MODERN STUDIES NEWS REVIEW
Number 90 – may 2010
28/04/10: GLASGOW RANGERS FACES £24 MILLION TAX BILL: Rangers’ £30 million debt could be almost doubled by a tax investigation that has led to fears the cash-strapped club may now be unsellable. The club faces a back-dated tax bill after an Inland Revenue probe into the way it paid certain high-profile players over the past 10 years. Rangers may be forced to pay up to £24 million if Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs finds fault with a scheme that saw the club paying players through an overseas trust fund. It also emerged that the recently crowned SPL champions may start the next season with a squad of just 14 senior players and 2 goalkeepers.
28/04/10: CHAOS IN THE UKRAINE: Ukrainian Parliament members traded punches and threw eggs and smoke bombs as tensions surrounding a controversial treaty with Russia spilled over into violence. Clouds of smoke swirled through the chamber and opposition deputies (MPs) threw eggs at Volodymyr Lytvyn, the Speaker, in an attempt to halt a critical vote allowing Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to remain in the Ukraine until 2050.
29/04/10: CRISIS IN GREEK ECONOMY The economy of Greece went into financial meltdown despite a European Union (EU) bailout of 400 billion Euros. This had an effect on other EU members. Spain’s credit rating was downgraded while Portugal looked likely to follow suit. As fear of contagion spread, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank met in Berlin to consider tripling Greece’s bailout to 110 billion Euros. The debt crisis in Greece could spread throughout Europe, according to the head of the IMF.
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30/04/10: CAN YOU DISAPPEAR IN SURVEILLANCE BRITAIN ?: 38 year-old David Bond decided to see if it was possible to ‘disappear’ in ‘surveillance Britain’ but was shocked by what he found. The average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras. Within 100 yards of Bond’s home, he discovered, there were no fewer than 200 cameras.
Before going on the run, he made eighty formal requests to both government and commercial organisations for the information they held on him. He piled the replies on his floor and was appalled by the level of detail. The owners of the databases knew who his friends were, which websites he’d been looking at, and where he had driven his car. But what if the information about us is wrong? Bond found that the DVLA still kept on record a youthful driving offence that should have been removed years ago. Worse was the case of a woman he met, falsely identified by the Criminal Records Bureau as a convicted shoplifter, who’d taken a year to prove her innocence. Or the man who, after someone pinched his credit card details and used them to pay for porn, was arrested then sacked without notice. When Bond met him, he still hadn’t been able to clear his name. So much for civil liberties. The UK is now one of the most advanced surveillance societies in the world, ranked third after Russia and China.
04/05/10: AMERICA’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL: The United States of America revealed the size of its nuclear arsenal in an attempt to persuade other nuclear powers to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The US stockpile consists of 5,113 nuclear warheads.
05/05/10: BOMB SUSPECT CHARGED: The man accused of planting a bomb in Times Square, New York, boarded a plane bound for Dubai despite being on a no-fly list. Faisal Shahzad was arrested seconds before the plane took off. He was taken to the federal court in Manhattan where he was charged with terrorism offences.
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06/05/10: ELECTION DAY – THE ‘X’ FACTOR: The most unpredictable General Election for a generation was up for grabs on the 6th May with many voters going to the polling booths still unsure of which party to vote for. Surveys suggested as many as 4 people in 10 were undecided, meaning some would not make their final choice until the moment they had to place a cross next to a candidate’s name. In the event, the result was a hung parliament, the first in 35 years. The Conservatives were the largest party in the hung parliament. Its leader, David Cameron, said it was "clear that the Labour Government has lost its mandate to govern”. However, Gordon Brown secretly set up talks with the Liberal-Democrats in a bid to remain Prime Minister of a coalition government but the battle to form the UK's next government began in earnest when the Conservatives latterly made big gains, just failing to win an overall majority. The final result was as follows:-
Conservative: 306 seats
Labour: 258 seats
Lib-Dem: 57 seats
Scottish Nationalist: 6 seats
Plaid Cymru 3 seats
Democratic Unionist: 8 seats
SDLP: 3 seats
Sinn-Fein: 5 seats
Others: 3 seats
Delayed until 27th May 1 seat
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ELECTION DAY REPORT CONTINUED…………
By 11th May, there was still no deal between the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems or Labour and the Lib-Dems. However, Gordon Brown announced his intention to resign in an attempt to keep Labour in power. His move suddenly opened the door to a possible deal with the Lib-Dems that would dash Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s hopes of making it into Downing Street. In the event, he needn’t have worried for, on 12th May, a deal was struck between the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems, Mr Cameron became the country’s 53rd Prime Minister having forged the first peacetime coalition for more than 80 years. Both he and Nick Clegg, who is to be the new Deputy PM, agreed to “put political differences aside” as they moved to tackle the UK’s massive deficit, ease deep social problems, rebuild public trust in politics and bring about a more responsible society.
