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Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Insults!

From The Independent

1. “In Shakespearean English, a customer was a prostitute.”


2. “In Tudor England, fishmonger’s daughter was a euphemism for a prostitute.”


3. “Conundrum was originally an Oxford University nickname for a pedantic person.”

Null

4. “The surname Mulligan means ‘little bald man’.”


5. “The surname Kennedy means ‘ugly-head’.”


6. “Tory derives from an Irish word for ‘outlaw’.”


7. “The Welsh word for ‘carrots’ is moron.”

Null

8. “An ale-knight is a drinking companion, or habitual drunkard.”


9. “Pumpernickel means ‘farting goblin’.”


10. “Walrus means ‘whale-horse’.”

Null

11. “In the eighteenth century, a figure dancer was a criminal or forger who specialised in altering the numbers on banknotes.”


12. “A spit-poison is an very malicious or spiteful person.”


13. “In Canadian slang, someone who wastes time is called an afternoon


14. “Wardrobe is another name for badger excrement.”

Null

15. “A shot-log is an unwanted friend or drinking companion, whose company is only tolerated so that they can pay for a round for the rest of the group.”


Monday, 13 April 2015

Hospital patients to be asked about UK residence status

BBC News

Patients could be made to show their passports when they use hospital care in England under new rules introduced by the Department of Health.

Those accessing new treatment will be asked questions about their residence status in the UK.

Patients may need to submit passports and immigration documents when this is in doubt, the department said.

Hospitals will also be able to charge short-term visitors from outside Europe 150% of the cost of treatment.


-----Also read

UK TOURISTS BEWARE – Cambridge Hospital Staff Demand Instant Money from Sick and Ailing Indian Tourist


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The department said the new rules came into force on 6 April for overseas visitors and migrants who use NHS hospital care in England.

Primary care and A&E care will remain free.

There will also be financial sanctions for trusts which fail to identify and bill patients who should be charged, it said.

The plans are part of a crackdown on so-called "health tourism".

Andrew Bridgen, the Tory MP for North West Leicestershire in the last Parliament,told the Daily Mail: "This is not the International Health Service, it's the National Health Service.

"Non-UK nationals seeking medical attention should pay for their treatment.

"The NHS is funded by UK taxpayers for UK citizens and if any of us went to any of these countries we'd certainly be paying if we needed to be treated."

Most foreign migrants and overseas visitors can currently get free NHS care immediately or soon after arrival in the UK but they are expected to repay the cost of most procedures afterwards.

The charges are based on the standard tariff for a range of procedures, ranging from about £1,860 for cataract surgery to about £8,570 for a hip replacement.

Non-UK citizens who are lawfully entitled to reside in the UK and usually live in the country will be entitled to free NHS care as they are now.

Sunday, 12 April 2015

Every man, woman and child in Britain is more than £3,400 in debt – without knowing it and without borrowing a single penny


Every man, woman and child in Britain is more than £3,400 in debt – without knowing it and without borrowing a single penny – thanks to the proliferation of controversial deals used to pay for infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.

The UK owes more than £222bn to banks and businesses as a result of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) – “buy now, pay later” agreements between the government and private companies on major projects. The startling figure – described by experts as a “financial disaster” – has been calculated as part of an Independent on Sunday analysis of Treasury data on more than 720 PFIs. The analysis has been verified by the National Audit Office (NAO).

The headline debt is based on “unitary charges” which start this month and will continue for 35 years. They include fees for services rendered, such as maintenance and cleaning, as well as the repayment of loans underwritten by banks and investment companies.

The situation is expected to worsen as PFI projects spread across the worldThe situation is expected to worsen as PFI projects spread across the world (Getty)


















Basically, a PFI is like a mortgage that the government takes out on behalf of the public. The average annual cost of meeting the terms of the UK’s PFI contracts will be more than £10bn over the next decade.

And the cost of servicing PFIs is growing. Last year, it rose by £5bn. It could rise further, with inflation. The upward creep is the price taxpayers’ pay for a financing system which allows private firms to profit from investing in infrastructure.

An NAO briefing, released last month, says: “In the short term using private finance will reduce reported public spending and government debt figures.” But, longer term, “additional public spending will be required to repay the debt and interest of the original investment”.

A case in point is Britain’s biggest health trust, Barts Health NHS Trust in London, which was placed in special measures last month. It is £93m in debt – struggling under the weight of a 43-year PFI contract under which it will pay back more than £7bn on contracts valued at a fraction of that sum (£1.1bn).

PFI’s were the brainchild of the Conservative Party in the 1990s, but were swiftly embraced by New Labour. Successive governments signed hundreds of the deals. PFI-funded schools, streetlights, prisons, services, police stations and care homes can be found across Britain.

The system has yielded assets valued at £56.5bn. But Britain will pay more than five times that amount under the terms of the PFIs used to create them, and in some cases be left with nothing to show for it, because the PFI agreed to is effectively a leasing agreement. Some £88bn has already been spent, and even if the projected cost between now and 2049/50 does not change, the total PFI bill will be in excess of £310bn. This is more than four times the budget deficit used to justify austerity cuts to government budgets and local services.

Gateway Surgical Centre, London, is run by Barts Health NHS Trust, which is struggling under a £7bn PFIGateway Surgical Centre, London, is run by Barts Health NHS Trust, which is struggling under a £7bn PFI (Alamy)


















Responding to the findings, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Crippling PFI debts are exacerbating the funding crisis across our public services, most obviously in our National Health Service.”

