Vocapedia > Language > Comparisons, statistics, data

The Guardian        p.1        15 November 2008

http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2008/11/15/pdfs/gdn_081115_ber_1_21219641.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/15/baby-p-child-abuse

The Guardian

p. 10

8 September 2004

Rob Rogers

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania

Cagle

11 November 2005

http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/rogers.asp

The Guardian        Media        p. 9        14 November 2005

To End the Abuse,

She Grabbed a Knife

MARCH 8, 2014
The New York Times
SundayReview|Op-Ed Columnist

ATLANTA — WHAT strikes one American woman in four and claims a life in the United States every six hours?

This scourge can be more unsettling to talk about than colonoscopies, and it is so stigmatizing that most victims never seek help.

Paula Denize Lewis, an executive assistant here in Atlanta, was among those who kept quiet about domestic violence, for that’s what I’m talking about. She tried to cover up the black eyes and bruises when she went to work, and when she showed up with her arm in a sling she claimed that she had fallen down the stairs.

Then one evening, she says, her alcoholic boyfriend was again beating her, throwing beer cans at her and threatening to kill her. She ran for a telephone in the kitchen to call 911, but he reached it first and began clubbing her on the head with it.

Lewis reached frantically into a kitchen drawer for something to defend herself with. “I grabbed what I could,” she said.

What she had grabbed turned out to be a paring knife. She stabbed her boyfriend once. He died.

Lewis was jailed and charged with murder. With the help of the Women’s Resource Center to End Domestic Violence, the charge was reduced to involuntary manslaughter and she was sentenced to probation.

That episode underscores the way our silence and squeamishness about domestic violence hurts everyone. If there had been earlier intervention, Lewis might have avoided years of abuse and a felony conviction — and her boyfriend might still be alive.

Domestic violence deserves far more attention and resources, and far more police understanding of the complexities involved. This is not a fringe concern. It is vast, it is outrageous, and it should be a national priority.

Women worldwide ages 15 to 44 are more likely to die or be maimed as a result of male violence than as a consequence of war, cancer, malaria and traffic accidents combined. Far more Americans, mostly women, have been killed in the last dozen years at the hands of their partners than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American women are twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as breast cancer, and the abuse is particularly shattering because it comes from those we have loved.

“He’s the only person I’ve ever loved,” Ta’Farian, 24, said of her husband, whom she met when she was an 18-year-old college student. He gradually became violent, she says, beating her, locking her up in a closet, and destroying property.

“My family was like, ‘He’s your husband. You can’t leave him. How would you support yourself?’ ”

Still, she says, it became too much, and she called 911. Police arrested him. But she says that the day before the trial, her husband called and threatened to kill her if she testified against him, so she says that out of a mix of fear and love she refused to repeat in court what had happened. Her husband was let off, and she was convicted of false reporting of a crime.

Ta’Farian is now in hiding, fearful of her husband as well as of the courts; she dissolved into tears as she was telling her story, partly out of fear that her conviction could cost her the custody of her son. Ayonna Johnson, who works for the Women’s Resource Center, comforted her, saying: “You should not have gotten punished for trying to stay alive.”

Domestic violence is infinitely complex in part because women sometimes love the men who beat them: they don’t want the man jailed; they don’t want to end the relationship; they just want the beatings to end.

Women can obtain temporary protective orders to keep violent boyfriends or husbands away, but these are just pieces of paper unless they’re rigorously enforced. Sometimes the orders even trigger a retaliatory attack on the woman, and police officers around the country don’t always make such a case a priority — until it becomes a murder investigation.

One way of addressing that conundrum is mandated classes for abusers, like one run by the group Men Stopping Violence. One session I sat in on was a little like Alcoholics Anonymous in its confessional, frank tone, but it focused on domestic abuse. The men were encouraged to be brutally honest in examining their shortcomings in relationships; it’s surely more effective than sending abusers to jail to seethe at their wives and wallow in self-pity.

Sometimes there’s a perception that domestic violence is insoluble, because it’s such a complex, messy problem with women who are culprits as well as victims. Yet, in fact, this is an area where the United States has seen enormous progress.

Based on victimization surveys, it seems that violence by men against their intimate partners has fallen by almost two-thirds since 1993. Attitudes have changed as well. In 1987, only half of Americans said that it was always wrong for a man to beat his wife with a belt or stick; a decade later, 86 percent said that it was always wrong.

A generation ago, police didn’t typically get involved. “We would say, ‘don’t make us come back, or you’re both going to jail,’ ” recalled Capt. Leonard Dreyer of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. In contrast, sheriff’s officers now routinely arrest the aggressor.

Three steps are still needed. First, we must end the silence. Second, we must ensure that police departments everywhere take the issue seriously before a victim becomes a corpse. Third, offenders should be required to attend training programs like the one run by Men Stopping Violence.

