INTERNATIONAL
AUSTRALIA
“The first ripple of the overseas student wave.” By Dan Harrison. Sydney Morning News. January 1, 2010. THE international education industry – now Australia’s fourth-largest export, worth more than $17 billion a year – can be traced to May 1979, when cabinet decided to make overseas students pay fees. Then there were about 12,000 foreign students; today there are more than 500,000.
BORNEO
“British charity working to save orang-utans in Borneo.” By Fiona MacGregor. Times of London. December 28, 2009. International Animal Rescue (IAR), a charity in East Sussex which runs projects in Britain and Asia, opened a centre two months ago in the West Kalimantan region of Indonesian Borneo. It was concerned by reports of a rising number of young orang-utans being kept in captivity in terrible conditions. As swaths of Borneo’s jungle continues to be destroyed by logging and oil plantation companies, the endangered primates have become increasingly vulnerable to hunters who kill adults for meat and sell the babies. Within its first three months IAR has rescued nine orang-utans and identified 20 more in captivity in the immediate vicinity. The team knows that there are many more still to find and the animals who arrive at the centre will not be mature enough to be released for many years. Animal welfare is a low priority for many in Indonesia. Those involved in trying to protect the orang-utans claim that the influence of the palm-oil industry holds more sway with the Government than those who are fighting to protect the forests where the animals live.
DUBAI
“University Branches in Dubai Are Struggling.” By Tamar Lewin. New York Times. December 28, 2009. The collapse of Dubai’s overheated economy has left the outposts of Michigan State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United Arab Emirates struggling to attract enough qualified students to survive. In the last five years, many American universities have rushed to open branches in the Persian Gulf, attracted by the combination of oil wealth and the area’s strong desire for help in creating a higher-education infrastructure. Education City in Qatar has brought in Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth.
JAPAN
“Operator of welfare dorms in tax scam.” No by-line. Asahi Shimbun. December 30, 2009. Tax authorities plan to file a criminal complaint with prosecutors alleging three executives of a business that offers cheap lodgings for welfare recipients have evaded about 200 million yen in taxes, sources said. The Nagoya Regional Taxation Bureau suspects the operator of FIS, based in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward, and two executives failed to report roughly 500 million yen in taxable income over several years until 2007. Cases of businesses preying on the poor by siphoning off their welfare subsidies have come to light, but this is the first case in which a business has been accused of tax evasion. FIS, officially an acronym for Faith in Passion Service, was run by the three. Sources said the letters were also the initials of the names of the 45-year-old operator and two executives, 50 and 45. The company operates 21 “free or low-rate lodging” facilities in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba and Aichi prefectures. It is the second largest such company in the industry, with annual sales of about 2 billion yen in 2007. As many as 2,000 tenants live at the large dormitory complexes. According to sources, the operator deducted about 90,000 yen as rent and meal costs from each tenant’s roughly 120,000 yen in monthly welfare benefits. The operator had registered the business with local authorities as a social welfare program. Under the social welfare law, such operations are prohibited from seeking excessive profits.
UGANDA
“Independent Appeal: Jennipher, the woman thrown to the dogs; When Nathan Awoloi bought his wife for two cows, he believed it gave him the right to treat her like an animal.” Claire Soares Independent (UK). December 31, 2009. The bride price can often complicate efforts to get justice for these mistreated and dispossessed women. Sometimes a magistrate can rule that a bride price must be refunded, before the case will even be heard. The women’s centre in Pallisa was established in June 2008. From then until the beginning of 2009, it dealt with 79 complaints – an average of 13 a month. In the first 11 months of this year, it has handled 310 – an average of 28. Most of the complaints are resolved through mediation in Ms Iceduna’s office, where the parties in dispute perch on plastic chairs and set out their case. A dozen or so have made it to court. ActionAid has been campaigning at the regional level, working with the district’s tribal leaders to draw up a revised charter of traditional customs. One of the key goals is to transform the “bride price” into a “bride prize”. “If it’s a gift there are no strings attached and it is not refundable,” Ms Odoi, the charity’s point person in Pallisa, explains.
