Political News or Comments

Our key strengths
Our business characteristics include a number of key strengths
Integrated security solutions
G4S is able to design and manage security solutions that bring together its capabilities in project management, risk consultancy, secure facilities services, physical security, intelligent systems and high quality security-trained personnel to address the security challenges faced by a broad range of customers around the world.
Cash solutions expertise
Understanding and managing cash cycles is one of the group’s core skills. Central banks, commercial banks and retailers outsource their cash management to G4S as the group has the capability and experience to drive substantial efficiencies in the system, whilst achieving maximum return for its customers over the longer term.
Government partnerships
Government outsourcing is a strong, long-term source of growth as public sector spending remains under pressure and governments turn to the private sector to provide a number of outsourced services. Government contracts, which represented approximately 27% of group revenues for the year ended 31 December 2011, tend to be long-term strategic partnerships, with recurring revenues.
Strong developing markets presence
G4S’s global presence, market share and experience of working in developing markets constitute key strengths. Relatively high levels of GDP growth in certain developing markets, increasing demand for security services and G4S’s ability to export its experience from its operations in more developed markets drive positive revenue and margin development for the group in developing markets.
Solutions approach
Each individual area of the business is a driver of value for the group, however it is when they come together that they truly make a difference. Exporting G4S’s government expertise to new countries, leveraging its cash solutions model across developing markets and using its global risk management and security capabilities to protect some of the world’s best known brands across international markets, drive even greater value for the group.

The depth of the crisis over G4S's Olympic security preparations became increasingly clear on Thursday as recruits revealed details of a "totally chaotic" selection process and police joined the military in bracing themselves to fill the void left by the private security contractor.

Guards told how, with 14 days to go until the Olympics opening ceremony, they had received no schedules, uniforms or training on x-ray machines. Others said they had been allocated to venues hundreds of miles from where they lived, been sent rotas intended for other employees, and offered shifts after they had failed G4S's own vetting.

The West Midlands Police Federation reported that its officers were being prepared to guard the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, which will host the football tournament, amid concerns G4S would not be able to cover the security requirements.

"We have to find officers until the army arrives and we don't know where we are going to find them from," said Chris Jones, secretary of the federation.

G4S has got a £284m contract to provide 13,700 guards, but only has 4,000 in place. It says a further 9,000 are in the pipeline.

G4S sent an urgent request on Thursday to retired police asking them to help. A memo to the National Association of Retired Police Officers said: "G4S Policing Solutions are currently and urgently recruiting for extra support for the Olympics. These are immediate starts with this Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday available. We require ex-police officers ideally with some level of security clearance and with a Security Industry Association [accreditation], however neither is compulsory."

Robert Brown, a former police sergeant, told the Guardian that he pulled out of the recruitment process for the Games after seeing it close at hand.

He said: "They were trying to process hundreds of people and we had to fill out endless forms. It was totally chaotic and it was obvious to me that this was being done too quickly and too late."

Another G4S trainee, an ex-policeman, described the process as "an utter farce".

He added: "There were people who couldn't spell their own name. The staff were having to help them. Most people hadn't filled in their application forms correctly. Some didn't know what references were and others said they didn't have anyone who could act as a referee. The G4S people were having to prompt them, saying things like "what about your uncle?"

Tim Steward, a former prison officer, said he was recruited by G4S in March as a team leader but said he would not be working at the Games because of a series of blunders.Steward said he provided documentation for vetting but G4S had said it did not have the information on record and so closed his file. The security firm then offered him a training session at short notice, which he could not attend, but it did not offer an alternative.

A recruit who was interviewed in March and completed training last month, said: "There are people like me that are vetted and trained in security and would be happy to work, but can't. Some of the classes were of around 200 in size with only two trainers accommodating the training for a class of this size.

"I am yet to hear from G4S regarding my screening, accreditation, uniform or even a rough start date. I know many people also who will be commencing work on 27 July who have had absolutely no scheduled on-site training. They are simply being chucked into their role on x-ray machines, public screening areas and even athlete screening areas."

Another guard who has been trained as an x-ray operator, complained that he was unable to get through to G4S to find out when and where he was meant to be working, and was once left on hold on the phone for 38 minutes.

One student applicant said he had already spent £650 on travel and hotel bills to attend training and was now worried that, because he had not received any accreditation or rota from G4S, he might not be given the shifts that would enable him to cover those costs. He said he had expected to earn about £2,000 over the period of the Games.

G4S's own Facebook page for new recruits is littered with similar complaints.

"They've placed me in Manchester and I want to work in London," wrote Glenn Roseman. "Some idiot has changed my location, I'm never going to get any work now."