A young mom named Antonya Lewis reflects the challenges. She stayed with a violent boyfriend for years, she said, because he was the father of her daughters and was always so apologetic afterward — and also because that was what she had been told was a woman’s lot in life.

“My mom always told me to suck it up,” she said. But then her boyfriend beat her up so badly that he broke a bone near her eye and put her in the hospital. She told him that she was done with him, and when he continued to stalk her and threaten to kill her, she called the police — repeatedly — with little effect. Now she has moved to a new city and is starting over.

“I didn’t want my daughters to see him beat me,” she said. “I didn’t want them to think this is what a man can do to a woman.”

That, too, is progress.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on March 9, 2014,

on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline:

To End the Abuse, She Grabbed a Knife.

To End the Abuse, She Grabbed a Knife, NYT, 8.3.2014,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/
    kristof-to-end-the-abuse-she-grabbed-a-knife.html

Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey

Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted

December 14, 2011
The New York Times
By RONI CARYN RABIN

An exhaustive government survey of rape

and domestic violence

released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence

against women remains endemic in the United States

and in some instances may be far more common

than previously thought.

Nearly one in five women surveyed said

they had been raped

or had experienced an attempted rape at some point,

and one in four reported having been beaten

by an intimate partner.

One in six women have been stalked,

according to the report.

Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say
They Have Been Sexually Assaulted,
    NYT, 14.12.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/
    nearly-1-in-5-women-in-us-survey-report-sexual-assault.html

2.30pm update

Scores killed in Iraq blasts

Monday February 12, 2007
Staff and agencies
Guardian Unlimited

At least 80 people were killed

and nearly 165 wounded

in car bomb attacks on markets in Baghdad today

on the first anniversary of an attack

on one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines,

Iraqi officials said.

Two bombs went off at the Shorja market,

setting off secondary explosions and killing

at least 71 people.

A roadside bomb at a second market

killed at least nine.

Scores killed in Iraq blasts, G, 12.2.2007,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/12/
iraq.iraqtimeline 

Cancer deaths drop

for 2nd straight year

Updated 1/17/2007
11:15 AM ET
USA Today
By Anita Manning

The number of Americans dying of cancer

declined for second year in a row,

this time by a much greater number,

the American Cancer Society reports,

a signal that decades of advances

in prevention and treatment

are paying off, experts say.

In its annual report, released Wednesday,

the cancer society says

there were 3,014 fewer cancer deaths

in 2004 than in 2003.

Rates of cancer — the number of cases

per 10,000 population —

have been declining since 1991, says the society,

but the first reported drop in actual numbers of deaths

was a decline of 369 deaths between 2002-03.

The 2004 numbers represent only the second drop

in more than 70 years of record keeping.

Cancer deaths drop for 2nd straight year, UT, 17.1.2007,
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-01-17-cancer_x.htm

Public service pay rises

to be outstripped by private sector

Monday October 9, 2006
Guardian
Richard Wray


Britain's private sector workers will see their pay rise by twice as much as their public sector counterparts this year, according to a report out today.
Treasury policy limits public sector pay increases to 2% over the next 12 months, but according to research by employment specialists Incomes Data Services, the average pay of a private sector employee is likely to increase by more than 4%.

In its latest annual pay report, the group estimates that retail price inflation will rise to 4%, the highest it has been for eight years. While not the government's preferred measure of inflation, RPI is traditionally used as a benchmark for pay bargaining.

"Although it is not possible to predict what will happen to pay rises with exact precision, it is still true that the RPI inflation measure is the key to pay setting in the private sector," said Ken Mulkearn, editor of the report.

"Inflation close to 4% will be a very strong upward pressure on the level of pay settlements."

There is little sign, however, that there will be any reduction in the gap between public and private sector pay awards. Last month, in his annual submission to the International Monetary Fund, the chancellor, Gordon Brown, seemed to warn of a further increase in interest rates, following August's quarter-point rise, to keep inflation in check and enable him to stick to his long-term pay target.

"We know that if we are to sustain growth in the future we must never be complacent, and always be vigilant to risks," he said. "That is why I have said I supported the pro-active forward-looking action by the Bank of England in August, and why we will continue to base public sector pay settlements on our 2% inflation target."

In a survey of nine City institutions, Incomes Data Services found RPI was forecast to hit 4% between the end of this year and February 2007. The biggest factor in the rise was higher domestic fuel bills. In its last set of figures the Office for National Statistics said RPI rose to 3.4%, in August, up from 3.3% in July. The consumer price index, the government's preferred measure of inflation and the one used by the Bank of England in rate setting deliberations, rose to 2.5% in August up from 2.4% in July. The CPI excludes items such as house prices and council tax bills.

The pay report notes that 2006/7 is a key period for the renewal of long-term pay deals, with a significant number of agreements ending over the winter.

