Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin bombs own gas pipeline to sabotage Trump ceasefire deal, Kyiv says
A gas pumping station in Sudzha, in the Russian border region of Kursk is on fire having been rocked by a major explosion
Vladimir Putin’s forces are bombing stations along their own crucial gas pipeline in an effort to sabotage any ceasefire deal with Ukraine, Kyiv’s military has said.
A gas pumping station in Sudzha, in the Russian border region of Kursk was on fire on Friday morning after being rocked by a major explosion. Ukraine’s general staff has denied that his forces struck the pipeline and instead said it had been “repeatedly shelled by the Russians themselves”.
The army accused Russia of seeking to pin the blame on Ukraine with “groundless” accusations its military was involved – all to undermine any truce and longer peace deal currently being negotiated by Donald Trump and the US.
The Sudzha pipeline has been a critical hub for Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has warned Putin will face “severe consequences” if he breaches any peace deal with Ukraine, as western military planners begin drawing up plans to enforce any agreement between the two countries that Mr Trump and the US is trying to secure.
In Ukraine, a mass drone attack launched by Russia on Odesa overnight caused fires in three different parts of the city.
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Is Russia behind Heathrow Airport closure? Probe into substation fire launched as experts say blaze exposes huge 'vulnerability' in Britain's critical national infrastructure
Vladimir Putin's disruption campaign could be linked to the electrical substation fire that has shut London Heathrow Airport for the whole day, experts claimed today.
More than 1,300 flights to and from the UK's busiest airport will be impacted today due to its closure following a fire at the nearby North Hyde electrical substation.
Thousands of homes were left without power with more than 100 people evacuated after a transformer at the substation, which supplies the airport, caught fire.
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
They allege that the disruption campaign is an extension of President Putin's war, intended to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine - although the Kremlin has denied carrying out sabotage efforts against the West.
Now, experts are analysing whether Russia could be linked to the Heathrow fire, which is affecting 679 flights scheduled to land and 678 departures from the hub.
Security expert Will Geddes, director and founder of the International Corporate Protection Group, told MailOnline: 'Heathrow has been looking at expanding - this isn't a great advert for their ability to do so safely.
'If I was a foreign hostile party and I wanted to disrupt one of the busiest airports in the world, cause international embarrassment, create many, many question marks, I would target something like a substation.
A transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation in West London caught fire last night
Firefighters continue to exinguish the blaze at North Hyde electricity substation this morning
'The Russians are looking at everything. They're looking at our fibre optics under the sea, they're looking at our nuclear power stations, we know hostile reconnaissance is going on right now.
'So for this to be taken down so easily and cause such an impact, one has got to say if I was Russia, that's where I would focus my attentions as well.'
He said the incident had the potential to be a similar act of sabotage to the fires on railway tracks in France ahead of the Paris Olympics in July.
Mr Geddes continued: 'If anybody did this it would either be down to some serious reconnaissance in advance to determine that this was a massive vulnerability.
'They would have had to determine what leaning and what depth of responsibility and sort of impact would this substation have not only obviously on the local homes, but also on Heathrow Airport itself.
'Or you've got the easier, simpler answer that these guys have fallen asleep and they have not battle readied this substation for any type of eventuality of potential power outs, fires or anything like that.
'Where is the fire suppression system, why has that not worked? Is that because it's faulty or because it has been tampered with?'
He said Russia and other hostile states would be glad to see the chaos it has caused 'and it's not outside the scope of a foreign hostile state to attack a substation or a power or utility supply to a key site.'
Bob Seely, a Russia expert and former Conservative MP, told MailOnline that the chaos at Heathrow was at least a 'warning' about the threat of sabotage.
He said: 'This has exposed a massive security vulnerability. If a substation fire can shut down one of the world's largest airports and Britain's busiest airport, it shows a dangerous lack of resilience.
'We should be building resilience into our critical national infrastructure, especially given the rise in Russian sabotage operations in Europe as well as the threat of home-grown terrorism or extremist protests designed to bring modern life to a halt.'
Dr Seely, whose new book 'New Total War' is out this summer, added: 'Until we see different, this was very likely to have been an accident, but it is also a warning to us.
'We need to design in and build in greater resilience in our critical national infrastructure.'
Sky News security and defence editor Deborah Haynes said: 'Folk who track Russia's campaign of unconventional warfare in Europe will likely wake up wondering if the fire that cut power to Heathrow was an accident or something sinister.
'Understanding how or why the fire at a substation started will of course be key. Either way… this does really rather highlight the vulnerability of a piece of national infrastructure as critical as our largest and most important civilian airport.'
And Professor Lucy Easthope, an adviser on disaster response and recovery, and author of 'When the Dust Settles', added: 'It actually does not matter whether it was a Bic lighter and pile of newspapers or a deliberate attack.
'Either shows up the current vulnerability of national infrastructure, civil defence - I use that term deliberately - and the resourcing of response and readiness.'
It comes after Richard Gaisford, chief correspondent for ITV's Good Morning Britain, said: 'Heathrow Airport is a key piece of UK national infrastructure.
'Now brought to a standstill by a fire outside of its well protected boundaries, that creates chaos around the world. Security services must be considering sabotage.'
And Nick Ferrari asked on his LBC radio breakfast show: 'Anybody know where Vladimir Putin was last night wandering around with a can of unleaded?'
But the chairwoman of the Commons transport committee said it was 'speculative' to suggest at the moment that something sinister caused the Heathrow fire.
Asked by Times Radio if she thought the fire may have been caused intentionally, Labour MP Ruth Cadbury replied: 'I think that's somewhat speculative.
'There are obviously questions about it, and I don't know enough about electricity, but for the airport to be dependent on one substation, it does raise questions.'
She added it was 'very, very concerning' that 'one substation can close down an airport and there isn't an alternative source of energy'.
Meanwhile Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the Government was doing everything it could to restore power to Heathrow.
He was asked by Sky News whether a Cobra meeting of senior ministers would be convened to address the matter.
Mr Miliband replied: 'I'm sure the Government will be convening in the most appropriate way. I'm not going to anticipate the precise form of that, but I'm already in touch with my colleagues on this issue.
'As I say, I've spoken to the National Grid, who are really at the epicentre of this, and we will be doing everything we can, both to restore power and help the National Grid.
'To do that, and to ensure that the DfT (Department for Transport), and the Government as a whole, plays its part in, as best we can, minimising the disruption to passengers.'
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Miliband said the fire was 'an unprecedented event' and 'we will have to look hard' at 'resilience' for major institutions such as the airport.
He told Radio 4's Today programme: 'I spoke to the National Grid this morning. There's obviously been a catastrophic fire at this substation, an unprecedented event actually in their experience.
'It appears to have knocked out a back-up generator as well as the substation itself. What I know is that they are working as hard as they can to restore power as well as the fire being put out.
'It's too early to say what caused this but I think obviously we will have to look hard at the causes and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major institutions like Heathrow. With any event like this we'll have to both understand its causes and learn lessons from it.'
The fire came after the Associated Press documented 59 incidents in which European governments, prosecutors, intelligence services or other Western officials blamed Russia, groups linked to Russia or its ally Belarus for cyberattacks, spreading propaganda, plotting killings or committing acts of vandalism, arson, sabotage or espionage since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The incidents range from stuffing car exhausts with expanding foam in Germany to a plot to plant explosives on cargo planes.
They include setting fire to stores and a museum; hacking that targeted politicians and critical infrastructure; and spying by a ring convicted in the UK.
Richard Moore, the head of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, called it a 'staggeringly reckless campaign' in November.
Proving Russia's involvement in any incidents can be difficult, and the Kremlin has denied carrying out a sabotage campaign against the West - but more governments are publicly attributing attacks to Russia.
The alleged disruption has a double purpose, according to James Appathurai, the Nato official responsible for the alliance's response to such threats.
One is to create 'political disquiet' and undermine citizens' support for their governments and the other is to 'undercut support for Ukraine,' said Mr Appathurai, deputy assistant secretary-general for Innovation, Hybrid, and Cyber.
During its investigation, the AP spoke to 15 current officials, including two prime ministers, and officials from five European intelligence services, three defence ministries and Nato, in addition to experts.
Experts say the scope of the campaign is particularly worrying at a time when US support for Ukraine is wavering and European allies are questioning Washington's reliability as a security partner and ally.
The cases are varied, and the largest concentrations are in countries that are major supporters of Ukraine.
Some incidents had the potential for catastrophic consequences, including mass casualties, as when packages exploded at shipping facilities in Germany and the UK Western officials said they suspected the packages were part of a broader plot by Russian intelligence to put bombs on cargo planes headed to the US and Canada.
In another case, Western intelligence agencies uncovered what they said was a Russian plot to kill the head of a major German arms manufacturer that is a supplier of weapons to Ukraine.
European authorities are investigating several cases of damage to infrastructure under the Baltic Sea, including to a power cable linking Estonia and Finland.
Finnish authorities detained a ship, suspected of being part of Russia's 'shadow fleet' used to avoid sanctions, after that cable and others were damaged.
Estonian naval ships sail in the Baltic Sea in January, as part of stepped-up Nato patrols in the region following suspected sabotage of undersea cables
When a fake French Defence Ministry website claimed citizens were being called up to fight in Ukraine, a French minister denounced it as Russian disinformation.
German authorities suspect Russia was behind a campaign to block up scores of car exhausts ahead of national elections, according to a European intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
...
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Пороховой заговор в истории и культуре.
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С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
It’s Now a Hate Crime to Vandalize Teslas in DC
A splashy manhunt over anti-Musk graffiti shows just how far the capital will go to placate the Trump administration.
Add Mayor Muriel Bowser’s D.C. government to the long list of blue-state entities cornered into genuflecting before Donald Trump.
In the face of Republican threats to take over the self-governing capital, the city administration has spent 2025 trying to accommodate White House priorities on supposedly local policies ranging from graffiti abatement to street murals. This week may have brought the most Trump-pleasing move yet: The vandals accused of writing anti-Elon Musk graffiti on Tesla windshields, D.C. police said, will potentially be on the hook for hate crimes.
The announcement read more like pro-Tesla White House messaging than a public-safety notice from a blue city’s police force: “The suspects wrote political hate speech onto the victims’ Tesla vehicles then fled the scene,” the police press release declared. “The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating these offenses as potentially being motivated by hate or bias.”
The document was accompanied by security camera pictures of a man and a woman believed to be the perps. They are still at large. The department’s X post about the investigation was subsequently reposted without comment by Musk himself.
Even in a month when Bowser placated Republican critics by tearing up the iconic Black Lives Matter Plaza on 16th Street, the tone seemed over the top. The incidents, after all, involved writing on car windows, not blowing up automobiles. People reading the police announcement could be forgiven for thinking that the pair were wanted for scrawling bigoted threats against an identity group rather than wisecracks about the world’s richest man.
In fact, according to police reports I reviewed, the so-called hate speech actually consisted of sarcastic zingers like “Let’s do away with the administrative state! Buy a tesla!” “I like what Musk is doing,” “Go Doge I support Musk killing the dept of education,” “Ask me about my support of Nazis,” and “I love Musk and hate the Fed Gov’t.”
To be sure, these are crimes: You’re not allowed to deface someone else’s car, no matter what the slogan, and no matter how easy to clean off with Windex (as at least one of the victims did). In addition to being illegal and destructive, it’s awfully inconsiderate. Any local government worth its name ought to be protecting cars from being defaced, no matter who the automaker supports politically.
