At a time when British newspapers’ front pages headline London as a city in which almost half its children are below the poverty line and at a time when the President of the USA is finding it difficult to get his Health Reforms through, the following information about the World’s Rich List might seem particularly incongruous, insensitive and downright impossible … (ed)
Mexican telecom giant Carlos Slim has topped Forbes magazine's billionaire's list - the first time since 1994 that an American has not led the rankings. Mr Slim's fortune rose by $18.5bn (£12.4bn) last year to $53.5bn. That beat Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($53bn) into second place, with US investor Warren Buffett ($43bn) third.
In 2009 332 names left the list after a tough year, but the total number of billionaires on this year's list rose from 793 to 1,011, Forbes said.
A spokesman for Carlos Slim refused to confirm the Forbes estimate of the Mexican tycoon's wealth, saying they did not "waste their time" on such calculations, but he welcomed the result.
"We're pleased that he has been considered the best businessman of the world," spokesman Arturo Elias told the BBC. "It means there is trust among the investors."
The year's biggest gainer, Brazilian mining tycoon Eike Batista, broke into the top 10 for the first time. He came in at number seven, having boosting his wealth by $19.5bn to $27bn. There were two Indians at number 4 and 5. These were Mukesh Ambani with $29bn and Lakshmi Mittal with $28.7bn.
France's Bernard Arnault ($27.5bn), the man behind the world's biggest luxury goods firm LVMH, also moved back into the top 10 at number eight, increasing his fortune by $11bn to $27.5bn. Their mounting wealth helped to push Ikea's Ingvar Kamprad and Theo Albrecht - one of the men behind Aldi - out of the top 10. In a sign that the global economy could be seeing signs of improvement, the average net worth of the world's billionaires is now $3.5bn, up $500m from last year.
Furthermore, 97 names made their debut while a record 164 returned to the list in 2010 - including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($4bn), who, aged 25, also regained the title of youngest billionaireThe news was a far cry from 2009 when the financial crisis took its toll on the world's richest people, wiping 332 names off the list and an average of 23% off the wealth of the remaining billionaires.
In the UK, the sixth Duke of Westminster Gerald Grosvenor (45) remained the wealthiest Briton with a net worth of $12bn as he improved his finances by $1bn despite the UK property slump. Pakistan (Mian Muhammad Mansha, number 937) and Finland (Antti Herlin, number 773) added their first billionaires. A total of 234 Asian billionaires were featured in the 2010 list compared with 248 from Europe.
In 2010, New York has 60 ultra-rich residents, Moscow is second with 50 billionaires and London third with 32.
An overgrown piece of wasteland which was derelict for over 20 years has been turned into an urban oasis for allotment lovers.
Thanks to a partnership between Homes for Haringey and the Council’s Park Services, the site at Risley Avenue, North Tottenham, London N17 has now been cleared of large amounts of rubbish and overgrown vegetation. A new water supply and footpath have also been installed.
Cabinet Member for Housing, Environment and Conservation, Cllr John Bevan joined ward councillors Liz Santry and Gideon Bull on Saturday 6 March for the official open day. Homes for Haringey’s Head of Estate Services, Peter Purdie and Sharon Morgan, Head of Tenancy Management North also attended.
To date, up to 28 local residents have been issued with an allotment tenancy agreement and allocated a plot, on which to grow their own fruit and vegetables.
So far 28 of the 30 plots have been allocated and there is already a growing waiting list. Haringey Parks service will carry out inspections of the plots up to four times a year to ensure tenants are maintaining the plots in accordance with their tenancies.
Peter Purdie, Homes for Haringey’s Head of Estate Services, said:
“It is great that this land has been brought back into use and to have the opportunity to meet with such enthusiastic local allotment holders. I am looking forward to coming back in the autumn to see the results of all their hard work.
(Blog Contributor Mary Kalemkerian is one of the new allotment holders. She says most of the allotment holders are Green Party people. ed)
Europe backs Biden's criticism of Jewish settlement plans.
I thought a two-part thing on the creation of a Jewish state starting with the condition of the Jews at the time of the reformation. This is in response to recent calls from British Jewry to the world to stop criticising Zionists as they believe anti-zionism equates to anti semitism - plus the announcement in the past 24hrs that Israel will build 1600 more houses in the West Bank.