Public service pay rises to be outstripped by private sector, G, 9.10.2006,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/oct/09/
politics.money 

Fifth of young see seaside first abroad

Tuesday August 1, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Carolyn Fry


One in 10 British children has never been to a UK beach and 31% object to donkey rides believing they are "cruel", new research showed today.

A fifth of British youngsters had their first seaside holiday abroad and, despite Britain being surrounded by water, 3% of children have never been to the seaside at all.

Today's younger beach-goers are also concerned about environmental and ethical issues. Nearly two thirds (61%) claimed clean seawater and no litter were the most important things when choosing a beach. Although 16% said they would happily go on a donkey ride, a third objected to the activity because they thought it was "cruel". The survey questioned 1,246 children aged eight to 14.

The survey, commissioned by children's TV channel Toonami, found that children prefer to be active on holiday. Nearly two thirds (61%) said their ideal day at the beach would be spent building sandcastles, while 55% said they would go surfing or snorkelling, and 53% said they would go rock pooling.

When asked who they would most like to be stranded on a desert island with, friends topped the list at 49%, with parents second at 25% and celebrities third with 15%. Johnny Depp, Wayne Rooney and Jordan were voted the top celebrity choices. Some 58% of children agreed they would least like to be marooned with their schoolteachers.

Those questioned also had similar ideas on what makes for an ideal beach. A whopping 78% said there must be unlimited ice cream, 56% opted for giant water slides and 48% requested a wave machine.

Fifth of young see seaside first abroad, G, 1.8.2006,
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/aug/01/
travelnews.uknews 

14th month of house price falls

House prices fell for the 14th month in a row and show no signs of recovery in the near future, a survey shows today.

Hometrack said national house prices fell by an average of 0.1% this month compared with July and have declined by an average of 3.7% over the past year.

The national average price is £161,000, down from a peak of £167,000 in June last year.

After almost a decade of rising house prices, the market has cooled rapidly over the past year in response to the Bank of England's monetary policy committee progressively raising the cost of borrowing from 3.5% in November 2003 to 4.75% last August.

Signs that the economy is now weakening - growth in household spending is stagnating and manufacturing is in recession - prompted the MPC to cut rates by a quarter-point this month to 4.5%.

Some economists do not believe this will be enough to rekindle the property market. John Wrigglesworth, Hometrack's economist, said: "House prices have failed to respond to the recent interest rate cut and continue their stagnating negative trend, which has gone on for well over a year."

Hometrack said activity in the market had increased by 4.1% this month, indicating some return of confidence. This tallies with comments by housebuilder Persimmon that it had seen a strong rise in reservations for new homes in recent weeks.

But the number of new buyers continued to fall, down by 0.5% in August, and as a result it is a buyers' market. The average discount is more than 6% of the asking price, equating to £12,000 saved on the average property, Hometrack said.

14th month of house price falls, G, full text, 29.8.2005,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/aug/29/
housingmarket.houseprices 

Mumps crisis warning

as cases rise 15-fold

Doctors last night warned that the crisis of mumps among teenagers and people in their early 20s had reached national epidemic proportions, at 15 times the rate a year ago.

Nearly 28,500 suspected cases of mumps were reported in England and Wales in the first 17 weeks of the year, compared with 1,800 in the same period in 2004.

Headline and first §§, G, 13.5.2005,
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/may/13/
health.medicineandhealth 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The Federal Reserve nudged interest rates up

on Tuesday for an eighth straight time

and repeated a pledge to use "measured" increases

to quell an increase in inflation.

Fed raises rates, keeps measured vow, R, Tue May 3, 2005 06:17 PM ET,
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=
    HVRIBZB2AEETQCRBAEOCFEY?type=businessNews&storyID=8378615

Labour fears meltdown in marginals

Chancellor warns voters

that his party's headline poll lead

masks a deteriorating situation

in many key seats

Michael Howard could be Prime Minister at the end of the week if as few as one Labour voter in 10 decides to switch allegiance or abstain, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, claimed yesterday.

His words reflected Labour's nervousness that the party's consistent lead in the opinion polls - eight percentage points, according to this paper's latest poll - is melting away in marginal seats, where Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have concentrated their campaigning. Other polls show Labour with a wafer-thin 3 per cent lead, with the Liberal Democrats showing strongly on all three.

    Headline, sub and first §§, IoS, 1.5.2005,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=634701

GM Cuts Outlook;

Shares Fall 14 Percent

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday warned its 2005 earnings will be as much as 80 percent below its prior forecast due to slumping North American auto sales, sending its shares down 14 percent to a 12-1/2-year low.

The warning from the world's largest carmaker, whose once dominant position in its key U.S. market has fallen to less than a 25 percent share on a steady loss to foreign automakers, spurred Standard & Poor's to caution that it could downgrade GM's debt to "junk" status at any time, which would likely raise its borrowing costs.