But calling it hate speech seems like a stretch — and it isn’t hard to imagine ulterior motives for making such a stretch. “For me it’s a good example of how you can have well-intentioned legislation that leads to absurd results,” said Patrice Sulton, the executive director of the D.C. Justice Lab. “You get to just weaponize something that’s not the purpose for which it was passed.”
As it happens, the District of Columbia is one of the rare jurisdictions that lists “political affiliation” alongside race, sex and religion as categories of bias. But that simply means you can’t discriminate against someone for being a Democrat or a Republican. It’s OK, though, to shun someone for a political opinion — like wanting to kill the administrative state, or for that matter wanting to save the administrative state.
Even if all Tesla owners agreed with the company’s CEO on public policy questions, they wouldn’t be a protected class. Someone convicted of tagging their cars would just be guilty of vandalism. But they wouldn’t have the harsher sentence that attaches to crimes motivated by bias.
“I would have a hard time seeing how anti-Elon Musk graffiti would constitute political affiliation discrimination,” said Michael Selmi, an Arizona State University law professor and an expert on discrimination law. “The real issue is there’s very little case law interpreting political affiliation in D.C. or in the few other jurisdictions that include it” on their lists of protected categories.
Political-affiliation bias claims are also vanishingly rare. While police statistics show dozens of reports each year of alleged bias crimes involving race, sexuality or ethnicity, there’s been exactly one political-affiliation complaint in the last four years. It happened in 2022 after an Uber driver allegedly refused to take someone to the Capitol Hill Club on the grounds that it was a Republican establishment. The refusal led to an altercation between the driver and the passenger, according to a police report. There were no arrests.
Given the long historic odds, why make a big show now out of investigating the Tesla tagging as a possible hate crime rather than as a string of just-as-illegal acts of property destruction?
A department spokesperson said that “the language used in the vandalism is the reason for this classification.” A spokesman for Bowser said she was not involved in her police department’s decision-making on this investigation.
Ultimately, it’s hard to separate this incident from the political travails of the city itself. Constitutionally marooned, D.C. is a place where Congress could end local democracy with a simple vote and where the president could unilaterally assume command of the police department with the stroke of a pen. During last year’s campaign, Trump vowed to “take over” the city. Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert this week suggested that the GOP might rename the place the District of America.
Against that backdrop, the city’s elected leadership has tried mightily to mollify the president. Bowser this month got rid of the Black Lives Matter street mural that enraged Trump in 2020 and was targeted by GOP legislation this spring. The “sanctuary city” page has disappeared from the municipal website. The local government has embraced presidential priorities around cleaning up homeless encampments. And last week, D.C. police controversially helped DOGE operatives get into the United States Institute of Peace.
Now the White House is beating the drums about Tesla vandalism, creating another incentive for the locals to play ball. The FBI director called Tesla vandalism domestic terrorism. The president has suggested sending vandals to jail in El Salvador. If likening run-of-the-mill political graffiti to criminal bigotry is what it takes to keep the feds from padlocking city hall, the logic goes, maybe it’s worth it. Unlike local governments in Cleveland or Boston, D.C.’s is really between a rock and a hard place.
But in the process, a city that recently was demanding statehood becomes progressively less autonomous.
And the citizenry, likewise, becomes a little less free. In an age of fear about civil liberties, one reassurance has always been that national-politics lunacy will always break down at the local level. Presidential partisans may call for throwing the book at political enemies, but real cops serving real communities — and worrying about catching real rapists, murderers or burglars — are too busy to play along with political bullying.
That may still be true in most cases. But the Case of the Tesla Taggers shows how much Washington, even the most local parts of it, can be swayed by the Trump White House.
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NYPD searching for suspects accused of vandalizing Tesla in Brooklyn
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Two men scrawl swastikas, ‘Nazi’ on Tesla Cybertruck parked in Brooklyn neighborhood
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Tesla owners speak out exclusively to 7News after their cars were vandalized
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С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Build child-safe smartphones rather than impose school bans, experts urge
Keir Starmer has said that a government ban on smartphone in schools is unnecessary
Smartphones should be treated like cars, not cigarettes – with technology built to mitigate harms rather than being banned outright, academics have argued.
In a new piece published in the British Medical Journal, five academics who have studied smartphone bans in schools push for more child-friendly technology rather than phones being taken away.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday that a ban on phones in schools was “completely unnecessary”.
“I’ve got teenage children, almost every school bans phones in school. They do it already. We need to concentrate on what is really important here, which is getting to the content that children shouldn’t be accessing,” he said.
Research from Teacher Tapp, an app that surveys thousands of teachers in the UK, found in December 2024 that in 56 per cent of secondary schools, children are allowed mobiles on site but are not allowed to take them out of their bags.
According to the survey, the majority of teachers at schools where pupils were allowed to keep their phones, rather than hand them in, would prefer if they were banned completely – with 78 per cent of people backing tougher bans.
Academics from the University of Birmingham, Harvard, and universities in Brazil and Sweden published a study in February examining the impacts of policies in 30 English secondary schools.
The study, co-authored by Dr Victoria Goodyear, found that there was no evidence to suggest restrictive school phone policies impacted the child’s use of social media or their mental health. They examined 20 schools where students were not allowed to use phones during recreational periods and 10 where this was allowed.
“We found in our research that there is an association between the more time that adolescents spend on their phones and on social media, in relation to worsened outcomes. That can be across mental health, anxiety, depression, sleep, physical activity, attainment and disruptive classroom behaviour,” Dr Goodyear said.
The academic said a recent evaluation of school phone policies in England found there was no difference in outcomes between adolescents that attended a school with a phone ban and those that didn’t.
“If bans alone are not enough, what else do we need to do?” she said. “We need to equip children for healthy technology use. There are two key ways; firstly an age-appropriate design, and secondly equipping children with digital skills”.
In a follow-up article to their study published on Thursday, the researchers said the evidence about the impact of smartphones on children is “not clear cut”. They said that so far, despite positive anecdotal data from the implementation of smartphone bans, “we do not have the evidence to establish the types of bans that are effective and what works best for children of different ages”.
The professors argued that “prescribing abstinence from all technologies to protect against harms is unrealistic and potentially detrimental in a society where technology use is a practical necessity and confers various benefits”.
They gave the example of sub-Saharan Africa, where social media can provide access to essential healthcare services, or in China, where social media access can help LGBT+(а.п.: в России запрещён) teenagers to find community.
They likened smartphones to cars, saying that safety regulations should be put in place to mitigate the potential harms. But they should not be treated like cigarettes, where outright bans are effective.
The UK is now lagging behind Europe on action on smartphones, with Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Norway and others imposing limits on school use or social media for children.
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Ofsted chief backs headteachers taking ‘tough’ decision to ban phones in schools
Sir Martyn Oliver told parents at a Q&A in London that he had walked into schools in ‘utter chaos’ where phones were rife.
The chief inspector of Ofsted has said smartphones should be banned in schools in England.
Sir Martyn Oliver said the watchdog will back headteachers who take the “tough” decision to ban phones as he warned that exposure to online content on devices can be “harmful” and “damaging” to children.
Sir Martyn, who used to be chief executive of a large academy trust, said he had walked into schools in the past in “utter chaos” where phones were “rife”.
In a Q&A with parents in London, the Ofsted boss said: “Headteachers already have the power to ban them and they should ban them.
“Ofsted will support schools in banning phones.”
Speaking at an event run by charity Parentkind on Wednesday, Sir Martyn said children with developing brains do not need to be “bombarded by non-human algorithms that might be preying upon them”.
He added: “It’s harmful and it’s damaging. So I do believe they should be banned.”
Schools in England were given non-statutory guidance under the former Conservative government in February last year intended to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned why the Government opposed a Tory amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to require schools to ban the use of phones.
In the Commons on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the proposal as “completely unnecessary” as he claimed “almost every school” already bans phones.
When asked about phone bans in schools, Sir Martyn said: “I think it’s crucial that Ofsted doesn’t ask schools to do beyond what the Government asks them to do, but I would absolutely support headteachers to take that tough decision even if it led to a spike in behaviour, for example, in the first instance.”
He added: “I’ve walked into – I can’t remember exactly how many – special-measures schools in utter chaos, but it’s an awful lot.
“Some of them you could easily describe as in some of the most challenging circumstances in the entire country when I went in to sponsor them and there were phones rife everywhere.
“And within those schools, within days of banning phones, and as hard as that is initially, you get an immediate sense of calmness across the school.”
In a speech on Wednesday, the Ofsted chief called on parents to engage with schools “in the right way” rather than joining a social media “pile-on”.
He warned that social media can “hand a microphone to the pub bore, a megaphone to the bully and help the rabble-rouser find his or her rabble without leaving their armchair”.
Sir Martyn said: “The world seems to be getting more antagonistic and adversarial. So you can understand why a school leader might be wary of engaging with parents.
“But I always found that the way to defuse tensions, tackle rumours and build common purpose with parents is more communication, not less.
“More openness, not less. And more information sharing, not less.
“So I say join the PTA, don’t join the pile-on.”
Earlier this month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she had tasked officials with exploring how to “more effectively monitor” what is happening in schools in England around the use of smartphones.
In a speech to school and college leaders in Liverpool, Ms Phillipson said: “The Government’s position is clear, you have our full backing in ridding our classrooms of the disruption of phones.”
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Approaches to children’s smartphone and social media use must go beyond bans
Supporting the healthy development of children requires an approach to smartphone and social media use underpinned by age appropriate design and education, argue Victoria Goodyear and colleagues.
Children commonly use their smartphones to access social media, play games, and interact with others, accounting for the majority of overall screen use, particularly in the 8-17 age group.1 Most recently, banning or restricting children’s (under age 182) access to smartphones and social media has grasped the attention of policy makers, schools, and parents. Several countries, including France, Turkey, Norway, Sweden, as well as regions of the US and Canada, have introduced laws, policies, or guidance for schools to ban or heavily restrict the use of phones in schools.3 In Australia, new legislation prohibits social media use for children under age 16. In the US, the surgeon general called for warning labels on social media apps.4 Such restrictions lie within broader narratives that smartphones and social media are not safe environments for children. Moreover, bans are responses to increased public pressure to mitigate the potential harmful effects of smartphones and social media on health, wellbeing, and other associated outcomes—for example, academic performance, disruptive behaviours, and bullying.5
There are, however, no simple, one-size-fits-all answers. Although many policy makers, schools, and parents are primed to believe arguments that smartphones and social media are inherently harmful, the evidence about their overall effect on children is not clear cut.67 Smartphone bans have the advantage of being immediately actionable and relatively straightforward to enforce. However, despite positive anecdotal data, we do not have the evidence to establish the types of bans that are effective and what works best for children of different ages.89 A recent evaluation of school smartphone policies in England reported that restricted smartphone use in schools was not associated with benefits to adolescent mental health and wellbeing, physical activity and sleep, educational attainment, or classroom behaviour.10 In addition, this study found no evidence of school restrictions being associated with lower levels of overall phone or media use or problematic social media use.10
Technology-free moments and spaces are nevertheless important for children because increased time spent on phones and social media is generally linked with worse physical, mental, and educational outcomes.10 However, approaches that focus on simply restricting access to devices can undermine children’s rights to technology design and education that will help them thrive as adults in today’s world.
