Interesting News Of The Week 25/06/2012

Nearly missed this week due to my internet being down, but I'm here and it's a new week so here's a new post, enjoy.

Bishop quits over Bikini Snaps

This story is about religion or at least a lead figure from it, a bishop, and some of the sins hes commited (naughty bishop).

Here's the story.

The Pope has recently accepted the resignation of an Argentine bishop named Fernando Bargallo after the publication of pictures showing him embracing a woman on a Mexican beach.

The bishop who is 57, was photographed in the sea, hugging a woman in a bikini, awkward.

He initially said she was a childhood friend, but later admitted to having had "amorous ties" with her, (in other words some form of a realationship with her).

So wait that's a lying bishop, that's not a very good, seeing as he's supposed to be a religious role model.

The so called scandal happened last week, when an Argentine television station broadcasted pictures of Monsignor Bargallo on holiday at a beach resort in Mexico in the company of the woman in the bikini.

So if she is just a childhood frriend then why in one of the pictures is he is seen half-submerged in the water, embracing the woman in her bikini? Seems suspicious to me.

Shortly after the pictures were published, Monsignor Bargallo gave a public statement saying that the woman was a childhood friend, whom he had known all of his life, likely story there.

He said the situation in which he had been photographed was "imprudent, as it could lead people to jump to the wrong conclusion", big words there bishop.

He asked his flock (flock? wait I didnt know he was a bird) to forgive him for "the ambiguity of the pictures" (yet again more big words) and urged them to view the photos "in the context of a long friendship", yeah right.

But later that same week, Monsignor Bargallo convened the priests of his diocese and told them he had had "amorous ties" with the woman and would resign, so in oter words he had lied all along.

It is said he would be replaced by Monsignor Alcides Jorge Pedro Casaretto (I have no idea who that is, sorry).

No video for this so here's a picture of the bishop provided by the BBC (kinda scary if you ask me):

 

Murder escapes from London jail

Second story, this week it's taken place in the UK, in London in fact, and an escapee from jail.

Here's the story.

Convicted murderer John Massey, has escaped from Pentonville prison in north London, you may be thinking how? Explosives like in the movies?

Nope he simply climbed the wall using a makeshift rope, shows quite how good the security must be.

Prison sources say Massey who is 64, was not spotted in time, never mind the fact he wasn't spotted, I want to know how a 64 year old can escape by climbing a wall, must of done some serious work outs.

He was or should be serving life for a 1975 pub murder and was reported missing at 18:30 BST on Wednesday, Police advice he should not be approached.

The Ministry of Justice have also launched an investigation into the escape.

Massey is one of the UK's longest-serving prisoners and was convicted of shooting a man with a sawn-off shotgun in Hackney.

Now the escape must be deeply embarrassing for the prison authorities and will inevitably raise questions about the prisons security.

It is highly unusual for inmates to escape from within the confines of a closed prison such as Pentonville, but in this case, it's happened.

There have been only three such escapes in the past three years in England and Wales, so one a year? That sounds good.

Police want anyone who spots Massey to call 999 imediately.

Bit of background information for you all.

Massey was released on parole in June 2007 after spending the previous 18 months in an open prison in Derbyshire and ordered to live in a bail hostel in Streatham, south London.

But he broke his curfew after a few months to go and live with his dying father and, after a number of days, was recalled to prison, in my opinion that's a bit bad really.

He was arrested 10 months later and taken to Pentonville. all before his escape on Wednesday.

Up to 1,250 category B and C male prisoners, not the most serious category A offenders, are housed at Pentonville.

Category B prisoners are defined as those "for whom the very highest conditions of security are not necessary but for whom escape must be made very difficult".

Category C prisoners are defined as those "who cannot be trusted in open conditions, but who do not have the resources and will to make a determined escape attempt.".

In March 2009, convicted arsonist Julien Chautard spent minutes inside Pentonville before he escaped by clinging to the underside of the security van he had arrived in.

He later handed himself in to police.

So there has been more than one atempt at escaping the prision, not looking too good for Pentonville is it.

No video again, getting disapointing now, so here's two pictures rather than one, the first of Pentonville and the second of John Massey:

Summary of the week

So this week we have bishop's showing their darker sides and murders escaping from "High Security" jails by going wall climbing.

Interesting News Of The Week 18/06/2012

I'm on time this week, so lets get straight into it.
Here's the stories.

Louise Mensch launches rival to Twitter

The first story this week is a link between politics (a politician) and social networking.

Here's a summary of the story in over 140 and 180 words.

Conservative MP Louise Mensch has launched a microblogging site to rival Twitter.

Ms Mensch is a Twitter user with almost 60,000 followers but said she has grown "frustrated" with it.

