Summary
The European Union has said that by the year 2020 every country in the EU should at least produce 15% of its energy from environment friendly sources such as solar heating, wind turbines and biomass energy. The
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I think it is a g
ood thing that the EU is making sure that its countries are actively looking for more environmental friendly ways to produce energy. I am sure it will cost a lot of money but I think that it will be worth it in the end. The way the
Summary
Seventeen people have been arrested for several public offences in the London Underground. The people arrested were part of a large group of ‘partygoers’ who enjoyed the last chance of drinking on the London Underground. A last chance because a ban on drinking on the Underground would go in effect the next day. The people in the group had made an agreement to be there at that time. This is called a ‘flash-mob’. Although the group was friendly at first it quickly became violent. Because of the heavy drinking, people started to vomit and fighting and vandalism soon followed. The police closed six Underground stations and several trains were taken out of service. A number of train drivers and staff were assaulted and even more people were verbally abused.
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Drinking should have been banned from the London Underground from the beginning. I do not understand why drinking was not banned already. With all those people packed in these small carriages something had to go wrong especially when they went there to party and to drink alcohol because of the impending drinking ban. Flash-mobs should not be abolished but I think you should not drink to much alcohol doing this kind of thing. I think being drunk in these small spaces with a lot of people around is a recipe for disaster. So I agree with Boris Johnson’s ban on open cans of alcohol on the Underground. I do not know if the metro rail in
Summary
This issue has to do with how much time inmates get to spend out of their cells on weekdays. Most of the prisons in
Hearing these findings, the prison inspectorate did some testing for themselves. Of 17 prisons checked, only three met the target of ten hours. Nine prisons locked their inmates up for more than 20 hours a day even.
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I think there are two sides to this discussion. Do the inmates really have to be let out of their cells for ten hours a day? Most people will say yes on this because this way the prisoners do not get social problems if they are set free again. The matter of the fact is that the Prison Service has issued these ten hours so the prisons have to obey this target. However due to the over crowdedness of the prisons, this target cannot be met. In my opinion there are two options. The first is to try to sentence people to alternative punishments. The second is to build more prisons or to extend the prisons that already exist.
Summary
The Standard Assessment Test (SAT) has been criticised a lot. Although teachers and schools have been saying it is a bad way to judge a school´s performance on, the government has ignored all the complaints. Now a report has been made by a committee of MP´s which says the teachers and schools are right. It says that the SATs are being used in such a way that it harms children and the school system.
Because the schools and teachers want their pupils to get the highest scores so that more parents will put their child at that school, the teacher decides whether a pupil is ready to go to the next level of education, even though this may not be the case. Also the test could be bad news for the pupils because they experience a lot of stress when they have to do these tests.
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I think in the Netherlands we have the same problem with the Cito-test. These tests are being taken at the end of the primary school when the children are about 11 or 12 years of age. From the results of these tests the school and parents can see which level of schooling their pupils will manage to follow at secondary school. These test are however also used to grade the school’s performance. A lot of teachers and schools are against it being used to grade the school, but the government just does not listen to these critics. I think this is, as well as the situation in Britain, bad for the education level of the whole country where parents only look at the test results of the SATs instead of looking at the school itself and the way the school gets along with the students.
Summary
There have been a lot of critique on Mr. Brown recently. The subjects in this criticism are things that happened a few years back when Mr. Blair was still Prime Minister. The latest in these attacks on Mr. Brown Mr. Field said very incriminating things in an interview. The Children and Schools Secretary of the Brown administration has lashed out at these critics of Mr. Brown’s leadership and personality. Meanwhile more and more people are openly criticizing Mr. Brown. How long can Mr. Brown go on with his work when people in his own party are attacking him? No matter how grim the situation looks for the Prime Minister, there are backbenchers who think these matters should be resolved in the party, privately. Some Labour MPs have even ordered a period of silence. There may still be hope.
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I think the job of Prime Minister is a hard one. People are criticising your every move but when someone from your own party is targeting you, something must really be off. Luckily there are always people who support you in crises like these. They think this soap is an internal issue to be fought out privately, not nation wide. I agree with this. I think politics is about what can be done about the difficulties people face in their country, not about what someone has done nine years ago. Of course when you do things wrong you should be corrected, but I think this is the wrong way to go about it.
Summary
Introduction
James Hughes was murdered and found in a house near his own house, in the very same street even.. His mother Heather was found dead in some woods in
Now the police have arrested two men on suspicion of murder of James Hughes. He had not been seen for a while according some neighbours. The police who thought that Heather had committed suicide are now considering the possibility of murder. She was found with a cord around her neck at the base of a tree. The two arrested men were being questioned at separate police stations. Now they know where he was murdered police officers are trying to find out what caused James’ death. The house-to-house inquiries are also continuing. Police have also questioned Paul Hughes, James’ father. The surviving dependants are Heather’s partner Brian Kirby and their two sons Callum and Luke and Heather’s son Daniel.
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What I think is really sickening in this whole story is the fact that someone dared to murder a boy who was epileptic, had the mind of a toddler and needed a wheelchair to get around with. Murder is dreadful and sick in any case, mind you, but murdering someone like James is really a most cowardly act in my book. What makes this case even more bizarre is that his mother Heather was found dead as well. What is the connection between these two deaths? Did she know about James and took her own live or was she murdered too? I hope further investigation will shed more light on this case.