Phone bans are temporary solutions
Bans and restrictions have been successfully used for public health issues such as smoking.11 But smoking is not comparable with smartphone and social media use because the harms from smoking are extensive, clear cut, and by far outweigh the benefits. Prescribing abstinence from all technologies to protect against harms is unrealistic and potentially detrimental in a society where technology use is a practical necessity and confers various benefits, including information access and social support.1213 Overall, blanket restrictions are “stop gap” solutions that do little to support children’s longer term healthy engagement with digital spaces across school, home, and other contexts10 and their successful transition into adolescence and adulthood in a technology filled world.
Bans and restrictions are context dependent, and their effects will be highly variable across regions and populations. Families’ experiences and perspectives related to screen engagement for their children vary by culture, religion, and socioeconomic circumstances, including internet access and quality, and access to safe and green outside spaces.14 For some children, such as those who are especially vulnerable to poor mental health, access to certain digital content can result in grave harm.56 However, restricting access can be harmful to other high risk populations, including children with disabilities, refugees, children in conflict settings, rural or indigenous populations, and women and girls.12 For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, social media can provide access to essential healthcare services, including primary care and HIV surveillance.12 In Afghanistan, social media provide a “safe haven” where girls can access topics related to women’s rights, sexuality, domestic violence, and abortion.12 In China, studies have found that social media access benefits the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ adolescents.12
A more constructive analogy than smoking might be driving cars. In response to increasing injuries and deaths from car crashes, rather than banning cars, society built an ecosystem of product safety regulations for companies (seatbelts, airbags) and consumers (vehicle safety tests, penalties), public infrastructure (traffic lights), and education (licences) to support safer use. Comparative efforts in product safety and education are needed to supplement debates about smartphone and social media bans and to balance the positive and indispensable role of digital technologies against their potential harms. Similar arguments have been made by others from a rights respecting approach.
Rights based approach to smartphone and social media use
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN general comment in relation to digital environments provide a framework for governments and industry to respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all children in digital environments.215 This framework is underpinned by four guiding principles: non-discrimination; acting in the best interests of the child; rights to life, survival, and development; and respect the views of the child (box 1). A rights respecting approach therefore considers the whole of children’s lives and opens up ways of protecting children from harm while also approaching the healthy development of smartphone and social media use. Age appropriate design and education are two key levers for implementing an approach based on rights.
«Читал на уроке Литературы» - примерно такую запись в своем дневнике а.п. принес однажды домой из школы.
В «школьные 70-е» а.п. смартфоны заменяли книги.
Школьники читали везде и всегда: утром, днём, вечером, ночью, дома, на улице, в транспорте, в школе.
Что такое скучная история, география, литература по сравнению с приключенческим романом, фантастической повестью, рыцарской балладой?
Как родители, учителя, школа боролись с книжной «заразой»?
Если замечали отнимали и отдавали в конце урока, учебного дня, в назначенный день родителям после беседы с учителем/директором школы.
Помогло?
Нет!
Книга, конечно, не смартфон, совсем другие возможности, но результат будет тем же.
P.S.
А.п. перестал читать книги в школе после того, как понял, что учиться не менее важно, чем читать.
Когда современные школьники поймут, что реальная жизнь важнее сетевой, они сами отложат смартфоны на полку.
Запрет смартфонов, как таковой, это роспись социума в своей беспомощности, в неспособности сделать урок/школу живым, интересным, привлекательным занятием.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Make Sunday boring again: How an end-of-week shutdown could save us all
The seventh day used to be reserved for big walks, roasts and relaxing. But as our culture has moved online and become increasingly 24/7, have we lost the art of rest? Helen Coffey explores why there’s a new push to down tools and disconnect.
Boredom could be the key to sparking creativity (Getty/iStock)
Not to sound hopelessly nostalgic, but Sundays used to be better, didn’t they? Maybe my vision is distorted by buffed-up, rose-tinted specs – I vaguely recall being woefully bored at the time – but in hindsight, the Sundays of my youth resemble a blissful, stress-free utopia. Once a week, my family would go to church; take a bracing yomp in green, open space; eat a roast dinner; and spend the afternoon reading or playing games before pivoting to an evening watching some of the most gentle programmes in the history of TV scheduling (Songs of Praise segueing seamlessly into Antiques Roadshow and Last of the Summer Wine). It was a day of peace, a day of rest, a day of, whether intentionally or not, Sabbath.
Part of this weekly slowdown was enshrined in law. Up until the mid-1990s, buying and selling on Sunday was still illegal under the Shops Act 1950. Almost nothing was open; to all intents and purposes, consumerism ground to a halt. “For better or worse, Sunday was different and had an identity of its own,” says Daniel Gray, author of Sunday Best, a new book exploring the UK’s Sunday traditions.
This lingering limitation on opening hours was a hangover from Britain’s history as a Christian country, part of a wider religious tradition stipulating that, since God happily knocked off on the seventh day after making all of creation, perhaps we mere mortals should follow His lead. It was inspired by the Sabbath, a Jewish custom that’s still observed by practicing Jews today. From sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, abstaining from work is the order of the day – although what constitutes “work” can be a source of contention, depending on your interpretation – alongside devoting time to worshipping God.
Never ones to shy away from borrowing a good idea, Christians adopted the concept and shunted it to Sundays, with the fluid principles behind “Sabbath” evolving over the centuries – as evidenced by the changing legislation about what one could and couldn’t legally do on this sacred day. Gray highlights these rules through history in Sunday Best: as early as the year 925, the first King of England, Athelstan, outlawed Sunday trading; subsequent monarchs prohibited everything from sports and music to travel and “assembling” (other than at church, of course).
Even as religious adherence waned and Sabbath observance plummeted in Christian societies after the Second World War, the setting aside of a special day once a week – 24 hours of rest, simplicity and quality time with family – continued to permeate and shape British culture.
But has the day now “lost its sense of otherness”, as Gray puts it, as a consequence of growing secularism and the fact that legislation governing Sundays has largely fallen by the wayside?
The answer seems to be a resounding “yes”. Sunday’s uniquely lazy flavour arguably started to get diluted with the Sunday Trading Act 1994, still in place today, which stipulates that stores can fling wide their doors on a Sunday – albeit for a maximum of six hours between the hours of 10am and 6pm. “The fact that everything’s open makes it look like the other days of the week,” says Gray. “It also doesn't feel like it used to because of the incursion of the coming week. Monday seems to have made its way into Sunday through technology – checking our work emails on our phones, for example.”
What has fundamentally changed, he posits, is that we’ve collectively forgotten the beautiful art of being quiet – previously a key tenet of what differentiated Sunday from the surrounding week’s hecticness. “Everything’s so noisy and in your face,” says Gray. “There’s so much noise from people’s phones.”
The peaceful, switched-off Sunday may have been eroded over time, yet we are in need of rest more than ever, argues Claudia Hammond, author of The Art of Rest. “The benefits of getting more rest cannot be overstated,” she says. “And the same is true of the downsides of not resting enough; half of sick days taken are due to work-related stress. Our over-busy lives can leave us fatigued, which in turn can lead to memory lapses, blunted emotions, poor concentration, misunderstandings, poor judgement, and even accidents.”
By contrast, taking proper breaks and having a decent amount of rest can lower blood pressure and heart rate, boost concentration and creativity levels and increase resilience against stress. Hammond cites the Rest Test, conducted by psychologists from Durham University, which found that people who think they get more rest than average have wellbeing scores twice as high as those who feel in need of more rest.
But true rest in the digital era is very hard to come by. The online world is constantly encroaching; physical shops may be limited to certain opening hours on Sundays, but ecommerce never sleeps. News alerts, notifications, messages – none of it takes a day off.
Part of the nostalgia of looking back is remembering the kind of Sunday, now hard to fathom, during which no one scrolled on their phone, replied to an email on their iPad, responded to the “ping-ping-ping!” of constant incoming WhatsApps or mindlessly let another episode of Married At First Sight flick onto the flatscreen telly while barely concentrating.
Many of us view these 21st-century screen-related activities as being part of our leisure or relaxation time – 24 per cent of us consider scrolling on social media a “hobby”, according to one 2024 poll – yet research shows that they are anything but restful. Study after study has linked increased social media use to anxiety and depression. Experts have associated the growth in smartphone use with a mental health crisis in children and young people around the globe.
Society as a whole, meanwhile, is in the midst of a mass cognitive decline – or “brainrot”, to use the horrifying colloquialism – courtesy of tech. “High levels of internet usage and heavy media multitasking are associated with decreased grey matter in prefrontal regions,” according to one piece of research. Another bit of analysis from Stanford University revealed that people who frequently use many types of media at once, or are heavy media multitaskers, have reduced memory and attention spans.
It’s why there is a growing movement to reclaim Sundays or implement a new iteration of the Sabbath by shunning devices for one day a week. Human Mobile Devices (HMD), a mobile phone manufacturer that champions the idea of building a healthier relationship with technology, launched its “Shut the Phone Up Sunday” initiative in February, encouraging people to reclaim their time and “mental clarity” by taking a break from their smartphone for one day a week.
While not weekly, global digital detox days encouraging participants around the world to unplug for 24 hours are regularly hosted by The Offline Club, which organises real-world, in-person events and hangouts. On Saturday (29 March), they even held a World Record attempt for the largest number of people simultaneously switching off their phones in London’s Primrose Hill.
“The need for time and space offline is more evident than ever,” says Ben Hounsell, head of the London chapter. “You often go to a restaurant and see a couple or family all have their phones on the table next to them. It’s a big problem in today’s society – it’s like there’s always a third person in the room, and that person is your phone.” Hounsell now asks people: how often are you alone with your thoughts? “People have forgotten what it’s like,” he says. “Boredom is virtually a luxury these days.”
In fact, “boredom” is often associated with Sundays when adults look back at their childhoods. And, as much as the word has negative connotations, it could be fundamental to sparking creativity and hatching new ideas. In one 2014 study examining the relationship between boredom and creative potential, participants were split into two groups, with one given something boring to do before embarking on a creative task. The result? “Boring” activities resulted in increased creativity. Scientists concluded that, in the absence of external stimuli, “attention is focused on internal processes and thoughts, thus generating new ideas”.
This phenomenon is something Tiffany Shlain, author of 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week, has discovered since she and her family introduced a weekly “tech shabbat” 16 years ago. “I have my best ideas [as an artist and a writer] on the day where I’m not getting deluged with input from the world,” she says. Though Jewish, Shlain is not religious – yet now swears by the practice of a screen-free Sabbath once a week, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. “A day of rest is this built-in practice that’s been around for thousands of years,” she says. “This is ancient wisdom, and any idea that’s been around that long and is still an idea is probably something we should look at.”
Shlain first started her practice following a turbulent period during which her father died and her daughter was born within the space of a few weeks. “It really was one of those moments where I felt like life was grabbing me by the shoulders and saying, ‘focus on what matters’,” she says. “I was really feeling distracted, like I couldn’t focus and I wasn’t present. I was everywhere and nowhere all the time with my phone – it was such an existential feeling.” The combination of birth and death acted as a wake-up call: “We were like, we have to live our lives differently. And we started turning off the screens.”
It has been, says Shlain, the best thing she has ever done – both in terms of connecting with family and as a means of individually recharging. “The longer I did it, the better I felt,” she adds. “It’s this incredible reset every week.”
