The BBC News at 10 started with a feature on three missing "terror suspects" who have breached their control orders and are missing. The control order obligates them to report at a police station every day and they have failed to do this. Their passports have also been surrendered.
Two of these characters are brothers and they have links to one of the fertilizer plotters, a group of other potential terrorists. We were advised that "it is usually kept quiet if anyone disappears" but given the connection, the police have issued photos. We were also shown the images of the fertilizer bombers again with a run down on their strategy. Police have said anyone seeing the suspects should telephone 999. The main fear seems to be that they will go to Iraq and join the insurgents.
This all led to us being told that the "system is in disarray" and given the impression that all was out of control. Surely this is the objective of a control order, to monitor peoples whereabouts. So know we know they are missing and can presume that they are probably up to something. Is this not the purpose of a control order. Even if someone has to go to the police station every day it does not stop them making a bomb. So, surely the purpose of this control order (including the surrendering of passport) was to stop them travelling abroad.
We moved on to Nuclear Power stations and were told that "not long ago, most opposed these" whilst an image of the 70's & 80's Nuclear Power No Thanks symbol, with the Sun was shown. This gives the impression that most dont oppose them now. Furthermore, we are facing an "energy gap. We were shown images of tall city buildings in London at night, with numerous lights left on and were told that these companies may be forced to switch of their lights, they dont bother at present because electricity is such a small part of their costs. This was highlighted by "switching off" all the lights on the London city image at once, i.e. a blackout. Maybe I am just cynical but..
We saw some other images of windturbines etc and then we went to a factory in England to see what they are doing about the energy crisis. There, the Eastern European "gaffer" told us, in slightly pigeon English, that an energy clock had been installed which allowed them to see how much energy was currently being used in the factory. This was a digital device which showed the energy flow in watts.
The thing is, this device does not actually save any energy. It just shows how much is being used in the factory at any given moment. So, I dont see it's purpose or benefit in actualy saving energy. Secondly, why do we see a factory with a Eastern European foreman. This could tell us that the EE's are fitting in well to our society or it may lead one to believe that perhaps all the staff are EE's and therefore so is the foreman. If one was of the impression that the EE's should not be here (in UK) then this would lead to it, especially given recent features on migrant workers and housing which I have reported recently in the newspaceman.
Over to mobile phones charges. There has been European legal action which is forcing the mobile phone operators to review their pricing structure. They therefore need to "slash roaming prices", a phrase used throughout the feature. We went over to a reporter who pretended to telephone another reporter, who was in Athens covering the Liverpool football game, to find out how much mobile phone calls from abroad actually cost. We saw images of the Liverpool fans before the game and were told that an average mobile phone call was £2 from Athens back to Liverpool. Slash Rome in Charges. And who were Liverpool playing.
A quick feature advising us that the United Nation Nuclear Watchdog are not happy with Iran and their progress with their nuclear programme. Image of UN flag and Iraq army forces were shown.
We moved over to health and our junior doctors grievences with the health service. A high court judge accused the health service of "serial incompetence" and said the whole matter was a dreadful mess. We saw a young doctor telling us that he no longer enjoyed his job, he found it a chore. We then saw BBC provide an explanation of the problem, in terms we could understand.
Imagine there are 2 doctors, Doctor A & B. Doctor A has prizes (I am not sure what for, it was not explained) but Doctor B does not. They both apply for the same job. Doctor A can't explain why he is better for the job so Doctor B might get it. Doctor B might get it but I dont. Surely Doctor A's prizes would explain why he is better for the job. Anyway, Goverment (not The) say that the main priority is to get doctors into jobs. Junior doctors lost the legal battle but won the moral one. And that dear friends is a true reflection of todays society. Money over Morals. And what could this feature therefore suggest ?
Coming up - A warlord, rape and murder in the Congo. And, disappointment for Liverpool.
We moved on to out of date food produce being sold at Asda. Trading standards discovered a host of foodstuffs on the shelves that should not have been. A lamb chop was 31 days out of date. We were told that there was a catalogue of evidence against Asda. This was illustrated to us by means of a reporter leafing through an A4 ring binder which contained photgraphs of the offending items, a pudding, the chop etc etc. This was therefore the catalogue one must assume. A catalogue of evidence can be as simple as a book of photographs. This too I found rather disturbing.