This could bring heat on you as the Zionist are extremely well organised and attack any perceived criticism. I believe my piece is not anti-semitic but just outlines aspects the history of the creation of the state of Israel of
which most people seem to be very ignorant.
Stephen O’R
(As I still haven’t received anything from Stephen since he sent me the above para a few days ago… and today is Friday ‘blog’ day, I have summarised an article by Donald Macintyre in Thursday's Independent. I realise it’s a contentious issue and loyalties are divided as the world continues to view the situation between the Jews and Palestinians in Israel with continuing anxiety. ed)
Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, had repeated his attack on Israel's plans to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem. European governments have backed his complaint on the grounds that they undermine trust in the new Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Standing alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Mr Biden emphasised the need to refrain from actions "that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks". He added: "It's incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations, and not to complicate them."
Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, who heads the department which made the announcement on Tuesday, was contrite about the timing, but not the substance of the proposal. "We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the Vice-President during his visit," Mr Yishai told Israel Radio. "I am very sorry for the embarrassment ... Next time we need to take timing into account."
There is no suggestion that the proposal would be abandoned despite an unusually strong statement on Tuesday night from Mr Biden.
He stressed the importance of Jerusalem to both Israelis and Palestinians and said he hoped for an outcome that could realise the aspirations of both sides for the city. He also made clear that the Americans would be actively involved in the forthcoming "proximity talks" and that the Palestinians deserved a "viable and contiguous" Palestinian state – diplomatic code for one which would need large-scale withdrawals of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary ", condemned the move for a proposal for new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo East Jerusalem settlement as a bad decision at the wrong time.”(ed)
The ruined abbey at Saint-Laurent- L’Abbaye, commune du canton de Pouilly, 2k from the small town of Cosne, in the Loire has a long and colourful history. These tales include there being a large tunnel down which riders on horseback could escape their enemies. It was a popular destination as it was on the Pilgrim route, St Jacques de Compostella.
Part of it presently resides in the University Museum of Philadelphia as a rich American, sometime in the 1930s bought the Norman arch from a Paris antique dealer. The enormous stones were numbered and shipped off and reassembled.
It is not just nowadays that people are unbelievably wealthy it’s been going on for a long time. Two years after the arch had been taken away, a large section of the Abbey collapsed. The congregation had only just left. They all had a very narrow escape. Even earlier, much damage occurred, during the Wars of Religion. I believe 1411 was when it suffered a great deal of damage.
Santa Fe could be my sort of town. It has 329 days of sunshine a year, powder skiing within 20 miles and is stuffed full of art galleries and restaurants. What's more it's a town that wears its Western face in a full-on sort of way. Dressing like a cowboy is just fine, if not very much the done thing. A personally fitted and hand-made beaver skin hat can take ten days to make and cost a thousand dollars and be reconditioned by the same outfit in ten years time for a further seven hundred bucks. These are elegant folks. No red-necks here. It's a literary town as well. Last night we went to a free lecture on Billy the Kid. This was delivered by the author of a recent biography andaccompanied by his own rather excellent banjo renditions of the sort of music that would have got Billy's feet a-tappin' just over a hundred years ago and right here. In fact the Kid did one of his many escapes from the Santa Fe jail, now a smashing book shop with bottomless coffee and a log fire. We like it here a lot. Especially as we have valet-parked the van and are holed up in a superior adobe lodging with the best Bloody Marys we have come across in many a year.
The sun is shining. It's freezing cold. Snow on the ground. Forty galleries have open-house tonight with South- West food. Count us in.
Oh yes. A day or so back we were in another lovely bookshop in SilverCity - a pretty little town, if you stayed in its old heart.he owner and a couple of chums were passing the time of day in an old-fashioned kind of way. We asked about Billy the Kid as this had been another of his haunts.
The retort "that's all our town is famous for. A murderous little thug and his time with a prostitute."
The same shop had a second-hand paperback copy of de Toqueville's Democracy in America dangling from a string fixed to the ceiling.
"That's it" said the owner "American Democracy, hanging by a thread".