Anyone can and should implement their own version of a tech shabbat, she urges, regardless of religion or background. Shlain advises getting prepared before you try it – writing down important phone numbers on a piece of paper in case of emergency, procuring an analogue or “dumbphone” if you don’t have a landline, handwriting directions to anywhere you want to go the next day – and focusing on making it a genuinely exciting prospect.
“I do recommend that families write down all the things you love to do that don’t involve screens, and do that for each member of your family, and make your Sabbath a day of doing those things,” she recommends. “And those of you that don’t have kids: just do what brings you joy and pleasure. People have forgotten how much they love to do without screens.”
This echoes what Gray picks out as being at the heart of reclaiming the old Sunday tradition: getting out in nature, meeting friends at the pub for a lazy afternoon of pints and chats and playing cards.
Hounsell’s top tip, meanwhile, is to start small if doing a whole day initially feels overwhelming: “Just try to get away from your phone for an hour before you go to bed and for an hour first thing when you wake up. I think that would be huge for a lot of people.”
However you put it into practice, reclaiming a day of rest could be the key to revolutionising your entire week. As Shlain puts it: “We just weren’t designed to be ‘on’ 24/7. There’s a reason the Sabbath is the fourth commandment – even before ‘Do not murder’, we were told to take a day off!”
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С пониманием и отраслевыми пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Soaring Egg Prices Are Forcing Americans to Decorate Potatoes for Easter
Americans are painting potatoes instead of eggs this Easter.
As egg prices rise, Americans are turning to more affordable alternatives to the traditional Easter egg painting.
Egg prices hit a record high of $4.95 in January. To avoid the cost this Easter, families are instead dipping potatoes in food coloring and painting the vegetable's skin as a holiday alternative and sharing their results on TikTok.
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Цитата:
Painting Easter Eggs Too Expensive? Some Parents Are Opting for Easter Potatoes
Don’t let exorbitant egg prices cramp your Easter crafts this year.
Dying eggs? In this economy? No thanks. | Potatoes USA/Business Wire
What began as a meme has been willed into reality. Eggs are notoriously pricy—and the cost of buying a dozen has only continued to rise in recent years. Shelling out for eggs to decorate or hide around the yard can make Easter fairly expensive. That’s why some families have ditched dyeing eggs altogether and are opting to paint Easter potatoes instead.
As Axios reported, the act of dyeing or decorating potatoes—which are comparatively less expensive than the inflation-hammered egg—began gaining momentum in the spring of 2023. The idea seemed to have originated as a series of memes in which, due to high egg prices, “children will have to hunt potatoes this Easter.”
Not one to let an opportunity slide, the potato advocacy group Potatoes USA began promoting the idea in earnest. Declaring 2023 “the year of the Easter potato,” the group declared spuds “an excellent canvas for family activities.”
“As a mom of two kids, I’m constantly looking for new activities,” Marisa Stein, director of marketing at Potatoes USA, said in a 2023 press release. “The idea of painting potatoes made me laugh, but honestly, it’s really fun. My kids loved experimenting with different designs. It was silly and a great way to spend time with my family.”
The cost of eggs has increased quite a bit since the potato-painting trend first took hold two years ago. The average price for a dozen Grade A large eggs hit $5.90 in February 2025. Inflation, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and bird flu are to blame for the rising prices.
Potatoes do have some advantages over eggs. They don’t need to be boiled or otherwise prepared in advance, and any left over from an Easter egg hunt are biodegradable. As with eggs, they can also be consumed if food-safe paint or dye is used for decorating. The downside: Painting a potato’s rough, uneven surface is a challenge, and most Easter potatoes are likely going to look more abstract or expressionist than children may like.
There are some tricks you can try to make the most of this unusual canvas. Potatoes USA recommends using food coloring if you’re looking for an edible dye; simply paint the dye onto the scrubbed potatoes (the organization recommends using hairspray to seal the color, though that would obviously make them inedible). If you’re worried about a potato’s brown base dulling your creative vision, consider using a layer of white paint as a primer before painting with any colors.
You can do more than just dye the potatoes. “This year, we’re slicing our potatoes and using cookie cutters and food coloring to paint Easter shapes and spring animals before putting them in the air fryer,” Kayla Vogel, mom and senior global marketing manager at Potatoes USA, said in a statement. “It’s a really fun activity. My kids love eating potato bunnies, and I love my kids eating their vegetables.”
The trusty tubers aren’t the only potential egg replacement. According to Parents, some families are also choosing to dye marshmallows or decorate plastic eggs.
Правда идея заменить дефицитные яйца доступным картофелем не нова.
Так например, ещё в прошлом, 2024 году, по зоозащитным соображениям, эту идею подала структура «PETA»:
Цитата:
It’s no yolk: PETA urges White House to swap eggs for potatoes at Easter Egg Roll
by Judy Kurtz - 03/12/24 11:57 AM ET
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on the White House to roll a different way this spring — swapping chicken eggs for potatoes at the annual Easter Egg Roll.
In a pun-heavy letter to first lady Jill Biden this week, the animal rights organization said it wants to “respectfully suggest an appeeling way to modernize the White House Easter Egg Roll,” which is set for April 1 on the South Lawn.
“Instead of promoting the deleterious factory farming and slaughter industries, will you please initiate the annual White House Potato Roll?” the letter from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk asks.
A “potato roll,” Newkirk said, wouldn’t “exploit any sentient beings and would encourage empathy and kindness to animals while supporting potato farmers in the U.S.”
“Potatoes are the most popular vegetable in the country and can be safely dyed, allowing for spudtacular traditional activities, such as rolling them, seeking for them, and decorating them. You could even hold potato sack races and games of hot potato!” the letter to the first lady said.
Citing 2022’s avian flu outbreak that triggered sky-high egg prices, Newkirk urged Biden to “leave a legacy of kindness” by starting a new potato-filled tradition at the White House.
Last year, the American Egg Board donated 30,000 eggs for the White House Easter Egg Roll and another 30,000 to food banks in the Washington area.
It’s not the first time that PETA has offered some eggceptionally out-of-the-box suggestions for ways to ditch chicken eggs at the festivities.
Last year, the group pressed Biden to choose “reusable plastic or wooden eggs — or even lovely painted rocks or egg-shaped balls” for the event, which dates to the 1870s during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration.
А годом ранее, эта же «РЕТА» предлагала красить к празднику яйца пластиковые, деревянные и даже каменные (гальку).
Цитата:
PETA to White House: No more real eggs for Easter Egg Roll
by Judy Kurtz - 03/13/23 4:11 PM ET
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on Jill Biden to egg-cercise some fowl-related restraint at this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll by ending the use of real chicken eggs.
In a Monday letter to the first lady, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk wrote that she wanted to “respectfully urge [Biden] not to allow the use of real chicken eggs for the White House Easter Egg Roll but to choose instead reusable plastic or wooden eggs — or even lovely painted rocks or egg-shaped balls — all of which would last for years to come.”
Such a move, the animal rights organization’s president wrote, “would make the event eggstra special for chickens and inclusive of all children who attend, including those who don’t consume eggs for ethical, environmental, or health reasons.”
“We hope you’ll agree that while families are shelling out nearly 70 percent more for eggs amid the deadliest avian flu outbreak on record, now is a hopping good time to hatch an Easter tradition that is kind and doesn’t prop up the cruel egg industry,” Newkirk said.
A spokesperson for Biden declined ITK’s request for comment.
This year’s White House Easter Egg Roll is poised to be held on April 10, with a lottery for free tickets to the springtime event opening up on Thursday.
In past years, tens of thousands of chicken eggs have been donated by American farmers for various activities at the White House’s kid-filled bash, including for rolling, decorating and snacking. In 2019, more than 70,000 eggs were donated for the occasion, according to the American Egg Board.
Last year’s gathering on the South Lawn marked the first White House Easter Egg Roll in two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 30,000 visitors were estimated to have taken part in the 2022 bash, the White House said.
It’s not the first time that PETA has clucked about the White House’s long-running Easter event. In 2016, the organization offered to donate plastic and dyeable ceramic eggs for the White House Easter Egg Roll, and said it would provide a vegan egg-free scramble for volunteers. Last year, the group urged President Biden and first lady Jill Biden to “adopt vegan Easter festivities” by sponsoring a pair of rescued birds at a sanctuary and naming them after the commander in chief and his wife.
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С любопытством и отраслевыми ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Как часто, в последнее время, нам приходилось читать материалы о «китайских», а прежде «северокорейских» военнослужащих захваченных в плен ВСУ.
В качестве доказательства предъявлялись живые «корейцы» и «китайцы», а в последнем случае, мировому сообществу были представлены паспорта и кредитные карты...
Кто ходит на боевое задание с паспортом (военным билетом) и пачкой кредитных карт?
Даже военнослужащие ВСУ, захватившие осенью прошлого года «5» в Курской области, явно не имели их с собой.
Другими словами, в версию Украины никто не поверил.
Тем более, что на днях Китай официально опроверг эти утверждения, призвав своих граждан, добровольно участвующих в конфликте, незамедлительно покинуть театр военных действий.
Однако в англосаксонских СМИ, как кажется этого никто не заметил…
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Цитата:
‘Do you want to show strength here?’: Russia’s ads recruiting Chinese mercenaries
More than 150 Chinese nationals are fighting for Russia in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, recruited via videos on social media
The videos are across Chinese social media. Some are slickly produced Russian propaganda about being “tough” men; some sound more like influencer advertisements for a working holiday. Others are cobbled-together screenshots by regular citizens about to leave China. But they all have one thing in common: selling the benefits of becoming a Chinese mercenary for Russia.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced that two Chinese nationals had been captured in the eastern Donetsk region and accused Moscow of trying to involve China “directly or indirectly” in the conflict. A day later, he said the men were among at least 155 other Chinese members of Russia’s armed forces. Then again, on Thursday, he accused Russia of conducting “systemic work” in China to recruit fighters.
China says it is a neutral party to the conflict, although its leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, are public allies, with a “no limits” partnership between their two nations.
Zelenskyy demanded answers from Beijing, accusing it of turning a blind eye to Russia’s recruitment of its citizens. Russia is known to have used or attempted to recruit foreign mercenaries or soldiers – including from North Korea, Syria and Libya – during the conflict. He said Russia was recruiting Chinese fighters through ads on Chinese social media platforms such as Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and that Beijing was aware of it.
Numerous recruitment clips are easily found on Chinese social media. All of them emphasise the pay on offer, ranging from 60,000 to 200,000 RMB (£6,000 to £21,000) as a sign-on bonus and monthly salaries of about 18,000 RMB (£1,900).
One video, which has had hundreds of thousands of views across different platforms, appears to be a Russian recruitment ad with Chinese subtitles overlaid. It shows Caucasian men leaving their day jobs to fight and asks viewers: “Do you want to show strength here? Is this the path that you long for? You are a tough man, be like them!”
Another popular video is by someone claiming to have already been recruited. “Due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, I’m heading there after the new year,” he said in December, over screenshots with information about how to sign up.
In another clip, a Russian influencer speaks to her more than 300,000 followers in Mandarin, advertising the financial benefits of joining Russia’s army, with sign-on bonuses and monthly payments from the Russian government and military as well as housing benefits and medical and childcare.