    Headline and first §§, R, Wed Mar 16, 2005 04:37 PM ET,
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=
    3W4XRMLKG5XXGCRBAE0CFEY?type=businessNews&storyID=7924506

The forgotten killer

Malaria hits one in 12 of world population,
It kills one million people every year,
Treatment costs as little as £10 per person,
Incidence in Asia twice previous estimates

More than half a billion people are suffering from malaria today, twice as many as scientists thought had been affected by one of the biggest killers in the developing world.

The new figures are the result of detailed research that gives the most accurate assessment yet of the disease that kills at least a million people a year. Scientists now believe there are about 515 million cases of malaria out of 2.2 billion people who are at risk - about a third of the world's population.

The discovery throws the slow progress of the world's fight against malaria into sharp relief.

In countries such as Malawi, malaria claims more lives each year than Aids, but attracts a fraction of the attention. Coachloads of overseas visitors come to view the Aids projects run by Médicins Sans Frontières in the country, but few are interested in malaria.

    Headline, sub and first §§, I, 10.3.2005,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=618474

December falls add to house price fears

House prices fell in December, the Nationwide reported yesterday, dragging the annual rate of property inflation to its lowest for nearly three years.

The news, coming on top of the weakest November mortgage lending figures in eight years on Wednesday, shows the housing market will kick off 2005 in poor shape, with the Bank of England predicting further falls in the coming months.

The Nationwide said the average house price, which has trebled in the past eight years, fell 0.2% this month from November after a surprise 0.9% rise the month before. The average house is now worth £152,623.

The drop was smaller than markets had expected and so the pound moved up from the 14-month low against the euro it hit on Wednesday as dealers thought the Bank would not need to cut interest rates in the near future. Prices are now 12.7% higher than in December 2003, down from a rate of 15% in November.

Nationwide's chief economist Alex Bannister said that 2004 had been a year of two distinct parts with prices rising 11.4% in the first seven months of the year but only 1.2% in the last five months.

December falls add to house price fears, G, 31.12.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/dec/31/
housingmarket.houseprices

BBC viewing figures fall

to all-time low

Viewing figures for the BBC's two main television channels have fallen to an all-time low in the week that the director general, Mark Thompson, announced swingeing cutbacks.

BBC1's share of all television viewing is set to fall through the psychologically important 25 per cent barrier for the first time in the broadcaster's history, according to audience figures for this year up to 9 December.

BBC2 has also seen its audience share plummet by almost 9 per cent over the same period. If these trends continue for the final three weeks of 2004, it will mean that for the first time less than 10 per cent of the television audience are tuning into BBC2 on average, while less than a quarter of viewers are watching BBC1.

The figures, which reflect the changing landscape of British television, show the combined audience share for BBC1 and BBC2 has fallen by almost 9 per cent since 2000.

The decline, largely because of the rise of multi-channel viewing, has afflicted ITV1 even more severely than the BBC - since 2000 the channel's audience share has fallen 22 per cent to 22.8 per cent of all television viewers. In 2004, for the first time, multi-channel television has attracted higher overall viewing figures than either BBC1 or ITV1, with 26 per cent of the audience.

But Channel 4 has proven it is possible for a terrestrial broadcaster with a public service remit to improve its audience share against such a competitive backdrop.

In the past year

[ ce marqueur de temps ne doit pas être confondu avec last year (l'année dernière) + passé ; in the past year (l'année en cours) appelle le present perfect ],

the channel's audience share has climbed by 1.4 per cent to 9.8 per cent, thanks to a range of popular factual programmes, such as Wife Swap and How Clean Is Your House?, and to its coup in winning the terrestrial rights to The Simpsons from BBC2.

Channel 4 began broadcasting the popular American cartoon show in March this year. Channel Five has also seen its audience share climb by 1.7 per cent to 6.66 per cent.

Between 1 January and 9 December, BBC1's audience share fell 3.5 per cent to 24.67 per cent, while BBC2's share dropped by 8.9 per cent to 9.99 per cent.

The figures from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (Barb) reflect the dilemma that sits at the heart of Mr Thompson's battle to secure the licence fee for another 10-year charter period, when the BBC's current royal charter comes to an end in 2006.

BBC viewing figures fall to all-time low, I, 14.12.2004,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=592946

US death toll in Iraq

at record level

A further 135 American soldiers died in Iraq in November, equalling the number killed in April, previously the worst single month for US casualties. Seventy-one died in the assault on Fallujah and 600 were wounded, according to the US military in Baghdad.

The casualty rate is more than 10 per cent of the 5,000 to 6,000-strong US force sent into the city. General John Sattler, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is in charge of western Iraq, said yesterday that 62 of those killed in Fallujah were marines.

