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WWII aircraft wreck found in Faliro BayA team of divers recently identified the wreckage of a World War II aircraft on the seabed in Faliro Bay, southern Athens, believed to have crashed in 1943.
‘Death of the model railway’ as ageing enthusiasts run out of steam Once many a child’s favourite pastime, model railways are now the domain of ageing rockers, train buffs and retirees, but the unique hobby could be about to hit the buffers as its fans grow older.Two of the linchpins of the model railway community – a long-running exhibition, and one of the oldest modelling shops in the country – are to close, with both blaming the ageing profile of enthusiasts and a decline in the numbers of new fans taking part.Warley Model Railway Club (WMRC) has announced that the national exhibition it has run for the past 30 years is to close, with the one held at Birmingham’s NEC in November 2023 the last to take place.Club officials said the organisers and volunteers who had run the show were simply getting too old for the job.At the same time, Hatton’s Model Railways shop in Liverpool, which has been open since 1946, is to shut its doors permanently.
A prominent figure in the Greek ‘mafia’ executed in cold bloodIn a targeted mafia-style attack in the early hours of Sunday, a 44-year-old man, who was allegedly a prominent figure in the nightlife scene, fell victim to an ambush outside his fuel station in the Athenian neighborhood of Neos Kosmos.Previously accused of leading an extortion group, the 44-year-old, named Vangelis Z., had survived a murder attempt in 2018. Police deem his murder pivotal to the ongoing night scene conflicts.The assailants, riding in an SUV, approached him at the intersection of Frantzi and Ilias Iliou streets in Neos Kosmos on Sunday, firing numerous shots at his car, resulting in his fatal shooting.
‘A tragedy is not far away’: 25-year-old Post Office memo predicted scandalA 1999 note highlighted concerns of subpostmasters about the Horizon system and heralded decades of ministerial failingsIn any big scandal with the power to dominate the nation’s attention, there are inevitably key moments when events could have been stopped in their tracks. Yet few early warnings could have been as prescient as a seven-page memo handed to a Post Office official 25 years ago.During a fractious meeting at Newcastle rugby club in 1999, the note set out a litany of concerns from subpostmasters in the north-east of England who had been piloting the now infamous Horizon accounting system. The issues, including with balancing their accounts, were causing stress and forcing some to work well into the night.Soon after those concerns were raised, subpostmasters gathered again to discuss the potential severity of the problems. “The difficulties and trauma being experienced by some subpostmasters were giving rise to concerns for their health and emotional wellbeing,” the meeting was told.“It was felt by some that a tragedy was not far away if something was not altered soon. The software was considered to be poor quality and not intended to run such a huge network.”The warning of a potential tragedy was made before the flawed software – subsequently found to be capable of producing erroneous losses that had been blamed on post office staff – had been rolled out across the Post Office network.Yet from the moment of the fateful decision to press ahead, a ruinous cocktail of legal reforms, geopolitics, a crippling lack of political curiosity and – above all – apparent deceit ultimately led to thousands of innocent workers being victimised and prosecuted, with devastating effects.This was the week that Westminster finally acknowledged that an unprecedented mass exoneration was needed to remedy 20 years or more of injustice – sadly too late for the dozens of wronged subpostmasters who have died, including at least four who have taken their own lives.Political calculation appears to have played a key role in the project even going ahead. Documents submitted to the official inquiry into the scandal show that, in 1998, executives at the Japanese company Fujitsu, which developed the Horizon system, met with the British ambassador to Japan and warned of dire consequences for both the company and Tony Blair’s new government if the project was scrapped. The ambassador said he had been told that the project could not be abandoned because of the potential repercussions.The British embassy’s letter to the government warned that if it were to be scrapped, there would be a devastating impact on UK jobs as well as a potential knock-on effect for bilateral relations. The Horizon software was thereafter rapidly rolled out to thousands of branches.Then there was a potent ingredient thrown in by the legal world. Just before the scandal began to unfold in 1999, a legal change was introduced stating that there would now be an assumption that computers were “reliable” unless proven otherwise.Previously, a machine’s reliability had to be proved if it was being used as evidence. It has now been revealed that the Post Office itself lobbied for that law change. In its submission to the official consultation on the issue, it said the previous requirements were “far too strict and can hamper prosecutions”. The legal change would help it go on to privately prosecute more than 700 subpostmasters.Richard Roll, who worked at Fujitsu and emerged as a key whistleblower, said the victims now needed compensation reflecting their ordeals. “A couple spent the last 20 years living in a mobile home because they lost everything – their business, their home. How can you repay that – £600,000 is not enough, is it? It’s just phenomenal. I don’t know what the solution is.”
How the blood-soaked killers of Imperial Japan nearly escaped justiceJudgement in Tokyo, Gary J Bass’s study of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial and its effects, is a landmark work – capacious, intelligent and fair In March 1943, on the island of New Guinea, a young Australian pilot was put on a truck by his Japanese captors. It was twilight, and the young man gazed out wistfully at the hills and sea, lost in thought. When the truck eventually came to a halt, he was ordered down and told he was about to be killed. He knelt on the ground, and a few minutes later, he was beheaded by sword. Hissing could be heard as blood spurted from the neck. “The head,” noted a Japanese diarist, “is dead white, like a doll.” A senior corporal laughed: “Well, he will enter Nirvana now.”This was one of the many disturbing testimonies heard at the courtroom on a hill overlooking Tokyo, where, between 1946 and 1948, 28 of Japan’s war leaders were put on trial. The list of rapes, bayonetings, beheadings, cannibalism and extreme torture appalled those listening.