“Trained by experienced coaches, equipped with the best professional equipment,” she says. “In Moscow, anyone under 60 years old can sign up, regardless of whether they have served in foreign military service. Foreign and Russian citizens can sign up voluntarily.”
Responses varied, especially to the posts by Chinese people saying they were signing up. Some asked how they could be involved, or if not speaking Russian was a barrier. “Is there a team in Shanxi? Count me in. I have a passport ready and can leave at any time,” said one user.
Many noted higher wages being offered than what they earned in China. Comments that people were signing up to be “cannon fodder” are common.
Three weeks ago, the Chinese journalist and author Chai Jing interviewed a Chinese citizen who joined Russian forces in November 2023 by flying to Russia on a tourist visa.
The soldier told her he was in Bakhmut as part of an “assault team” near the frontlines. He said “money played a part” in his decision to join, but he was driven mainly by never having experienced war despite being a member of China’s military.
He suggested he could have joined either side, but there were more Chinese fighters on the Russian side, probably because visas were easier to obtain, but also because they felt Russia was helping China. But he wanted to show people at home what the “brutal” reality was like.
“I realised I might die here one day, so I decided to share some real experiences since China’s people haven’t been through a war for a long time,” he said, adding that he hoped China would plan a stable role and “refrain from starting or joining wars”.
Last week, Chai interviewed Chinese soldiers on Ukraine’s side, saying there were far fewer of them than in Russia. Ukraine denies it recruits mercenaries but allows foreign volunteers to become part of its armed forces.
Comments from Chinese officials on Wednesday suggested people were joining up on their own initiative, though officials in Beijing said the idea that significant numbers were involved in the war was “totally unfounded”.
“Let me stress that the Chinese government always asks Chinese nationals to stay away from areas of armed conflict, avoid any form of involvement in armed conflict, and in particular avoid participation in any party’s military operations,” the foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, told a regular press briefing in Beijing.
On Thursday, when asked about Zelenskyy’s claims about Chinese fighters, Lin called for “relevant parties” to “refrain from expressing irresponsible remarks”.
But the fact that recruitment posts are online – and have remained there for up to several months despite being shared hundreds of thousands of times – suggests that at best there has not been a concerted effort by authorities to address them. China’s social media are strictly monitored and controlled, with fast and effective censorship of sensitive or critical terms and topics.
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China and North Korea aid to Russia poses security risk in Indo-Pacific region, says top US commander
Beijing and Pyongyang are aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine, and Moscow in turn is assisting their militaries
The top US commander in the Pacific has warned senators that the military support that China and North Korea are giving Russia in its war on Ukraine is a security risk in his region as Moscow provides critical military assistance to both in return.
Adm Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee that China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips to Russia to help Moscow “rebuild its war machine”.
In exchange, he said, China is potentially getting help in technologies to make its submarines move more quietly, along with other assistance.
Senators pressed Paparo and Gen Xavier Brunson, commander of US Forces Korea, on China’s advances in the region, including threats to Taiwan. They also questioned both on the US military presence in South Korea, and whether it should be shielded from personnel cuts.
Both said the current US forces there and across the Indo-Pacific region are critical for both diplomacy in the region and US national security, as ties between Russia and China grow. The US has 28,500 military personnel in South Korea.
Paparo said North Korea is sending “thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of artillery shells” and thousands of short-range missiles to Russia. The expectation, he said, is that Pyongyang will receive air-defense and surface-to-air missile support.
“It’s a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state’s weakness to mutual benefit of each state,” Paparo said.
Brunson said North Korea has shown the ability to send munitions and troops to Russia while advancing development of its own military capabilities, including hypersonic weapons. Pyongyang, he said, “boasts a Russian-equipped, augmented, modernized military force of over 1.3 million personnel”.
North Korea’s efforts to develop advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles “pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies”, Paparo added.
North Korea also has sent thousands of soldiers to fight with the Russians against Ukraine. And the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday that Russia is actively recruiting Chinese citizens to fight alongside its forces in the Ukraine war. He said more than 150 such mercenaries are already active in the battle with Beijing’s knowledge.
China has called the accusation “irresponsible”.
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More than 150 Chinese mercenaries recruited by Putin fighting against Ukraine, says Zelensky
President accuses Kremlin of recruiting people on social media with Beijing’s knowledge
About 155 Chinese mercenaries are fighting for the Russian military against Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed.
The Kremlin is recruiting Chinese people via social media – and Beijing knows it, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Mr Zelensky said.
He said Kyiv was trying to assess whether the recruits were receiving instructions from the Chinese government.
In China, officials branded the allegations "totally unfounded".
But Mr Zelensky said intelligence chiefs had the details of 155 Chinese citizens fighting for the Russian army, adding: “We believe that there are many more of them.”
He showed journalists documents that he said listed the names, passport numbers and personal information on the recruits, including when they arrived in Russia for military training and departed for service.
On Tuesday the Ukrainian leader announced the military had captured two Chinese men fighting alongside the Russian army on Ukrainian soil in the eastern Donetsk region, saying there were “significantly more” of them. It was the first time Ukraine had made such a claim about Chinese fighters in the war.
On Wednesday, he said Ukraine was willing to exchange the two prisoners of war for Ukrainian soldiers held captive in Russia.
He stopped short of saying the Chinese government authorised the mercenaries' involvement in Ukraine, but said Beijing officials were aware of Russia's campaign to recruit Chinese mercenaries – although he provided no evidence.
China has provided strong diplomatic support for Russia since it launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022.
It has also sold Russia machinery and microelectronics that can be used to make weapons, Western officials say, in addition to providing an economic lifeline through trade in energy and consumer goods.
But China is not believed to have knowingly provided Russia with troops, weapons or military expertise.
A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said earlier the government had always required its citizens to avoid areas of armed conflict and "especially to avoid participating in the military operations of any party".
Spokesperson Lin Jian said China had played a "constructive role in politically resolving the Ukraine crisis".
US officials have accused Iran of providing Russia with drones, and North Korea of sending thousands of troops and ammunition.
Mr Zelensky said US officials expressed surprise when informed of the presence of Chinese mercenaries in Ukraine.
US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said on Tuesday that reports of Chinese citizens fighting on behalf of Russia were disturbing.
“China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine,” Ms Bruce said.
Кому адресована эта Политическая Реклама англосаксов, если на внешнем контуре она вызывает только смех?
Она предназначена для внутреннего потребления. Для народов стран, которыми они руководят.
Но какое дело островным и континентальным домохозяйкам этих стран такая Политическая Реклама, какое им дело до этого, зачем им знать, что «кто то» ещё, кроме россиян воюет с ВСУ на стороне Москвы?
…
Единственная цель этой Политической рекламной компании о для обоснования ввода англосаксонских войск на территорию Украины. Для оправдания таких действий. И более ни для чего.
И судя по обилию и разнообразию такой Политической Рекламы такое вторжение скоро произойдет.
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С сожалением и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
"They're Dangerous!" Pothole Vigilante Plants Flowers As A Solution To Problem.
Цитата:
Nigel Farage helps vigilante gardener fill in 'monstrous' potholes with flowers as Reform leader says it should 'embarrass every county council in the country'
Nigel Farage has been filmed assisting a viral vigilante gardener by planting flowers in 'monstrous' potholes.
In a video shared to social media platform TikTok, the Reform UK party leader was shown stepping outside of his vehicle in Staffordshire to ask popular landscape gardener Harry Smith-Haggett 'What are you doing here, mate?'
Mr Smith-Haggett, known on social media as Harry_pretty_potholes, then replied: 'I'm just filling these potholes in, Nigel.
'I don't have the licence to tarmac and I don't have the licence to alter the road surface, so I thought I would make them look pretty.'
Mr Farage then went on to describe Mr Smith-Haggett's work as 'unbelievable' and 'amazing'.
Then, after agreeing to assist the vigilante gardener, the MP for Clacton watched on as Mr Smith-Haggett filled a hole with soil before he got down to work himself, taking the 'blue beast' plant and placing it in the ground before 'dressing around the sides' with soil.
Mr Smith-Haggett shot to internet fame in August 2024 after uploading TikTok videos of himself planting greenery in the roads of Horsham, Sussex, in a bid to draw the council's attention to their 'hideous' state'.
Nigel Farage has been filmed assisting a viral vigilante gardener by planting flowers in 'monstrous' potholes in Staffordshire
The Reform UK party leader was shown pulling up alongside landscape gardener Harry Smith-Haggett in Staffordshire, stepping out of his vehicle to ask: 'What are you doing here, mate?'
Agreeing to assist the vigilante gardener, The MP for Clacton watched on as Mr Smith-Haggett filled a hole with soil before he got down to work himself, taking the 'blue beast' plant and placing it in the ground before 'dressing around the sides' with soil.
Dressed in a customised hi-vis pink vest which reads 'Pretty Pot Holes' on the back, the vigilante gardener said that he started filling potholes with flowers after becoming 'fed up' with the state of the roads.
With more than 72,000 followers, one of the community activist's videos, under the username Harry_pretty_potholes, has even racked up 3.8 million views.
Speaking to the BBC previously, Mr Smith-Haggett said that Horsham residents had 'been complaining about the potholes for years' and that he aspired to draw attention to them 'without being dangerous or without causing a problem'.
One of his popular videos shows him covering seven potholes on a single street in the colourful floral displays.
Meanwhile, in another video, Mr Smith-Haggett is seen dumping buckets of what he describes as 'premium topsoil' inside potholes, then using the trowel to evenly distribute the earth across the hole.
He then takes out a plant, commenting: 'I don't know what this plant's called, but it is a beauty whatever we are working with there.
After packing the flower pot into the potholes newly acquired soil, he says 'that will allow our roots to sprout out nicely in there I think.'
Harry Smith-Haggett (pictured) shot to internet fame in September 2024 after uploading TikTok videos of himself planting greenery in the roads of Horsham, Sussex, in a bid to draw the council's attention to their 'hideous' state'
With more than 72,000 followers, one of the community activist's videos has even racked up 3.8 million views
The vigilante gardener's videos have seemed to divide viewers, with some commenters providing tips on how best to grow plants in those conditions, while others have even urged him to visit their local area to help with their potholes.
However, other commenters raised safety concerns at Mr Smith-Haggett's actions, with one user saying: 'This is dangerous mate. People won't think it's deep and may drive over it. Also it's not even stable it will fall down.'
Meanwhile, another concerned viewer added: 'As funny as this is, isn't this more dangerous, like now it doesn't look as deep?'
In September 2024, West Sussex County Council (WSCC) urged members of the public not to emulate Mr Smith Hagget's quirky pothole techniques for safety reasons, saying that people 'risk their lives' by going on highways.
A spokesperson for the council told MailOnline at the time: 'We take the maintenance and repair of roads in West Sussex very seriously and we have increased our resources to tackle potholes and improve road conditions.'
The viral video comes as new research by car insurance company RAC found that just three per cent of England's roads received any maintenance work between 2023 and 2024.
Moreover, three councils, including Blackpool Unitary Authority and Tameside Council, alongside the London Borough of Bexley, failed to fill in a single pothole or resurface any of their roads last year.