UK
“Ministers ‘to take control’ of hospital charity cash; Fun runners raising money for NHS causes.” By Sam Coates and Sam Lister. Times of London. December 29, 2009. Money raised by fun runners for NHS charities could be “nationalised.” Hundreds of millions of pounds of charity donations to hospitals are to be “nationalised” under an NHS accounting change, which critics say will make it easier to slash health budgets. Ministers are imposing new rules on NHS charities requiring all donations — including those to specialist children and cancer units, local fundraising campaigns, teaching hospitals and local community trusts — to be listed on a hospital’s balance sheet. The Charities Commission says that this is “wholly inappropriate” because combining the trust and charity accounts will jeopardise the charity’s autonomy and discourage donations. About £330 million was given to 300 NHS charities in the year to June 2008, and they control an estimated £2 billion of assets. A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “The Charity Commission does not agree with the interpretation of the accounting rules in the Department of Health letter to NHS bodies. We are currently engaging with the Department on this matter.”
Related Story:
“Donations to hospital charities could become part of NHS budget.” Times of London. December 29, 2009.
“Social policy in the noughties: In areas such as welfare reform, criminal justice and the voluntary sector, this government has got it badly wrong time and again.” By Iain Duncan Smith. Joe Public Blog. Guardian (UK). December 30, 2009. As the millennium dawned, record economic growth and stability gave Labour an unparalleled platform for social reform. Its intentions were commendable. Who could oppose “cutting the bills of social failure”; the unequivocal pledge on education; a commitment to be tough on crime and its causes; and early intervention to ensure every child mattered? Yet, many of us look at the widening gap between these promises and the reality of Britain today with disillusionment. Let’s look at four key measures: Welfare reform, unemployment, family llife, and criminal justice. And in all of this, government has monopolised care by marginalising the voluntary sector. But who is most effective at keeping families together, moving people from welfare to work, freeing addicts of dependency, inspiring young people and rehabilitating offenders? This sector, as Beveridge highlighted in his report on voluntary action, sits crucially between capitalism and the state. It does what both cannot. Yet in recent years our social entrepreneurs have faced regular battles for funding scraps, fair commissioning and reduced bureaucracy. This has been one of the most disappointing and damaging developments in social policy under this government.
“The Archers helps to save village shops; Radio soap spreads word about community-owned stores.” By Caroline Davies. Guardian (UK). December 30, 2009. The number of communities clubbing together to save village shops has soared since radio soap opera The Archers featured attempts by the residents of Ambridge to take over their threatened shop. Inquiries to the Plunkett Foundation, an organisation helping local people through the process of setting up and running a community-owned shop, have shot up since the storyline was aired. At least 40 community-owned shops are expected to open in 2010 – more than double those opening in 2008. Mike Perry from the Plunkett Foundation said: “The Archers storyline is definitely contributing to high recent levels of interest. The shop closure rate this year has been higher than ever before. And what people don’t always know is that community ownership is an option.” The foundation, which advised the radio programme’s scriptwriters, estimated that 400 village shops closed in 2009. At present there are 226 community-owned shops in the UK.
“Coldplay auction raises £150,000 for charity.” By Anthony Barnes. Independent (UK). December 31, 2009. An auction by chart stars Coldplay in which the band are selling anything from vintage guitars to mud-spattered wellies has so far made more than £150,000 for charity. The sale still has several hours to run and could rake in a further £50,000, with one guitarist Jonny Buckland’s Telecasters set to sell for in excess of £5,600. The band decided to sell much of their stage equipment in an “end of decade clearout sale” to raise money for the Kids Company charity.
“Catholic church defends decision to complain about top comprehensive; Move follows school adjudicator’s ruling that the Vaughan’s admissions policy penalised the less devout.” By Riazat Butt. Guardian (UK). January 1, 2010. The Catholic church has defended a decision to complain about its best comprehensive to the schools adjudicator, Alan Parker, over a points-based admissions policy that penalised the less devout. In December Parker ordered the voluntary aided Cardinal Vaughan Memorial school, in west London, to change its entry criteria after upholding objections from the Catholic Education Service (CES) and the diocese of Westminster. It followed a lengthy and public struggle between the governors, who accused English and Welsh bishops of wanting to dilute the Catholic ethos of the school, and the church, which claimed the religious practice test was excluding Catholic children and distorting the social and ethnic demographic of the intake.