US election 2016: Lifelong Republicans turned off by Trump

From the BBC.

One of the many extraordinary things about this election is not how many people love Donald Trump, it's how many don't. And I don't just mean Democrats, or even Republican party grandees.

When asked about Mr Trump, a good number of ordinary, lifelong Republican voters express feelings that can only be described as loathing.

Having covered four US elections, I've never heard anything quite like it.

It's not just anecdotal, Trump's negative opinion ratings (the degree to which he is unpopular) are significantly higher than any of the other candidates (including Hillary Clinton) and higher than either Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008.

I thought it was worth finding out just why these Republicans are so opposed to their frontrunner.

What I heard in South Carolina was not so much disagreement with his policies but dislike of his temperament - asked to describe him they used words like, "egotistical", "bully", "narcissist", "bigot" and "racist".

The list went on. Some even said they couldn't use words that are polite enough for television.

The question for the Republican party now is whether Mr Trump, if he is the nominee, can win these people back.

If he can't, and if disaffected Republican voters stay home and don't vote, or worse, vote Democrat, as one of them told me he would, then it will be very hard for Trump to win the White House.

Bronze Age wheel at 'British Pompeii' Must Farm an 'unprecedented find'

From the BBC.

A complete Bronze Age wheel believed to be the largest and earliest of its kind found in the UK has been unearthed.

The 3,000-year-old artefact was found at a site dubbed "Britain's Pompeii", at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire.

Archaeologists have described the find - made close to the country's "best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings" - as "unprecedented".

Still containing its hub, the 3ft-diameter (one metre) wooden wheel dates from about 1,100 to 800 BC.

The wheel was found close to the largest of one of the roundhouses found at the settlement last month.

Joint enterprise law 'wrongly interpreted' for 30 years, Supreme Court rules

From the BBC. This is good news for a lot of innocent people who made the mistake of being with the wrong crowd at the wrong time.

The law which has allowed people to be convicted of murder even if they did not inflict the fatal blow has been wrongly interpreted for more than 30 years, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The joint enterprise law has been used to convict people in gang-related cases if defendants "could" have foreseen violent acts by their associates.

However, judges ruled it was wrong to treat "foresight" as a sufficient test.

Their decision could pave the way for hundreds of prisoners to seek appeals.

It will apply in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and most UK overseas common law territories but not in Scotland, which has its own rules on joint enterprise.

Cuba returns to the US 'wrongly shipped' Hellfire missile

Source: BBC

Cuba returned to the United States an inert Hellfire missile that had been wrongly shipped to Havana in June 2014.

The missile, which did not contain explosives, had been shipped to Spain for a Nato training exercise, the Wall Street Journal said.

It was then taken to Germany and eventually to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for onward delivery to Florida.

It was instead loaded on to an Air France flight to Havana.

The incident could have led to a serious loss of military technology, officials told the Wall Street Journal.


The whole affair has been embarrassing for the Americans, who have had to ask the Cubans if they could have their highly sensitive missile back, says the BBC's Will Grant in Havana.


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35571837

Tory Valentines.

These are by a comedian called Phil Chapman.










http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/12/tory-valentines-day-cards_n_9218210.html

Junior doctors' contract set to be imposed

From the BBC. I don't think this will stop strike action. I don't know anyone who doesn't support the doctors. The NHS is not safe in Tory hands.

Ministers are expected to impose a contract on junior doctors in England later.

It comes after chief negotiator Sir David Dalton advised the government to do "whatever it deems necessary" to end the deadlock.

The British Medical Association (BMA) rejected a "final take-it-or-leave-it" government offer on Wednesday, which included a concession on Saturday pay.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to make a statement to Parliament soon.

The news has emerged as junior doctors concluded a second 24-hour strike at 08:00 GMT in their long-running dispute about pay and conditions.


There are 55,000 junior doctors in England - a third of the medical workforce.

The contract offered by the government would have seen those working at least one in four Saturdays get extra pay for each one they work. The move represented a more generous offer than the previous proposal, when the bar for extra pay was set at one in three.

Sexual Harassment at work debated in Iran.

Allegations of sexual harassment at an Iranian TV station are emboldening Iranian women to break their silence and share their experiences of a problem traditionally not acknowledged inside the country.

Sheena Shirani, a news reader at Press TV, the state broadcaster's English language news channel, broke the taboo by speaking out about sexual harassment she says she endured from two of her managers over a prolonged period of time.

Her allegations went public in spectacular fashion when she posted online a recording of a phone conversation in which a man believed to be her boss, Hamid Reza Emadi, repeatedly asks her for sexual favours.

Following the incident Shirani quit her job and left the country and later published the audio file, which has been listened to more than 120,000 times on her Facebook page and an Iranian news site based outside the country. She also shared what appeared to be a screengrab from a text exchange in which Emadi asked her to take the audio down.
Another screengrab has also surfaced which apparently shows a WhatsApp message containing a statement from Emadi, denying the allegations and saying the audio was fabricated.

However, in an unprecedented step Press TV has announced that it has suspended two unnamed members of staff while allegations are investigated. One of them is widely thought to be Emadi and the other another member of staff whom Shirani has accused of sexually harassing her.

BBC and Superbowl.

Anyone notice BBC24 bigging up the Superbowl yesterday, telling us what a global phenomenon it is? I can't help but think it's because they're showing gridiron on BBC2. This was part of the deal.

And yes 111.5 million people watched it last year. In context 650 million watched the Manchester Derby. Gridiron has a long way to go.

Death to the West.

This video is brilliant! Watch it to the end, there's a real twist. It's not what you think.

Why are Americans so angry?

From the BBC website. It's too long an article to print in its entirety but it breaks down into five separate headings, Economy, Immigration, Washington, America's Place In The World, and Divided Nation. If DU is anything to go by, the article is bang on.

Americans are generally known for having a positive outlook on life, but with the countdown for November's presidential election now well under way, polls show voters are angry. This may explain the success of non-mainstream candidates such as Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders. But what is fuelling the frustration?

A CNN/ORC poll carried out in December 2015 suggests 69% of Americans are either "very angry" or "somewhat angry" about "the way things are going" in the US.

And the same proportion - 69% - are angry because the political system "seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington," according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from November.

Many people are not only angry, they are angrier than they were a year ago, according to an NBC/Esquire survey last month - particularly Republicans (61%) and white people (54%) but also 42% of Democrats, 43% of Latinos and 33% of African Americans.

Candidates have sensed the mood and are adopting the rhetoric. Donald Trump, who has arguably tapped into voters' frustration better than any other candidate, says he is "very, very angry" and will "gladly accept the mantle of anger" while rival Republican Ben Carson says he has encountered "many Americans who are discouraged and angry as they watch the American dream slipping away".


Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders says: "I am angry and millions of Americans are angry," while Hillary Clinton says she "understands why people get angry".