In September 2024, West Sussex County Council (WSCC) urged members of the public not to emulate Mr Smith Hagget's quirky pothole techniques for safety reasons, saying that people ' risk their lives' by going on highways
Mr Smith-Haggett's videos have seemed to divide viewers, with some commenters praising his work while others were fearful of the possible dangers the pretty potholes could cause
Up to 36 per cent of England's 152 councils were also found to have failed to undertake any preservation work in order to prevent potholes from forming.
The RAC described their findings as indicative of local authorities being stuck 'in a cycle of merely filling in potholes rather than looking after their roads properly'.
Moreover, the process of repairing Britain's potholes could even cost up to £17billion, recent figures by the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) report, commissioned by the Apshalt Industry Alliance (AIA),have shown.
Published in March, the annual report found that despite up to £20billion being spent on road repairs over the last decade, alongside one pothole being filled in on average every 18 seconds, more than half of the UK's local roads are set to be in disrepair in just 15 years time.
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С умилением и отраслевыми пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Our tiny town has been overrun by barber shops... there's going to be THIRTEEN within a six-minute walk
A small town ‘overrun’ by Turkish-style barber shops is in revolt over plans to open yet another – with even the men who work in them saying the number is becoming unsustainable.
There are already five catering for the 6,000 residents of Porth in the Rhondda Valley, on top of seven traditional hairdressing salons, all on just two streets and within a six-minute walk.
Now a Kurdish businessman wants to open a sixth barber shop in a shuttered-up shop – sparking opposition from the local business community who say the town is already ‘saturated’ with one salon for every 500 residents.
There are a further six Kurdish barbers shops in neighbouring towns of Blackwood and Newbridge - barely ten miles from Porth - where cut-throat competition led to mob violence earlier this year.
The concerns come after police have warned of criminals infiltrating the industry by setting up barber shops as front companies to launder the proceeds of crimes like drug dealing.
More than 750 barbers opened in the UK last year despite a broader High Street downturn - raising suspicions that some are being used by gangs.
Just last week, enforcement teams across the West Midlands raided a string of Turkish barber shops and seized more than £500,000 in illegal cash during a crackdown on money laundering.
Meanwhile unhappy customers have taken to TikTok to share videos of their wonky haircuts and patchy skin fades – possible signs of illicit businesses cynically co-opting the proud, centuries-old tradition of Turkish barbering.
Snur Abdulhmid, 18, who works at Porth Barber, one of five Turkish-style barber shops catering for a population of 6,000 in Porth, in the Rhondda Valley, says there are already 'too many' such salons in the town
A Kurdish businessman wants to open a sixth barber shop in a shuttered-up former amusement arcade in Porth – sparking opposition from the local business community who say the town is already ‘saturated’ with one salon for every 500 residents
One of five Turkish-style barbers already trading in the town of Porth in the Rhondda Valley, all but one of which is actually Kurdish-owned
Hannah Street – one of Porth’s two main streets - once boasted a Boots chemist, a Woolworth’s, a Clarks shoe shop, women’s fashion stores and men’s outfitters.
Only last month a branch of fashion store New Look which was based there shut its doors for good.
Today it and neighbouring Pontypridd Street, like many of Britain’s high streets, are full of barbers, nail bars, takeaways and charity shops.
Council planners are due to consider an application for a new barbers in what used to be an amusement arcade in Hannah Street.
Now the local chamber of trade has sent a formal objection, saying there are already 13 barbers or hairdressers within a radius of less than 550m (600 yards).
Mail Online found 12 when it visited the town, of which five are Turkish-style barbers – although none is run by Turks, with four Kurdish-owned and one Arabic.
Barber Snur Abdulhmid, 18, who works at Porth Barbers in Hannah Street, said: ‘There are too many, we don’t need another one.
‘If there are too many, no-one can make money.
Pictured at the empty Turkish-style barbers in Porth where he works, Snur Abdulhmid, 18, said there were already 'too many' such salons to cater for a population of 6,000, adding 'we don’t need another one'
Another of the five existing Turkish-style barbers in Porth in the Rhondda Valley - local businesses say the town is already 'saturated' and does not need another one
Situated side-by-side, two out of a total of 12 barber shops and hair salons within a six-minute walk on two streets in the centre of Porth
Porth in the Rhondda Valley currently has 12 businesses offering haircuts - five Turkish-style barbers and seven traditional hairdressers, such as Jaz Hair Design (pictured)
‘If it carries on, we’d have to close the shop.’
Mr Abdulhmid said the barbers was a ‘legitimate’ business, although he was aware that Turkish and Kurdish barbers are seen as a front for organised crime and money laundering.
‘That doesn’t happen here, we pay tax and VAT,’ he said.
There were no customers there when MailOnline visited on a weekday afternoon and some of the men’s salons were closed.
The list include some traditional women’s hairdressers with names like Chic and Hair by Janine.
David James, 76, a retired plumber and heating engineer from the town, said: ‘I use a local barber although I have nothing against the others in the town centre.
‘It’s ridiculous to have so many barbers and hair salons so close to each other. It can’t be sustainable.
‘It makes the town centre unattractive when you get so many businesses all offering the same thing.’
Andy Murrains, 62, who runs a café bar in Hannah Street, Porth, is opposed to a further increase in the number of Turkish-style barbers, saying it is 'not in the position where it can afford to lose a few businesses'
Porth Barber is one of five Turkish-style salons catering for the 6,000 residents of Porth in the Rhondda Valley
Shuttered shops and estate agents signs in one of Porth's two main shopping streets illustrate how businesses other than barbers, nail bars, takeaways and charity shops are struggling
A survey conducted last year found locals in Porth felt there was already an over-abundance of certain businesses ‘such as fast-food takeaways, beauty parlours, and barber shops’
Andy Murrains, 62, who opened up a café bar in Hannah Street six months ago after moving from London, said: ‘There’s always gossip and Chinese whispers about some of the places.
‘This street is not in the position where it can afford to lose a few businesses, that’s the reality of it.’
A survey conducted last year by Porth and District Chamber of Trade found locals felt there was already an over-abundance of certain businesses, ‘such as fast-food takeaways, beauty parlours, and barber shops.’
After the chamber of trade posted about the application on social media, many locals commented that there were already plenty of barbers in Porth.
One said: ‘They are overrun with barbershops.’
‘Does make me wonder how they can all stay in business,’ Ian Heritage posted.
Another person added: ‘Objection raised, more need to do the same, this is getting beyond a joke.’
The chamber has now written to Rhondda Cynon Taf council saying an extra Turkish-style barbers would be ‘detrimental’ to the town centre.
‘A lot of our members are hairdressers and barbers and they have come to us with their concerns about this application,’ vice-chair Dan Parry said.
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С пониманием и отраслевыми пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
L’aeroporto più caro del mondo? È Istanbul. Lasagne a 24,5 euro, birra a 17,5 (e per un Big Mac ne servono 21,5): il racconto
Un giorno tra i punti vendita della mega-struttura in Turchia da 80 milioni di passeggeri all’anno. Tra birre vendute con un rincaro di oltre il 1.000% e mini-insalate a 11 euro. La società di gestione: offriamo cibi di qualità
La fame è così tanta, nel tardo pomeriggio, che appena superiamo i due controlli di sicurezza e la dogana, ci fiondiamo nel primo punto che vende da mangiare che incrociamo all’aeroporto di Istanbul, una megacostruzione moderna, gigante e frequentata ogni giorno da circa 220 mila persone in partenza e in arrivo. L’occhio cade su un pezzo di lasagna che appare più un pezzo di mattone con una spolverata di quello che sembra formaggio grattugiato e una foglia di pseudo-basilico. Ma c’è poco da fare gli schizzinosi. La fame è fame.
Il tour nello scalo
La «Lasanga Bolonese»
— e stiamo riportando la scritta sull’etichetta —, dal peso di circa 90 grammi, viene venduta alla modica cifra di 24,5 euro. Proprio così: ventiquattro euro e mezzo. E non c’è il rischio di aver convertito male dalle lire turche perché il prezzo è in euro. E qui la fame viene frenata dall’incredulità e, se vogliamo, pure da un sussulto d’orgoglio patriottico. «Scusi, ma non è che c’è qualche virgola al posto sbagliato?», chiediamo insospettiti alla ragazza al bancone. Lei prima ci guarda come fossimo alieni, poi sorride e taglia corto: «Il prezzo è scritto giusto, sono 24,5 euro».
I prezzi esposti
Alziamo lo sguardo, alla ricerca di alternative a cifre più digeribili, e ci soffermiamo su dei croissant salati. Quello con i pezzi di pollo costa 14,5 euro, che salgono a 16,5 per quello con il tonno, fino a 17,5 per quello con il salmone affumicato. Tra le insalate si va dai 13 euro per la classica ai 16,5 euro col tonno e 17,5 euro per quella col «pollo italiano». E più a destra, nel reparto dolciumi, ecco la brioche (vuota) a 6,5 euro, quella con le mandorle sopra a 10 euro. Tra le bevande c’ispira «Efes», la tipica birra turca. Il giorno prima, la bottiglia da mezzo litro in piazza Taksim — nel cuore dell’ex Costantinopoli — l’abbiamo pagata circa 1,5 euro. All’«Avenue Cafe & Bistro» dello scalo turco costa 17,5. Il rincaro, calcolatrice alla mano, è del 1.067%.
«Sfruttano le esigenze»
Benvenuti nell’aeroporto più caro del mondo. Dove tutto, pure nei «rifugi sicuri» — cioè i fast food — viene venduto a cifre stratosferiche. E senza una ragione apparente se non quella, come dice Dalia — libanese 35enne, tre figli, in attesa del volo per la Germania — di «sfruttare i bisogni fisiologici delle persone visto che qualcosa bisognerà pure mangiarla o berla». «È una presa per il c...!», lamenta Francesco, di rientro in Italia con la fidanzata. «In questo scalo ci sono prezzi che fanno rizzare i capelli che spero presto di riavere», ironizza un altro — che non vuole dare il nome — con in testa i segni dei bulbi appena innestati.
Valori simili ovunque
La sensazione, girando per circa tre ore nell’aeroporto nuovo di zecca — dal design gradevole ma lontanissimo dalla città — è che ovunque si vada ci sia un «cartello» per tenere i prezzi dei prodotti alimentari alle stelle. Abbandoniamo così l’«Avenue Cafe & Bistro» — accompagnati dallo sguardo polemico della ragazza al bancone — e ci fermiamo al «Deli aux pain» dove ci attira la bottiglia d’acqua Fiji. Costo: 9 euro. Scappiamo subito. Per sostare in un altro punto vendita che ha i prezzi in valuta locale. Un panino col salame a 590 lire turche (14,2 euro), una brioches vuota a 7 euro.
L’insalata a 11 euro
Proviamo a indagare altrove. E in un bancone di bevande si ergono bottigliette d’acqua S. Pellegrino da un quarto di litro a 6 euro. Anche qui la fuga è l’unica reazione comprensibile. E incrociamo un negozietto che vende vaschette preconfezionate di sushi. Tipo la «Top hits», 14 pezzetti in tutto, a 35 euro. Ci allontaniamo dall’area dello shopping e ci avviciniamo ai gate d’imbarco. Ci appaiono in lontananza dei croissant salati. Quello con l’Emmenthal e un po’ di pomodoro viene venduto a 640 lire turche, 15,4 euro. Da un’altra parte per l’insalata mediterranea — da 210 grammi — servono 465 lire turche (11,2 euro).
