced her intention to work with the police and other partners to outlaw paying for sex with someone controlled for another person's gain. This is aimed at protecting vulnerable individuals, for example those who have been trafficked or exploited in some other way.

This follows a six month Government review into tackling the demand for prostitution, which explored both the legislative and non-legislative options available as well as learning from the experiences of other countries such as Sweden and Holland.

The review identified a number of measures to improve the protection of vulnerable women including criminalising those supporting the exploitation by purchasing sex from them.

The Home Secretary also announced:

• A crackdown on kerb-crawlers - removing the need to prove that a person has acted persistently. This will ensure that kerb-crawlers can be prosecuted on a first offence
• New powers to close premises associated with prostitution - allowing police to close brothels for a period of three months. At the moment, police can only close premises associated with prostitution if anti-social behaviour or Class A drugs are involved

The Home Secretary also indicated her intention to give greater powers to local people and Local Authorities to control the opening and regulation of lap-dancing clubs, through changes in legislation.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said:

The Government has a responsibility to protect those who have been groomed or trafficked into prostitution, or for those who remain involved for fear of violence from a partner or a pimp. So we will start work to outlaw paying for sex with someone forced into prostitution at another's will or controlled for another's gain.

Communities shouldn't have to put up with street prostitution. The package of measures I have announced today will help the police and local people to crack down on it.

Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman said:

We must protect women from being victims of human trafficking – the modern slave trade.

The trade only exists because men buy sex, so to protect women we must stop men buying sex from the victims of human trafficking.

Commenting on the potential new regulation of lap-dancing clubs, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said:

Local people are often best placed to know the needs of their area and to find home-grown solutions.

These new measures, alongside the robust planning powers councils already have, will see communities taking ownership/control of the environment in which they live, ensuring safer, more welcoming neighbourhoods.

Communities have an important role to play in tackling the local issues that can affect their everyday lives and their neighbours' welfare.

Justice Minister Maria Eagle said:

I welcome these measures which underline the importance the Government places on ensuring the appropriate protection and safety for women involved in street prostitution and the wider community.


Notes to Editors:

1. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced a package of new offences designed to tackle various forms of sexual exploitation. These included:
• Causing of inciting prostitution for gain
• Controlling prostitution for gain
• Trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation
There are however currently no specific offences to tackle those who pay or offer to pay for sex with someone who has been trafficked or exploited, unless there is sufficient evidence to prove that person knew the person selling sex did not consent to sexual intercourse. In these situations, the police and prosecutors would look at prosecution for rape. The Government's intention is to look at criminalising those who pay or offer to pay for sex with victims of these crimes in order to deter the sex buyers who fuel illegal exploitative and coercive practices, as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

2. In England and Wales, the act of purchasing sex is not a criminal offence. There are, however, offences that effectively prohibit individuals from paying for sex on the street or in a public place. The Sexual Offences Act 1985 introduced two distinct offences which can be used to prosecute those who buy sex:

• kerb crawling (where someone solicits from a motor vehicle, or within the vicinity of a motor vehicle), for the purposes of prostitution, persistently or in a manner that is likely to cause annoyance to people in the neighbourhood; or

• persistent soliciting for the purposes of prostitution (effectively kerb crawling but without a vehicle)

The Government now intends to remove the 'persistence' requirement from both offences and in the case of kerb-crawling to remove the alternative requirement of "in a manner that is likely to cause annoyance to people in the neighbourhood". The purpose is to make it possible to prosecute the kerb crawler in the first instance, increasing the deterrent to those who consider paying for sex on the street or in a public place.

3. At present, the police have no powers to close premises associated with the sexual exploitation of adults or children, unless there is sufficient evidence to warrant the use of a premise closure order or a crack house closure order. However, many premises where sexual exploitation takes place will not be associated with anti-social behaviour or the use, supply or production of Class A drugs. This means that in practice, premises that are subject to police investigations for offences relating to sexual exploitation can reopen and begin operating again quickly.

The Government now intends to introduce a new order that allows for such premises to be closed and sealed for a set period, providing an opportunity for agencies to act swiftly and decisively to prevent further exploitation and abuse from taking place. The order will prohibit entry to the premises by any individual for a period of three months.

4. The results of the recent lap dancing consultation made it clear that Local Authorities in England and Wales felt that the Licensing Act 2003 offers little or no opportunity for local communities to object to lap dancing clubs opening in their local area and has limited powers for Local Authorities to control the growth of these establishments. Difficulties arise where residents and local authorities try to use the current legislation to tackle general concerns about these clubs being situated in a particular area (for example, near schools, historic tourist areas or churches) or because of concerns about equality, public decency, obscenity and the sexual exploitation of women.

The Government now intends to give greater powers to Local Authorities and local communities to control the opening and regulation of lap dancing clubs and will do this in consultation with stakeholders through legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

The state government of Queensland, Australia, has unveiled plans for an advocacy service that could include extolling the positive side of prostitution.

The $333,000 a year program would include free or discounted safe-sex products for prostitutes and sexual health education programs for the sex workers, the Brisbane Courier-Mail reported.

The Prostitution Licensing Authority, the government's sex industry regulator, is pushing for Premier Anna Bligh's government to also include community advocacy for prostitutes in the program: The service should contribute to a more balanced and positive view of sex workers in the general community, assisting to overcome the stigma attached to prostitution.

Don't fuck with Jacqui Smith ...she's 'controlled' by Gordon Brown

Kerb-crawling and soliciting for prostitutes on the streets are to be outlawed as part of a mean minded tightening of the law, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced.

Smith outlined a three-point plan at the Labour conference that will:

• Remove the requirement that only persistent kerb crawlers and men who solicit on the street can be prosecuted. An alternative requirement for kerb-crawlers - that they act in a manner that is likely to cause annoyance to people in the neighbourhood - is also to be removed. The changes will mean that kerb-crawlers and men soliciting sex on the street can be prosecuted after a first offence.
• Give new powers to councils and the police to close down brothels for at least three months if prostitutes are being run by a pimp or have been trafficked. At the moment, police can only close brothels if there is anti-social behaviour and if Class-A drugs are involved.
• Change the law so that men can be prosecuted if they pay for sex with women who are exploited - controlled for another person's gain, as Smith said. Currently, police can only pursue a prosecution if they can prove that the women did not consent to sex, which means they have to compile evidence of rape.

The home secretary also announced that communities will be given more say in lap-dancing clubs opening in their areas.

Smith announced the new measures on prostitution after a six-month government review into prostitution that focused on how Sweden and the Netherlands deal with the problem.

We will do more to tackle the blight of street prostitution, Smith told the Labour conference in Manchester. At the moment only persistent kerb-crawling is outlawed. In my book, once around the block is once too many - and so we'll make kerb-crawling punishable as a first offence.

The government will also toughen the law to prosecute men who pay for sex with women who are run by a pimp or who have been trafficked. Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader who is also equality minister, said: We must protect women from being victims of human trafficking - the modern slave trade. The trade only exists because men buy sex, so to protect women we must stop men buying sex from the victims of human trafficking.

Based on article from theargus.co.uk

 A Government source later confirmed that legislation will be introduced in the next Parliamentary session, which starts in November, with a view to changing the licensing rules by the middle of next year.

It is not yet known whether lap dancing clubs will in future be placed in the same category as sex establishments such as sex shops and adult cinemas, or whether a new category will be created for them. It is also unclear whether existing clubs will be forced to reapply for new licenses when the reforms come into effect.

The Government source told The Argus full details would be determined shortly but stressed the aim of the legislation would be to “make it much more difficult” for new lap dancing clubs to open.

Off with their dicks!

It seems that Labour will compromise over their mean minded intentions to criminalise people who buy sex. They will now limit this to the rare cases of buying sex from those coerced into providing it (Hopefully with leniency should customers be unaware of the coercion)

It would be fascinating to know how this apparent change of heart came about. Up until now, all Government ministers involved have been positively salivating over the thought of locking up men who pay for sex.

Earlier in September Gordon Brown was very positive about both agreeing with the policy to lock up men buying sex and also supporting Harriet to implement the policy.

On 4th of September Number 10 issued the following press briefing:

Asked if the Prime Minister backed Harriet Harman in her crusade to make paying for sex illegal, the PMS replied that Harriet Harman was a Government Minister and as such had the Prime Minister’s backing.

Asked to clarify if the Prime Minister was backing Harriet Harman in her job as Minister responsible for such matters or the view that prostitution should be legalised, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had full support for Harriet Harman.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that there should be a law banning the purchase of sex, the PMS referred journalists to the relevant department on that question.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought it was socially and morally acceptable to buy sex, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister did not think this.

South Korean police said they have seized beds and bathtubs weighing a total of 100 tons during a crackdown on prostitution in the capital Seoul.

They said the items and others were confiscated and destroyed during raids on dozens of massage parlours and brothels in the city's eastern district of Jangan.

A massage parlour owner committed suicide in protest at the crackdown which began on July 28, but police vowed to step up their campaign against prostitution, which is illegal in South Korea.

On Wednesday police set up a 270-member special unit to tackle the crime in Seoul.

Miniskirts distracting?... Surely not

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister says miniskirts should be banned - because women wearing them distract drivers and cause traffic accidents.

Nsaba Buturo told journalists in Kampala that wearing a miniskirt was like walking naked in the streets: What's wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally.

Wearing a miniskirt should be regarded as indecent, which would be punishable under Ugandan law, Buturo said.

The BBC's Joshua Mmali in Kampala, the capital, said journalists found the minister's comments extremely funny.

Men who buy sex from women who have been coerced into prostitution or trafficked for sexual exploitation would be prosecuted under proposals to be announced by the Home Secretary.

It would be an offence in England and Wales to pay for sex if the woman was being controlled by a pimp, had been coerced into the sex trade or was trafficked into Britain for sexual exploitation. Last year Jacqui Smith said: We recognise that there is considerable support for us to do more to tackle the demand for prostitution and to prevent the trafficking of people for sexual exploitation.

Gordon Brown recently indicated his determination to legislate in this area, when his spokesman said that he believed it was wrong for men to pay for sex.

The Home Secretary will make clear that the measure will not affect sole traders or women selling sex of their own free will. The move represents a compromise solution to demands from some senior members of the Government to criminalise the purchase of all sex. Police were concerned about the practicalities of a law banning any payment for sex.

Exact details of the new offence and the penalties to be imposed are yet to be worked out. Ministers believe that the measure will act as a deterrent to international human trafficking.

Operation Pentameter 2, a six-month police campaign, has shown the extent of the sex trade industry but uncovered little in the way of trafficking that it was targeting.

Update: Fascinating

21st September, thanks to Donald

Off with their dicks!

It would be fascinating to know how this apparent change of heart came about. Up until now, all Government ministers involved have been positively salivating over the thought of locking up men who pay for sex.

Earlier in September Gordon Brown was very positive about both agreeing with the policy to lock up men buying sex and also supporting Harriet to implement the policy.

On 4th of September Number 10 issued the following press briefing:

Asked if the Prime Minister backed Harriet Harman in her crusade to make paying for sex illegal, the PMS replied that Harriet Harman was a Government Minister and as such had the Prime Minister’s backing.

Asked to clarify if the Prime Minister was backing Harriet Harman in her job as Minister responsible for such matters or the view that prostitution should be legalised, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had full support for Harriet Harman.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that there should be a law banning the purchase of sex, the PMS referred journalists to the relevant department on that question.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought it was socially and morally acceptable to buy sex, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister did not think this.

Prostitutes in Italy who have been ordered to stop wearing skimpy clothing while they tout for business in broad daylight plan to dress as nuns instead.

By donning nuns' black and white habits street walkers hope to make the tough new legislation so confusing that it becomes unworkable.

Thousands of women, many of them from Eastern Europe and South America, sell themselves for sex on the side of major roads leading in and out of Italy's main cities, where brothels and red light districts are banned.

But they face a crackdown from the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, as well as individual city councils such as Rome, Milan and Florence.

The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, unveiled a decree this week which will ban the capital's thousands of street prostitutes from wearing unseemly and indecent clothing, saying the sight of barely clothed young women distracted male motorists and caused accidents.