(...)

The battle for Fallujah brings the number of Americans killed in Iraq since the invasion to at least 1,250, with 9,300 wounded. The number of insurgents killed in Fallujah is not known, but was put by the interim Iraqi government at more than 2,000.

    US death toll in Iraq at record level, I, 2.12.2004,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=588815

Petrol prices fuel inflation rise

Rising energy prices pushed inflation up to 1.2% in October from 1.1% the previous month, official figures showed today.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the largest impact on the consumer price index had come from petrol, with rising crude oil costs leading to an increase in average unleaded and diesel prices of around 2p a litre last month.

Meanwhile, household utility prices rose at the fastest rate since records began in 1997. Further upward pressure came from package holidays and food.

However, falling clothing and footwear prices offset those upward pressures. Price reductions in October for cars, some travel fares and TV and video rentals also put downward pressure on inflation, the ONS said.

Today's figures were in line with City expectations and, with inflation well below the Bank of England's 2% target, analysts said interest rates could stay unchanged at 4.75% for some time.

Petrol prices fuel inflation rise, G, 16.11.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/nov/16/
politics.money 

JJB shares slump

after takeover talks fail

JJB Sports shares today fell by one fifth after it emerged

that talks concerning a potential £600m takeover

had ended unsuccessfully.

Headline and §1, G, 13.10.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/oct/13/
money 

UK unemployment hits 20-year low

The number of unemployed people in Britain has hit its lowest level in 20 years, figures showed today.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics revealed that unemployment numbers have fallen by 51,000 to 1.39 million.

Using the internationally recognised ILO measure, the ONS said the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.7% in the three months to August, the lowest level since 1984. Almost 74.7% of the UK population is in employment.

"There are over 200,000 more people in work than this time last year," the minister for work, Jane Kennedy, said. "With the success of the economy and growing employment, more people have moved from welfare into work. Our aim now is to build on this success by extending employment opportunity to all."

"Jobcentre Plus, together with programmes like the New Deal, have contributed to historically low levels of unemployment and are increasingly making a difference for other people on benefits."
 

Statistics also showed that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits had fallen by 200 to 834,000in September to 834,000.

Despite being the lowest level since 1975, the figure fell far short of a predicted drop of 5,000. Following 16 consecutive monthly falls, the ONS also reported that drops in the claimant count appeared to be slowing. Regional figures showed the highest unemployment rate between June and August was in London, with 6.9% unemployed, while the lowest was in the south-west, at 3.4 %. The manufacturing sector has been hardest hit by job losses, particularly in the textiles and clothing industries.

The ONS also said the number of inactive people of working age had risen by 91,000 to 7.93 million on the quarter, the highest figure since this series began in 1984. Meanwhile, average earnings, excluding bonuses, rose more than expected in the three months to August. They went up from 4.2% to 4.3%, with the rise attributed to pay increases in private sector education and for some local government employees.

Headline and first §§, G, 13.10.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/oct/13/
business.politics 

Race-hate crime

'increases eleven-fold in a decade'

The shocking extent of race-hate crime in modern Britain was exposed yesterday by figures revealing an eleven-fold increase in the number of victims of racially motivated attack or abuse over the past decade.

    Headline and first §§, I, 12.10.2004,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=571240

One in three girls

a smoker

by age 16

Researcher suggests teenagers may be using habit as diet aid

Headline, sub and first §§,
G, 23.9.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/sep/23/
smoking.publichealth 

14% rise in house prices

House prices rose 2.1% in July to stand 14.3% higher than July last year, government data showed yesterday.

Headline and first §§, G, 14.8.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/sep/14/
housingmarket.houseprices

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) -

U.S. warplanes bombed houses

in the Iraqi city of Falluja for a third successive night,

killing at least eight people, four of them children,

doctors and residents said on Thursday.

Children Among 8 Dead in U.S. Air Strikes on Falluj,
R, 9.9.2004,
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=5QLKFILCL54MKCRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6187936

Her comments came after the Office for National Statistics said that the number of couples getting divorced in England and Wales is higher than at any time since Labour came to power in 1997. It said there were 153,490 divorces last year, an increase of 3.9% since 2002. This was the third successive year of rising divorce rates, since falling back from 157,107 in 1996. The record was 165,018 in 1993.

Wettest summer in almost 50 years

may be followed by warm, dry spell

It seems as if we have spent the summer huddled under umbrellas whingeing about the weather while meteorologists chide us that it is really not so bad. But moan at will because it is now official: we have been enduring the wettest summer for nearly half a century.

With 37% of its adult population HIV-positive,

one country has been forced to rewrite the rulebook

on tackling the virus

Botswana: a beacon of hope in Africa, sub, G, 15.7.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/15/
aids.rorycarroll

More than four out of 10 economists believe house prices in the UK will fall over the next three years, according to a survey released today.