Nei fast food
Inizia a sembrare una presa in giro pure a noi. Così saliamo al piano di sopra, dove ci sono i fast food, compresi quelli internazionali e che ovunque, nel mondo, sono i luoghi col cibo più conveniente. Ma non c’è scampo nemmeno qui. Da «Popeyes» quattro ali di pollo fritto con Coca-Cola e patatine fritte costano 17,5 euro. Da McDonald’s per un «Big Mac» servono 21,5 euro (890 lire turche), oltre il doppio dei valori medi nel resto del mondo occidentale (8,60 euro). Il menu «Doppio quarter pounder» che negli Usa si trova a 13 euro allo scalo di Istanbul viene proposto a 25,3 euro. Da Burger King per un Whopper servono 22 euro, contro i 9 euro chiesti di solito nei Paesi occidentali.
Caffetteria da record
Proviamo a vedere i prezzi da Starbucks, nota catena statunitense di caffetteria. E anche qui i valori sono in media il doppio rispetto a quanto si trova, per esempio, in Italia. Se un espresso ristretto (doppio) viene venduto a 2,3 euro a Istanbul bisogna sborsare 5,5 euro. Per un ristretto bianco si balza dai 5,2 euro dei mercati occidentali agli 8 euro dello scalo turco. All’improvviso ci viene in testa l’idea di acquistare l’ingresso in lounge. Di solito in Europa l’accesso nelle salette vip costa tra i 35 e i 55 euro. E a Istanbul? Con l’iGA Pass quotidiano servono 110 euro, tasse incluse. Un record, pure questo.
L’inchiesta in autunno
Il «caro vita» nello scalo turco era emerso in un’inchiesta del Corriere dell’autunno passato. La società di gestione — iGA Havalimanı İşletmesi — non aveva gradito più di tanto l’articolo. Tanto che nei giorni successivi, spiegano alcune fonti, ha avviato una sorta di indagine interna per capire chi avesse parlato con questo giornale, rivelando soprattutto gli alti costi di concessione (un miliardo di euro).
La reazione della società
«Adottiamo un approccio olistico alle nostre offerte di cibo e bevande, cercando di fornire una gamma diversificata di concetti e prodotti sotto lo stesso tetto per soddisfare vari livelli di budget», replica via e-mail una portavoce della società di gestione dello scalo di Istanbul. «La nostra politica dei prezzi è principalmente guidata da confronti con i principali aeroporti globali, tra cui Amsterdam, Copenaghen, Dubai, Francoforte e Londra Heathrow», aggiunge. E precisa che «secondo le nostre analisi, l’aeroporto di Istanbul si comporta significativamente meglio rispetto a molti dei suoi omologhi internazionali nel fornire le necessità di base dei passeggeri». In realtà, dati alla mano, non è proprio così.
«Da noi qualità premium»
Quindi una mezza ammissione. «Sebbene alcuni prodotti possano avere prezzi più alti in base alla categoria — si legge nella lunga risposta —, tale prezzo riflette non solo il costo del prodotto stesso, ma anche l’esperienza complessiva e il valore aggiunto che lo accompagna». Quale sia l’«esperienza complessiva» o il «valore aggiunto che lo accompagna» non si sa. «I nostri distributori automatici offrono panini a 3 euro», ricorda la portavoce. «L’aeroporto offre un’ampia varietà di opzioni culinarie pensate per soddisfare i gusti e le preferenze dei nostri viaggiatori internazionali. Il prezzo di questi articoli riflette sia la qualità premium degli ingredienti che i costi associati all’approvvigionamento e alla preparazione».
Il bilancio non pubblico
«Tutti i prezzi sono soggetti all’approvazione dell’aeroporto di Istanbul», chiarisce ancora. Aggiungendo che vengono effettuati «controlli regolari con una frequenza di almeno quattro volte al mese». Quando il Corriere chiede i dati finanziari della società di gestione, con un focus sui ricavi nel 2024 derivanti dal «food and beverage», la società risponde però che «a causa della riservatezza commerciale, non siamo in grado di divulgarli». Quanto al nostro tour, alla fine — esausti e sempre più affamati — ci dichiariamo sconfitti. Ritorniamo al McDonald’s dove acquistiamo 4 ali di pollo, una Coca-Cola e delle patatine. Prezzo? 610 lire turche, 14,7 euro.
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С пониманием и отраслевыми пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Строго говоря а.п. плевать на свободу частного судоходства в Корнуэлле, но а.п. не безразличны форма запрета на рекламоносители частных прогулочных компаний и инструменты их борьбы за свои права рекламодателей, рекламопроизводителей и реламораспространителей.
Судя по материалам СМИ проблема существует давным-давно.
Суть её состоит в том, что рекламоносители компаний носят неорганизованный неформализованный нерегламентированный – стихийно сложившийся характер.
Фактически, меры муниципалитета сводятся исключительно к запретительным средствам в виде штрафа от 100 до 1000 фунтов.
Очевидно, что очередной этап вековой борьбы связан с назначенными на май муниципальными выборами.
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Cornwall Council elections 2025: The Green Party on why you should vote for them on May 1
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St Ives council in Cornwall defends policy to control pleasure boat operators touting for business
Boat owners say new rules could ruin them and cite fines 'of £100 a day with threats to escalate to £1,000 and a criminal record'. The town council says it is a fairer system and needed for safety reasons.
A number of pleasure boat operators in St Ives are furious after the town council introduced a new licensing policy to control them touting for business on the seafront. Skippers said their ticket sellers have been confronted by enforcement officers issuing fixed penalty notices of £100 a day with "threats to escalate to £1,000 and a criminal record".
However, St Ives Town Council has defended its actions, saying the move was instigated following calls from businesses in the town and, particularly, the RNLI which was concerned about pleasure boat operators touting for business in front of the gate leading to the town's lifeboat, raising health and safety fears. The council also said the system makes it fairer - meaning there will be one booth per business, rather than one pitch per boat as a number of locals own more than one pleasure boat.
There has been a furore over the weekend after St Ives Pleasure Boat Association posted its concerns on Facebook. It states: "In January we were hit with the news that the town council would remove touting from the gate on lifeboat corner, a tradition that has been running for decades and has been the backbone of many businesses over the years. With this crushing news there were lots of worried business owners wondering how we were going to operate this year.
"The council came back with a map, with ten dots on it and said that these were the locations that they would allow booths to tout from and that any businesses that have any links between them - say the directors are the same - must share a booth, regardless if these businesses are completely separate limited companies.
"Our members were obviously not happy with this, given the council had dished out individual business licences for the past five years, so we made a counter proposal. Accepting losing the gate to tout from was a big blow but we took the council's map and added five or so more dots on it for additional booths in reasonable locations to tout from. This was immediately shut town by our town council and we were basically told it’s their way or the highway.
"These boats and businesses have been trading here for years and years and now the council want to shut us all down? We emailed back and forth for the next couple of months trying to offer the council solutions but they were sticking to their guns and not even giving us an inch."
The post added: "As the eagerly awaited Easter holidays approached the once happy and excited mood was grim and we still had no answers. With this, our association emailed the town council informing them that we intended to start work and we would have to tout on the gate or wherever we previously traded for the past five years until they had found a solution.
"We had enforcement officers stood in front of our ticket sellers issuing fixed penalty notices of £100 a day with threats to escalate to £1,000 and a criminal record. With our businesses and start to the season in tatters we walked to the Guildhall with all our staff and calmly tried to explain that all these young people are out of work in this beautiful weather because of the council.
"We made a desperate plea for some temporary licences so we could work the Easter holidays and keep operating whilst the council found a resolution. We were met with a blatant NO and told that if we were caught trading we would be fined and they would take our touting desks away. This is now carrying into a second week of the Easter holidays and we have lost thousands already. Two boats have not even craned in due to the uncertainty.
"To mention one in particular, the Seahorse has not been given a desk and the owners have been told it has to share a desk with other businesses. The Seahorse has been trading independently from the same position for over 50 years. We don’t know how this season will go now for us, and it may the last year for many of us."
However, the town council has responded to CornwallLive, saying the situation is not quite how the association has described it. Its clerk Louise Dwelly said: "It's a system that's been in place for three years, we're extending it. We've just asked them not to trade on the gate, but to trade from a booth and have a licence. We sent them a map to choose a spot.
"There's a maximum of ten individuals or families but between them they've got 18 boats, so their position is they should have a booth for every boat. We weren't happy with that as they don't need a booth for every boat."
boat trade. "We're not at all. They've all got licences, they're all trading this weekend. It's change - but the lifeboat gate is free and the RNLI are happy. The highway manager is happy because people aren't standing in the road. All we're trying to do is get businesses to have a booth, be identified and sell tickets in a professional way, but because it's never been done like that in St Ives they're furious about it.
"Our councillors are very upset by the reaction online because they're volunteers - they're not paid like Cornwall councillors. They were just trying to do the right thing. It looks to the public like we've done something terrible, but all we've said is 'here's your licence, here's your terms and conditions, please can you trade from this spot?'."
The council introduced a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in the area around four years ago in a bid to make the touting more professional and regulated. A PSPO is a legal tool used by local authorities in England and Wales to address nuisances or problems in public spaces that are detrimental to the community's quality of life. It can lead to fines if not adhered to.
However, the council decided there needed to be a more rigid process following complaints. The RNLI wrote to the council at the end of last year asking that the touts were removed from their gate due to health and safety concerns. Other businesses in the area had also complained.
A new PSPO was consulted on and brought in with proper terms and conditions rather than a voluntary code, which had formerly been agreed by boat owners.
There are two boatmen's associations operating in St Ives after the previous singular body split. The St Ives Pleasure Boat Association - which has spoken out about the new rules - and St Ives Boatsmen's Association, which the town council says has agreed to the changes. Mrs Dwelly says the town council's stance is backed by the harbour and the RNLI.
Councillor Andrew Mitchell, the current Cornwall councillor whose division covers the harbour, responded to the post at the weekend. He wrote: "It was originally in response to the complaints the town council was receiving about all the A-frames on Wharf Road and touts being in the middle of the road and 'overly enthusiastically' approaching members of the public.
"I need to point out for clarification that it was not the town council who wanted the touts moved from the gate, but an insistence from the lifeboat for health and safety and access reasons so I understand. No one at the town council wants any boat operators to go out of business. The pleasure boats and touts are part of the St Ives offer and experience, and I wish everyone of them a busy season."
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BEACH PLEASE World-famous UK seaside town introduces beachfront BAN threatening £1,000 fines
Boat skippers warn council crackdown is sinking their summer season fast.
FURIOUS locals and businesses in a world-famous UK seaside town are facing crippling new fines of up to £1,000.
The row has exploded in St Ives, Cornwall, where new rules introduced by the council have left many local businesses fearing for their future - just as the busy summer season kicks off.
Operators say the "crushing news" has already cost them "thousands" in lost takings, and claim the council is wrecking their Easter and summer trade.
The crackdown means ticket sellers must now operate only from designated booths, and anyone caught touting outside these spots faces an instant £100 fine.
Repeat offences could lead to £1,000 fines and even a criminal record.
The St Ives Pleasure Boat Association blasted the move, saying it threatens decades of seaside tradition.
In a furious post online, the association told CornwallLive: "In January we were hit with the news that the town council would remove touting from the gate on lifeboat corner, a tradition that has been running for decades and has been the backbone of many businesses over the years.