Sadly, quite so. Text and Photos by Richard French
Pont-Canal-a-Briare, including the chimney for the steam-powered pump. The canal bridge was designed by Eiffel and is stunning and extraordinarily elegant.
As I have mentioned before, I am interested in the subject of whether or not women should wear the burka. As far as religious attire goes (nuns etc) the fashions are slow to change. However, when a fashion (the mini-skirt, ripped jeans, whatever) hits the world – it has its own momentum. It will gradually or quickly fade out and disappear. The importance of an extreme fashion is when it imposes on ‘good taste’- when it reveals too much naked skin.
The Bookseller of Kabul, was published in 2002. When Asne Seierstad arrived in Kabul in November 2001 she had already spent 6 weeks in Afghanistan with the commandos of the Northern Alliance – in the desert of Tajikistani and in the mountains. She followed their offensive against the Taliban. When the Taliban fell, she went to Kabul with the Northern Alliance.
Seierstad has some insight into burka wearing. Here are some excerpts (pages 90 and 91)
‘The burka had been used for many centuries but not by large numbers of the population. It was reintroduced during the reign of Habibullah, from 1901 to 1919. He decreed that the two hundred women in his harem should wear them so as not to entice other men with their pretty faces when they were outside the palace doors. Their veils were of silk ….The burka became a garment of the upper classes, shielding women from the eyes of the masses. During the fifties the uses of the burka was widespread but only among the rich.
… In 1959 the prime minister, Price Daoud, shocked the population, when he and his wife appeared on the national day, she without a burka… he asked ministers to throw away their wives’ burkas. As soon as the next day, in Kabul’s streets, women were walking around in long coats, dark glasses and a little hat.
…In 1961 a law was passed that forbade the use of the burka by civil servants … in the 1970s there was hardly a teacher or secretary in Kabul who did not wear a skirt or a blouse; the men wore suits.
…When the Taliban arrived, all female faces disappeared from Kabul streets.
Wearing the burka is a contentious issue because it involves religion. The Salvation Army has a strict uniform. I think Hare Krishna does too. However the Salvation Army is not armed with lethal weapons (although they call themselves an army) neither are the Hare Krishna – therefore it is not terrifying to disobey their fashion demands.
One seldom hears or reads anything positive about Afghanistan’s leader Hamid Karzai. However on page 149, Seierstad writes
‘… Karzai, the Pashtoon from Kandahar, had himself for a short period supported the Taliban but later used his position as chief of the Popolzai tribe to win over supporters for the fight against them. When the Americans started their bombing campaign, he left on a suicidal motorcycle tour of Taliban strongholds to try bto persuade the oligarchy that the Taliban were finished. It is alleged that they were more convinced by his courage than his arguments. Later he was nearly killed by American friendly fire. At the UN conference in Bonn, drawn together to map out Afghanistan’s future, he was chosen as the country’s new leader….’
Will he succeed in bringing peace to Afghanistan? How many years will it take? How many more men, women and children will be killed? How complex a problem is choosing peace instead of war?
Seierstad has chosen to donate royalties from The Bookseller of Kabul worth $300,000 to the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee which supports educational and health-care initiatives in the country. She affirms that ‘education is the only way to effect change.’
An exhibition at Chateau des Izards, Coulounieix-Chamiers is opening tomorrow with a fine collection of artists’ work (including those I already know – Dottie Bart, Karine Webber, Mana, Rachel Evans, Rita Vickery, Rosalind Lindsay, Sue Wilks and Valerie Blake). The exhibition runs from 6 March until 21 March and is open every day from 2 to 6pm.
International Women's Day was marked for the first time 99 years ago in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland to celebrate the achievements of women all over the world, and the roles they have played in history.
Since these early days, and with support from the United Nations, the occasion has become recognised globally, and a day set aside every year on March 8th as a time to remember and honour the world's women and their contribution to society.
For International Women's Day 2010, we decided on Radio 7 to celebrate women at their funniest - a few weeks ago we asked our listeners to tell us the names of their favourite female comedians, past, present or up-and-coming.