Christian Smith complained: "I did the training course, passed, and got my own security industry association licence, only to fail G4S vetting. Two days after I got their letter, they rang me, and asked me what days I could work."

Rickie Hill reported that he had been sent someone else's schedule.

Billy Edmunds said that he had been told on the telephone that he was to work four day shifts at the ExCel Centre, only to find when he checked the system later that he had been allocated three night shifts at a different location which he could not attend. "I give up," he said. "Thanks for wasting my time for eight months G4S."

The Guardian put the allegations to G4S. A spokesman for the company responded: "We are unable to respond to the specific questions you raise because to do so would involve pulling staff, who are working hard to mobilise the 2012 workforce, off the work they are doing.

"We will enquire into the claims that are made and we take very seriously any allegation of poor standards on our part."

Fresh Anaheim riots: Rage over police shootings, cops fire pepper pellets (PHOTOS)

Tasers have killed at least 500 Americans

Grounded! Stealth Fighter Fleet KO’d by Oxygen Woes

US culture moulds natural born killers: US scholar

As the euro zone debt crisis deepens and austerity measures take their toll across Europe, the number of young children and babies abandoned across the region has increased, according to local charities.

The rise in the abandonment of infants across Europe is most visible in the spread of “baby hatches” or “boxes” across Europe, where unwanted infants are left anonymously.

The phenomenon was previously more prevalent among immigrants, but it is becoming more widespread among financially desperate members of the local population.

The hatches are sensor-activated so when a baby is placed, an alarm is activated and a carer comes to collect the child. Despite the practice being widely viewed as contravening the 1953 European Convention on Human Rights, of the 27 EU member countries, 11 countries still have "baby hatches" in operation, including Germany, Italy and Portugal.

In those countries where hatches are illegal, the number of infants abandoned in hospitals, clinics and churches has also risen, raising concerns among European charities, the UN and the European Commission that austerity measures and increasing social deprivation are the catalyst for the rise in child abandonment.

According to SOS Villages, a European charity that attempts to help families in financial hardship before abandonment occurs, in the last year alone 1,200 children in Greece and 750 in Italy have been abandoned. That is almost double the 400 children abandoned in Italy a year ago, and up from 114 children abandoned in Greece in 2003.

With the cost of raising children estimated to be 20-30 percent of an average household budget (per child) in Europe, more families are now struggling to cope with the costs.

The charity SOS Villages has reported that adoption rates in Greece and Italy have risen by 20 percent in the last two years, a sharp rise in line with the deterioration of the economy.

George Protopapas, National Director of the charity’s Greek division said that parents already struggling with keeping a roof over their heads are now barely managing to keep their children clothed and fed, if at all.

Protopapas cited the example of a four-year old child left at a nursery by her mother with a note that read: “I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry."

According to Protopapas, the charity does not have exact figures for economic orphans, but over the next few years he expects “there will be more cases like this.”

“In the past year, SOS Greece has had a 150 percent increase in applications for all kinds of support, mainly [for] financial reasons, and 87 percent of applicants are Greeks,” Protopapas said.

Data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority shows that 27.7 percent of Greeks are now facing penury.

“For the moment most cases come from [the] low and poor class. Greek middle-class families are affected by the crisis but I believe they will be the victims in the coming two years. They will probably need serious support to survive,” Protopapas said.

His colleague, Stergios Sifnios, Director of Social Work in SOS Villages, told CNBC that in his 30 years of working for the charity he had not seen a societal crisis similar to this, prompting him to believe that things can only get worse.

“We are really afraid that in the future we will have a big number of families that cannot manage to keep their own children because of these problems. We are trying to be ready for this,” he said, but the government must keep on funding social welfare services.”

“[The government must] stop downgrading services in the name of the austerity measures.”

The phenomenon has not been lost on policy makers at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. According to an EC report, 116 million people — and 20.5 percent of children — are at risk of poverty in the EU in 2012.

CNBC contacted the Commission’s office for Social Affairs but policy makers were unavailable for comment. An EU-funded program, "Daphne", was commissioned to assess which children were most at risk, and the economic instability of a household was cited by the report as a major factor in the increase of child abandonment.

“Many factors contribute to children being separated from their families. Research shows that the primary factors are everyday conditions e.g., poverty, unemployed parents, low or lack of income, a lack of material resources, and poor living conditions.”

According to Professor Kevin Browne of the Institute of Work, Health & Organizations at Nottingham University and one of the authors of the Daphne report, as economic conditions in Europe deteriorate, the human rights of Europe’s children are at risk.

“Infants and young children are those most at risk of being abandoned and the rates of child abandonment within the EU are concerning, especially in the current economic climate.”

“Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, states that every child has 'the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents,' he said.

“When a child is abandoned, this right is violated", he said.

Who does William Hague speak for when he pledges this country’s support for the Syrian rebels?
My correspondents in Syria loathe these Islamist gangsters and are enraged by the Western media’s uncritical endorsement of them – the oxygen that keeps them going.
The most striking story of the week from Syria was the riveting account by British photographer John Cantlie of how he was kidnapped and nearly murdered in Syria by Islamist fanatics.
The worst and most murderous were British subjects from South London.
But because this account does not fit the ludicrous conventional wisdom that the Syrian rebels are heroes, it has not been followed up.

UN panel concludes war crimes perpetrated in Syria

GENEVA (AP) — The killings took place under a late spring sun. The squads poured into the Syrian village of Houla on foot and in vehicles: cars, minivans and pickups mounted with machine guns.

At the end, more than 100 people were dead — nearly half of them children — in what the United Nations described for the first time Wednesday as a war crime perpetrated by the government forces and shabiha militia backing the regime of President Bashar Assad.
People who tried to remove the bodies were shot at. No one who'd survived the massacre had fled to a nearby national hospital that was accessible on foot — they knew the army had occupied it for months. And when U.N. observers arrived the next day to check on the scene, they found government troops in control.

In a highly anticipated report that spells out clear responsibility for attacks on civilians, an independent commission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council laid the groundwork for possible prosecutions in international courts against the Syrian leader and other senior government officials.

The panel's report also contained an ominous warning that Syria's civil war was moving in "brutal" directions on all fronts as Assad's forces step up air assaults and anti-government armed groups seek stronger firepower to fight back.

It found that the regime and pro-government shabiha militia were directly responsible for the killing of more than 100 civilians in Houla in late May. The Syrian government had reported that the Syrian Army was defending itself at Houla from an attack by "terrorists," and said some of its soldiers were killed in the clashes.

But the U.N. panel's report to the 47-nation Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva, says it determined that the Houla killings and numerous other murders, unlawful killings, acts of torture, rape and other sexual violence and indiscriminate attacks on civilians were carried out "pursuant to state policy pointing to the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the government."

According to the final 102-page report to the council, in one village site where around 60 people were killed, the commission found through satellite imagery and corroborated accounts that "the movement of vehicles or weapons, as well as the size of the group, would have been easily detectable by government forces," but the place was inaccessible for any "sizeable" anti-government armed group.

It says 40 separate interviews were all "consistent in their portrayal of the events and their description of the perpetrators as government forces and shabiha." The panel also concluded that anti-government armed groups committed war crimes, including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, but said that "these violations and abuses were not of the same gravity, frequency and scale" as those carried out by government forces and the shabiha militia.

A confidential list of people and armed units believed to be responsible for crimes against humanity, breaches of international humanitarian law and gross human rights violations will be submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in September.

In its use of the term "war crimes" to describe its findings, the panel relies on an assessment of Syria by the International Committee of the Red Cross in mid-July. The Geneva-based ICRC, which oversees the Geneva Conventions known as the rules of war, said it now considers the 17-month-old conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.

That assessment was an important reference for the panel and for all others trying to determine how much and what type of force can be used. It forms the basis for war crimes prosecutions, especially if civilians are attacked or detained enemies are abused or killed. Until then, everything had to be considered "a violation or an abuse," said Karen Koning AbuZayd, one of the panel members.

"The international community must come to some kind of consensus to stop the violence in the first place and then eventually hold people accountable for it," AbuZayd, a U.S. citizen and former head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees, told The Associated Press.

Syria had previously won her respect, she said, because of the excellent care it provided to Palestinian refugees during her past decade of work there. "For me, everything is pretty shocking. For these things to be happening in Syria ... It's pretty painful, I must say, to see what is happening to the country and how all sides are behaving, really," she added.

The panel's report was issued just hours after a bomb exploded in Syria's capital, Damascus, outside a hotel where U.N. observers are staying. The bomb was attached to a fuel truck and wounded at least three people, Syrian state TV reported. Activists also reported fighting near the government headquarters and the Iranian Embassy, both in Damascus, along with clashes in different parts of Syria.

The panel was appointed to probe abuses in Syria, but had hardly any access to the country, with only its chairman, Brazilian diplomat and professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, allowed into Damascus for a weekend visit last month to meet with some top government officials and families affected by the violence. A third panel member had dropped out.

Most of the report, which covers the period between Feb. 15 and July 20, was conducted during field interviews and in Geneva with Syrian refugees outside the country. It is based on 1,062 interviews, but the panel emphasized that the investigation was hampered by the Assad regime's unwillingness to cooperate.