According to Jean Shaoul, professor emerita at Manchester Business School, PFIs have been “an enormous financial disaster in terms of cost”. She added: “Frankly, it’s very corrupt... no rational government, looking at the interests of the citizenry as a whole, would do this.”

Unlike government funding, PFI’s cannot be adjusted to match the economy’s fortunes. They are governed by contracts that often run to thousands of pages. In contrast to the radical cuts to public spending, less than 1 per cent has been trimmed from the total cost of PFI deals since 2012.

Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, admitted last month: “Too many of the old PFI deals were poorly negotiated... with high costs draining local and national coffers.”

PFI contracts could escalate like America’s subprime mortgage fiascoPFI contracts could escalate like America’s subprime mortgage fiasco (Getty)

















Last year The Independent revealed how firms given 25-year contracts to build and maintain schools doubled their money by selling their shares in the schemes less than five years into the deals. Four – Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Interserve, and Kier – made combined profits of over £300m.

Repeated concerns over projects suffering years of delays and soaring costs have been raised in Parliament in recent years, chiefly via the Public Accounts Select Committee. Its chair, Margaret Hodge, has spoken of Labour’s promotion of the deals during its time in power: “I’m afraid we got it wrong... we got seduced by PFI.”

Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy, Queen Mary University of London, said the diversion of funds from other budgets to PFI payments make the schemes “an engine for closure of public services and further privatisation”.

In rich Qatar, an Indian restaurant lets poor eat for free

 
DOHA: In a dusty corner of Qatar's booming capital, a sign outside a modest restaurant popular with migrant labourers reads: "If you are hungry and have no money, eat for free!!!"

Sixteen kilometres (10 miles) from the gleaming glass towers of Doha, one of the richest places on the planet, sits the “Industrial Area” of small-scale workshops, factories and low-cost accommodation.

It is only a 40-minute drive south of the centre of the Qatari capital and its luxury shops, upmarket brands and expensive restaurants.

But the “Industrial Area”, rarely seen by outsiders, is a different Qatar—one which provides essential labour and materials for the country's massive and relentless expansion.

It is at the margin of Doha life, both geographically and metaphorically, but home to a restaurant called Zaiqa doing something apparently unique for the oil-rich Gulf state.




Workers cook food in 'Zaiqa'.— AFP


About three weeks ago the Indian brothers who own Zaiqa decided to put up a small makeshift sign offering free food to customers who cannot afford to pay.

“When I saw the board I had tears in my eyes,” said one of the owners, Shadab Khan, 47, originally from New Delhi, who has lived in Qatar for 13 years.

“Even now when I talk about it, I get a lump in my throat. “He said the idea came from his younger brother, Nishab.

The 16-seater eaterie stands on the prosaically named Street 23, sandwiched between another restaurant and a steel workshop.

It is a busy area—opposite is a mosque and then a road where large trucks hurtle past.

Inside, on brightly coloured tablecloths, “authentic Indian cuisine from the heart of Delhi” is served 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A fish curry costs six Qatari riyals ($1.65, 1.50 euros), an egg roast is three riyals and a spinach dish of Palak Paneer is 10 riyals—for those who choose to pay.



Workers serving the customers.— AFP


The need for free food in Qatar is particularly acute among labourers and those working in heavy industry.

It is estimated that there are anywhere between 700,000 and one million migrant workers in the tiny Gulf kingdom, out of a total population of 2.3 million.

Rights groups have criticised companies in Qatar for not paying workers on time or, in some cases, not at all. The Qatari government, under pressure to introduce salary reform in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, vowed earlier this year to force companies to pay wages through direct bank transfers.

Even those who do get paid will be intent on sending most of their money back home, said one of Zaiqa's diners, Nepalese mechanic Ghufran Ahmed.

“Many labourers earn 800-1,000 riyals ($220-$275/200-250 euros) per month.

They have to send money back to home. It's expensive here so there are people who need free food,” he said.




Shadab stands outside the restaurant.—AFP


Shadab, who is a filmmaker as well as a restaurant owner, said those asking for food are mostly construction workers from countries such as India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Just bread and water

"We realise a lot of people out here do not get paid on time and do not have money, not even money to eat," he said.
"So there were people who would come here and just buy a packet of bread. And they would eat the bread with water."

"So, we realised those people don't have money for anything else. They just buy a packet of bread, which comes to about one riyal. So, we would try to offer them food." But it is not easy, added Shadab.

"Self-respect", he said, means many refuse to take something for nothing.

As a result, in the three weeks since the free food experiment started, “the number of people coming here to get free food is like two or three people a day at the most”.



Shadab Khan, one of the Indian owners of the Zaiqa restaurant, poses for a photograph outside his restaurant in southern suburbs of the Qatari capital Doha.—AFP


As if to emphasise Shadab's point, two workers entered the restaurant while AFP was there but left in case their complimentary lunch should become public knowledge.

In another sign of how people fuelling the Qatari boom are struggling to live, it was recently revealed that some Doha market workers were forced to live in their stalls as they cannot afford rents.

For Zaiqa too, there is a black cloud on the horizon.

The restaurant's future is threatened by a dispute over rent with the property owner and may have to close down. Shadab and his brother have a different plan for their next restaurant.

“We are putting a refrigerator outside, so this refrigerator won't have a lock. It will be facing the road and it will have packets of food with dates on them,” he said.

"So anybody who wants to take it, he doesn't have to come inside."