And just 15% - one in seven - thought prices would continue to rise at the above-inflation rates seen in recent years.

Economists divided in property market debate, G, 24.6.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2004/jun/24/
business.houseprices 

The number of south Asian murder victims has almost quadrupled in the past decade from 10 in 1993 to 38 last year, compared with 32% for the general population, while the kidnap rate has more than doubled from 90 to 228 from 1998 to 2003, accounting for 20% of the Met's total kidnap figure last year and racking up 114 kidnaps so far this year. In some cases, victims are being seized in India or Pakistan and ransoms demanded from relatives in the UK.

Met unit to tackle Asian crime rise:
Number of murder victims quadruples in a decade, G, 15.6.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jun/16/
ukcrime.prisonsandprobation 

Two to 6% of children suffer from depression,

and suicide is the third leading cause of death

in 10-to-19-year-olds, says Professor Bailey.

An estimated 40,000 children were on SSRIs last year.

Safety alert on adult use of antidepressants, G, 14.6.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jun/14/
uknews 

Increasing numbers of people are becoming dependent on cannabis, The Observer has learnt.

Alarm at rising cannabis 'addiction', O, sub and first §§, 13.6.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jun/13/
drugsandalcohol.drugs

They will return in their thousands next week to walk the beaches and the fields of Normandy. All will have their memories of being young and losing friends during the Allied landings. Richard Todd, who will be among them, was in the first wave of troops to set foot in France on D-Day. Less than two decades later, he went back to star in the most famous film about history's greatest invasion.

Film star recalls his own longest day, O, 30.5.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/may/30/
military.film

Jobless levels in Britain would double if the government included in its official figures those people diverted from the dole queue into a hidden category of people claiming incapacity benefit, according to a new study which could embarrass senior ministers.

    Unemployment time bomb is ticking inside list of benefit claimants:
    University team says dole queue is far longer than ministers claim, G, 22.5.2004,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1222325,00.html

The WHI study - which included more than 16,500 women - suggested that for every 10,000 healthy women taking the combined drug, eight more will develop invasive breast cancer, seven more will have a heart attack, 18 more will suffer blood clots and eight more will have a stroke than among 10,000 healthy women not taking the treatment. That prompted the team to stop the research, on the grounds that it would be unethical to continue.

However, it also showed that six fewer women will develop colon cancer and five fewer will suffer hip fractures. But concern was amplified by the British "Million Women Study" which reported in August last year that women on some combined types of HRT were twice as likely to develop breast cancer as those who had not used it.

The study, which looked at the medical histories of almost 1.1m British women who were cancer-free as they entered the national breast screening programme, also indicated that oestrogen-only therapies might increase the risk of breast cancer by 30%.

(...)

    Explicit ads target sex diseases among young :
    Soaring rates of infection prompt government
    to launch unromantic campaign distributing spoof Valentine cards, G, 7.2.2004,
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/07/health.society

Cancer survival improves despite more cases,
G, 4.2.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk_news/story/0,3604,1140212,00.html 

Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, claimed yesterday that low-fare airlines such as his own would have to put up their prices by some £10 a ticket after a ruling from the European commission.

Ryanair claims EC ruling will hit budget travel, but rivals doubt it,
G, 4.2.2004,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/airlines/story/0,1371,1140442,00.html

New poll reveals public mistrust

Three times as many people trust the BBC to tell the truth than trust the government despite Lord Hutton's damning judgment, an exclusive poll by ICM for the Guardian shows.

Headline, sub and first §§, G, 20.1.2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jan/20/
uk.davidkelly

Anti-counterfeiting groups estimate that fake goods cost

UK industry more than £10bn in 2003,

compared with £6bn in 1999.

Rising tide of counterfeit goods costs UK £10bn:
    Criminal gangs move out of drug smuggling into less policed racket,
    O, 18.1.2004,
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jan/18/
ukcrime.whitehall

GCSE results at schools in England's toughest areas

improved twice as much as the national average last year.

GCSE improvement in toughest areas, PA, 15.1.2004.

Women working full time expect to earn the same as men, but on average gross £559 less a month, the Equal Opportunities Commission said today at the start of a fresh assault on unfair pay.

Women workers earn £500 less a month than men, says EOC, G, 14.1.2004,
    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2004/jan/14/
genderissues.pay

Four million CCTV cameras watch public.

UK has the highest level of surveillance

More than four million surveillance cameras monitor our every move, making Britain the most-watched nation in the world, research has revealed.

The number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras has quadrupled in the past three years, and there is now one for every 14 people in the UK. The increase is happening at twice the predicted rate, and it is believed that Britain accounts for one-fifth of all CCTV cameras worldwide. Estimates suggest that residents of a city such as London can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day, and much of the filming breaches existing data guidelines.