Even the way in which sex workers stand is under scrutiny - the decree bans the women from adopting poses or behaviour or wearing clothing that unequivocally manifest the intention to solicit or practise the activity of prostitution.

Sex worker welfare groups have called the decree absurd and have pledged to challenge it in any way they can.

We'll dress as nuns so that the police will arrest scantily dressed girls outside discos or other women with their cleavage on show, said Pia Covre, of the Committee for the Rights of Prostitutes.

In Florence, for example, the mayor has forbidden girls from walking up and down and we are thinking of going around on bicycles instead. Meanwhile police in Rome have issued more than 100 prostitutes and 40 of their clients with spot fines of 200 euros (£158) since the new decree was introduced on Tuesday.

The sex workers were mostly from Romania, Colombia and Brazil. Many of the women have refused to pay the fines, which the mayor has said could increase to 500 euros by next month.

The Rome decree came after the Italian government last week agreed to outlaw prostitution in public places, recommending prison terms of up to 15 days and fines of 200 to 13,000 euros for prostitutes and their clients.

The mayor said his order would be valid until January 31, 2009, when the parliament is expected to adopt the government's proposed law.

The proposed law does not ban prostitution altogether because it does not outlaw sex work as a private business.

It’s hard to find a decent peeler on Toronto's Yonge Street these days. There are only three strip clubs, one porn cinema and a handful of sex accessory shops now.

But in the 1970s, Yonge was the dirtiest street in Canada. Body-rub parlours, porno vendors, cinemas and clubs lined the strip south of Bloor. There was music on the street. Tourists visited Yonge for the atmosphere and not the Eaton Centre.

Valerie Scott worked in the body-rub parlours on Yonge during the ’70s: There wasn’t a lot of violence, hardly any. I never even came across any at all, all the times I worked in the massage parlours. I think because we worked together, there were always two or three or four of us working in a place. And it was just nice to hang out with the other women in between clients.

The first body-rub parlour opened in the spring of 1971. They grew in tandem with the Yonge Street Mall, an annual festival held between 1971 and 1973.

Parts of Yonge from Gerrard to Queen were closed to traffic and vendors moved into the street. The sex industry thrived on the increase in street business the mall provided. The body rub parlours also filled an economic niche on the street and kept Yonge going, taking advantage of real estate that other businesses didn’t want.

It filled a vacumn. The stores were there, it was the centre of the city. Landlords were pretty desperate because they couldn’t get serious retailers to go there, says Ron Soskolne, Toronto’s chief planner in the ‘70s.

The increase in people attracted by the mall, however, meant an increase in crime. Some businesses complained they were losing money just as the parlours were flourishing. The mall became a financial liability for the city and was shut down in the summer of 1973. The parlours, however, remained. In just four years, there were more than 100 of them.

The party ended in 1977. On July 28, four men lured 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, who worked on Yonge shining shoes, into an apartment above Charlie’s Angels, a body-rub parlour across from the just-opened Eaton Centre. Jaques was restrained and sexually assaulted over 12 hours, then strangled and drowned. The murder shocked the public and provided the city and local businesses with a moral martyr to rally behind. Many of the sex businesses threw in the towel rather than endure the legal shitstorm. Some were closed down by the bawdy-house law, which gives authorities the legal right to close down any place in which prostitution occurs. Whether or not prostitution was indeed happening was beside the point. None of the businesses could afford to fight both the government and the public. At the time of Jaques’ murder, there were 40 parlours on Yonge. By November there were four and in December the last one closed its doors.

The body-run era was over.

By the early 80s, Scott found herself dancing at the Zanzibar. The Zanzibar was a happening place. That place was packed on the weekends. Even during the week it was busy in the evenings and they had good quality shows. This is before table and lap dancing. It was far more burlesque. You didn’t have anything on the stage like showers or poles. The stage was nice, it was a good hardwood stage. Good for dancing.

The strip clubs continued to do well, but Yonge Street decayed in the 80s.

After nearly 15 years of planning, Toronto Life Square finally opened last year. Yonge has become an epileptic’s nightmare. Neon signs advertising the latest cell phone plans flash electric kool-aid over newly erected condos. It’s a 21st century circus, with a size that fits for anyone with cash to spend.

The sex industry is still there, but it’s only a shadow of its former self. The Zanzibar, the Brass Rail and Remington’s are the only strip clubs left. A porn cinema commands a second-floor perch on the east side of Yonge. Only a few sex shops remain.

The new research by the Poppy Project, Big Brothel, a survey of the off-street sex industry in Lodon, has generated shock and headlines that sex can be purchased in London for as little as £15 and highlighted the fact that sex without condoms is available.

However, closer inspection of the data reveals that only 2% of brothels contacted by phone by researchers offer sex without condoms. This leaves a very impressive 98% of establishments insisting on condom use. Many brothels charge for the amount of time a customer spends with a sex worker and the £15 fee quoted does not specify whether or not this is for a 10- or 15-minute appointment. Certainly, according to the research, the average fee is more than £60, with some charging up to £250 for sex. The survey found no concrete evidence of girls under 18 working in brothels – the average age was 21.

...

Evidence from the recent police and Home Office joint operation – Pentameter Two – a comprehensive and intelligence-led sweep of brothels across the land, netted only double figures of suspected trafficking victims. Denis MacShane has quoted a figure of 25,000 trafficked women and children in this country. Where are the others? Either the police are doing a lousy job at flushing them out or more likely, they're not here in the numbers quoted.

...Read full article

I'm a sex worker – don't take away my livelihood

See also article from guardian.co.uk by Lara

The 'Big Brothel' report paints women in my industry as victims. Some may be – but to generalise is patronising and offensive.

I work from a flat on which I pay the mortgage – I do not have any landlord to worry about. I charge £150 per hour and I get enough enquiries to enable me to choose my own working hours. In a typical day I drop my children off at school at 9am, return home, shower and get changed into my alter-ego, Lara (we never use our own names). I then might have an hour's appointment at 11am and another at 1pm, leaving me with a break of an hour in between to shower and refresh myself. I then fetch myself a late lunch and am at the school again to collect my children at 3:30pm. It works. I never see more than two clients a day; most days I see only one; on other days none at all. Yet in just three hours' work I can earn the same as I used to earn in a week working at the office.

My clients are on the whole middle-aged businessmen. I have never been treated with anything less than respect by any one of them. I have not been physically or sexually abused by any of them. Of course I have my security systems in place should anything go wrong, but so far nothing has. My children have their mother now, and not just on a part-time basis. I have time with them to enjoy their childhoods, without any of us suffering financially. I am not making big bucks – but I am earning a little more money to boot.

...Read full article

Every time you travel by road in Britain, your car will be tracked by the police. How many more freedoms will we sacrifice in the name of security?

The police ANPR database, which the Guardian today reveals will retain information from 50 million road journeys a day for five years, is a system that was never sanctioned or debated in parliament and which threatens the freedom of movement, assembly and protest.

Presented simply as a tool to fight crime and terror by the police, it will become one of the cornerstones of the surveillance state, and will give the police far too much power to track, in real time, the movement of people who may be bound for legitimate demonstrations and protest rallies.

Linked with the government's proposals to seize all our communications data to be announced in the Queen's speech this autumn, this move signifies a profound change in our society and an irreversible transfer of power from free individuals to the state.

...Read full article

A Spanish politician's public description of how he lost his virginity in a brothel has angered his female counterparts, who accused him of encouraging prostitution.

Miguel Angel Revilla, head of the government of the northern region of Cantabria, told a television interviewer earlier this week that he had paid the first time he had sex at the age of 18.

Female members of the regional parliament from the opposition conservative Popular Party were outraged. As the head of the regional government, he should be an example for the young people of Cantabria, they said in a communique.

Revilla retorted:  There are major problems which need to be addressed now, not what a poor 18-year-old did who is now 65, adding: 99% of Spanish men did it back then.

Hundreds of disco workers protested in Kathmandu on Monday against a government crackdown on "nude dancing".

Police have raided scores of discos, nightclubs and dance bars in the past two weeks and detained 1,500 people saying many were running bars where "nude dances" were performed, not allowed by law in the Hindu majority society.

There are hundreds of such night spots in the Kathmandu valley, although the country has no specific law to regulate them.

A Maoist-led government which took power in August has already ordered the bars should be closed an hour before midnight.

Bar and disco operators are protesting the move would jeopardize their business and render 80,000 people jobless.

Police official Sarbendra Khanal said those dancing nude in bars as well as their clients would be charged under the public offence act. If found guilty they could be sentenced to up to one year in jail and fined $400.

Tissue Sir? A good job you brought your own porn The Qantas selection is bollox

Qantas has shelved plans to offer live internet access on its A380 planes from next month as American Airlines comes under fire from nutters and flight attendants for allowing passengers to surf porn websites.

Qantas will instead offer only a limited selection of what it calls cached internet content and access to web-based email and chat services.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the internet plans had been paired back due to logistical and regulatory issues encountered by its connectivity provider, OnAir. The airline said the full internet service was now scheduled to be available later in 2009.

The lack of a full internet service will most likely disappoint many passengers who will have to make do with a limited selection of cached internet content. Qantas has refused to give further details of what content will be included - other than qantas.com - or how much the service would cost.

Laptop power sockets will be provided for every passenger. USB ports, also built into every seat, will potentially allow passengers to access multimedia content from music players and portable hard drives through the seat-back screens.

Update: Profanity Filtering

18th October

Unlike American Airlines and Delta, the scope of Qantas' filtering seems to go far beyond just pornography.

Restrictions may include sites that contain violence, profanity, nudity and other content we consider may be offensive to our customers, said a Qantas spokesman who did not respond when asked if the filtering would include sites that criticised Qantas.

An anti-pornography bill which is before the Indonesian Parliament may hurt tourism on the island of Bali, some officials have claimed.

The bill, currently in draft form in the House of Representatives, defines pornography as acts that incite sexual desire.

The repressive legislation defines pornography as sexual materials in the form of drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, text, sound, moving pictures, animation, cartoons, poetry, conversations or any other form of communicative messages.

But some say the legislation could go as far as jailing people for kissing in public.

Experts see the bill as contentious, because traditional dress in Bali and the sparse clothing and swimwear worn by tourists, could be viewed as pornographic under the legislation.

The island's tourism will clearly suffer should the house pass the bill, said Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board.

Bagus Sudibya, a tourism expert, acknowledged the moral stance behind the bill's inception, but warned against hidden agendas in the process to pass it into law. Bagus said the bill should focus on defining explicit pornography designed to arouse sexual desire or exploit women, and not condemn artwork depicting nudity: Many of Bali's trademark attractions are in close connection with its arts, which occasionally depicts women in the nude.

Last Friday, an Indonesian Islamic party, the Prosperous Justice Party said the anti-pornography bill could be a Ramadan present" for Muslims.

The draft bill has been before the Parliament for three years and there is speculation that it may be passed in a few weeks.

The UK police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys for up to five years, the Guardian has learned.

A national network of roadside cameras will be able to "read" 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.

Police have been encouraged to fully and strategically exploit the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.

But it has raised concerns from civil rights campaigners, who question whether the details should be kept for so long, and want clearer guidance on who might have access to the material.

The project relies on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to pinpoint the precise time and location of all vehicles on the road. Senior officers had promised the data would be stored for two years. But responding to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office has admitted the data is now being kept for five years.

Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have been converted to read ANPR data, capturing people's movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town centres. Local authorities have since adapted their own CCTV systems to capture licence plates on behalf of police, massively expanding the network of available cameras. Mobile cameras have been installed in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles parked by the side of roads. Police helicopters have been equipped with infrared cameras that can read licence plates from 610 metres (2,000ft).

In four months' time, when a nationwide network of cameras is fully operational, the National ANPR Data Centre in Hendon, north London, will record up to 50m licence plates a day.

Officers can access the database to find uninsured cars, locate illegal "duplicate" licence plates and track the movements of criminals. The Acpo adds that the database will deter criminals through increased likelihood of detection.

The director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said last night the database would give police extraordinary powers of surveillance. This would never be allowed in any other democratic country. This is possibly one of the most valuable reserves of data imaginable.

