Crime watch-->Smethwick stabbing: Boy, 16, in serious condition

Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::

A 16-year-old boy is in a serious condition in hospital after being stabbed in the stomach.

The teenager was discovered by West Midlands Police officers shortly after 16:00 GMT on Sunday.

He was found on Oxford Road, Smethwick, with a knife wound to his stomach which police said was not believed to be life threatening.

A 40-year-old man from the area was arrested at a nearby address on suspicion of wounding.

He remains in police custody.

crime watch:::Jeanette Kempton 1989 murder: Police hope for new leads

Pic--Jeanette Kempton's body was found in rural Suffolk on 18 February 1989
Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::

Cold case detectives hope a review of an unsolved 1989 murder could help explain why a woman was killed and then dumped 118 miles (190km) from her home.

Jeanette Kempton, 32, went missing from Brixton in south London, where she lived with her ex-husband and their two teenage sons, 30 years ago.

Her partially decomposed body was found in a ditch at Wangford, near Southwold in Suffolk, on 18 February 1989.

She had no known links to Suffolk but police said her killer may have done.

Andy Guy, Suffolk Police's major crime review and unsolved case manager, said the case was reviewed in 2009 and 2016 and "could do with another full forensic review".

"DNA technology has moved on and there are questions I've not got the answers to," he said.

Police said Ms Kempton, known as Jean to her friends, was last seen alive leaving The Loughborough Hotel at about 19:15 on 2 February 1989.

Just over two weeks later, her body was found by two rabbit hunters on the Earl of Stradbroke's estate off the A12.

She was missing her coat, a shoe, her purse, a wreath for a funeral she had picked up and jewellery.

The cause of death was strangulation.

Police said there were five suspects at one point but no-one was convicted.

Mr Guy said: "She had no connections to Norfolk and Suffolk and was deposited in a ditch totally out of context.

"There were no witnesses and no forensic clues to take you anywhere.

"But there could be someone out there who knows something and that could turn things around very quickly."

He said the person who dumped her body most likely had connections with the north-east Suffolk area.

The case featured on BBC One's Crimewatch in May 1989 in an attempt to get more information, but police appeals led to nothing.

Facebook needs independent ethical oversight: UK lawmakers

IT reporter(wp/reuters):::
Facebook and other big tech companies should be subject to a compulsory code of ethics to tackle the spread of fake news, the abuse of users’ data and the bullying of smaller firms, British lawmakers said on Monday.

In a damning report that singled out Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg for what it said was a failure of leadership and personal responsibility, the UK parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said the companies had proved ineffective in stopping harmful content and disinformation on their platforms.

“The guiding principle of the ‘move fast and break things’ culture often seems to be that it is better to apologize than ask permission,” committee chairman Damian Collins said.

“We need a radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the people.”

Collins said the age of inadequate self-regulation must come to an end.

“The rights of the citizen need to be established in statute, by requiring the tech companies to adhere to a code of conduct written into law by Parliament, and overseen by an independent regulator,” he said.

Facebook became the focus of the committee’s 18-month inquiry after whistleblower Christopher Wylie alleged that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica had obtained the data of millions of users of the social network.

Zuckerberg apologized last year for a “breach of trust” over the scandal.

But he refused to appear three times before British lawmakers, a stance that showed “contempt” toward parliament and the members of nine legislatures from around the world, the committee said.

“We believe that in its evidence to the committee Facebook has often deliberately sought to frustrate our work, by giving incomplete, disingenuous and at times misleading answers to our questions,” Collins said.

“Mark Zuckerberg continually fails to show the levels of leadership and personal responsibility that should be expected from someone who sits at the top of one of the world’s biggest companies.”

The lawmaker identified major threats to society from the dominance of tech companies such as Facebook - which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram - Google and Twitter.

Democracy was at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalized adverts from unidentifiable sources, they said, and social media platforms were failing to act against harmful content and respect the privacy of users.

Companies like Facebook were also using their size to bully smaller firms that relied on social media platforms to reach customers, it added.

Britain having useful discussions on Brexit with Brussels - minister

Political reporter(wp/reuters):::

 Legal changes to Britain’s deal to leave the European Union will be difficult but recent trips by British ministers to Brussels have been productive, the prime minister’s effective deputy, David Lidington, said on Monday.

“My experience last week... was that they were a lot more than courtesy calls. It was a very useful discussion about the politics, both within the United Kingdom and within the EU27, and a scoping out of what was possible,” Lidington, who serves as Cabinet Office minister and was in Brussels last week, told BBC radio.

“Reopening the withdrawal agreement... will be very difficult.”

UK plans to make plastic packaging producers pay for waste disposal

Business reporter(wp/reuters):::

The plans, which also aim to make household rubbish collections more consistent around the country, will be introduced by Environment Secretary Michael Gove and go out for consultation for three months.

“We will introduce a world-leading tax to boost recycled content in plastic packaging, make producers foot the bill for handling their packaging waste, and end the confusion over household recycling,” Gove said in a statement.

The tax will be payable by producers who fail to use enough recycled material.

At present, producers pay only around 10 percent of the cost of dealing with plastic packaging waste, the environment ministry said.

Under an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system, the industry will pay higher fees if its packaging is harder to reuse or recycle.