Big Brother Britain, 2004, sub, I, 12.1.2004,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=480364

Fewer than one in four people believe Tony Blair's account of events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a poll revealed.

Half said the Prime Minister was lying when he said he did not sanction the leaking of Dr Kelly's name, the YouGov survey found.

Less than a quarter, 23%, said Mr Blair was telling the truth, according to findings published in The Mail on Sunday. Another 27% are undecided.

Most think PM lied over Kelly - poll, PA, 11.1.2004.

The report says: "Self-reported health is strongly related to happiness. With the exception of reasonably high levels in Wales, the expected pattern of regional disparities is largely confirmed, with people in the North less likely to report a good state of general health than those in the South."

There are also "extreme regional disparities" in death rates. "Put bluntly, people in the North die earlier than people in the south," says the study. It found another broad north-south divide over the number of people suffering from depression. "Levels of depression for men in the Northern and Yorkshire and North-west [NHS] regions were three-fifths higher than for the North Thames region and absolute differences for women were even higher," says the study.

'Happy poverty' of North shown to be a myth, I, 26.12.2003,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=476077

Child eczema 'has tripled

since 1970s'

Nearly one in three children has suffered eczema

by the age of three-and-a-half, triple the rate in the 1970s,

a study suggested last night.

Headline and first §§, G, 23.12.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/23/
science.health

Love it or hate it, Desmond's red top has been the newspaper publishing success story of the decade. When he bought the ailing title just over three years ago, it was selling 627,000, excluding bulks. Today its circulation has soared to 858,000, up 37% over the three-year period, thanks to a combination of showbiz celebrity gossip, endless pictures of the model Jordan wearing very little and news about TV and its stars. Hill was last year named the Editor of the Year at the What the Papers Say awards.

    Hello girls: Last week Dawn Neesom became the new editor of the Daily Star,
    with a brief to attract more women readers to the paper
    with the highest flesh count in Fleet Street.
     Here she tells John Plunkett how she hopes to do it, G, 22.12.2003,
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/dec/22/
dailystar.mondaymediasection

Anecdotal evidence of the poor Christmas trading experienced by many retailers was backed up by leaked figures at the weekend, which showed Marks & Spencers and other specialists in fashion and women's clothing suffering the most.

EU nowhere near meeting Kyoto targets, G, 3.12.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/dec/03/
europeanunion.climatechange

Leading independent fiscal experts last night warned that Gordon Brown would be forced into fresh tax increases after the latest set of public borrowing figures showed the government deficit running at twice last year's levels.

More tax rises 'are inevitable' , G, 21.11.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/nov/21/
politics.money

The number of smokers in England and Wales has hit a record low, with levels now plummeting by 170,000 people each year, according to Cancer Research UK.

A huge drop over the past few years puts the current level of those who smoke at one out of four people, outstripping government targets for 2005 of 26 per cent. This means that half a million fewer people are indulging in the habit than in 2000.

The study, which looks at data from the General Household Survey (GHS) and the Omnibus survey, shows the lowest percentage of people smoking since figures using the GHS began in the early Seventies.

The new figures have delighted anti-smoking groups, who feared that the situation in the Nineties - where the rate stopped declining and there was a persistently high level of smoking - was irreversible.

Britons are winning war on smoking, O, 2.11.2001,
    http://society.guardian.co.uk/cancer/story/0,8150,1076245,00.html

An unprecedented census of the world's oceans has revealed man's dire ignorance of the most unexplored region of the planet.

Five hundred species of fish have been identified since the project began three years ago but scientists believe there are 10 times as many yet to be discovered. A total of 210,000 species of marine animals and plants are known to science but the true number could be closer to two million - and some are threatened with extinction before they are even named.

(...)

Dr Ron O'Dor, chief scientist for the project, said: "We know almost nothing about the oceans - 99.99 per cent of them have not even been sampled. We need an inventory because we don't know where we are now."

(...)

Three hundred scientists from 53 countries are working on the 10-year project, which will cost $1bn (£650m).

    Scientists discover 500 species of fish in billion-dollar trawl of the world's oceans,
    I, 24.10.2003,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=456669

The NSPCC warned last night that children who have been abused by people producing pornographic photographs for the internet are likely to suffer life-long damage.

House prices are continuing their upward march, rising by 1.5% - or £65 a day - last month, Britain's biggest mortgage lender said yesterday.
(...)
Prices in London increased by 2.1% during the third quarter, cancelling out the 0.7% fall in the second quarter.*

However, the annual rate of house price growth in the capital has slipped to 8.6% - the first time the figure has been below 10% since the start of 2001.

House prices go up by £65 a day, G, 4.10.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/oct/04/
housingmarket.houseprices

Collectively, the householders of the world could be about to put the cat out. African lion numbers have fallen by 90% in the past 20 years, according to a recent report. There are only about 23,000 alive today. That's the number of seats at Barnsley football club stadium.