Ms MuslimExWife... You will go home with NOTHING!

Islamic 'law' has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996. Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolv civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons. The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment. In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Cabinet has approved a bill to make street prostitution a crime.

Currently, prostitution is legal in Italy but brothels and exploitation are not.

Thursday's measure would outlaw prostitution in public places like streets and parks. If the bill is approved by Parliament, prostitutes and clients will face up to 15 days in jail and fines of up to US$4,228 (€3,000), news reports said.

Minister of Equal Opportunities Mara Carfagna says she hopes the measure will deal a blow to prostitution rackets.

Italy outlawed brothels 50 years ago but roadside prostitution has been tolerated, with prostitutes, many of them foreigners, commonly seen on the edges of Italy's major cities.

Tissue Sir?

American Airlines flight attendants are urging the world's largest carrier to filter its in-flight Internet service to block access to pornography and other web sites the workers said were inappropriate.

Union leaders discussed the issue with management without making a formal request to bar specific sites, said David Roscow, a spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

We've heard a lot of complaints from flight attendants and passengers about travelers pulling up objectionable Web pages, said Roscow, who didn't cite any examples.

The vast majority of travelers use good judgment in what they look at, American spokesman Tim Smith said: Customers viewing inappropriate material on board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews, who have always managed this issue with great success.

American offers Internet access for $12.95 on 15 Boeing Co. 767-200 jets that make 25 daily flights between New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles or San Francisco, and between New York and Miami.

The program is in a 3-6-month trial period, Smith said. When American reviews usage and feedback, we will obviously assess this concern as well, including the number of actual incidents reported and any other related issues.

Council staff have been ordered to stop and quiz any adults found walking in Telford Town Park without a child.

Anyone who wants to go to the park but is not accompanied by at least one youngster will have to explain why they are there.

Telford campaigners battling to retain full public access to the park today branded the policy draconian and authoritarian madness but the council defended the policy, claiming it had a responsibility to protect the vulnerable.

The policy came to light after two environmental campaigners dressed as penguins were thrown out of the park last month when caught handing out leaflets on climate change.

Telford & Wrekin Council said Rachel Whittaker and Neil Donaldson of the Wrekin Stop War pressure group were ejected because they had not undergone Criminal Records Bureau checks or risk assessments before entering the park.

David Ottley, Telford & Wrekin’s sports and oppression manager, said in a letter seen by the Shropshire Star: Our Town Park staff approach adults that are not associated with any children in the Town Park and request the reason for them being there. In particular, this applies to those areas where children or more vulnerable groups gather, such as play facilities and the entrances to play areas. This is a child safety precautionary measure which members of staff will continue to undertake as and when necessary.

Former childcare social worker John Evans said: It is authoritarian madness which can only be based on ignorance. It appears that the council wants to use child protection as a cover for anything they don’t like taking place in the park, like the campaign against global warming by those two people who were handing out leaflets. It is absurd, it is insulting and what’s more it is dangerous as it panics people about the dangers their children face.

Councillor Denis Allen, cabinet member for community services, said: Our staff are asked to approach adults without children in areas where children gather such as play areas, using their own judgement and discretion.

Comment: Telford Bulldozer through their Park Policy

11th September 2008, thanks to David

According to someone who lives in the area:

This is a little deeper than you know. The Telford Town Park was recently almost built over under first a labour administration and under the first few months of this Conservative administration. A gentlemen  went out into the park to leaflet people to let them know what was going on. He led a campaign that was politically embarrassing to the council and its authorities and they confiscated the leaflets and stopped him handing them out.

He demanded an apology and an explanation.

When the council were pressed for a reason why they took this action, after many, many attempts to get a reply, the officers came up with this "policy" as the reason. It's junk made up after the fact to justify what was in effect an attempt to silence somebody who didn't agree with their development plans.

Now the same guy raised and won a parish referendum. It made enough fuss and garnered enough support, with others, to cause the council to rethink the policy. Though the Park is not certain to be saved in its entirety the position is now much more secure.

When the two environmental protesters came into the Park dressed as Penguins, the council were stuck with their recently made up policy and enforced it. So earning themselves a rebuke from the Home Office as well.

New laws will be introduced in a crackdown on hundreds of prostitutes who work in Victoria's unlicensed brothels.

Prosecutors will no longer have to prove sex took place to be able to close down an illegal brothel. Showing a sexual service was offered or advertised will be enough to get a conviction.

The imminent blitz on illegal brothels has already been approved by Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson who expects the Prostitution Control Act amendments to be introduced next month.

He is also keen to control Victoria's sex entertainment industry. Robinson has ordered CAV to review operations of all sexually explicit entertainment venues that serve alcohol. He is considering a new category of licence for such clubs so owners and operators can be subject to stringent probity checks.

The CAV review will also look at the possibility of banning those venues from serving alcohol. Robinson said alcohol was already banned in legal brothels and it made sense to look at extending that ban to table-top dancing clubs.

Some people drink to forget, but scientists have found that anyone who binge drinks is more likely to forget only the worst experiences of being drunk – which is why alcohol is such an addictive drug.

Alcohol has been found to affect memory in a selective manner. Drinking makes it easier to remember the good things about a party but harder to recall the bad things that happen after having too much.

Studies into the memories of people engaged in heavy drinking have shown that it is the inability to remember the worst excesses of a night out – while remembering the happy things that led up to them – is one of the main causes of repeated binge drinking.

The effects of alcohol on mood are known contributors to its use and abuse. It is less known how its effects on memory and inhibitory control add to alcohol being and addictive drug, said Professor Theodora Duka of Sussex University: Material acquired in an intoxicated state is less effectively retrieved in a sober state. Thus people who abuse alcohol forget the consequences of intoxication during periods of abstinence.

Alcohol facilitates memories for emotional events experienced before intoxication – mostly positive – and impairs memories for emotional events experienced after intoxication – often negative – biasing memory to positive effects of alcohol, and support [for] further drinking.

Memory tests on volunteers who were shown emotion-laden images before, during and after a bout of drinking found there was a clear degradation in memory as the alcohol began to build up in their bodies.

Further studies found alcohol also increases the risk of making wrong judgements and impulsive decisions, especially in women. This is another reason why drinking can increase the risk of further bingeing by affecting the brain's control process, Professor Duka said.

I am involved work-wise with 'Prisoners/Custodies' at a major Court. Over the last 2 months, I am seeing people being arrested at the Airport for bringing goods back that, in the past, you
may have been 'OK' with! Well, you might want to re-think if your bringing back items such as....

• Cigarettes - If your over your allowance by a small/fair bit, you will now be ARRESTED!
• Souveneir Knives - Any type really. UK is knife crazy at the moment - ARRESTED!
• Knuckledusters - Might only be for novelty purposes - ARRESTED!
• Stun Gun/Zappers - DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! You WILL go to JAIL!
• Even items such as quantities of Fake Watches or Football Tops have caused our 'Boyz In Blue' to dish out Warrants of Arrest!
• As for Copy DVD's and the likes - you will get Nicked!
• Fake Clothing seems ok if not in any great quantities. But a wad of Man United tops
  will get you huckled for sure. The Sponsors/Club will always prosecute.

Now, before some of you rush to reply with 'nothing happened to me when I was searched' and all that...take it from me. I KNOW what's going down! My Court is full of suitcases with people getting arrested and going straight to the Cop Shop for an appearance at the Court the next day!

Now, if you don't have a major criminal record, you will likely get a fine. One guy got a £500 fine for bringing back one of those wee dagger/knives! It was safely in his stored luggage - doesn't matter - Arrested!

If you DO have a wee bit of a criminal past - you will likely get 3 months in Jail! And for your Zapper/Stun Guns, you will likely go to Trial for a heftier sentence!

Say “Peddapuram”, and every man grins. This is a village of “high-class” sex workers from the Kalavanthalu subcaste, hereditary courtesans and temple dancers famous for their elegant beauty. Almost every family is involved in the trade.
Related Links

They trace their lineage from the days when they were protected by royalty, priests and landowners, all the way downhill to a franker prostitution as patronage crumbled in a modernising India of another shade of morality. There is still a lot of money in this dhanda (business).

The price of a high-class sex worker in Peddapuram: all the way from Rs 200 ($5) a shot, and Rs 1,500 ($37) for a night, to Rs 1,000 ($25) a shot, Rs 10,000 ($250) for a night; depending on beauty, fairness of skin. “Shot” always said in English, with movie swagger. All ages were sought after, from teenagers to “auntys”, for younger men feel safer with “auntys”, explained a sex worker.

See article from women.timesonline.co.uk

Australia's Victoria State Government is refusing to rule out banning Melbourne's King St strip clubs from selling alcohol, but says the measure would only be a last resort.

The Government has ordered a review of venues serving alcohol and also offering nudity and sex entertainment in the wake of another violent weekend in the city during which one person was killed.

But the minister responsible for liquor licensing, Tony Robinson, today hosed down speculation of a blanket alcohol ban on King St strip clubs: The Government's not in the business of coming out and banning things, banning things is a last resort.

We simply want to ensure that the conditions under which those premises in particular operate are appropriate, that they get the right balance between people's ability and capacity to enjoy Melbourne and all that it offers and also to walk the streets safely.

David Butten, spokesman for the Nightclub Owners' Association, has dismissed the idea of banning alcohol in such venues, describing the idea as totally left-field. Butten pointed to population growth and an influx of international students as major factors in the increase of city violence: The amount of visitors has increased by 6% each year. Melbourne’s population is increasing dramatically.

Butten called on the Government to provide better infrastructure to cope with the increased numbers flooding the city streets at weekends, including 24-hour public transport, more police patrols and the education of young people about how to behave in a responsible manner.

(Anti-social) behaviour in the streets and public places is the real issue and it's not just in nightclub precincts, claimed Butten: It’s happening throughout society. Nightclubs are just an easy label to associate with this violence. When you look at the media every day, there are incidents happening in suburbia that don’t attract the same level of attention."

If people did some research, they’d find that the majority of people go out, socialise safely and responsibly and aren’t even aware of these incidents. They are isolated incidents compared to the number of people that go out.

Children from eight years old have been recruited by councils to "snoop" on their neighbours and report petty offences such as littering, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The youngsters are among almost 5,000 residents who in some cases are being offered £500 rewards if they provide evidence of minor infractions.

One in six councils contacted by the Telegraph said they had signed up teams of environment volunteers who are being encouraged to photograph or video neighbours guilty of dog fouling, littering or bin crimes.

The covert human intelligence sources, as some local authorities describe them, are also being asked to pass on the names of neighbours they believe to be responsible, or take down their number-plates.

Ealing Council in West London said: There are hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged 8-10 years old, who are trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues such as graffiti and fly-tipping.

Harlow Council in Essex said: We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14. They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council.

Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, described the recruitment of children as downright sinister. We are deeply troubled by these developments – they are straight out of the Stasi copybook. There is a combination of ever-stricter rules and ever more Draconian attempts to control people.

Councils are using anti-terrorist legislation for the tiniest of things, like the people who put out their bins early, and the threats of fines and prosecutions combine to constitute fleecing the people the councils are meant to be serving

Australians spent $1.13 billion on prostitutes and strippers last year, business analysts say.

And despite concerns of rising fuel prices and a slowing economy the sex industry would grow at 8.1% to $1.22 billion this financial year.

Neil Gilmore, owner of Gold Coast brothel Pentagon Grand, said he was confident there would always be demand for the world's oldest profession.

In economic terms, the sex industry does enjoy so-called sticky consumption in that, like tobacco and alcohol, consumption levels remain relatively strong compared with other products during economic downturns, Gilmore said.

IBISWorld says prostitutes in brothels generate the biggest share of revenue, with street walkers accounting for about 15% of revenue. The next largest "product segments" are strippers at 12% and escorts at 8%.

And it seems an economic bust may produce a boom for the sex industry. Gilmore said compared to a night out trying to woo a woman the brothel's services - starting at $150 for 30 minutes - could be cost effective.

