Pakistan Floods Appeal – President Continues Europe Visit

Aid agencies urge support for Pakistan floods appeal with warnings of spreading disease and life-threatening food shortages amid the worst flooding in Pakistan for 80 years.

President Zardari faced mounting criticism yesterday over his six-day visit to Europe as aid agencies warned of life-threatening food shortages amid the floods in Pakistan

Pakistan Floods

The Pakistan Government is struggling to deal with the floods in the north west that have killed 1,700 people and affected 3.2 million.

As the country braced itself for continued torrential monsoon rains in the south yesterday  Mr Zardari’s aides defended his decision not to cancel the trip, which includes a visit to his family’s château in France. They said that he was staying at London’s “cheapest five-star hotel” — the Churchill Hyatt Regency in Portman Square — which was picketed by people protesting at his visit.

European Joyride

Mr Zardari’s refusal to curtail what critics call a European “joyride” is raising grave questions about his leadership as the opposition, the army and even a banned charity are upstaging his Government in the flood relief effort.

Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader and former Prime Minister, visited the northwestern town of Charsadda, one of the worst affected, and told reporters that Pakistanis been “let down very badly by Mr Zardari”.

“The Government has failed to perform its duty in the crisis. They should have used all their resources to help the flood victims,”

Mr Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz, who is Chief Minister of Punjab province, also visited flooded areas and pledged to compensate all those affected.

Imran Khan, the former national cricket captain, who is now an opposition politician, said that Mr Zardari should be in Pakistan to handle the disaster.

“Any talks can be postponed — surely the priority should be your own people,” he told ITV. “And then to go on this lavish tour — this money could be used on the victims.”

The Government’s failure to cope with the floods means that relief efforts are being mostly handled by the army, enhancing its reputation as the country’s most powerful and effective institution. The army, which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half its history, said yesterday that it had rescued more than 60,000 people from flood-hit areas using 40 helicopters and 450 army boats.

Soldiers Donate a Days Salary

General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, also announced that every soldier would donate a day’s salary to a relief fund set up by the Prime Minister. “Army is working at full pace and capacity to extend maximum help to the people,” he said in a statement.

Banned Charity Sends Aid

The Government’s failings have also opened a window for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a banned Islamist charity, to win public support as it has during previous crises. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, who chaired an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday, announced later that government ministers would each donate a month’s salary to the fund.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa is considered a front for the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and was banned and placed on a UN blacklist in 2008 over the latter’s alleged role in the attack that year on Mumbai. The charity said yesterday that it was sending ten truckloads of goods and nine medical teams to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province worst affected by the floods.

Are You Acting on Climate Change?

Last year was perhaps the most important year in the the history of climate change and action upon it. We had been aware of the possibility that our actions were effecting the climate and atmosphere of the planet we live on for maybe 30 years. Over the years since more and more data and research was collected until the scientists of the world conclusively concluded that our actions, lifestyles and the way our society has been built and continues to function is threatening our very existence on this planet.

The past few years various advertising campaigns, government and scientific advice urged us to be greener, in order to slow the effects of man made climate change. But behind the scenes big businesses with big money were making sure that no changes that might threaten their profits, the type of changes needed to make any real difference to climate change, would come to pass.

On the whole it was the general public that did begin to accept that we must all make some changes to our lives to prevent the worst happening, and I think on a whole, most people did. Businesses on the other hand did not, and it could not be done without them. Nobody wants to invest in the future anymore, they just want to get rich quick, now.

Then last year at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, the most important in history on the subject, leaders and scientists of the world gathered to decide on the most appropriate way to deal with the climate crisis. They failed to agree on anything. A major anti climax after over a year of hype and acceptance of people that were beginning to be ready for change.

So what are you doing about it now? Are you doing more now to do your part to prevent climate change, or less. Are you more sceptical or less? Answer below.

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

Firstly a link to instant oil spill – see anything familiar?

Oi Oi Oil

Oil is not a fossil fuel. It is abiotic, but found using fossils that developed later. Although virtually unlimited, deep wells are very expensive. BP and other oil companies don’t want you to know this, and the scientific community is dominated by paleontologists who use fossils to FIND more oil. Conservation and alternative fuels are costly but viable options in the long run. Natural gas, if removed safely, can be burned with CO2 returned to the Earth, and will remove this green house gas from the atmosphere. This will help cool the planet helpt the plants and flowers, but not stop human development.

