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| Italy to combat prostitution by cutting trees Abruzzo targets trees to force sex workers off the Bonifica del Tronto roadEnvironmental organisations today expressed outrage over a plan by local authorities in the Abruzzo region of central Italy to combat prostitution with deforestation.For decades, local law enforcement and politicians have struggled to police the Bonifica del Tronto road, a haven for the sex trade that runs inland for more than 10 miles from the Adriatic coast alongside the river Tronto. Over the years, cameras have been installed, raids mounted, 24-hour patrols implemented and the mayors of towns near the road have signed bylaws imposing fines on prostitutes' clients. All to no avail.At the end of last month, the regional government's public works chief, Angelo Di Paolo, announced that the time had come for drastic measures. He said he had agreed with provincial and municipal representatives to cut down all the vegetation "around and along the banks [of the river Tronto]", in which the prostitutes ply their trade.A local authority "ought to contribute to the solution of problems relating to law and order," said Di Paolo. But in a statement three environmental groups, including the WWF, said that the scheme would destroy 28 hectares (69 acres) of woodland vital to local ecosystems, saying the only crime of the thousands of trees on the local authorities' hit list had been to "offer with their fronds shelter and intimacy to sex slaves".The authorities, they added, had "not even taken into account mitigating circumstances". "Among these are having absorbed thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and given man precious oxygen," they said. They also prevented fertiliser and pesticides from reaching the river.A census this month by an NGO found almost 600 prostitutes at work on the Bonifica del Tronto. Most were Nigerians, but they included Romanians, Brazilians, Albanians and Chinese.Di Paolo is a man known for resolute responses. Some years ago, when he was mayor of the town of Canistro, he won national fame for shooting at a bank robber whom he then chased and caught.ItalyProstitutionDeforestationConservationForestsJohn Hooperguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
This week: Lord Browne, Chilean miners and Cliff Richard Lucy Mangan on the people making the headlines, for better or worse, in the past seven daysUniversity challengedLord Browne I feel so blessed to be living at a time of such splendid innovations. Take, for example, the recommendations of Lord B's report to scrap the cap on university tuition fees – so dull! So limiting! So altogether bourgeois! – and go for a more stylishly unlimited system instead. I'm so glad to be here, at the end of the long journey from conceptualising education as a broadening of the individual and national intellect and an investment in the country's future to the commercial transaction available only to the already highly advantaged it was surely always intended to be. As the good book says, to those that have shall be given more.So blessed. So glad. We all are.Chilean BSELos 33Best. Story. Ever. I know, it's been everywhere for far too long, thousands of journalists – 61 for each stuck miner – filling the unforgiving minutes with banalities, blatant product placement by sunglasses manufacturers but I don't care.Thirty three men believed dead. Then revealed to be alive – alive! – but entombed 700 metres below ground. Entombed! Entire country grinds into gear to get them out. They start drilling supply and escape routes through half a mile of rock. They keep them fed, watered and fit. Nasa helps Chile construct a steel capsule – steel capsule! – to winch the men up. And do you know what? They only bloody go and do it. All 33 men delivered alive and well back to their waiting families (or, in the case of Johnny Barrios Rojas, both his families) after 69 days – 69 days! – underground.Questions and investigations remain for the mine's owners and Chile's government about a couple of health and safety issues, but in the meantimestill – Best. Story. Ever.Septuagenarian living dollCliff RichardThe eternally youthful, indefinably annoying Bachelor Boy turned 70 this week and celebrated by beginning a series of six concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. No, I'm sorry, tickets sold out within a few hours months ago. Well, you should have got the more nimble of your grandchildren to speed dial for you.He's sold 260m records, had – uniquely - UK No 1 hits in five consecutive decades, given kasquillions to charity and has transcended the need for radio airplay or any other form of media publicity. His legions of fans are now a perpetual popularity machine. He looks 40 but you should see the picture in his attic. He is a national icon, embarrassment and treasure.Happy birthday, Sir Cliff. Please don't ever sing Mistletoe and Wine again.What they said"Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him."The late, great Claire Rayner, who died on Tuesday."The so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night. It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism."Andrew Marr keeps the dream alive."I've eaten two diamonds in my life. One was put in a cupcake on Valentine's Day and the guy got