Fiona Patten the chief executive of the Eros Association, which represents adult retail and entertainment companies, said these related industries would also feel the pinch of an economic downturn but not too badly: We are somewhat shielded as in hard economic times people spend more time at home. Our products offer an inexpensive past time so we're seeing that DVD sales have not been hit as hard. Sex is a pretty basic part of life. It is like eating – if we don't do it we're not going to be around for very long. And, to extend that analogy, not everyone can afford to eat out at a restaurant but they'll still need to have a meal at home.

Brothels in London are offering sex for as little as £15, an anti-prostitution campaign report says.

Some are charging just £10 extra for unprotected intercourse. The report also found that 85% of brothels in the capital operate in residential areas.

The report has been compiled by the Poppy Project, which campaigns against prostitution. Campaigners posing as potential punters telephoned 921 brothels that had advertised in local newspapers.

They also found 77 different ethnicities of women were selling sex, many from eastern Europe and south-east Asia.

The average age of the women was 21, but several places offered very very young girls" but did not admit to having underage girls available, the report said.

According to the Poppy Project, the average price for full sex was about £62.

Co-author Helen Atkins said: This research shows the disturbing prevalence of the sex industry in every corner of London - fuelled by the demand for prostitution services.

Multi-media misrepresentations of commercial sex as a glamorous, easy and fun career choice for girls and women further contribute to the ubiquity of London's brothel industry.

However, for most women involved in prostitution, the reality is a cycle of violence and coercion, perpetuated by poverty and inequality.

Google have jumped the gun on Microsoft who announced a porn mode facility for the next release of their Internet Explorer browser. Google have just released their new browser, Chrome, featuring similar functionality.

For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows.

Browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome from storing information about the websites you've visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. Any files saved to your computer will still remain on your computer.

You're done for not being miserable That'll be an £80 fine

Between talk of broken society and ever-increasing powers of police surveillance, there seems to be a competition between politicians to make us miserable.

The story of Milly, an eight-year-old cat who disappeared out of window in Whitstable two weeks ago, has much to tell us about the petty-minded forces that have come to replace proper policing in this country. Her owners, Stephen and Heather Cope and their son Daniel, 13, searched high and low for Milly, then, failing to find her, did what any normal person would do: put up posters to see if anyone had seen her. The next thing they heard was from one of the local council community wardens, who rang the telephone number on the poster and threatened them with a £80 on-the-spot fine for antisocial behaviour.

Seldom can there have been a more officious, twerpish enforcement of the law, but this kind of action is now one of the established parts of this dreadful government's legacy. As the police retreat from the streets, we are prey to every type of snoop, informant, busybody and vindictive martinet, all of them licensed by the government's accreditation scheme so that they may demand our names and addresses, photograph us, check car tax discs and seize alcohol, issue fines for truancy, rowdiness, graffiti and dog fouling.

...

So let us start thinking logically about crime, punishment, policing and the cause of our problems. Let us end this punitive regime. Let us put policemen back on the beat, throw the likes of Jacqui and Hazel out of office and return all their spies and accredited jobsworths to the twilight of their power-crazed fantasy lives.

...Read article from guardian.co.uk

The UK Government has created more than 3,600 new criminal offences since it won power 11 years ago.

Critics blamed the frenzy of law-making on "posturing" by an administration keen to win easy headlines and addicted to pushing complicated legislation through Parliament.

A total of 3,605 offences have reached the statute book since May 1997, an average of about 320 a year. They comprise 1,238 brought in as primary legislation, which means they were debated in Parliament, and 2,367 by secondary legislation, such as orders in council and statutory instruments.

The tally was announced by Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, as he sets out a fresh initiative to cut crime. Huhne said: In what conceivable way can the introduction of a new criminal offence every day help tackle crime when most crimes that people care about have been illegal for years.

This legislative diarrhoea is not about making us safer, because it does not help enforce the laws that we have one jot. It is about the Government's posturing on punishments.

The Home Office, which has presided over a succession of criminal justice Bills, is responsible for 455 offences.

The German town of Marburg is planning to introduce a tax on its prostitutes based on the size of the establishment where they conduct their business, a local official has said.

Rainer Kieselbach, spokesman for the city of Marburg said the lump sum tax was aimed to raise an estimated 90,000 euros in annual tax revenues.

The prostitutes will be taxed for their services, but not for the entertainment acts, such as table-dancing, Kieselbach said: We decided to tax them based on the size of their working rooms -- a daily flat rate of 2.50 euros per 10 square meters.

A group of 22 masked prostitutes protested against the tax in a city council meeting last week.

When it comes to blogs, Eurocrats instinctively dislike spontaneous activity. To them, "unregulated" is almost synonymous with "illegal". The bureaucratic mindset demands uniformity, licensing, order.

Eurocrats are especially upset because many bloggers, being of an anarchic disposition, are anti-Brussels. In the French, Dutch and Irish referendums, the mainstream media were uniformly pro-treaty, whereas internet activity was overwhelmingly sceptical.

[Perhaps blogs are just a little more in touch with what real people are actually thinking. It seems a little arrogant and patronising to think that people mindlessly heed the government friendly mainstream media. It maybe that blogs don't influence so much as reflect the thoughts of real people]

Bruno Waterfield recently reported on a secret Commission report about the danger posed by online libertarians: Apart from official websites, the internet has largely been a space left to anti-European feeling. Given the ability to reach an audience at a much lower cost, and given the simplicity of the No campaign messages, it has proven to be easily malleable during the campaign and pre-campaign period.

The EU's solution? Why, to regulate blogs! Back in June, MEPs began to complain that unlicensed blogs were polluting cyberspace with misinformation and malicious intent. They wanted a quality mark, a disclosure of who is writing and why.

At the time, I dismissed it as the ramblings of a single dotty MEP. Not even the European Parliament, I thought, would actually try to censor the internet. I was wrong. We now have the full report and, sure enough, it wants to clarify the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs, and to ensure their voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and interests of their authors and publishers.

Yesterday the Guardian wrote up the results of a government commissioned Ipsos survey into prostitution.

The article quoted:

The The Ipsos-Mori poll, conducted in July and August, showed that more than half of men and women (58%) support making it illegal to pay for sex if it will help reduce the numbers of women and children being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation.

And indeed the published Ipsos results feature this as one of three questions particularly highlighted.

However there is no mention in the article of the two other important results

Do you think the purchase of sex by men should be legal or illegal?

Legal 50%
Illegal 43%

Do you think the selling of sex by women should be legal or illegal?

Legal 51%
Illegal 42%

So in a question not loaded by the issue of trafficking, the MAJORITY of those answering believe that prostitution should REMAIN LEGAL

Harriet Harman will today step up her nasty and vindictive drive to make buying sex illegal when she releases new figures showing that more than half of men and women support the move if it will reduce people-trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Labour's deputy leader, the minister for women and inequality, will also highlight cultural double standards after some respondents, particularly older men, condoned buying sex but condemned those who sell it.

A Home Office-led review into the demand for prostitution, due to report this year, is looking at whether ministers should make it illegal to pay for sex. The review is looking at a range of options to curb demand, but the Home Office minister, Vernon Coaker, has given a broad hint he will back criminalising the purchase of sex if there is a sign of a national consensus on the issue.

The findings of the government-commissioned survey are likely to give ministers greater confidence in introducing the measure. At present the law makes it illegal to sell sex, but ministers including Coaker have visited Sweden to see if tougher laws, including banning the purchase of sex, can work.

Harman has the backing of a number of prominent man hating ministers, including the solicitor general, Vera Baird, and the attorney general, Lady Scotland.

The Ipsos-Mori poll, conducted in July and August, showed that more than half of men and women (58%) support making it illegal to pay for sex if it will help reduce the numbers of women and children being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation.

The research also found divergent attitudes between women and men. A clear majority of women found both paying for sex and selling it unacceptable (61% and 65% respectively), but men were much more equivocal, with just 42% and 40% respectively finding it unacceptable.

Young people were more likely than older people to find paying for sex and selling sex unacceptable (64% and 69% respectively).

Harman has been allowed to express her personal view that buying sex should be made illegal before the government review has been completed.

There has long been a tradition of the gentleman’s “happy ending” to round off a relaxing massage. Recently, there has been chatter in the New York press about just such shenanigans in upscale Miami hotels and New York bathhouses: the female “happy ending” is out there.

Grant Stoddard, the author of Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert, tells a story that illustrates the Jackanory finish is not confined to men, and possibly on the increase. An ex went for a regular massage. It was her first time at this establishment, and the receptionist suggested that she get her massage from George. She called me two hours later to ask me if it was okay that a Chinese guy in scrubs had brought her to orgasm six times. I was more impressed than anything. My girlfriend recommended George to several friends, most of whom went to the massage parlour. George, they were told, had been let go, and nobody hinted at ‘happy endings’ being on offer.

So I set out to find — if not experience — some “happy endings” in London myself, and posted an ad. In 20 answers from both genuine masseurs and dodgy chancers, I found one guy who offered delightful Hawaiian lomilomi massage the naturist’s way. Another came with several qualifications, including a diploma in sports and remedial massage. As I posed as a nervous potential client, he explained: “

I try to make people relaxed and happy. The ending is sensual and arousing, but it is done without any form of penetration. I do know how to give an amazing orgasm without. We talk a little about pressure points and human anatomy. I wonder how he broaches the subject of “extras”? He replied: When you massage a person, you ask how they want it: soft, medium or firm. You then ask what parts they want massaged: if they say yes to inner thighs, buttocks and the chest, and if they want to be totally naked, you generally get an idea of what they really mean.

Would “happy endings” become acceptable if all your friends were doing it, too? A bit like Botox and cocaine, it’s ostensibly a dodgy sort of business, but its definition as such is dictated by your peer group.

Read full article from women.timesonline.co.uk

You're nicked That'll be £80

Councils are recruiting 'citizen snoopers' to report litter louts, dog foulers and even people who fail to sort out their rubbish properly.

The 'environment volunteers' will also be responsible for encouraging neighbours to cut down on waste.

The move comes as local authorities dish out £100 fines to householders who leave out too much rubbish or fail to follow recycling rules.

It will deservedly fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office is extending some police powers to council staff and private security guards.

Critics said the latest scheme could easily be abused and encourage a culture of bin spies and curtain twitchers.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook. The last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.'

Recruitment adverts appealing for the unpaid environmental volunteers have appeared across the country in recent months.

In Hampshire, Eastleigh council wants locals to monitor local environmental quality and report 'issues' involving recycling and waste. In East London, Tower Hamlets is recruiting volunteers for a crackdown on reluctant recyclers. Other councils are expected to launch similar schemes.

Officially, the volunteers are not encouraged to spy on neighbours or report them. But councils are unlikely to ignore tip-offs.

Eastleigh has already taken on around a dozen snoops who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles.

Tower Hamlets calls its volunteers environment champions. According to the council they report on a number of environmental crimes, issues and concerns, such as graffiti, dumped rubbish and abandoned cars.

You're nicked That'll be £80

Private security guards and town hall jobsworths are being armed with sweeping police-style powers, it has emerged.

For a few hundred pounds, state and private sector employees can receive Home Office accreditation.

This allows them to hand out fines for a raft of offences, from dropping litter to riding a bike on the pavement. They can also stop cars to check their tax discs, seize alcohol from underage drinkers and demand people's names and addresses.

 The uniformed, badged army of snoopers will become a vital part of the 'extended police family', ministers say.

But privacy campaigners have dubbed them Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's 'Stasi' after the East German secret police.

Phil Booth of NO2ID said: This is a sinister move towards a Stasi snooper state in which jobsworths are devolved the powers of the police - including the right to demand you identify yourself.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve added: This is a consequence of the Government's obsession with policing on the cheap as well as their staggering complacency towards the extension of surveillance by an increasing amount of different bodies.

The public will be angered that the Home Office is seeking to take serious powers that should be appropriately applied by the police and encouraging them to be given not just to local councils, but also to private firms.

The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately - including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Details of the new army of police-style officers emerged in Home Office papers released today. There are already 1,400 town hall and private sector staff accredited, and ministers want a dramatic expansion of the scheme.