However much crude oil remains there’s no need to make everything in the world out of it or power everything with it.

This economy has become largely a vehicle for as many petroleum uses as possible.

Our cups, clothing, medicine, and food now routinely contain petroleum.

It’s put into everything possible whether necessary or not, in order to sell more of it.

Glass, cotton, ceramics, the list goes on and on of industries marginalized by this monopoly.

The result is our eggs are now more or less in one basket.

Its name is crude, so I guess there’s no wonder.

Fitting that it comes from dinasours.

UK Airline to use PSPs

UK airline Thomas Cook is to replace their current in flight entertainment systems with Sony Playstation Portables, charging customers for the privilege of using one. It comes as one of a new wave of initiatives from airlines to increase revenue without increasing flight tickets prices.

If you regularly books flights to the UK you will know that Thomas Cook are perhaps the cheapest airline to cross the Atlantic. This is why I am flying with them on Thursday when I return to the mountains of Canada. I know that when on long haul flights such as these, you need something to entertain you or you will be agonisingly bored.

In a effort recoup some dwindling profits many airlines are trying new ways to charge people flying with them. Thomas Cook are now to remove the free in flight entertainment system to replace it with PSP consoles that customers will be charged to use. UK’s easyJet introduced optional PSP hire in April. Jetstar recently announced plans to charge passengers $10 to hire Apple iPads, containing pre-loaded ebooks and feature films on its flights too.

Extra charges on flights has increased 42% since 2008.

More Hideous Government Spending on Furniture

I have mentioned many times before, that my main dislike of the Labour party (and politics in general) is gross wasteful spending of tax payers money. Whether it’s half a billion on Helicopters that are desperately needed by our armed forces, but that are still incomplete and stuck in a warehouse thousands of miles away from where they are needed, or it’s an MP claiming her husbands pornography on her expenses.

But there is one thing that is consistent in Whitehall spending, it is the obscene amounts they insist on wasting on furniture. A few years news got out that when the Ministry of Defence moved buildings, they also got new office furniture, including office chairs costing £3000 EACH. At the time no one really batted an eye lid, we were a growing economy that showed no sign of meltdown. Roll on 2008.

Now that the world is in economic collapse and our governments are spending Billions (if not Trillions) bailing out our banks so society doesn’t fall apart, we started to pay a bit more attention to where our money was going. Last year the expenses scandal revealed to us all just how greedy, ignorant, unfair and downright stupid politicians could be, with claims for items such as Duck houses, Moat cleaners and toilet seats.

But if you think that because we are now in a recession that the wasteful spending has ended then think again. A new investigation from the new Coalition Government into Whitehall spending has found that Labour ministers authorised officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government to to buy 28 of the sofas at a cost of £4,120 EACH. That’s a total of £134,503.

If you think that is bad then wait until you hear how they (tried to) justify it. The luxury sofas were intended to create a “peaceful oasis” in the workplace in part of a an efficiency initiative called “SpaceFlex” to make the department “more practical” and save money. A source at the department said the red sofas made the office seem like a “Parisian boudoir” and pointed out that council tax bills had more than doubled under Labour. Anyone that thinks spending £4,120 on a sofa will help saving money needs to get there head examined and banned from working anywhere near the government!

Everyone involved with this decision has failed people they serve (us) massively whilst working in the public sector and should be out of a job. Spending on luxury items anywhere in the government should not exist until the deficit is paid off, we have perfect healthcare, a policing and criminal justice system that works, political reform, modern transport and decent education for everybody.

After all this, we now have to pay off a debt of over £900 Billion. A debt that we will all contribute to in one way or another in painful cuts over the coming years and months. Well government, they better start on your doorstep. If not we will be there banging down the door.

Death to the Death Penalty

Amnesty International are campaigning to end the Death Penalty in as many countries as possible. There really should be no place for it in the modern world. Yet 58 countries still use capital punishment to this day.

China are thought to have executed at least 1700 (but could be up to 5000) people in 2009. Iran executed at least 388. Iraq at least 120. Saudi Arabia at least 69. In the United States of America, the supposed home of freedom and modern society, 52 people were put to death in 2009.

Even Japan executed 7 people. Egypt executed at least 5. 2 were executed in Thailand, and that is not including those who succumbed to government suppression. No one in the Western world can be sure how many were executed in communist North Korea.

We support Amnesty International in their quest to rid the world of Death Sentence.