The suggestions were wide-ranging, including amongst many others, Hilda Baker, Hattie Jacques, Beryl Reid, Morwenna Banks and Jo Caulfield.
Most however, named the late Linda Smith.
So, Linda it is - as our comedienne, sadly, from the past. In our series of ‘short’ which we will be broadcasting all next week, you can hear extracts from Linda's work, plus Warren Lakin, her partner of 23 years, sharing some of his touching, personal memories of life with Linda.
Several American comediennes were also suggested, and in the spirit of internationalism, we decided that Whoopi Goldberg was well worth including. In addition to hearing excerpts from Whoopi's interview on Desert Island Discs, you can also hear an interview with Patina Miller, star of the current West End production of Sister Act.
From the nominations for ‘rising stars’, we decided to include two: Laura Solon, who came in to be interviewed by our own Jim Lee, and Miriam Elia, whose successful R7 series is currently being developed for Radio 4 and will be broadcast later this year.
Please note that these ‘shorts’ are not programmes as such, but will be profiled throughout the day, as fillers in between programmes.
If you miss them on Monday, don't worry, as they will be repeated several times throughout the week.
A New Zealand minister has given his support to an atheist campaign asking people to question the existence of God.
Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland, says NZ Bus's decision last month to stop the display of paid adverts showing atheistic slogans is regrettable.
The NZ Atheist Bus Campaign has raised nearly $23,000 from public donations for the ads that read: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Should atheists be allowed to advertise their message on buses? Here is the latest selection of Your Views:
SwissKiwi (Switzerland)
10:47AM Tuesday, 02 Mar 2010
Absolutely, we put up with subtle and overt religious messages all the time.
Plus only good can come out of pointing out to people that it’s actually ok not to have an imaginary friend.
JC (New Zealand)
10:47AM Tuesday, 02 Mar 2010
Another rubbish coming from Glynn Cardy. Here's something non-religious for you Glynn: don't bite the hand that feeds you. It's not just common human decency, because even dogs know this rule. (Another charming Christian. ed)
Sirk (Remuera)
10:47AM Tuesday, 02 Mar 2010
Definitely let the ads be displayed.
Surely all the god fearing/loving true believers out there aren't worried about some posters on the back of a bus if their special friend in the sky is as omniscient, omnipresent and all forgiving as they claim it is.
... NZ Herald
NZ’s National Party
Wrote to John Keys last night, or rather emailed him. Chris said, "you won't get an answer". One bounced back within minutes but only acknowledging the email. This National govt is doing some stupid things and I had to let him know. One of the latest cost-cutting attempts is to cut the free hour of home help to the elderly needy who are staying in their homes and thus saving the govt stacks. They have cut it to half-an-hour and the pay of the caregivers (who of course aren't going as it’s not worth it for them).
Can you understand a govt who does such a miserly deed? Then of course it’s talking of increasing gst to 15% and as half of N.Zer's can't live on what they earn, that's another ridiculous move. Then they are going to cut taxes but I’s the wealthy who will benefit and the 50% who can barely make it will get another few dollars a week to be eaten up by the increased gst.
I think you are probably better off in France. The other disturbing stat is that 40% of young Maori between 16 and 24 are jobless. That's a bit scary. And the Nat party is talking of cutting benefits and dole to encourage people to get jobs!!!!!!!
This week has been largely depressing but now with my middle ear infection apparently beaten by modern pharmacology and after a good night’s sleep sanity is now dawning.
The New South Wales labor government has released its 14th transport plan in 15 years. This required cancelling the 14th plan that necessitates the compensating all the people and businesses that had been involved. $300+ million dollars is the announced cost of this change-of-mind by the labor party. The American Premier, Kristina Kenally, (Labor has a tradition of allowing women in the top job just before they get thrown out) is getting a lot of press. This week we have a glossy photo of her on the front of The Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘feel good/lifes good’ magazine Sydney Magazine. There she sits doled up to the nines in a body-hugging top and skirt , smiling seductively at the camera whilst coyly rest her right arm on an antique side-table, her fingers gently touching her lips.