so drunk he forgot to tell me ... Never found it, never looked. It's probably lodged in my pancreas." Socialite and possibly not GCSE-in-biology-holder Tara Palmer-Tomkinson."If you eat junk, you look like junk. People say, 'It's not my fault, it's my glands.' It's not, it is greed." Joan Collins, still enjoying her second career of putting the modern world to rights."It's important not to be an economic girlyman." Arnold Schwarzeneggar, former action star and current governor of failed state California, to Cameron.What we've learned• Gap's new logo was dropped after 2,000 people complained• The new Tate Modern installation comprises 100m handmade porcelain sunflower seeds• 30% of the UK population have no internet access at home• The average US adult walks 5,117 steps a day• Three out of 10 people in Britain have less than £249 in savings… and what we haven't• Who threw the book (literally) at Barack Obama at a campaign event in PhiladelphiaUniversity fundingHigher educationConservative and Liberal Democrat cabinetLiberal DemocratsConservativesLiberal-Conservative coalitionChileCliff RichardMiningMiningLucy Manganguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Nicolas Sarkozy in warning to pension reform protesters French president says strikers have no right to take population hostage with demonstrations and warns rioters of punishmentNicolas Sarkozy has sent a determined message to strikers attempting to paralyse France with protests over plans to raise the retirement age to 62.The French president, who until now has kept a low profile as protesters took to the streets, blockaded oil refineries and threw transport services into chaos, said the demonstrators "had no right taking the French people hostage".He denounced clashes between schoolchildren and police in Lyon yesterday as "scandalous" and said rioters would be punished."It's not the thugs who will have the last word in a democracy, in a republic," the president said."That is not acceptable. They will be arrested, found and punished in Lyon as elsewhere, without any question."He added: "In our democracy there are many ways to express yourself, but the most cowardly, the most gratuitous violence is not acceptable."Unions have put on a concerted show of strength as the upper house of parliament finishes its debate on pension reforms. But if they had hoped for conciliation and compromise from the French leader, they were to be profoundly disappointed.On a visit to meet local councillors in the central region of Eure-et-Loir, Sarkozy said the strikers had "no right to take hostage innocent people trying to go about their daily business" and criticised the opposition Socialist party for encouraging high-school pupils to join the national protests."It's hardly reasonable when you realise that one in two of them will live to be 100 years old. What they [the Socialists] are not telling the schoolchildren is that this reform is being done for them," the president said.Of the demonstrators laying siege to oil refineries and ports he said: "By taking hostage the economy, companies and the French people's daily life, they will destroy jobs. A business that has no more petrol, that has no more material when they are carrying out public works, that has no more deliveries, will close. And once again it's the small people who will pay the price."One of the main unions, the CFDT, called on members protesting to "distance themselves from all form of radical action" in order to maintain public support for ongoing strikes."Until now we have gained the battle for public opinion ... a majority of French people approve of our approach; we call for a just and negotiated response," a union official said.French union leaders are meeting to decide on another day of national strikes next week, possibly Tuesday, to prevent the industrial action losing momentum during the half-term school holidays.The government announced it was planning to use a constitutional clause to speed up the pension reform law in the senate. The clause would accelerate the discussions by allowing senators to vote on what has already been agreed, thus allowing key reforms to pass immediately into law.The government has said it wants the reform adopted by the end of the week. By midday today there were still 265 amendments to be considered.A university in the northern city of Lille was unblocked today after students voted 511 against 94 to return to their studies.Visiting Lyon where about 1,300 young people are said to have taken part in smashing up and looting shops, street signs and public property, the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, warned against those who had "made a deliberate choice of the most extreme and gratuitous violence"."The right to demonstrate is not the right to smash up, the right to set on fire, the right to threaten or the right to pillage," he said.FranceProtestNicolas SarkozyKim Willsherguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
'Hiccup girl' charged with murder in Florida By TAMARA LUSH 2010-10-25T16:58:49ZST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- A teenage girl who became famous after hiccuping uncontrollably for weeks has been charged with luring a man to a house where he was robbed and fatally shot.... hosted.ap.org |
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