Called the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, it allows the likes of security guards, park wardens, car park attendants and store detectives to boost their roles if they undergo training and pay a small fee to their local police force.

They can wear a special badge, and a uniform approved by the local chief constable. At present, they are wearing their employer's existing uniform with the badge sewn on, but police chiefs could eventually be encouraged to decide on a standard uniform across their force area, the Home Office said.

It also revealed that chief constables are reviewing the scheme, a move which could lead to even greater powers being handed out.

A Whitehall counter-terrorism unit is using news websites including the BBC's to channel messages and plant volunteers in internet forums as part of an attempt to taint the al-Qaida brand.

The propaganda effort was revealed in a secret Home Office paper seen by The Guardian newspaper. The Guardian said the unit is deliberately targeting the BBC and other media organisations as part of a global propaganda push.

The operation is being conducted by the research, information and communication unit (RICU), which was established last year by the then home secretary John Reid.

The Guardian quoted directly from the secret paper, entitled Challenging violent extremist ideology through communications. It said: We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters. And a restricted working group will communicate niche messages through media and non-media.

The paper also reveals that the propaganda is aimed at overseas communicators in embassies and consulates around the world, people that work with influencers and opinion formers.

The US Food and Drug Administration has declared open season on cockrings and penis pumps. Citing supposed safety concerns, the FDA said that devices purporting to help with external penile rigidity can be confiscated at U.S. borders.

These safety concerns include complaints from the FDA that these toys don't have inadequate directions and bring with them a host of harmful side effects, including ruptured blood vessels and the potential of gangrene in the penis.

Basically, the labeling of these devices falsely states or implies they will treat impotence, prolong erection and increase the dimensions of the penis, the FDA said in the new notice.

Penis-enlargement devices have also fallen under the FDA's increased scrutiny. Authorities can now collect any mechanical stretching devices that employ weights or lines tied to other parts of the body such as the knee, to affect tension on the penis.

Labour's changes to the criminal justice system have led to a huge rise in the criminalisation of people for minor offences, according to a key government adviser.

Professor Rod Morgan, a former chief inspector of probation, warns in a report that more people are ending up with criminal records owing to the increasing use of cautions and fixed-penalty notices handed out by the police.

His comments are likely to strike a chord with a growing number of parents concerned that their children are receiving criminal records and having their personal details recorded on the DNA database even for minor offences.

Morgan also suggests that, conversely, an increasing number of people convicted of violent offences may be receiving cautions rather than ending up before the courts. He says that the expansion of summary justice - penalties that do not need to be handed down by the courts - needed to be more incisively scrutinised to ensure that justice is being meted out fairly and effectively. We cannot be wholly confident that this is the case.

The increased use of summary justice was hailed by Labour as a way of boosting public confidence in the law. The idea, according to Lord Falconer, the then Lord Chancellor who heavily promoted its use, was to connect the instance of crime much more quickly and directly with the consequences of crime.

But there are concerns that its widespread use is backfiring. The number of cautions has risen from 900,000 in 2002 to 1.4 million in 2006, the most recent figures available. Over the same period, the number of penalty notices for disorder has soared from 1,000 to 513,000.

Such sanctions have in many cases replaced informal legal remedies such as a 'ticking off' from the local policeman. Morgan warns there is a risk that people will be criminalised where both common sense and the public interest suggest that informal control systems and informal sanctions would better apply.

His report Summary justice: Fast but Fair?, published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, also questions whether the trend towards handing out cautions and penalty notices might have resulted in some serious offenders receiving lighter sentences than if they had ended up in court.

The only remaining adult fun in Glasgow

Prostitution is set to be outlawed in Scotland's biggest city as part of a mean minded bid to 'clean up' Glasgow's streets.

Senior council nutters and police said they were adopting a zero tolerance approach to buying
sex to stop Glasgow becoming the Bangkok of the north. [That's a bit rich, Bangkok is an awful lot more enjoyable than Glasgow will ever be].

But politicians and groups representing sex workers said the policy was doomed to failure and would put more women at risk.

Last year the law in Scotland was changed to outlaw kerb-crawling. Previously the law criminalised those selling sex on the streets. The change meant the scrapping of long-running tolerance zones in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

But Glasgow, after reviewing its policy on prostitution, has decided to lobby the Scottish Government for another change to the law that would criminalise anyone buying sex. At the same time, council workers are trying to persuade sex workers to abandon their trade.

The mean minded deputy leader Jim Coleman said: We applaud and plan to emulate the Swedish approach. For the best of reasons, many residents believe that if you regulate prostitution you make women safe. But as soon as you discover the violence and exploitation endured by women every day, it cannot possibly be condoned.

Ann Wilson, the city's head of strategic management for community safety services, confirmed that the council's goal was the elimination of prostitution in Glasgow. Sexual exploitation is completely unacceptable, so we're doing what we can to address and tackle the demand.

No country or city has managed to get rid of the problem, but countries such as Sweden have begun to see an impact. They have seen no growth in prostitution and a significant reduction in trafficking.

Strathclyde Police acting assistant chief constable John Pollock confirmed the force would take an ultra-tough line on vice, asking: Do we really want to be known as the Bangkok of the northern hemisphere? What kind of values do we wish to promote in our society? We are committed to denying those who profit from this exploitation. [presumably he values a drear and funless life as advocated by the holier-than-thou British establishment]

However, Independent MSP Margo MacDonald was frustrated by the Glasgow authority's stance, which she believes will simply drive prostitution underground. She said: I get so angry when I hear people who really haven't properly researched the subject say blithely 'Let's follow the Swedish model'.

The people in Glasgow who are promoting this sort of approach really should have the humility to ask why it is in Edinburgh the number of people working as street prostitutes have dropped, in Aberdeen it's stable and in Dundee it's stable.

Glasgow, with its zero- tolerance stance, I'm afraid has the worst record of all in coping with the numbers of street prostitutes and they continue to rise.

The Lothians MSP felt that the idea of eliminating prostitution was unrealistic. It is likely to be ineffective from the point of view of the general public, from the point of view of the prostitutes and from the point of view of anyone affected by prostitution.

She claimed that there was much less chance of chance of tackling drug abuse and trafficking of women when the police did not know where sex workers were.

The Scottish Prostitutes Education Project (ScotPEP), a charity which gives support and advice to sex workers, claimed that zero-tolerance policies, like those espoused by Glasgow, would be counter productive and would actually put women at greater risk.

A spokeswoman said: Studies show that criminalisation and clampdowns on kerb-crawlers merely cause sex workers to work longer hours in greater isolation, leaving them more vulnerable to attack – as well as reducing their access to essential services. ScotPEP has released figures showing that the number of attacks on prostitutes has doubled since 2006.

Glasgow's approach is not shared by Edinburgh or Aberdeen, despite recent changes in the law. Both cities have taken a more pragmatic, harm-reduction approach to prostitution in recent years.

The capital currently has around 13 saunas, effectively legalised brothels, operating under licence from the city council. In Aberdeen, Quay Services, a Scottish Government-funded body, has been texting health and safety advice to sex workers who have been dispersed from the harbour area by the legal changes.

The body, which is supported by Aberdeen City Council, encourages women to work from flats in pairs rather than on the streets, where they are more vulnerable.

Pollock's remarks about Bangkok, meanwhile, have upset Thais in Scotland, who also pointed out their capital city is in the northern hemisphere. Vicky Khunapramot, who runs a business importing art from Bangkok to Scotland, said: Thai people will definitely be offended by the idea that the only thing people associate with Bangkok is prostitution. He should have chosen his words more carefully. You can make a point about problems in Glasgow without having to drag another country's reputation through the mud.

Microsoft internet explorer version 8 will have a new feature the private browsing mode also known as the porn mode. This feature provides special privacy when browsing porn sites.

With the porn mode enabled users can surf porn sites without leaving any traces behind. The online history, personal information, cache all gets erased. The porn mode also alerts user when they are being tracked.

According to Microsoft internet explorer 8 features the most important component, privacy. The aim is to make internet explorer 8 a trustworthy browser.

Privacy browsing is not a new feature and already seen in the Apple safari browser since 2005. Firefox 3 browser also was supposed to feature the privacy component but was not implemented because of complex designing issues.

The final version of the internet explorer 8 is expected to be release by the end of 2008.

Those who watch over the morality of Beijing's nightlife may have closed down some of the dingier bars in a pre-Olympics "purge", but the oldest profession is alive and well - only, not as open.

Normally every foreigner getting out of a taxi at the entrance to the street full of bars in Sanlitun is bombarded with offers of "lady bar", "massage" or "sex" from the girls and their pimps.

During the Olympics, business has been swept into the sidestreets and clubs. The red light district is not quite as sinful as normal, but it's still far from innocent.

But aren't the police especially strict during the Olympics? asks a foreigner. They only bother about the Chinese, not you foreigners, a soliciting sex worker says.

Just 20 metres away stand two soldiers guarding the entrance of the diplomatic compound. They look on but do nothing. Their job is to stand guard, not stop prostitution.

In fact, prostitution is illegal in China. The girls - and their customers - face being sent to re-education camps. Occasionally the police will detain foreigners for a few days if they are caught in raids on brothels or massage salons.

Where's the Suzie Wong? asks an Olympic tourist seeking the expensive bar by Chaoyang Park with more than its share of attractive women.

You chat up three and score with one, laughs an insider. Semi- professionals, perhaps - beauties with a daytime job financing their Gucci handbags and designer outfits. Or perhaps looking for the big catch - a rich Chinese or foreigner.

It's a dangerous game. Today there are an estimated 700,000 Chinese infected with AIDS, and it would be an achievement if this were only to double in the next two years. UN estimates say the number could rise to several million.

It's why several hundred thousand free condoms have been provided for the more than 10,000 athletes in the Olympic Village and guests in Beijing's hotels.

Have you got a licence for that camera?

When Andrew Carter saw a police van ignore no-entry signs to reverse up a one-way street to reach a chip shop, he was understandably moved to protest to the driver.

But his complaint brought a volley of abuse from PC Aqil Farooq. And when Mr Carter took a picture of the van then tried to photograph the officer, PC Farooq rushed out of the shop and knocked his camera to the ground.

Carter was then arrested and bundled into the van over claims he had 'assaulted' an officer with his camera, resisted arrest and was drunk and disorderly.

He was held in a police cell for five hours before being released on bail at midnight. Carter was never charged with any offence.

Carter lodged a complaint and has since received a personal apology from PC Farooq and Rob Beckley, deputy chief constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary. The force refused to comment on the case, except to say that the disciplinary process was resolved to Carter's 'satisfaction'.

Air passengers travelling to British airports are to have their faces scanned and identities checked by machines.

Thousands of passengers are already being scanned in a trial being carried out at two airports.

However if the trials prove successful, ministers want the machines to replace most front line airport immigration officer over the next five years.

As well as improving security, ministers hope the computers will cut passenger congestion. The machines take 13-15 seconds per passenger, while a human takes 20 seconds.

Eleven pilot "walk-in" machines were covertly introduced at Manchester and Stansted airports last month to check passports automatically. The new machines take instant photographs of the holder, which are then electronically matched against the 2D digital pictures in their documents to check their identities.

Last night a UK Border Agency spokesman said: "The UK is undergoing the biggest shake-up in its borders for nearly 40 years, Britain's border security is now among the toughest in the world. The new facial recognition gates undertake checks against security watch lists in the same way as the current manual control. The trial will tell us whether these gates can maintain the high level of entry security we have introduced to the UK.

A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 3887, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2007, is worrying to both travellers and porn producers

Titled Sex tourism, Sec. 2423A provides, in subparagraph (a), that A person who travels in interstate commerce or travels into the United States, or a United States citizen or an alien admitted for permanent residence in the United States who travels in foreign commerce, for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

In case you don't know what illicit sexual conduct is, the Act later defines it as, in part, a commercial sex act - and in case you don't know what that is, Sec. 1591 of Title 18 already defines it as any sex act, on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. Hell, it doesn't even have to be money; treating the gal to a nice dinner, or paying for her flight or hotel room, could arguably fulfill the requirement!

