Global News: January 2019 Archives
Millionaire benefactor pulls support over Lady Cilento name change
"It is understood the family provided about $330,000 between 2016 and 2017 to the Starlight Children's Foundation for the room and would continue to support the national foundation, but decline future opportunities at the Queensland hospital.
"But the St Bakers have told the hospital's board they have lost any future support from them following the name change decision.
"The couple said they were horrified by the decision to scrub the name of the pioneering doctor from the hospital, despite Nine revealing a small number of government IP addresses were used to make thousands of 'yes' votes in the poll.
"'We told the board they should never contact us again,' Mrs St Baker said."
The Plot Against the Principality of Sealand
No relation, but this is a fascinating story of a micronation and the attempt to hijack it for nefarious purposes.
"Michael Bates was caught off guard by a newspaper item he read in late July 1997. He and his parents, a retired couple residing in the seaside county of Essex in southeastern England, were being connected to the murder of Italian fashion icon Gianni Versace.
"Michael, then 44, is a stocky man with close-cropped hair and a tough demeanor. He runs a business harvesting cockles, an edible mollusk found in the North Sea near where he grew up. He squinted at the paper and continued to read.
"It turned out that a passport issued by the Principality of Sealand, a micronation his family founded on an old naval platform, and over which Michael happens to reign as prince, was found on the houseboat where Versace's murderer had committed suicide."
Sir Stephen Laws QC, Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange and former First Parliamentary Counsel, writes:
"So suppose the Speaker did allow an attempt to bypass the financial Standing Orders and allowed a Bill to pass that contravened them, and so to proceed to the Lords and be passed there. What would happen when the Bill then fell to be submitted for Royal Assent?
"The question would inevitably arise whether the Government could reassert its wrongly denied constitutional veto on such a Bill by advising the Monarch not to grant Royal Assent to the Bill? Would it even, perhaps, think that it actually had a duty to ensure that a Bill that had been passed in contravention of fundamental constitutional principles did not reach the statute book?
"It is a sacred duty of all UK politicians not involve the Monarch in politics, but might a Government in that situation think that this was precisely the last resort for which the Royal Assent process is retained? How should the Monarch react to such advice? The answer is not straightforward and the prospect of it needing to be considered in a real-life political crisis is a constitutional scenario of nightmares."
Crawley New Town: Economic history | British History Online
"Redifon Ltd., a subsidiary of the Rediffusion Organization and a manufacturer of flight simulators and advanced training devices, moved from Blackfriars, London, to Crawley in 1954 and occupied its present site in Gatwick Road in 1957. The main factory was extended from 90,000 sq. ft. in 1957 to 230,000 by 1985. A second works was established in 1974 and two more in 1975, with a total of 103,000 sq. ft. Employment increased from c. 450 in 1954 to c. 750 in 1959, c. 1,400 in 1963, and c. 1,800 in 1979, falling back to c. 1,300 in 1985. The firm's style changed to Rediffusion Simulation Ltd. in 1980. In 1985 besides the main works in Gatwick Road it or its associates had works in Crompton Way, Kelvin Way, Gatwick Road, and Manor Royal."
Rediffusion Simulation Ltd. briefly had a division in Broken Arrow, south of Albany Street between Aspen and 129th East Ave. RSL was sold to Hughes Aerospace in 1988, which was soon after acquired by General Motors, after which the simulation business was sold to Thomson-CSF (later Thales). In 2012, Thales sold the civilian fixed-wing simulation operations to L3; L3 and Thales both still have operations in the Manor Royal district of Crawley.
Crawley New Town: Growth of the new town | British History Online
In order to provide for increasing demand for homes in the southeast of England after World War II, without encouraging further sprawl outward from London, the British government designated semi-rural areas, close to transportation, for development as "new towns," adding greenfield neighborhoods to existing villages. One of the first was Crawley, an existing village halfway between London and Brighton.
"The master plan provided for 4,000 a. of the designated 5,920 a.; the rest was to be kept in reserve and as green belt land. (fn. 1) Much of the land was already covered by Crawley town, Ifield village, and outlying settlements. The new town would have a new centre and nine residential neighbourhoods, separated by radial roads. Industry was to be concentrated in the northeast. Four of the neighbourhoods were to be within a ring road, the western half of which already existed. Each neighbourhood would be socially balanced, with a wide range of house types, (fn. 2) and its own shopping centre, primary school, church or chapel, and social facilities, grouped near a central green. Although the recommended population of neighbourhoods in new towns was then 10,000, those planned for Crawley were much smaller. The proposed population varied from 4,300 to 7,800, but only one was to exceed 6,600 and that was to have two neighbourhood centres. Almost all houses would thus be less than ½ mile from a neighbourhood centre and within 1¼ miles of the town centre. The road pattern was designed to discourage through traffic in the neighbourhoods."
Border walls work. Yuma sector proves it. - USA Today
Interim Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke writes:
"The bipartisan Secure Fence Act of 2006 -- supported by then-Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and others -- mandated the construction of hundreds of additional miles of secure fencing and infrastructure investments. Yuma sector was one of the first areas to receive infrastructure investments.
"We built new infrastructure along the border east and west of the San Luis Arizona Port of Entry in 2006. The existing fence was quickly lengthened, and we added second and third layers to that fencing in urban areas. Lighting, roads and increased surveillance were added to aid agents patrolling the border.
"Although there is still work to do, the border in Yuma sector today is more secure because of this investment. Even under lax enforcement standards, apprehensions in fiscal year 2016 were roughly a 10th of what they were in FY 2005 -- and are on track to be even lower this year. Crime has significantly decreased in the Yuma area, and smugglers now look for other less difficult areas of the border to cross -- often areas without fencing."