06/05/10: THREE DEATHS IN GREEK RIOTS: European leaders warned the Eurozone debt crisis could spread beyond Greece as anti-austerity unrest in the country claimed 3 lives. The victims, who included a pregnant woman, choked to death when rioters set an Athens bank ablaze during a protest against wage and pension cuts that are the price of a 750 billion euro bailout. This emergency measure was agreed by the European Union to stop the Greek debt crisis from spreading to other EU countries where the euro is the national currency.
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11/05/10: BA UNION CALLS FOR THREE WEEKS OF HOLIDAY STRIKES: British Airways cabin crew are to stage four 5-day strikes hitting the English Bank Holiday, school half-term and the run-up to the World Cup. The lengthy dispute about pay, conditions and the reinstatement of 50 cabin staff suspended during the dispute, cost BA £47 million during 7 days of strikes in March. The company lost millions more due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
12/05/10: NEW MEMBERS OF DAVID CAMERON’S CABINET: Members of David Cameron’s Cabinet are as follows:-
Deputy Prime Minister – Nick Clegg (Lib-Dem)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – George Osborne (Con)
Foreign Secretary – William Hague (Con)
Home Secretary – Theresa May (Con)
Defence Secretary - Liam Fox (Con)
Health Secretary – Andrew Lansley (Con)
Education Secretary – Michael Gove (Con)
Lord Chancellor – Kenneth Clarke (Con)
Business Secretary – Vince Cable (Lib-Dem)
Treasury Minister – David Laws (Lib-Dem)
Work & Pensions Minister – Iain Duncan Smith (Con)
Energy & Climate Change – Chris Huhne (Lib-Dem)
Local Government Minister – Eric Pickles (Con)
Transport Minister – Philip Hammond (Con)
International Development Minister –Andrew Mitchell (Con)
Environment Minister – Caroline Spelman (Con)
Northern Ireland Minister – Owen Paterson (Con)
Scottish Secretary – Danny Alexander (Lib-Dem)
Welsh Secretary – Cheryl Gillan (Con)
Culture & Media Minister – Jeremy Hunt (Con)
Leader of the Lords – Lord Strathclyde (Con)
Minister without Portfolio – Baroness Warsi (Con)
12/05/10: UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURE RISES: The UK’s unemployment rate currently stands at 2.51 million, an increase of 53,000 over the 3 months from January to March.
13/05/10: LIBYAN AIR CRASH: 103 people died in an air crash at Tripoli International Airport in Libya. There was only one survivor, a 9 year-old Dutch boy who suffered leg fractures and had to undergo surgery but was in a stable condition. He was later identified as Ruben Van Assauw. The plane (an Airbus 330 – 200) had left Johannesburg in South Africa bound for the Libyan capital. It crashed just short of the runway and had only entered service in September 2009. The cause of the disaster is unknown.
14/05/10: CAMERON’S COALITION REACHES OUT TO OBAMA: The new coalition government opened a new chapter in relations with Washington by reassuring President Obama that there will be no weakening of Britain’s stance against Iran and offering early support over Afghanistan.