But what many porn proucers may not realize is that there are few areas in the U.S. where courts have determined that it is legal to record adults engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Freeman secures that right for anyone filming in California; a recent decision in New York City similarly distinguishes porn performances from prostitution, and it's unclear whether the areas of Nevada where prostitution is legal would also allow the filming of consensual commercial sex acts - but the legal right to make porn exists nowhere else in the U.S., and some jurisdictions specifically forbid it. Hence, any attempt to shoot foreign women engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the U.S. outside of the above-mentioned areas, either for magazines, DVDs or a Website, or if American women traveled abroad for similar shooting in countries that similarly forbid porn production, such performances would likely constitute illicit sexual conduct under H.R. 3887 and could trigger a decade's worth of imprisonment plus unspecified fines for the participants.

Worse, however, is subsection (c): Whoever, for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, arranges, induces, procures, or facilitates the travel of a person knowing that such a person is traveling in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

Translation: Bring a foreign woman to the U.S. to shoot porn, or send an American woman overseas for the same purpose - or in any way assist that international travel - and that "facilitator" could find him/herself facing a 10-year sentence and possibly huge fines under this Act. And let's not forget (e): Whoever attempts or conspires to violate this section shall be punishable in the same manner as for the completed violation.

A recent landmark ruling by the High Court takes the UK one step closer to becoming an “informant society” along the lines of the former East Germany or Soviet Union.

The Register previously reported on the case of deputy head, John Pinnington, who was fired from his job when an enhanced criminal record background (CRB) check turned up allegations of abuse made against him. He took his case to judicial review, arguing that the allegations were seriously flawed, were unsubstantiated, and that the police should only include them in a CRB check where there were some grounds to believe they might be true.

This view was rejected, as Lord Justice Richards ruled that there was nothing unlawful about the actions of the Police force in passing on allegations. And future employers "should be aware" of the accusations, however weak and unreliable they are.

See article from theregister.co.uk

The most obese youngsters should be seen as examples of 'parental neglect' and handed over to social workers, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).

A report by the LGA, which represents 400 authorities in England and Wales, has warned that Britain is fast becoming the 'obesity capital of the world'. And the LGA confirmed that in worst case scenarios, obese children would be taken into care.

It has been estimated that by 2012 a million English children will be obese and by 2025 around a quarter of all boys will be classified as dangerously overweight.

The LGA also whinge about the cost of Britain's expanding population. Schools are having to buy bigger chairs because so many pupils are getting fatter, the GLA said. Schools are also buying bigger classroom tables, while furniture in gyms and canteens is having to be made wider for larger children for children with larger girths.

David Rogers, LGA spokesman on public health, called for a national debate about the extent to which dangerous childhood obesity could be considered as a factor contributing to parental neglect.

The GLA report also warned that the adult obesity crisis means ambulances will have to be re-equipped with extra-wide stretchers and winches. Buses and trams will soon accommodate fewer, larger passengers, the report said. The LGA said crematoria furnaces were also having to be widened at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.

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 to operate in their area, says Ms May: Local people often have legitimate reasons for objecting to the planned location of a lap dancing club - if it is near a school or a library for instance.

August 26 sees the celebration of Women's Equality Day. It marks the 72 anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote in nationwide elections.

However, on August 23, an organization known as Gotopless.org claims that women are discriminated against in the U.S. by suffering arrest for baring their bosoms in public. By contrast, dudes such as Matthew McConoughey can go shirtless whenever they desire.

Women who dare to be topless in public in the U.S. are arrested, fined, humiliated , criminalized.

On August 23, women will rally across the USA to protest this gross inequality in the law and will demand for the constitution to be amended to grant them the fundamental right to be topless wherever men are.

Currently the following rallies are slated:

• WASHINGTON, DC: Lafayette Park, across from the White House
• LOS ANGELES: Venice Beach
• NEW YORK CITY: Central Park
• HAWAII: Kona, Big Island
• DENVER: (August 26) at the door steps of the Presidential Democratic Convention.

Actually, several US and Canadian cities allow women to go without a shirt; however, few of them exercise the right. New York has a ruling from its high court that one of the most important purposes to be served by the equal protection clause is to ensure that ‘public sensibilities' grounded in the prejudice and unexamined stereotypes do not become enshrined as part of a policy of government.

The District of Columbia, as of 1986, has a Court of Appeals ruling in place that the D.C. nudity law does not apply to any body part but genitals.

In Florida, the Fifth District Court of Appeal in 2007 dismissed a woman's plea to go topless at Daytona Beach. However, the court dismissed the case without an opinion, thus, presenting an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

One of the largest newspaper publishers in the UK is to ban advertisements for "adult services" from its titles - almost 300 publications, including 17 dailies and websites.

Writing in the Croydon Guardian last week, Andy Parkes, group editor at Newsquest South London, said: The company has taken a decision no longer to publish adult services advertisements, either in print or on its websites. Increasing concerns regarding the appalling issue of human trafficking have been significant in this decision, which is effective immediately.

Mean minded campaigners have predictably welcomed the move by linking mainstream adult consensual prostitution with the exaggerated issue of sex trafficking.

A Croydon Community Against Trafficking spokesman said: We are pleased that Newsquest has had the boldness to lead in an industry that has historically been complicit in the trafficking of women by allowing these victims to be sold via adverts.

A householder who took photographs of hooded teenagers as evidence of their anti-social behaviour says he was told he was breaking the law after they called the police.

David Green left his London flat to take photographs of the gang, who were aged around 17, he said one threatened to kill him while another called the police on his mobile.

And he claimed that a Police Community Support Officer sent to the scene promptly issued a warning that taking pictures of youths without permission was illegal, and could lead to a charge of assault.

Green, a television cameraman, said he was appalled that the legal system's first priority seemed not to be stopping frightening anti-social behaviour by aggressive youths, but protecting them from being photographed by the concerned public.

A search engine that deletes all data relating to users after 48 hours has been awarded the first privacy award of a European body set up to promote privacy. The award was presented by European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx.

Ixquick is a Dutch meta search engine which runs queries through existing search engines, and is committed to deleting user data to protect their privacy.

The Privacy Seal is an award from EuroPriSe, whose members include the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, the data protection authorities from Madrid and France, the Austrian Academy of Science and the London Metropolitan University.

Ixquick chief executive Robert Beens told this week's edition of OUT-LAW Radio that the award was an important validation that his company follows through on its privacy pledges: It's the ultimate proof to our users that Ixquick does what we say we're doing. It's the proof we live up to our promises.

Ixquick is a 10-year-old search engine but in 2006 Beens decided to make privacy its defining feature. I asked the technology people what exactly are we keeping and why are we keeping those data? I said, 'Why are we keeping those data?' – and they didn't give me a good answer. The only safe way of keeping someone's personal data is by deleting it.

European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx has been a consistent opponent of larger search engines' policies of retaining search query data for up to 18 months. He said that the Privacy Seal was a good way to make it clear which companies have privacy friendly policies.

A measure that would make it more difficult to investigate and punish prostitution crimes in San Francisco has qualified for the November ballot, opening another passage in the city's long fight over decriminalizing the sex-trade industry.

Proponents of the measure were able to collect more than 12,000 signatures, including those from three members of the Board of Supervisors, to put it on the ballot, according to the Erotic Service Providers Union, the labor group backing the measure. The same group was unsuccessful in putting a similar measure on the ballot in 2006.

The measure would end San Francisco's First Offender Prostitution Program for men who have been arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Men who go to "john school," which was created in 1996, pay $1,000 and attend a class on prostitution in exchange for the district attorney's office dropping the misdemeanor charge against them.

Mean minded politicians such as Mayor Gavin Newsom this week said the measure would severely hamper the city's ability to investigate and prosecute sex-trafficking cases.

The main goal of decriminalization, proponents say, is the safety of prostitutes. Maxine Doogan, a founder of the Erotic Service Providers Union, wrote in an e-mail: We want the right to make reports of crimes against us without being retaliated against by the Police Department.

Foreign prostitutes working in the Norwegian city of Bergen are to be offered language courses and information about their legal rights, reports said Sunday.

With better knowledge of Norwegian it will be easer to cope in society and have a better life, Red Cross official Lene Steimler told Bergens Tidende newspaper.

More than half the estimated 400 to 550 prostitutes in the city come from outside Norway, many from eastern Europe and Nigeria.

The courses are due to start in September. Steimler is coordinating them with city officials. One of the aims is to increase the sex workers' trust in the police and health services.

Self-defence training is also being considered. When it becomes illegal to buy sexual favours, prostitutes will go underground and the risks will increase, Steimler said.

Norway is also planning to introduce a bill making it illegal to pay for sex. It will apply inside the Scandinavian country and to Norwegian residents when they are outside Norway.

Within the last few years, the population of Japan appears to be dwindling. With an estimated 127 million residents in 2005, some scientists have estimated that the population of Japan may be as low as 105 million by the middle of the 20th century.

So what is causing this rapid decline in the Japanese population?

Some research has been released that blames sex toys and excessive masturbation for turning men off from traditional sex.

Japan is well known as a hub for some strange sexual products, but it seems that these products may do more than simply help a man achieve his sexual desires with women – they may be replacing women altogether.

These “Sex Aids” which include everything from robots of Japanese women to realistic moldings of female genitalia are providing these men with an alternative to standard sexual experiences, and many men are finding they prefer the “low stress” route, avoiding a relationship and finding an unconventional way to release their desires.

Japan is so worried about how the shrinking population may affect the workforce that they are considering relaxing immigration laws, providing extra money for child care and finding a way for Japanese parents to spend more time with their children.

The Porn star is Candidate for a seat on the Sao Paulo City Council

Known to everyone in the porn industry of Brazil and internationally successful, Kidd Bengala says that he is more than just a porn star veteran. He announced his candidacy for the office of city council with the support the PPS (Party Popular Socialist).

He received the nickname Kidd Bengala from a producer in Rio de Janero when he first started in porn because of his 33 centimeter penis, and it has followed him for 27 years since he first participated in an erotic movie. “Bengala” means “cane” in Portuguese, and “Kidd” is a reference to the cowboy icon Billy the Kid's shooting talents.

In his 53 years, Kidd Bengala has worked with the biggest producers in Brazil, and also some major international players. In a market where women rule the box office, Kidd Bengala has the distinction of being one of the only straight male porn stars to draw fans. His name is so powerful that he is running under the name Kidd Bengala for city council, instead of using his birth name.

Kidd Bengala opted for the PPS because he shares the same liberal concepts of the party, and mentions that they did not have any objections about his pornographic career. The PPS has supported me a lot, and so has the GLB community (Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual) of São Paulo.

The elections will be held in October of 2008. Until then, Kidd Bengala will keep his career as a porn star active, and his dream of his future in politics alive.

A Tri-Cities area man ended up behind bars after snapping a shot of a Johnson County sheriff's deputy during a traffic stop.

The cell phone photographer says the arrest was intimidation, but the deputy says he feared for his life: Here's a guy who takes me out of the car and arrests me in front of my kids. For what? To take a picture of a police officer? said Scott Conover.

A Johnson County sheriff's deputy arrested Scott Conover for unlawful photography.

He says you took a picture of me. It's illegal to take a picture of a law enforcement officer, said Conover: This is a public highway. And it was not a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy as Tennessee code states. The deputy also asked Conover to delete the picture three times: He said if you don't give it to me, you're going to jail.

Conover expects the charges to be dismissed. The American Civil Liberties Union said there is no law that prohibits anyone from taking photographs in public areas, even of police. Taking photos is protected by the First Amendment.

Conover is ordered to appear in a Johnson County court on August 6th.

Vernon Coaker noted: Sweden is also reviewing their approach in this area to see how they can strengthen it, we will continue to talk to colleagues in Sweden on this issue to ensure the information feeds in to our decision making.

From Swedish government steps up battle against prostitution, plans to crackdown on sex buyers from The Local

The Swedish government has announced a raft of new proposals to fight the sex trade and organized crime.

Legislation will be reviewed and tightened up and over 200 million kronor ($33.5million) has been allocated for fighting crime and other measures to address the sex trade.