Also I listened to a radio documentary (Background Briefing on ABC Radio National Feb 24 - download the podcast) on the state of play in the mosquito world. With cheap air-travel and global warming the spread of Malaria, dengue fever, RossRiver fever is a reality. However the new fear is that Yellow Fever is now coming. Mosquitoes are everywhere and with the new fashion for rainforest gardens in cities such as Brisbane and Sydney, mosquito numbers are increasing. The possibility of the spread of mosquito born disease is now reckoned to be bigger than the threat of global warming.
Will James Cameron now make a film about a human commando who is turned into a mosquito in order to destroy them by spreading a version of the aids virus thus saving yet another world…
Being depressed is time consuming and frankly depressing. Below is a depressing short story about the end of the world.
The Long Road is shorter than you think.
A cooling acid rain falls on the silent city.
Gerald had been sitting by his bedroom window all night. Over and over again he heard her. " I'm completely serious, " she said. There was a movement below. A horse had just entered the garden. He could just make out the sound of its hooves on the terracotta tiles. The small lawn was marked by the tracks of the truck that had roared in through the gate yesterday. He had watched with disbelief as the scene below him played out. The men carried all of the furniture out of the house. The truck made it through the gate on its entry but as it exited it ripped the left-hand gate from its post. It was through this gap that the horse had made its way.
Just before the power failed yesterday, the radio had been reporting on yet another sinking of a Philippines ferry and the last sentence which floated out of the now lifeless wireless was 'All the passengers carried lifebelts ' and now, like sampled music, this statement and Gabrielle's words kept alternating inside the echo chamber that was now his head. It seem highly unlikely to Gerald that all the passengers on a Philippines ferry would have had lifebelts, but the tone and timbre of the news reader's voice, like Gabrielle's statement, implied that 'he' was completely serious.
Maybe it was true; maybe, finally, the Philippine people had got it sorted. The Eritreans had shown great progress in their battle to rebuild, after years of destruction. The images of men and women selflessly reconstructing the worn railroads through the dry, ancient land had appeared only weeks ago.
Aloneness was now like breath to him; it's suffocation being preferable to that, which was now passing for air. The unreality of the day kept dawning on him, over and over again, like a loop of silent film. Finally the sun peeped through a brief break in the grey poisonous sky. Its momentary warmth gave him the impetus to rise from his window seat, pick up his last bottle of water and the iPod. Opening the door he stepped outside into the sound of his own footsteps on the tiled floor. The lift, caged in its steel net frame, was stopped forever at his floor and as he descended the staircase he took one final look back at his door. Number thirteen. One and three are odd numbers. One, numero uno, was the first, something to be desired, or even fought for, and three was regarded in numerology as auspicious, or even lucky, but together they were made a number feared by most. An odd number indeed. Fitting. It was an odd day. An odd time. Indeed odd was now norm.
At least his battery held a charge and with Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan comforting him with their song "The Long Road"; he began his journey to who knows where. He did not know it, but he would be dead before they got to the bit “I have wished for so long, how I wish for you today” .
When I was a child in the forties and fifties my Granny’s larder was a magical place. Positioned in the cosy kitchen of her house it was my favourite corner. The ‘house’ was a ground floor tenement flat and one of the ‘posher’ type found in the city. Testament to that were the bell-ring handles in the ‘sitting-room’ , and the alcove in the kitchen for a maid’s bed. The bathroom and front garden were other symbols of being ‘comfortably off’.
The larder was always full – even throughout the war years, reflecting Granny’s excellent home management skills, learned at an early age as the eldest daughter in a large family. An expert at managing the domestic budget, she could bargain down any shopkeeper. Local and up-town shop-keepers both hated and respected her. She was vain and self-opinionated when it came to comparing her house and self-designed outfits to those of others. She never passed a mirror without a sideways smile at herself. However, she could be forgiven for her vanities and occasional nagging tongue, when she worked her spells on the Larder’s contents to conjure up mouth-watering meals.
If the kitchen was the heart of the house, the larder was the inner core reflecting all the assets and skills of a proud housewife. A walk-in wee room with wide deep shelves upon which was ranged all provisions needed to maintain a well-fed family and any and all the visitors who might call. Everything had its own special position and the arrangement of products in their placings did not change over many years. Some change was brought about by the advent of the refrigerator which freed up space on shelves for increasing new products on the market but generally all remained solidly in situ as the decades passed.