Yeah, that's right, as you can see from the title a politician has started her own site, to rival Twitter, this could be fun too see how her site goes.
She's named her new site, Menshn (Linked for you to have a look), she aims to keep conversations on topic and allows 180 character posts which is 40 more than Twitter, big difference there, that's more hashtags people.

She also shares the site, she jointly owns it with ex-Labour digital adviser Luke Bozier, the thing is though it's only available in the US but aims to launch in the UK before the London Olympics, which could be a great advantage.

Discussion on Menshn has initially been restricted to the US election, so at the moment it appears to be more of a political site, but Ms Mensch says it will expand to reflect users' interests.

When new members join they gain 100 randomly selected subscribers, equivalent to Twitter followers, so instead of waiting for people to follow you, you get 100 straight away, nice.
Mr Bozier said: "With all the great political forums out there, we noticed that there was no place to talk about politics live.", so it is for politics, I'm getting confused now, seems like a bit of a let down.

She described her site as "A permanent place to go online to talk about the things you're most interested in.", where as Twitter users can organise discussions through the use of hashtags or searching by keyword and choose whose Tweets they read by following or unfollowing other users.

The new site has had a largely hostile reaction from Twitter users so far, with some accusing Ms Mensch of vanity and predicting that the site will flop, which could be expected if she keeps the site to politics, but we will see.

The Corby MP has insisted the site's name is not a pun on her surname, as it is spelt differently, and is, rather, a play on the word "mention", if I'm honest I'm not quite sure if I believe that or not, but it's possible.
Users who type "menschn.com" into web browsers are currently being redirected to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament site, whoops, not exactly what they were looking for.

Ms Mensch, who was a "chick lit" novelist before becoming an MP in 2010, said she hopes the site would attract Twitter users who find the site "frustrating", I wonder how many people besides herself actually find Twitter frustrating.

There's no video for this story so here a picture promoting the site:

New O-level-style exams could replace GCSEs

I've selected this as my second story this week as it applies to not only me but anyone else who has or is taking their GCSE's, so in a way this could become a worldwide story.

In simple terms this story is about the reconstruction or changing of the educational system as we know it.

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove plans to scrap GCSEs for England and return to O-level style exams, so back to the good old days.

It's been said that Mr Gove believes GCSEs "have gone beyond the point of rescue", does that mean they are now pointless?

The proposed changes have been planned to be brought in for pupils from autumn 2014, so for anyone who is currently in year 8 or year 2 of secondary school (depending on the school layout), would see to the biggest change to the exams system for a generation.

Less academic pupils would sit a different "more straightforward" exam, like the old CSE's, well at least they are accounting for the less fortunate of us.
Labour says Mr Gove must explain his changes to teachers and pupils, so he'd have to have one on one meetings with all teachers and then group ones for each set of students all over the country, that could be fun.

GCSEs replaced O-levels and CSEs in the mid-1980s.
Under that system, the more academic (smarter) teenagers took O-levels while others took CSEs (Certificates of Secondary Education).
Now a similar system could return, although the names of the new exams are yet to be decided.

There was a leak to the daily mail just as tens of thousands of teenagers finish their GCSE and A-level exams, meaning that those exams may not be worth as much as the news ones.
As control of education in the UK is devolved, Mr Gove's plans are for England only (at the moment), It will be up to Wales and Northern Ireland to decide whether to follow suit.
In Scotland, pupils take Standard Grades and Highers rather than GCSEs and A-levels, so they would probably not be affected.

The plan is for students to begin studying what the leaked document says will be "tougher" O-level style exams in English, maths and the sciences (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) from September 2014 they would take their exams in 2016, two years later due to students having to stay in education till they are 18.

So, pupils starting their GCSE courses in September 2013 could be the last to take them, and also probably the last to be effected.

Already, the new academy schools (like my secondary school has just become), which are state-funded but semi-independent, do not have to follow the national curriculum.

It is also said the government plans to scrap the traditional benchmark on which secondary schools in England are measured, that being the requirement for pupils to get five good GCSEs (grades A* to C) including maths and English.

Schools would continue to be measured on the government's new benchmark, known as "The English Baccalaureate", which counts how many pupils in a school have good GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, geography, history and a foreign language.
Well I'll tell you what, I'm glad I don't have to do all that.

Their isn't actually a video for this story but here's a video of Mr Gove's speech on ICT and the national curriculum:

Summary of the week

So this week we've got politics and politicians taking the social networking by storm (not) and the national curriculum being changed dramatically, bye bye GCSE's.


Politics blog sites

Interesting News Of The Week 11/06/2012

Did you miss me?
Yes I know, I missed another week last Thursday and I am truly sorry, but I was spending the week on holiday with my amazing girlfriend Gemma Oliver, so In a way I am sorry, but in others I'm not.