The government will invest over 210 million kronor in 36 different initiatives between 2008-2010, according to the new action plan against prostitution and human trafficking presented in Dagens Nyheter by public health minister Maria Larsson, gender equality minister Nyamko Sabuni and justice minister Beatrice Ask.

New laws give the possibility for secret bugging and more energetic confiscation of profits gained from crime. We shall also review the possibilities for the police to make use of entrapment, the three ministers write.

From Government gets tough on sex trade from the International Herald Tribune

Sweden is not a good place for (your) business, Justice Minister Beatrice Ask said in a warning to those who buy sex or are involved in trafficking. (There's) a very big risk of getting caught, and getting caught big time.

From Jail men who pay for sex from The Local

People convicted of paying for sex should be awarded prison sentences, according to the Social Democrats' new equality spokesman Claes Borgström.

It is already possible for people found to have paid for sexual services to be jailed for up to six months. But a Supreme Court ruling has set a precedent by which convictions in practice always result in fines.

But with Justice Minister Beatrice Ask preparing to review the law, Borgström has called for the crime to be punished by "at least one year" in jail.

From Sweden to evaluate effects of prostitution law from The Local

Paying for sex has been illegal in Sweden for nearly ten years, and now the government wants to evaluate the law's impact.

Not only are members of the Riksdag interested in learning more about the effects of the law, but international observers are also curious to know more about how the prohibition against paying for sexual services has affected the sex trade and human trafficking.

The government have now appointed Supreme Court Justice Anna Skarhed to lead an official inquiry into the matter.

The inquiry will examine how the law functions in practice and seek to determine what effects it has had on prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes in Sweden. The inquiry may also suggest changes to the law if so needed.

The inquiry is expected to deliver its findings no later than April 30th, 2010.

From Evaluation Made Useless by Narrow-Minded Framework from Aqurette by Christopher Aqurette

Paying for sex has been illegal in Sweden for nearly ten years, and now the government wants to evaluate the law's impact,

But as Isabella Lund points out in her excellent blog, the framework set for the enquiry prevents it from suggesting the law to be abolished. It is obvious the political elite does not want confirmation of what the sex workers have said all along: the law is the problem, not the sex trade itself.

The following comments says all about the review:

From Not An Unbiased Investigation from Jenny's Pennies

The Swedish government has decided to make an oversight of the Swedish law making it illegal to buy sexual services. That is needed, as there are a lot of scattered studies, speculations, and right out lies about the effects of the law. But there has been no general governmental analysis of the law and its effects.

But (not surprisingly) the government has given the person conducting the overview a limitation: she is not allowed to propose that the law should be repealed.

So even if the governmental investigator Anna Skarhed were to find that the law has had bad effects on the safety and health of sex workers, that is has not limited trafficking or lead to less violence against women or less child pornography (which it is said to be doing), Skarhed is not allowed to say that it would be a good idea to repeal the law.

Plans to legalise prostitution for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa have been criticised by religious groups and opposition parties.

The local authority in Durban wants legalised adult entertainment venues during the tournament.

But African Nazareth Democratic Movement president Thokozani Hlatshwayo said the proposal was against the word of God.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance and the youth wing of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) have condemned the suggestion: Plans to legalise Durban's red-light districts before the 2010 World Cup should be condemned in the strongest possible manner. On the one hand it preaches strong family values and moral regeneration, but on the other hand they want to legalise prostitution on Durban's streets. It doesn't make sense, she said.

Durban's municipality said Germany had many adult entertainment centres during the World Cup in 2006, which were very popular with visitors. It said while prostitution was illegal in South Africa, it could not ignore the fact that the sex industry thrives during major events like the World Cup. To address this, entertainment centres such as strip clubs and escort agencies would be located in special areas where they would be safe and easily accessible.

Municipality Deputy Mayor Logie Naidoo said a final decision had not yet been taken.

Nine foreign women were charged with prostitution after being arrested at the weekend on the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, police have said.

Police sources in Athens said earlier the women involved were British and had been taking part in an oral sexual competition which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet.

However, a local police official on Zakynthos said the women were mostly from eastern Europe and were working in strip clubs at Laganas in the south of the Ionian island.

Six foreign and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged with encouraging obscene behaviour.

In the last two months, Westminster Council licensing inspectors have raided and closed down two illegal hostess bars, which lured men in under the false premise of adult entertainment then charged them exorbitant rates for soft drinks in the company of hostesses. One of these hostess bars was also an illegal gambling club.

Clip joints, as they are informally known, have previously circumvented licensing legislation by not selling alcohol or offering adult entertainment, despite displaying garish signs such as “sexy girls”.

But following extensive lobbying from Westminster City Council, the LLA Act 2007 (London Local Authorities Act) means the venues now need to apply for a sex establishment licence if they wish to continue trading, putting them under the control of the local licensing authority for the first time.

Two years ago there were eight clip joints operating in Westminster but tough enforcement by Westminster Council and the Metropolitan Police for breaches of planning and health and safety regulations has led to the closure of six.

A new Big Brother database holding the telephone numbers and email accounts of everyone in Britain would raise serious data protection concerns, the information commissioner said.

Details of every phone conversation, text message and emails could be held in a database under proposals

Gordon Brown signalled plans to bring in the database holding details of every phone call, email and time spent on the internet by the public in last month's draft Queen's Speech.

The proposal is part of Government plans to implement a European Union directive which was brought in after the 7 July bombings to encourage uniform record-keeping across EU states.

However information commissioner Richard Thomas warned the database would be a step too far for the British way of life. Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?

There needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially-created database - potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities - holding details of everyone's telephone and internet communications.

The proposals have gained credence in Whitehall after the Government's Draft Legislative Programme last month made mention of 'modifying procedures for acquiring communications data. The new Data Communications Bill is set to be put forward in November's Queen's Speech. Under the plans, internet service providers and phone companies would hand over their records to the Home Office, which would hold the information for 12 months.

The police and security services would access the database if they have been granted permission by the courts.

A Home Office spokesman said: Proposals are being developed and full details of the draft Bill will be released later this year, allowing for full engagement with Parliament and the public.

IPods, mobile phones and laptops could be examined by airport customs officials for illegal downloads under new anti-counterfeiting measures being considered by G8 governments this week, it is claimed.

There are fears that individuals who have illegally downloaded songs or video clips on to MP3 players and phones for personal use could be caught out.

Illegal downloading and piracy is said to represent the biggest single problem faced by the music, film and publishing industries, and many have been lobbying governments to introduce tough new rules to help stamp out the practice.

So far, little has been revealed about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being considered by the G8 nations, apart from a mention in the organisation's "Declaration on the World Economy" published this week.

Backing the development of the new agreement, it said: Effective promotion and protection of Intellectual Property Rights are critical to the development of creative products, technologies and economies.

A leak to a technology website revealed that the focus of Acta was border measures, particularly how to deal with large-scale intellectual property infringements.

A footnote saying that those signing up to Acta should put in place provisions related to criminal enforcement and border measures to be applied at least in cases of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy, has generated intense speculation about what it could mean for the individual.

The suggestion that the new laws could be used by customs to scan MP3 players, mobiles and laptops for illegal downloads is just one of a number of potential measures that is causing concern in the technology world, leading to fevered debate about the implications on a number of websites.

Another is that mobile phone companies could contact their customers to warn them off sharing video clips.

A mother has been barred from travelling in the taxi provided by the council to take her own son, Alex, the five miles to school.

Her offence? Not to have had a Criminal Records Bureau check.

Mrs Jones has fallen foul of the council's policy which considers anyone travelling with the teenager to be working on its behalf and, therefore, obliged to have CRB clearance.

Now Alex, who has cerebral palsy, must travel alone until his mother passes the police check.

The Merthyr Tydfil Council Pedantry Officer said: The CRB checking is a requirement of our transport provisions in relation to adults travelling on home-to-school transport in the capacity of an escort.

This is a standard requirement and has been for several years. Any adult acting as an escort will, in the public gaze, be viewed as acting with the full acquiescence of the council and hence with its implied authority.

For the protection of the council and all vulnerable persons in its care it's essential all those endowed with an authority, implicit or explicit, should meet the security requirements within the transport contract provisions.

A recent study has warned that the rapid spread of child protection checks and health and safety rules has 'poisoned' relations between adults and children and left youngsters at greater risk. It said CRB checks and the rise in other regulation have fuelled an atmosphere of suspicion and left adults afraid to intervene or take responsibility.

As many as 12% of Britons travelling overseas have been victims of crime in the last five years.

Most of the incidents involved theft of personal belonging but 1% of travellers suffered physical or sexual assaults, the statistics from the InsureandGo company revealed.

The majority of crimes took place in Europe, with visitors to Spain suffering the most. Almost twice as many crimes against Britons have occurred in Spain as in the second-most "dangerous" country - France.

However, based on the numbers of Britons who go to each country every year, Spain is actually relatively safe and, proportionately, Thailand is the country where Britons are most likely to become crime victims.

InsureandGo said Britons made almost 14 million visits to Spain last year - 32 times more than to Thailand. But there were only four times as many British victims of crime in Spain as in Thailand, which means an estimated 10% of British visitors to Thailand suffer crime.

These were the top 10 countries for crime involving British tourists in the last five years:

1. Spain 871,569
2. France 457,832
3. Austria 252,068
4. Italy 215,329
5. Thailand 213,416
6. Greece 184,771
7. India 155,096
8. USA 150,191
9. Australia 106,095
10. Turkey 105,899

An airline is to remove the in-flight entertainment systems from many of its flights in an effort to cut down on the amount of fuel used by its planes.

The announcement was made yesterday by US Airways, which will take the 500lb movie systems off its domestic flights from November onwards.

It is a reaction to rocketing air fuel prices, which have doubled in 12 months.

A spokesman for the company said US Airways will cut the movie systems from about 200 aircraft. But it will keep movies in its widebodied aircraft, used for international flights and trips to Hawaii.

The spokesman said that the company planned to test a lighter, seat-back TV system later this year, but added that a new entertainment system was a long way off.

A spokesman for the British Air Transport Association said the move by US Airways was a "sign of the times".

It sounds like a cross between a games console and an embarrassing medical condition, but Britons are about to embrace it as their answer to saving money on summer holidays.

Welcome to the “staycation”, which experts expect to be the trend as families who cancel or cut back their holiday plans opt to stay at home during their summer break.

Day trips or short breaks are expected to replace the traditional week or fortnight away as some parents decide that even a full holiday in Britain is a luxury they cannot afford.
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Last week a Times survey reported that a third of the public said that they were switching their plans from a holiday abroad to a holiday in Britain. The anticipated rush has yet to begin, however, with only two weeks to go before the start of the state school holidays.

Although no figures are yet available, anecdotal evidence suggests that bookings are down on last year and that those who are not yet committed to a break are waiting until the last minute to decide what to do.

There are already concerns about the impact that the economic climate will have on next year. Traditionally, Britons book their holidays in January and many people had committed themselves for this summer before the credit crunch really began to bite.

A British woman caught having drunken sex on a beach in Dubai is to be charged with three offences, police said yesterday.

Michelle Palmer faces up to six years in jail if found guilty of having a sexual affair, public indecency and insulting a police officer.

Prosecutors have yet to decide what charges - if any - will be laid against Kent businessman Vince Acors, the man she romped with on the sand of Jumeirah beach after an all-day drinking binge.

Miss Palmer will face a Dubai court once she has been formally charged. She has already been sacked from her £28,000-a-year tax-free job with ITP Publishing.

A police officer spotted the couple having sex on the sand and let them off with a caution. But they ignored the warning and were arrested when the officer returned to the scene.

According to police sources, Miss Palmer launched an angry tirade at the policeman after being disturbed for a second time. She is alleged to have hurled abuse and tried to hit him with her high-heeled shoe before being restrained and taken to a cell

Sex outside marriage is illegal in the Islamic federation of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai police chief Major General Khamis Mattar al Mazeina said: 'The United Arab Emirates has certain traditions and values and is an Islamic country: It does not tolerate such behaviour and everyone must respect our culture as we respect theirs.