    Goodbye cruel world : Lion numbers have dropped by 90% in 20 years.
    The other big cats are going fast.
    How long before all the Earth's 'mega species' disappear from the wild?
    By Tim Radford, G, 2.10.2003,
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/oct/02/
research.highereducation2

After five years in the financial doldrums,

trapped by plunging prices and food scares,

farmers were given a boost yesterday with a prediction

that their incomes will rise fourfold this year.

A combination of severe drought elsewhere in Europe

and rising global food prices means

that the average profit from an acre of farmland

will rise from £17 last year to £70 for 2003.

    Out of the doldrums at last:
    UK farmers quadruple their income as Europe wilts,
    I, 1.10.2003,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=448672

A rapid surge in construction output, missed in earlier data from the Department of Trade, led the Office for National Statistics to double its estimate of growth in the second quarter to a healthy 0.6%, from 0.3%. For the first three months of the year, growth was also twice as strong as previously thought, at 0.2%.

Interest rates were cut to a 48-year low of 3.5% in July as business groups reported mounting pessimism in the corporate sector and the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.

(...) Construction output expanded by 4.4% in the second quarter, according to the revised figures - a sharp turnaround from a 1% decline in the last three months of 2002.

Recount builds better economic view, G, 1.10.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/oct/01/
money.interestrates 

Blair:

Three out of five voters say

he lied over Saddam threat

Three out of five people believe that Tony Blair lied over the threat posed by Iraqi weapons in the run-up to war, according to an NOP poll for The Independent.

(...)

The good news for Mr Blair is that Labour, on 38 per cent, enjoys a nine-point lead over the Tories (29 per cent),

who are only narrowly ahead of the Liberal Democrats, on 27 per cent.

If Mr Brown were Prime Minister, Labour's lead would increase by one percentage point.

    Headline, §1 and paragraph, I, 30.9.2003,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=448383

Ecstasy use doubles in five years

Ecstasy use in the UK has exploded dramatically over the past five years, with double the number of people taking the drug. Ecstasy users are poised to overtake the combined number of heroin and cocaine users.

Headline and first §§, O, 28.9.2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/sep/28/
drugsandalcohol.drugs

Soaring property values in the north in the past 12 months have significantly eroded the historic north/south house price divide, according to research from Halifax estate agents.

One in five lessons taken

by teachers untrained in subject

The report also went on to show schools were facing a timebomb, with more than one in three staff in many of these subject areas now aged over 50. In chemistry, the figure was 35 per cent and maths 31 per cent. No secondary school subject had an increase in the percentage of teachers aged 30 to 39.

    Headline and paragraphs, I, 27.9.2003,
    http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=447099

Cheaper ecstasy is blamed

for six-fold rise in deaths

A sharp drop in the price of ecstasy sold in British nightclubs was blamed yesterday for a six-fold increase in deaths linked to the drug.

    Headline and first paragraphs, I, 23.9.2003,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=446155

One in three universities discriminates

against middle-class pupils,

study reveals

Of the 56 universities who replied to a survey, 20 said they would consider a pupil from school with lower than average A-level results as a factor to take into account when recruiting students. Seven said they made lower offers to disadvantaged students.

Headline, I, 23.3.2003,
    http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=446125

The world is beginning to look like France, a few years before the Revolution. There are no reliable wealth statistics from that time, but the disparities are unlikely to have been greater than they are today. The wealthiest 5% of the world's people now earn 114 times as much as the poorest 5%. The 500 richest people on earth now own $1.54 trillion - more than the entire gross domestic product of Africa, or the combined annual incomes of the poorest half of humanity.

The worst of times,
GI, p. 15, 2.9.2003.

It is notoriously hard to establish the number of police officers involved in the Special Branch, tasked with countering terrorism and monitoring "subversive" organisations, but, Statewatch says the numbers in Britain grew from 1,638 in 1978 to 4,247 last year.

The Special Branch is now two and a half times as big as it was at the height of the cold war or the worst part of the Northern Ireland conflict.

Special Branch is bigger than in cold war,
GI, p.1, 2.9.2003.

Scientists have solved the mystery of why some smokers get lung cancer while others escape - and developed a blood test to identify those most at risk. They have found a genetic variation that makes some smokers ten times as likely as others to get the disease.

Test will show which smokers face lung cancer death,
T, p.1, 3.9.2003.

The extent to which the Kelly affair has also damaged the prime minister's standing was revealed by an ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph,

which revealed that two-thirds of the public and 62% of Labour voters felt deceived by the government over the issue of weapons of mass destruction.

New Gilligan claim on controversial email,
GI, p. 1, 25.8.2003.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/aug/25/
huttoninquiry.hutton

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