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14/05/10: GORDON BROWN TO REMAIN AS MP: Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown told an audience of students at Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy, Fife that he intended to return to the back benches. Mr Brown increased his majority in the Kirkcaldy constituency he represents at the General Election.
18/05/10: LABOUR’S PARTING SHOT TO THEM NEW TREASURY TEAM: The new Treasury team speeded up moves to reduce the country’s deficit and seized on an ill-judged joke from a departing minister to prepare the country for deep financial cuts. Departing Labour Treasury Minister Liam Byrne left a note on his desk for his successor. It said “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there’s no money. Kind regards – and good luck ! Liam”
18/05/10: LABOUR LEADERSHIP CONTEST: Following Gordon Brown’s resignation as Prime Minister, several MPs have declared their intention to contest for the Labour Party leadership. These include David Miliband (former Secretary for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs), his younger brother Ed (former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change), former Schools’ Minister Ed Balls and Labour MPs John Crudas and Andy Burnham. So far, no female candidates have come forward. However, former Minister for Women & Equality, Harriet Harman, may decide to enter the contest.
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19/05/10: ICELANDIC VOLCANO GROUNDS MORE FLIGHTS: Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to cause flight chaos in Europe with many planes grounded bringing airports to a standstill. So far, the volcano has emitted 250 million cubic metres of ash since it began erupting a month ago.
20/05/10: CHILD DETENTION TO END AT DUNGAVEL: Children will no longer be held at the Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre after the Scottish Government appealed for the practice to end. Immigration Minister Damian Green said families with children detained in Scotland would now be moved to a specialist centre in Bedfordshire. Scottish Education Secretary Mike Russell wrote to new Home Secretary Theresa May outlining his "strong concerns" about the detention of Pakistani woman Sehar Shebaz and her eight-month-old daughter Wanya at Dungavel after they reported to officials in Glasgow on Monday. They are now due to be moved to the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, which has specialist family and child facilities and support services, later.
21/05/10: THE EURO IN DANGER: European ministers prepared for crisis talks to support the single currency (Euro) after money markets were plunged into chaos by panic measures taken in Germany. The country’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, stunned EU capitals by warning that the Euro was in danger thereby triggering fears of a fresh financial meltdown. As a result, the Euro dropped in value to a new low against the dollar while the financial markets plunged by nearly 3% in London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid.
22/05/10: COST OF HOSTING THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES - £525 MILLION: The cost of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow is a massive £525 million. The news came at a bad time for the organisers because of an academic report which dismissed claims about the health and economic benefits of multi-sport events such as the London 2012 Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. Some 54 studies were analysed and little evidence was found that major multi-sport events delivered health or socio-economic benefits – in short, an expensive luxury Glasgow can ill-afford.
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24/05/10: THE NEW GOVERNMENT WIELDS ITS AXE: The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, revealed he will make £6 billion in cuts in an effort to cut the country’s massive £163 billion debt. The brunt of this will fall on the Government’s Business Department headed by Lib-Dem Vincent Cable. He has agreed to find £900 million in savings over the next nine months. Mr Osborne agreed to spare the Scottish Government’s budget for 2010 only signalling that “the age of plenty is over”.
25/05/10: MINISTER’S LETTER TO CONCERNED PARENTS: All parents of children beginning secondary school in Scotland are to be receive a letter from the Education Minister, Mike Russell, in a bid to damped fears over the controversial new Curriculum for Excellence which has come under fire from teachers. Mr Russell revealed in an interview with The Times newspaper that he is to take the last-minute step in an attempt to explain the new curriculum just weeks before it is due to be implemented in Scottish schools.
25/05/10: £1 BILLION IN CUTS AWAITS NEXT HOLYROOD GOVERNMENT: Whoever wins next year’s Holyrood election will have to face the unpleasant task of driving through more than £1 billion of spending cuts in Scotland within the first year of taking power. The grim details became clear when Chancellor George Osborne announced a £6.2 billion package of UK cuts. Scotland’s share of that will see a £332 million reduction in 2011-12.