Police are so concerned about the city's drunken daytime parties that they are intending to mount a special 'brunch patrol' to catch misbehaving Britons. Undercover officers will be posted in hotel restaurants on Friday afternoons, a time when most local Muslims are at the mosque but the top hotels host lavish parties - and most of the fun occurs.

I CAN only dance when I'm drunk, confides Srijana, a 20-year-old employee of the Pussy Cat Bar and Shower, a tavern in Thamel, Kathmandu's main tourist hangout. She mounts a small stage and to whoops from a few tipsy locals, she sheds most of her clothes and gyrates to a Hindi pop tune. Dangling above her is a silver shower nozzle, positioned to spray flesh-revealing water on a dancer below.

Such gimmicks are common in Thamel's bars, where competition for lascivious males is fierce. Until a few years ago Nepal had no obvious sex industry. There are now an estimated 200 massage parlours and 35 “dance bars”, such as the Pussy Cat, in Thamel —with over 1,000 girls and women working in them. Many sell sex. In the Pussy Cat, another dancer admits to turning tricks, for 1,800 rupees ($28).

That is a tidy sum in Nepal, South Asia's poorest country. It is much more than Nepali women are paid in India's flesh-pots. But the dancers in Thamel are chasing a richer sort of Indian: tourists. And their government seems to be encouraging them. In an advertisement for Wild Stag Weekends, the Nepal Tourism Board offers this advice: Don't forget to have a drink at one of the local dance bars, where beautiful Nepali belles will dance circles around your pals.

In a country with a rich tradition of dance, where paying for sex is illegal, this might be harmless innuendo. But not everybody thinks so. During the recently-ended civil war, Nepal's Himalayan tourism industry collapsed. Some activists think that sex tourism is replacing it. According to John Frederick, an expert on South Asia's sex trade, Ten years ago the sex industry was underground in Nepal. Now it's like Bangkok, it's like Phnom Penh.

The war, which put much of rural Nepal under the control of Maoist insurgents, has increased the supply of sex workers. Srijana is from the poor and still violent district of Siraha in southern Nepal. She was widowed there two years ago, and left an infant son to come to the capital. Yet she is remarkably cheerful—perhaps because she is drunk, and the shower is not working.

A pioneering curfew aiming at keeping children under 16 off the streets at night is being launched in a Cornish town. Police officers and local authority officials, some wearing head cameras to gather evidence, will patrol an area of Redruth and stop all youngsters of 15 and under who are out unsupervised after 9pm, and all under-10s out after 8pm.

Officers say the campaign, codenamed Operation Goodnight, will help tackle antisocial behaviour, but some human rights activists are worried that the drive will target blameless youngsters out enjoying the long summer evenings.

The police are describing Operation Goodnight, which will be launched at the end of this month and run through the summer holidays, as a voluntary scheme because families cannot be forced to keep their children indoors.

But PC Marc Griffen said all children spotted out during the curfew would be stopped and questioned, even if they were just returning from band practice.

If parents did not cooperate they would be visited by social services and other agencies. Parenting orders, which can compel parents to attend counselling or guidance sessions, may also be imposed.

Anti-terrorism investigators in Paris are probing threats against a leading French cable TV channel over pornographic films it airs that can be viewed in North Africa, a judicial official said.

Canal-Plus, France's first pay-TV channel, received letters from one or more people claiming to be Muslim and threatening to blow up its headquarters if it continues to broadcast once-a-month adult films, the official said.

Canal-Plus filed a legal complaint about the threats late last month, which prompted the anti-terrorist probe. No other details about the threats were available.

Canal-Plus and its sister channels show a range of programming, much of it family-friendly. It can be viewed via satellite in largely Muslim North Africa, where French is widely spoken.

As a new broadcaster in 1984, Canal-Plus introduced hardcore films on the first Saturday of the month to build its image as a more exciting alternative to France's traditional channels.

Before the Swedish 1999 law was introduced criminalising customers, some 2,500 vice girls prowled the streets of Stockholm or worked in brothels. Today there are around 150. The number of punters picked up has fallen 80%. In the nine years since the legislation changed, 1,650 men have been charged with paying for sex. None were jailed, but all faced hefty fines and huge humiliation. Several lost their jobs.

For the women who ply their wares, however, the law change has left them vulnerable, they say. Take Anja. At 44, she is a mother of two and worked Stockholm's streets for six years before the switch in the law. 'We could work in pairs or groups before 1999. 'Now I have to hide alone. OK, so I am not going to be prosecuted but the punter will, so who is going to openly stop?

Now she hangs around an isolated spot waiting for trade. A punter will pull up and mumble a meeting place, somewhere quiet where no one will see me getting into his car. Before, I would have my mates, it would be more open, we could assess the men. Now, it's a fleeting chat, just to arrange another pick-up point, there's no chance to check him out.

She has good reason to be wary. A fading bruise beneath her right eye and a scar above her eyebrow are still visible – the consequences of a violent customer. You don't want to know, is all she will say.

The approach, championed by women ministers such as Harriet Harman, has met with fierce resistance from the Home Office. While Diane Abbot has tabled an Early Day Motion, to date it has only 23 signatories. The question is would such a system work here?

...Read full article

Early Day Motion laid before Parliament

Diane Abbot's EDM: Criminalising Prostitution And Action Against Trafficking For Sexual Exploitation, 7th January 2008

That this House is concerned by recent comments made by Ministers and former Ministers regarding prostitution in the UK; notes that calls to ban prostitution in order to prevent trafficking for sexual exploitation appear to be ill thought-out; understands that Government raids on prostitution establishments as part of Operation Pentameter have not found a vast number of trafficked workers but rather that women working in such establishments are more likely to be made vulnerable by debts incurred during migration, or by poverty that drives them into sex work; further notes that women who are recognised as victims of trafficking are given few rights to protection or residency under current legislation; and calls on the Government to rethink its approach to prostitution by focusing on protecting women from exploitation and by offering suitable alternatives to prostitution for those who wish to leave it.

Comment: Operation Pentameter

Thanks to Donald

Astronomical estimated figures for trafficking but only a handful of victims found and only 2 traffickers prosecuted.

Incompetence?

Besides, how can they make an estimate if they can't find them?

This press release came the same day.

Border and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne: I have said repeatedly that there is no hiding place for those that come to Britain and break our rules, which is why already this year we've rid the country of over 2,400 foreign lawbreakers.

They are good at finding other criminals but not traffickers, what gives?

Are the figures purposely inflated to motivate forthcoming draconian legislation?

Comment: From Brown to Worse

Thanks to Donald. See full article from the Daily Mail

Here's a good reason for Scotland to declare independence:

Harriet Harman is campaigning to promote herself as a stand-in Prime Minister should Mr Brown be forced out.

It emerged last night that Labour MPs have been sounded out about her suitability if the PM leaves No10 by the end of the year.

With the Prime Minister's position looking precarious, manoeuvring to replace him is well under way.

The revelation that his own deputy fancies her chances will annoy Mr Brown, who is desperate to dampen speculation about his future.

Hundreds of innocent people have been wrongly branded as criminals by the Government agency set up to vet people working with children, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Thousands of people are being forced to have multiple CRB checks for different jobs because the checks are currently not transferable

People applying to take up jobs as teachers, nurses, childminders and even those volunteering to work with youth groups are likely to have been among those falsely accused of wrongdoing by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

Those wrongly accused by the CRB face having their careers blighted or being stigmatised by their communities. They also face having to endure an appeals process to clear their names.
Article continues

The CRB, an agency of the Home Office, was set up to vet those working with children or vulnerable people. It carries out checks on criminal convictions, cautions and reprimands, while an enhanced check also examines any other information held by local police forces.

However, figures seen by The Daily Telegraph disclose that in the year to February 2008, 680 people were issued with incorrect information on their background checks by the CRB.

The disclosure is likely to deter many from applying for positions which require a check.

The Daily Telegraph has further learnt that the CRB agency is plagued by delays and mistakes which is jeopardising its efficiency. It is the latest Government agency to face questions over its handling of sensitive personal data.

Last night, the Conservatives said that blocking innocent people from working with children was "completely unacceptable" and that the CRB needed an urgent overhaul. It has also emerged that:

David Ruffley, a shadow Home Office minister, said: Nearly 700 mistakes that could ruin people's lives is 700 too many. There is an emerging crisis of public confidence in the handling of this public information.

The Home Office admitted that mistakenly branding innocent people as criminals was "regrettable".

A Criminal Records Bureau spokesman said: The Criminal Records Bureau's first priority is to help protect children and vulnerable adults, and we will always err on the side of caution to help ensure the safety of these groups.

China's government has told discos, karaoke bars and other entertainment venues to install windows in private rooms and ensure staff dress modestly from Oct 1.

According to rules released on the Ministry of Public Security's website (www.mps.gov.cn), entertainment venues must install transparent partitions between rooms that ensure the whole environment of the consumer's entertainment area in the room can be seen.

When open for business, the transparent part of rooms and windows to rooms at singing and dancing entertainment venues must not be obstructed, the rules say.

Discos, karaoke nightclubs and other bars in China frequently have private rooms for hire, and are a favourite places for businessmen to entertain guests, sometimes with prostitutes, which is illegal in China.

Staff clothing is also covered in the new rules. Staff members should dress tastefully, and not be too exposing.

Other rules demand closed circuit television cameras be installed and security guards placed at discos.

New Labour preside over failing numeracy standards at all levels

Up to 18,000 females, including girls as young as 14, are working in brothels across Britain after being smuggled into the country to meet the booming demand for prostitutes. Police, unveiling the results of the largest ever crackdown on people smuggling yesterday, revealed that nearly five times more women than previously thought are working under duress in massage parlours and suburban homes. [So presumably they'd only expected to find 35 victims of trafficking, ie a fifth of the 167 found. Not many of the 18,000 per year ,say 90,000 over the last 5 years]

Operation Pentameter 2, a six-month campaign by police forces across the country, resulted in the release of 154 women and 13 girls put to work as part of a lucrative trade.

The campaign saw the arrest of 528 suspected traffickers and the closure of 822 brothels and premises being used to sell sexual services. [528 traffickers for 167 victims! I suspect that when these cases come to court there will just be a handful done for trafficking]

The campaign also revealed an increasing use of young British women, who are 'trafficked' within the UK after being groomed by older men who lure them to towns away from their homes. The Home Office highlighted one recent case in Sheffield where 33 victims had been recruited by men in public places and taken away for sexual exploitation. [Talk of redefining the English language to fit the propaganda]

Most victims are foreign [As one would expect from the crime of trafficking!], with least 85 per cent of the women working as prostitutes coming from countries including Brazil, China, Lithuania and Thailand. Many victims are lured to Britain with false promises of work in bars or nightclubs only to be sold for up to £5,000, often at airports or service stations, to pimps and brothel-keepers. The women are then set quotas of the number of men they must have sex with each week, working for little or nothing under threat of violence against their families.

Tim Brain, the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, whose force co-ordinated Pentameter 2, said that police forces were becoming more effective in tracing prostitution networks and seizing their assets, but admitted that they remained a significant problem. The first phase of Pentameter in 2006 rescued 88 victims and made 232 arrests.

The Government insisted that the success of the campaign, which has resulted in 24 convictions [Doesn't sound many to me!], was evidence of its determination to hinder the work of the gangs behind sex trafficking. Of the 167 women and teenagers released, all but five were being used as prostitutes. The rest, of whom three were children, had been sold as domestic slaves.

Comment: Independent Interpretation

Thanks to Donald, 4th July 2008

See the original press release. It doesn't say that the brothels were closed, that is the independents own conclusion

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold wants to restrict search and seizures of laptops and other digital devices at U.S. borders.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and property rights, called for laws to protect against this gross violation of privacy after a recent hearing on customs searches of digital technology such as laptop computers, hand-held devices and disk storage drives.

Feingold is particularly upset that federal courts have not taken action.

If the courts can't offer that protection, then that responsibility falls to Congress, said Feingold, who compared the search of a computer to a search of a body cavity which legally requires "probable suspicion" prior to the search.

Customs and border officials warn that exempting laptops, cellular phones, digital cameras and other devices from routine searches would make it easier to smuggle pornography, terrorism plans or other dangerous recorded material into the United States.