My favourite shelf was the bottom one holding the ‘tins’ which I was able to reach by 1950 when I was six. Big cakes in one tin – with interesting names like ‘Albert’ and ‘Victoria’; wee ones in another – sometimes ‘Fairies’ or ‘Angels’. Biscuits were bedded out as fitted their ‘status’ and there were several tins for these. Plain ‘crackers’ for cheese ; plain for buttering or squeezing jam on - ‘digestive’ or ‘tea’. Fancy biscuits ranged from those basic- like ‘ packets of ‘Nice’ (did we ever pronounce that correctly?) Those of chocolate were separately ‘tinned’; paper- wrapped ones such as Blue Riband or Tunnocks were counted in case they proved too much of a temptation. The tins were interesting having been collected from local shops, mostly square with labels showing original contents.
The Sweetie tins were the best. Grandpa’s Russian toffees and ‘Flat Twenties’, Granny’s iced caramels and other ‘mixtures’. Chocolate and toffee bars had a separate tin as did the home-made tablet - always rationed out until the next batch was made.
On the larder floor were the bottles of Irn-Bru, American Cream Soda and occasionally orangeade or a beer or two – in returnable bottles (for ‘thruppence’!)
The shelf-free wall held a ‘press’ – a small cupboard with a wire mesh door for ventilation. This held dairy produce, fresh and cold meats and bought pies.
In itself, the Larder was a storybook where each item had a tale of its own. Most tales intertwined with the family’s experiences of the product.
There was the American Cream Soda. This story involved a walk, an ice-cream, a sweetie shop. Someone would go to R.S.McColls for a block of ice-cream. McColl’s shops were always on a corner with a round display window. The ice-cream would be sliced into large tumblers, then the soda was poured in, frothing and fizzing. The mixture would be sucked through a straw and spooned out in foamy lumps. A real ‘iced drink’ to remember.
The subject of mutton pies, as sometimes stored in the ‘Press’, could fill several chapters. Although the name, Tunnocks, often featured in the contents of the tins and summons up pictures of Teacakes and Caramel biscuits (Scottish icons in themselves) the Uddingston company also produced scotch pies in their early days as the wee poem advert of 1912 on their paper bags testified. Granny was not a mutton pie lover but she did allow that Tunnocks were the best tasting ones in her opinion.
Tunnocks Advert 1912
Fair are the flowers of summer
And fair are the sapphire skies
But dearer to the epicure
Are Tunnock’s Mutton Pies.
Sweet is the moon at evening calm
When soft the Zephyr sighs
But sweeter to the traveller lone
Are Tunnock’s Mutton Pies
If you would be like Greeks of old
In philosophic quest
Get Tunnock’s mutton pies each day
For they are still the best.
A friend sent me a copy of this a few years ago. I used it to respond to the memory of Iain Jordan, an old friend, who had recently died. His favourite meal was a ‘wee plate of broth, two wee scotch pies, and a wee plate of rice pudding’.
To Iain
I had a friend liked wee scotch pies
Nae matter whae supplier
He’s deid noo, but his word lives on
On earth and on plane higher
St Peter at the pearly gates
Stopped Iain at the portals
Demanded o’ him recipes
O’ Ambrosia et by mortals.
Said Iain ‘Weel – Ambrosia
I sup frae oot a tin
It follows wee scotch mutton pies
Wi Scotch broth tae begin’
And aye I mind on Tunnocks
They nearly were the best
But the yins I like are Lawsons
A mite easier tae digest.
So tell a’ they pale angels
As they flit aboot the skies
Tae get some colour in their cheeks
Eat wee scotch mutton pies’
Over years memories like those of ‘wee scotch mutton pies’ become interwoven and enriched by experiences. Sad, happy, funny, they are essential ingredients in our lives – like items in Granny’s larder, where the essence of a Glasgow life-style filled the air and still wafts back through time.
Driving along the beautiful Loire valley after a walk alongside the stunning Pont-Canal-a Briare, we accidentally came across Bonny-sur-Loire and these Nuclear Power station cooling towers (stuck incongruously behind some houses).