Their report, whose findings are strikingly more conclusive about the Houla massacre than previous interim findings, could be used by world powers to justify tougher outside action against Syria, or strengthen calls for an international investigation and prosecution of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The panel recommends that the president of the Human Rights Council forward the report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who could bring it to the attention of the most powerful arm of the U.N., the Security Council based in New York. Earlier this year, the council said in a resolution that it agreed with Pillay, the U.N.'s top human rights official, in her call for action by the International Criminal Court based at The Hague.

But Russia and China, two of the five veto-wielding permanent members on that 15-nation council, have effectively blocked major powers from responding in a coordinated fashion to the Syria crisis, a stalemate cited by the U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, in deciding to resign from his post at the end of this month.

The Human Rights Council also could extend the mandate of its special panel on Syria, so that it can investigate further. But even if it doesn't, Pinheiro would continue to work in essentially the same role for the council as its special rapporteur for Syria, a position that was created in March.

Activists say more than 20,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's revolt, inspired by other Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic regimes in the region. The conflict has slowly changed into a full blown civil war that the panel says involves "more brutal tactics and new military capabilities on both sides."

"Your Excellency, these bloody little
pissants think I'm going to the Hague,"
said Tony.

"Tony, you moron, I told you not to
worry about it, now get me another
little boy, you groveling grotesque little
page boy," responded the Pope.

Biography of Mike Leavitt

Secretary of Health and Human Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Secretary Michael O. Leavitt

Michael O. Leavitt was sworn in as the 20th Secretary of Health and Human Services on January 26, 2005. The Department he heads one of the largest civilian departments in the federal government with more than 67,000 employees and a budget that accounts for almost one out of every four federal dollars.

The Secretary is in his fourth year at HHS. When asked what he felt most satisfied about during that time, he listed:

Implementing the Medicare prescription drug benefit
Finally seeing health information technology standards developing
Tangible progress toward transparency of price and quality
Mobilizing the nation’s pandemic preparedness and retooling the nation’s medical emergency plans
Developing a new national strategy for safety of imported products
Globalizing the efforts of the FDA

Asked what he wishes would go better, he answered, “Entitlement reform: Medicare and Medicaid are drifting toward disaster, and many of our efforts to change course have been rejected or reversed by Congress. We cannot ignore this problem, and currently we are.”

Prior to his current service, Leavitt headed the Environmental Protection Agency and was elected three times as the Governor of Utah. During his eleven years as Governor, Utah was recognized six times as one of America’s best managed states. He was chosen by his peers as Chairman of the National Governors Association, Western Governors Association, and Republican Governors Association.

Prior to his public service, Secretary Leavitt was president and chief executive officer of a regional insurance firm. He is married to Jacalyn S. Leavitt; they are the parents of four boys and one girl and the grandparents of four girls and one boy.

Mountain Meadow Massacre - They were from Arkansas

THOMAS DUDLEY LEAVITT

The Myth that Japan is Broke: The World’s Largest “Debtor” is now the Largest Creditor

Over 20% of the debt is held by Japan Post Bank, the Bank of Japan, and other government entities. Japan Post is the largest holder of domestic savings in the world, and it returns interest to its Japanese customers. Although theoretically privatized in 2007, it has been a political football, and 100% of its stock is still owned by the government. The Bank of Japan is 55% government-owned and 100% government-controlled.

Japan minister Matsushita found dead at home in possible suicide: police

"Look, Mitt, either way Israel wins, so just get into the White House
because you've got the full weight of Israel behind you. And don't
worry, we'll take care of all the 'dirty work' for you."

But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.

"Writing in the New York Times for September 16, 1974, Wallace Turner states: "Many Mormon scholars work on contracts for the C.I.A." We recently asked a man who had taught at Brigham Young University if he had any reason to believe that the Mormon missionary program is used as a cover for CIA agents. He replied that he did not, but he went on to state that many missionaries are later recruited to CIA work. He felt that the missionary program provided good training for CIA agents. The missionaries are taught absolute obedience to authority and many of them learn foreign languages as well.

Brigham Young (born June 1, 1801, Whitingham, Vt., U.S.died Aug. 29, 1877, Salt Lake City, Utah); U.S. religious leader, second president of the Mormon church. He settled in Mendon, N.Y., in 1829 and was baptized into Joseph Smith's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832. In 1834 he joined the Mormons in Missouri, and when they were driven out in 1838, he organized their move to Nauvoo, Ill. He established a Mormon mission in England in 1839. After Smith's murder in 1844, Young took over the church. He led the persecuted Mormons from Illinois to Utah (184648), choosing the site of Salt Lake City for the new Mormon headquarters.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America.