EPR for packaging will raise between 800 million and one billion pounds ($1 billion-1.3 billion) a year for recycling and disposal, the ministry said.

Government will seek views on two options for how a deposit return scheme might work for cans and glass or plastic bottles, it added.

The first would target a large amount of drinks on the market, irrespective of container size. The second, known as the “on-the-go” model, would concern smaller container sizes - those most often sold for consumption outside the home.

“This could drive up the recycling of an estimated three billion plastic bottles which are currently incinerated, sent to landfill or left to pollute streets, countryside and the marine environment,” the ministry said.

Household waste recycling rates in England have risen from around 11 percent in 2000/1 to about 45 percent, but since 2013 rates have plateaued, according to ministry figures.

UK businesses plan to raise pay by most since 2012 - CIPD

Business reporter(wp/reuters):::
British businesses plan to raise basic wages by the most in at least seven years, due to recruitment difficulties and a need to keep pay in line with competitors, a survey showed on Monday, highlighting ongoing strength in Britain’s jobs market.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a human resources professional body, said private-sector employers planned to increase basic pay rates this year by 2.5 percent on average, the most since the survey started in 2012.

Britain’s labour market has proved resilient in the run-up to Brexit, with unemployment falling to its lowest since the mid-1970s, despite a broader slowdown that caused investment to slide and cut overall growth in 2018 to its weakest since 2012.

Bank of England policymaker Gertjan Vlieghe said last week firms may be choosing to expand by hiring staff rather than buying new equipment, as after a potential no-deal Brexit it would be easier to sack workers than sell unwanted machinery.

Official wage data due on Tuesday - which unlike the CIPD figures, also includes boosts from promotions and job changes - is likely to show pay rose at its fastest since 2008, up 3.5 percent on the year in Q4 2018, according to a Reuters poll.

Inflation was the top reason given by firms to the CIPD for expecting pay rises greater than 2 percent, raising a question about whether this will be sustained now inflation has fallen below this level.

Recruitment and retention issues and increases in the going rate of pay elsewhere were the other main reasons for raising pay by more than 2 percent.

Pay growth has been weak over the longer run, with wages still lower in real terms than they were on the eve of the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The CIPD blamed this on stagnant productivity.

“Productivity is 22 percent lower than it would have been if the pre-financial crisis trend had continued. As a result, pay growth is woefully behind,” CIPD economist Jon Boys said.

Public-sector workers will not be seeing their pay rise as fast as their private-sector colleagues, either.

The CIPD said public-sector employers expected average pay rises to drop back to 1.1 percent this year after a temporary rise to 2 percent, which had reflected a more generous settlement for hospital workers and some other staff.

As a result, the overall median wage settlement for employers across the economy remained unchanged at 2 percent.

UK clearing houses approved to continue EU business under no deal Brexit

Staff reporter(wp/reuters):::

Europe’s financial markets regulator has given UK-based derivatives clearing houses permission to continue serving EU clients in the event of a no-deal Brexit - a major boost to London’s battle to remain the central market for euro clearing.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said the decision to allow LCH Limited, ICE Clear Europe and LME Clear to continue operating was to limit disruption and avoid potentially negative impacts on financial market stability.

The recognition of the clearing houses as so-called “third-country central counterparties” under the EU’s European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), would come into effect on the day after Britain leaves the bloc, ESMA said in a statement.

The move, which had been expected after a draft decision in December, follows efforts by EU rival Deutsche Boerse to woo clients to its clearing house, Eurex.

Clearing involves passing stock, bond, derivative and repo trades through a third party backed by a default fund to ensure completion of the transaction even if one side of the deal goes bust.

“We are pleased to receive this recognition, which means that ICE Clear Europe can continue to service all its clearing members and customers,” Finbarr Hutcheson, President of ICE Clear Europe, said in a separate statement.

Some UK Labour lawmakers to quit party over Brexit - source

political reporter(wp/reuters):::

A group of British opposition Labour lawmakers will on Monday announce they are leaving the party over leader Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and a row over anti-Semitism, a source said, adding more resignations could follow.

The small group, possibly about five lawmakers, will make the announcement later on Monday, after weeks of growing calls for Corbyn to change strategy and start campaigning for a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

The Labour source, close to the group, said Monday’s departures could trigger a second wave of resignations, underlining the frustration over Corbyn’s approach to Britain’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years.

Corbyn has so far stuck to Labour policy to keep the option of a second referendum “on the table” if Prime Minister Theresa May’s government fails to secure a deal with Brussels that can pass through parliament.

His first choice is a new election but he has also called on May to change her “red lines” and for her to embrace his plan for a permanent customs union with the EU - something the prime minister has so far refused to do.

Britain’s 2016 referendum, which saw 52 percent of voters back leaving the EU, has deeply divided both of the country’s main parties, with both leaders struggling to preserve any unity in Labour and Conservative ranks.

The prospect of holding such a second referendum poses a challenge for Corbyn: while many of the party’s members fervently back a so-called People’s vote, others just want Britain to leave as soon as possible.

But Corbyn, a veteran peace campaigner, has also been accused by some lawmakers for failing to tackle anti-Semitism in the party, an allegation that has dogged the pro-Palestinian politician since he became leader in 2015.

Corbyn denies that he has allowed anti-Semitism to grow in the Labour Party and has pledged to stamp it out.