Fujitsu Japan remains tight-lipped on the Post Office scandalA senior Fujitsu executive will be questioned by MPs next week. So how did a Japanese company, generally known to Brits as a maker of laptops, become embroiled in one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK legal history?It may be difficult to believe, but in Fujitsu's home market, hardly anyone has heard of the Horizon scandal. Japan's mainstream media didn't report on it until this week.The current president, Takahito Tokita, has turned down our multiple interview requests since 2022, most recently this week, even when I asked for a written comment he may wish to make to the victims whose lives were turned upside down.Horizon was not the first Fujitsu-developed software that has created problems for the UK government.In 1999, the firm won a £184m contract to develop Libra - a software meant to standardise case management transactions across more than 300 magistrates' courts.In the end, it cost nearly three times more than expected, and the National Audit Office concluded that it was not able to produce even basic financial information.Horizon was installed at the Post Office around the same time. But its flaws were already known by then because it could not fulfil the requirements of its original project, an automated system for benefits payments announced in 1994.Then, there was a lawsuit over an NHS project.Fujitsu was one of four companies tasked with digitising the NHS in 2004. But after repeated delays and failure to deliver the promised product, the NHS terminated its contract with Fujitsu in 2008.The Japanese company sued and won the case in 2014, which cost the UK government £700m.With Fujitsu coming under increased focus, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has suggested that if the firm is found culpable it should repay the "fortune" spent on the Post Office scandal.
Greece Hits Profiteering Companies with 13.5 Million Euros PenaltiesGreece’s New Democracy government is going after companies profiteering with high prices, especially at supermarkets, and inspectors have imposed fines of 13.5 million euros ($14.8 million) so far.Half of that has already been collected, said the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA, driven by penalties put on companies whose prices in Greece for baby formula were as much as 213 percent higher than elsewhere in the European Union.Development Minister Kostas Skrekas said inspections are ongoing daily and underlined that, if necessary, additional measures will be taken for any product categories whose prices in Greece are found to be unreasonably high.
Chairman of Post Office also headed courts service during postmasters’ appealsTim Parker accused of conflict of interest over role as chairman of His Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service while leading the Post OfficeThe former chairman of the Post Office presided over its attempt to block an appeal by convicted postmasters while he was at the same time leading the country’s courts service.Tim Parker has been accused of a conflict of interest over his role as chairman of His Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), while occupying the same position at the Post Office.Under his leadership the Post Office tried to block appeals by postmasters and mistresses against their convictions for theft and fraud as a result of the flawed Horizon computer accounting system.Mr Parker issued an apology on behalf of the Post Office when one group of 44 postmasters finally had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal in October 2020.But critics have now pointed out that he would have previously overseen the decision by the Post Office to spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on legal fees in an attempt to block appeals.While he gave his £75,000-a-year salary at the Post Office to charity, Mr Parker has been accused of doing nothing to halt the plight of the postmasters and allowed his chief executive to pursue the strategy of aggressively pursuing them through the courts.Mr Jones, Labour MP for North Durham, said Mr Parker has to carry responsibility for the actions of the Post Office during much of the scandal.While serving as chairman of the Post Office and HMCTS, Mr Parker was also chairman of the National Trust, a position he was appointed to in 2014.He has also been CEO of Kenwood, Clarks Shoes, Kwik-Fit, the AA, and Samsonite, during which time he accumulated a fortune of more than £200 million, including a palatial 18th Century, Grade II listed, country manor in West Sussex and a riverside apartment in Chelsea.Speaking when he was appointed chairman in 2015, he said he was attracted to the Post Office by its “strong social purpose”.
The government was advised Horizon was a 'disastrous project' more than 24 years agoBack in 1999, Sir Geoff Mulgan was an important but isolated voice in Tony Blair’s senior team who warned that Fujitsu’s Horizon system - which has led to such an appalling miscarriage of justice for so many sub-postmasters - was a monumental crock.Shortly before the final decision on roll-out of Horizon, in May 1999, he wrote a “lessons learned” note for the then PM Blair.His language is blunt and unequivocal (there are shades of Dominic Cummings).It is astonishing that what he said went unheeded.Here is what Mulgan said more than 24 years ago should be learned: “Horizon has been a fairly disastrous project. It: - was misconceived from the start - has faced continual delays and problems - has over the last year taken up huge amounts of ministerial and official time - has delivered in the end a far from optimal solution“Information: nearly all the facts presented to ministers turned out to be unreliable. Moreover data was presented in ways that were difficult for ministers to understand.“The Post Office: throughout this process the relative lack of competence of the Post Office and their failure to develop a proper business strategy has been a key failing.“Courage. Perhaps the most important lesson is a more general one: namely that when a project is clearly failing government needs to be bolder about cutting its losses. There was a clear case for termination 12 months ago...”Since then around £2.5bn has been paid to Fujitsu for a system that provided the unreliable evidence behind almost a thousand criminal convictions that ruined lives and should never have been made.The government cannot claim it was not warned.
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Topic: 14/01/24 (Read 926 times)