"With this crushing news there were lots of worried business owners wondering how we were going to operate this year."
They revealed how desperate operators tried to work with the council to find a solution but were shot down.
"With our businesses and start to the season in tatters we walked to the Guildhall with all our staff and calmly tried to explain that all these young people are out of work in this beautiful weather because of the council," the group said.
"We made a desperate plea for some temporary licences so we could work the Easter holidays and keep operating whilst the council found a resolution.
Boat owners claim some vessels have not even been craned into the harbour this year because of the ongoing uncertainty, while others have been left sharing booths despite being separate businesses.
They warned that long-standing operations, such as the Seahorse boat which has traded for over 50 years, could now be forced to shut down.
The Easter holidays, usually a booming start to the year, have been "left in tatters," with thousands of pounds already lost, the association said.
However, St Ives Town Council insists the changes were necessary to address health and safety concerns raised by the RNLI and other businesses.
Town clerk Louise Dwelly explained: "It's a system that's been in place for three years, we're extending it.
"We've just asked them not to trade on the gate, but to trade from a booth and have a licence. We sent them a map to choose a spot."
She added that traders have not been stopped from operating altogether but must follow new licensing conditions to make the town safer and more professional.
"It looks to the public like we've done something terrible, but all we've said is 'here's your licence, here's your terms and conditions, please can you trade from this spot?'" she said.
The council said a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) was introduced a few years ago to manage touting and ensure it did not interfere with lifeboat operations or public access on Wharf Road.
After complaints mounted, particularly from the RNLI about obstructions near the lifeboat gate, the council decided to tighten rules and enforce stricter licensing.
Councillor Andrew Mitchell, whose division covers the harbour, said: "No one at the town council wants any boat operators to go out of business.
"The pleasure boats and touts are part of the St Ives offer and experience, and I wish every one of them a busy season."
He added: "I need to point out for clarification that it was not the town council who wanted the touts moved from the gate, but an insistence from the lifeboat for health and safety and access reasons so I understand."
Locals have been split over the changes, with some backing the council’s attempts to tidy up the seafront, while others say it could destroy the charm and heritage of the town.
They warned that if things do not change quickly, this could be the final season for some of the town’s beloved pleasure boats.
The St Ives Pleasure Boat Association said it feels betrayed after trying to work with the council for months, only to be met with a "my way or the highway" attitude.
The Sun has contacted St Ives Town Council for a comment.
Цитата:
Fury as famous British seaside town BANS decades-old tradition and threatens fines up to £1,000 and criminal records for those who don't comply
A row has erupted in a famous British seaside town after its council banned a decades-old tradition and threatening fines and even prosecutions for those who don't comply.
Ticket sellers for pleasure boat trips in St Ives have traditionally touted their services to tourists at a gate next to its lifeboat station.
But now, in a move that they say is putting their businesses at risk, the Cornish town's council is forcing them them to operate out of designated booths.
Those who stray from their patch to sell tickets elsewhere face being immediately fined £100 a day up to a total of £1,000, with the potential for things to escalate even further.
St Ives Town Council has also cut the number of booths allowed from 16 to 10, with sellers accusing the council of refusing to budge or compromise.
The changes also mean that operators are only allowed one pitch as opposed to one stall for each type of boat and trip they offer.
The new rules mean that one firm lost its pitch despite being in business for more than half a decade, the BBC reports.
The Council has said it understands 'change is difficult' but adds that 'boat trips are alive and well' and 'will continue as they always have'.
Ticket sellers for boat trips in St Ives have been approached by enforcement officers handing out fines of £100 a day and even threatening to escalate it
The restrictions imposed require ticket sellers to operate solely from designated booths, with anyone caught selling tickets elsewhere facing an immediate fine
The Council has said it understands 'change is difficult' but adds that 'boat trips are alive and well' and 'will continue as they always have'
Karen Gilbert, of Nemo Glass Bottom Boat Trips, said: 'I hope there can be a solution.
'We're not saying you can keep adding more and more, but let's cap it at... the 16 that had a licence last year and not destroy these historic businesses.'
In a post on its Facebook page, St Ives Pleasure Boat Association explained the situation, saying: 'With this crushing news there were lots of worried business owners wondering how we were going to operate this year.
'The council came back with a map, with 10 dots on it and said that these were the locations that they would allow booths to tout from and that and businesses that have any links between them, say the directors are the same must share a booth, regardless if these businesses are completely separate LTD companies.
'Our members were obviously not happy with this, given the council had dished out individual business licenses for the past 5 years, so we made a counterproposal.
'Accepting losing the gate to tout from was a big blow, but we took the council's map and added five or so more dots on it for additional booths in reasonable locations to tout from.
'This was immediately shut down by our town council, and we were basically told it's their way or the highway.
'These boats and businesses have been trading here for years and years, and now the council want to shut us all down?'
Those who stray from their patch to sell tickets elsewhere face being immediately fined £100 a day up to a total of £1,000, with the potential for things to escalate even further
St Ives Pleasure Boat Association described the decision as 'crushing news'
The town council told the BBC the changes have been brought in as a result of concerns from the RNLI, complaints from the public and other businesses about the behaviour and the number of sellers
Pleasure boat operators say they are furious over new fines for touting for business on the seafront
The association went on to explain: 'With our businesses and start to the season in tatters, we walked to the Guildhall with all our staff and calmly tried to explain that all these young people are out of work in this beautiful weather because of the council.
'We made a desperate plea for some temporary licenses so we could work the Easter holidays and keep operating whilst the council found a resolution. We were met with a blatant 'no' and told that if we were caught trading we would be fined and they would take our touting desks away.
'This is now carrying into a second week of the Easter holidays and we have lost thousands already.'
The town council told the BBC the changes have been brought in as a result of concerns from the RNLI, complaints from the public and other businesses about the behaviour and the number of sellers.
'The RNLI asked that touts did not trade from the gate, and the highway manager was concerned about so many people standing on the road.'
It added that licences were issued 'to all but one business' and 'all of them are now trading for the season'.
However, town clerk Louise Dwelly told CornwallLive the Facebook post implied that the council is stopping heritage pleasure boat trade, but she rejected this because they have licenses and are trading.
She added: 'All we're trying to do is get businesses to have a booth, be identified and sell tickets in a professional way, but because it's never been done like that in St Ives, they're furious about it.'
MailOnline has approached St Ives Town Council for a comment.
Традиции, чью рекламу упорно гасит муниципалитет, более 100 лет и надо сказать, за сто лет средства и носители наружной рекламы частных компаний, практически не изменились.
Формально, муниципалитет ссылается на загромождение проходов и затруднение в доступе к службам и средствам спасения, но фактически не предлагает никакого решения, никаких альтернативных площадок и поверхностей.
По скромному мнению а.п. частные компании не правы в задаче этой проблемы, а муниципальные власти – в выборе инструментов её решения.
P.S. Пикантность, точнее сказать аромат спору в Корнуэлле придаёт хроническая проблема с канализацией, которая постоянно не выдерживает ливневой нагрузки, превращая прибрежное пространство отдыха островитян в помойку:
Цитата:
St Ives Bay in Cornwall flooded with 'raw sewage and loo paper'
The smelly discovery followed heavy rains as tourists flock to the town ahead of the busy Easter weekend
The long Easter weekend has arrived, and many people will be flocking to Cornwall to enjoy the next few days. However, you may want to stay out of the water in St Ives - after what appeared to be sewage spill was spotted near the tourist hotspot.
The smelly discovery followed heavy rains as tourists flock to the town ahead of the busy Easter weekend.
The large pool of waste was seen floating just outside of St Ives harbour early this morning (April 17), at around 9.30am, by a local boatman as he prepared to start a day of boat trips.
Andy Narbz said he saw tampons, tissue and even human poo floating among the 'brown sludge'. He said that it "absolutely stank".
Andy, who runs Tiger Lilly Boat Trips around St Ives, said: "It was absolutely awful. I was on my outside mooring sorting the boat for a mackerel trip and I saw all this raw sewage, brown sludge and poo.
"There were tampons, tissues, sanitary towels, all around the moorings, and the seagulls were trying to eat it. It absolutely stank."
The real-time sewage map from Surfers Against Sewage shows no current alerts in place around St Ives, so it is unclear at this time whether the water in the seaside town is safe to swim and surf in over the Easter weekend.
However, another local posted about the sewage on Facebook, writing: "Be very careful at the moment if you are swimming around St Ives, as there is a major sewage problem and several people have become unwell."
A spokesperson for South West Water told Cornwall Live: "We have taken water samples from St Ives Harbour following reports of a potential pollution today and the results have shown no traces of sewage in the water.
"The pumping station is working as expected and there have been no storm overflow spills in the area.
“We encourage anyone who spots a potential pollution to contact us by calling 0344 346 2020 or report it on our website.” The Environment Agency has also been contacted for comment.
Показательно, что в выступлениях собственников частных судоходных компаний об этом не вспоминают. Частные компании не требуют от муниципалитета решить проблему ливневых вод (островитяне всегда были грязнулями и свинтусами).
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С пониманием и отраслевыми пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Уровень доступа: Вы не можете начинать темы, Вы не можете отвечать на сообщения, Вы не можете редактировать свои сообщения, Вы не можете удалять свои сообщения, Вы не можете голосовать в опросах
Владимир Нерюев, заместитель генерального директора коммуникационного агентства Аура поделился мнением, какие изменения произошли или произойдут в профессии PR-специалиста.
Генеральный директор агентства мобильного маркетинга Mobisharks (входит в ГК Kokoc Group) — об эффективном мобильном маркетинге и примерах успешных стратегий.
За последние пару лет реклама банков изменилась. Появились новые сюжеты и герои. Реклама по-прежнему — не только инструмент продвижения услуг, но и способ формирования доверия к финансовым организациям. Главный тренд, который отмечают эксперты,— переход от сухого перечисления выгод к эмоционально окрашенным коммуникациям.
Антитрендами наружной рекламы в текущем году стали прямолинейность и чрезмерная перегруженность сообщений. Наружная реклама продолжает показывать рост: число рекламных конструкций за последний год увеличилось более чем на 2 тысячи.
Чего не хватает радио, чтобы увеличить свою долю на рекламном рынке? Аудиопиратство: угроза или возможности для отрасли? Каковы первые результаты общероссийской кампании по продвижению индустриального радиоплеера? Эти и другие вопросы были рассмотрены на конференции «Радио в глобальной медиаконкуренции», спикерами и участниками которой стали эксперты ГПМ Радио.
Деловая программа 28-й международной специализированной выставки технологий и услуг для производителей и заказчиков рекламы «Реклама-2021» открылась десятым юбилейным форумом «Матрица рекламы». Его организовали КВК «Империя» и «Экспоцентр».
28 марта в Центральном доме художника состоялась 25-ая выставка маркетинговых коммуникаций «Дизайн и реклама NEXT». Одним из самых ярких её событий стал День социальной рекламы, который организовала Ассоциация директоров по коммуникациям и корпоративным медиа России (АКМР) совместно с АНО «Лаборатория социальной рекламы» и оргкомитетом LIME.
На VII Международном форуме «Матрица рекламы», прошедшем в ЦВК «Экспоцентр» в рамках международной выставки «Реклама-2018», большой интерес у профессиональной аудитории вызвала VI Конференция «Интернет-реклама».
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