Anyway, lets get on with this weeks stories.

Stone Roses gig ends in confusion

The first story this week is on a slightly musical note and is about the band "Stone Roses" and their apparently disappointing gig in Amsterdam.

Fans were said to have been left confused after the band failed to play an encore at their gig in Amsterdam on Tuesday, this was reported to have taken place because the drummer of the band Reni had left the venue and the band.

Singer Ian Brown appeared on stage alone after the performance of their last song at the Heineken Music Hall, to tell the crowd the gig was over, standing in front of all his fans, just to disappoint them, that takes guts.

Fans had expected to hear the song I Am The Resurrection, which the band had closed their show with in Spain last Friday but were left unhappy and disappointed.
Brown reported to have said said: "I'm not joking, the drummer's gone home."

Many of the fans then booed the announcement, which was expected really, but according to journalist Peter Shuttleworth, who was at the concert:
"Ian just said something like 'Come on, get all your negative vibes out on me. I can take it'," However, Shuttleworth claims the jeers were "short-lived" and fans were "more bemused than disappointed".

It was also said that Reni (who's real name Alan Wren, weird, guess his stage name comes from his last name) had stormed off stage and that he and guitarist John Squire had hugged as they left, maybe there's been a band fall out.

The band seemed to have planned to play an encore, telling fans: "If you want us to come back, we're going up four storeys, so you have to cheer loud", what literally? See you up there then.

The Stone Roses started off their first tour in 16 years in Barcelona last weekend.
They have a summer of dates planned, including three homecoming shows in Manchester's Heaton Park at the end of June, but I guess we shall all now need to wait and see if these dates come through.

Fans have dismissed speculation that the gig in Holland signals problems for the rest of the tour, calling the show "quality" and the crowd "enthusiastic".
Several reports quote an insider who suggested there had been a problem with the drum kit, but this has not been confirmed, so it could be a cover up, or the truth, who knows.

Paul Roberts was at the gig and emailed BBC 6 Music: "At one point I saw Reni waving his arms wildly at the stage mixer, obviously not happy with something.", so maybe there was some drum kit problems after all.

Another person at the scene, Matt Morris, claimed Brown's announcement "was followed by a volley of beer thrown at the stage and booing",

Remaining dates on the Stone Roses tour are expected to go ahead as planned, with the band due on stage in Sweden on Thursday, so we shall await further news on this event.

There is no video for this story so here's a lovely black and whit picture of the band:

Westlife singer declared bankrupt

The second news story this week has kept to the musical theme of the first story.

This story is about Westlife singer Shane Filan and his declaration of bankruptcy in the UK.

Westlife (an Irish band) have sold millions of records over their time in the music industry but Filan has suffered enormous losses in his country's property crash.
In a statement, he said he had "worked long and hard" to tackle his debts and was devastated that his problems have come to this conclusion, must be really gutting.

The pop star filed for bankruptcy in the UK instead of back in Ireland, probably to avoid embarrassment really.

Filan owns a property company called Shafin Developments Limited, with his brother Finbarr.
It was established in 2004 and had been involved in developments in Counties Leitrim and Sligo in the west of Ireland, their way of helping improve their home, Ireland.
Last month, the company was placed in receivership.

The singer was declared bankrupt at Kingston-upon-Thames County Court and his name has been placed on the UK insolvency register, must be fun in that group.

Ireland has agreed to liberalise its bankruptcy regime as one of the conditions of its EU/ IMF bailout, meaning it will be easier to list bankruptcy in the country (that's partly why Filan came to the UK).
However the country's banks are concerned that the reforms could lead to a flood of mortgage defaults as ordinary homeowners use bankruptcy to escape from negative equity, an easy way out for homeowners in other words.

Anyway back to Westlife and Filan, Westlife is said to be one of the most successful boy bands of the last decade, selling more than 44m records, which is confusing to think about, because if the band is making so much money, why had Filan gone bankrupt?
I smell the "fee's" of the label company of the band.

It also looks like Filan isn't going to be able to make enough money to bring himself out of bankruptcy because last October, Westlife announced they were splitting up.
The band is currently in the middle of a farewell tour and continues to fill major concert venues, bye bye Westlife.

There's no news coverage of this news story either, but instead of leaving you without a video this week I've selected a melody video containing various songs from Westlife, I thought it may be appropriate:

Summary for this week

So this week we have band problems, upset drummers, bad sound systems, break ups and finally a showing of the harsh reality of our world from Westlife and bankruptcy (could be seen as karma too).

Bonus Info
Very soon their will be a new page added to this blog and a brand new post based around it, the only clue I will give you for now is its to do with camera's (those of you who know me will know what this means).