The feature continued with a reporter outside Asda with a basket of food. All the food in the basket had the Asda yellow "whoopsie" reduced sticker on it. This long thin yellow sticker is attached to the food which is soon to go out of date and show the new, reduced price, offered by Asda, in order that they hopefully sell it. So we know from the sticker that it is close to the sell by date. The reporter didnt really tell us anything. Does the long thin yellow sticker bear a resemblance to anything, or am I just ultracynical ?
This feature closed by telling us that all the supermarkets were up to the same type of malarky with food, cutting thin slices off and repackaging etc. Surely this practice must come from the top in some form, whether directly or in terms of targets.
It was time for the Congo warlord special . This was the usual feature showing a brave reporter marching for miles into the mountains (where they all live) to eventually confront and question the Warlord on accusations that he and his troops rape and murder innocent people. We saw images of the W surrounded by dancing, chanting African men, dressed in combat gear and with machine guns. The W didnt seem to speak much English and there was no translator. The W. was attempting to communicate that he was doing what he felt was right, as a concept, I think I dont think he really knew what was going on and was using "aggressive" body language to show his emotion/internal belief. It is just nonsense really, the whole lot of it.
Italians get revenge we were told and we went to Athens to see the position. Basically, too many fans, not enough tickets, we are lucky that the police had all the angles covered to a certain extent. As I said yesterday, the media try to fuel all this "hooliganism". We saw more images of fans etc, no real trouble was reported and we went back to Liverpool. Here we saw images of well behaved supporters, mostly women and children in a club. A young lady told us "it was the worst day of my life" and "well played AC Milan.
Back to the studio and time to tell us that the podcast of the week is Ice Island, as discussed yesterday. I turned over to ITN.
The ITN news was late and I was slightly drowsy to start with but we we were told when it started, by a reporter from Liverpool, that the most of the fans were "mooching off home now".
There was then a feature on storing carbon dioxide in coal mines to help the carbon factor in the environment. The reporter started this feature by saying "That old king coal". The feature seemed to be about using abandoned coal mines to dispose of carbon. Carbon Dioxide would be injected into the mines, the carbon would somehow be transformed into its solid form and be sealed into the old mine. We were then told that that this proposal was unfeasible though, because coal is running out. I dont really understand this last bit, it is not coal that they are looking to use, it is long abandoned coal mines.
Coming up - Madeleine, Naples Streets of Filth, first, adverts.
Back with Madeleine, we are still "praying for a miracle" we saw the parents make a five hour pilgrimage to Fatima to pray etc. We were told that 3 children saw the Virgin Mary here and that it was considered a miracle. Images of the service etc were shown as usual.
Short feature on the mobile phones again.
Police no further forward with the Cutty Sark fire.
We were warned that interest rates might go up. This is based on the fact that at the last meeting of the people who decide this policy, some wanted a higher increase than the 0.25% that transpired. Therefore, they probably still want a higher rate, so there is a possibility rates will go up again. This is just pure scaremongering, of course there is a possibility. One would think the media want a house price crash.
Then we got a "glimpse of what might happen if we dont clean up our act". Images from Naples where the authorities have run out on landfill sites so simply dont collect the refuse from the streets and mountains of black bags have built up. Locals have started burning these mountains and there is a "putrid smell of rotting vegetables", burning, one would assume. http://newspaceman.blogspot.com/2007/04/rats-and-television-part-1.html
Coming up, the policeman who didnt look, first regional news.
Back with this "funny" feature where students have filmed a staged burglary on their own house whilst the police missed it. The students climbed up to a first floor window and took a box while five policeman had their backs to them. The window was down a lane and the police seemed to be on the main street, watching a march or similar going by. They were therefore all facing the same way and missed the "burglary" which was recorded on camera and posted on You Tube.
Is this funny ? Is this really about cameras being more "secure" than policeman.
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