Key Quotes for 2005

A world perspective in bite-size chunks
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Last update: Wednesday 25th March
 
Children as young as 10 are becoming addicted to shopping, a survey shows. Eight out of ten children aged between 10 and 12 say they have already developed a passion for conspicuous consumption, the poll for the National Consumer Council found. But more than three quarters of the 1,000 children polled said they also believed that people buy things they do not need.
Drugs/Alcohol/AddictionsThe Independent – 26th November 2004
 
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reported yesterday that 42% of boys and 38% of girls aged 15 in England had tried cannabis, the highest rates in Europe.Just over 10% of 15 year old English boys reported heavy use of cannabis, defined as taking it at least 40 times a year..Britain and Spain topped the table for taking cocaine, with 5% and 7% of people aged 15 to 24 in the two countries admitting using it recently, the monitoring centre reported.
Drugs/Alcohol/AddictionsThe Independent – 26th November 2004
 
The United Nations has demanded urgent government action to reduce the numbers of vulnerable children behind bars in Britain. The UN's scathing critique of this country's failure to respect the human rights of young offenders follows the deaths of 27 children in custody since 1990, including two this year. About 2,700 people aged 10 to 17 are held in British jails, at an annual cost of £283m.
CrimeThe Independent – 29th November 2004
 
In Switzerland, voters overwhelmingly approved a law permitting stem cell research yesterday.The law passed last December still sets stricter limits than in some European countries, allowing the use only of embryonic stem cells left over from in-vitro fertilisation and forbidding human cloning. But it was the first time that the issue had been put to a national referendum, noted the Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin. It was approved by 66.4% of those voting.
PoliticsThe Independent – 29th November 2004
 
The UK's first fast track service, at Hammersmith Hospitals, for patients who have had a heart attack, has led to a five-fold reduction in deaths. Patients usually have a procedure to unblock their arteries within an hour.
HealthThe Sentinel – 10th December 2004
 
The media was under fire today after the UK's most senior military officer blamed it for making it easier for insurgents to attack British troops in Iraq. Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Michael Walker said attacks on the Black Watch may have been prompted by media coverage of their deployment to the so-called "Triangle of Death" in Iraq.
MediaThe Sentinel – 10th December 2004
 
Police chiefs have rejected the idea of official red light zones as a way of controlling the sex trade. And a report which has the backing of all 43 chief constables in England and Wales warns that police forces need to pay more attention to tackling prostitution..Today's report noted that the number of women cautioned for street prostitution had fallen from 3,323 in 1993, to 732 in 2001, while the number of girls aged under 18 cautioned fell from 296 to just six in the same period.
CrimeThe Sentinel – 10th December 2004
 
Teenage girls are now binge drinking more frequently than boys, according to a report published yesterday. It is the first time girls have outstripped their male peers in excessive alcohol consumption. Experts warned that the rise in young female drinking was an "unprecedented phenomenon" that could threaten the health of a generation of women. Girls in their teens are being treated for alcohol related diseases, according to experts, with a girl aged 17 in Liverpool diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver caused by excessive alcohol consumption. Youth workers said children were turning up drunk to afternoon-activity clubs within hours of the end of school.British teenagers are among the heaviest drinkers in the study, which looked at the habits of 15 and 16 year olds in 35 European countries.
Drugs/Alcohol/AddictionsThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
One in three children at hundreds of primary schools still cannot read properly by the age of 11 because of poor teaching it emerged yesterday. Seven years after the introduction of a compulsory reading hour in primary education, at least 35% of pupils in 2,235 schools fail to read properly by the time they leave.
EducationThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
England's 10 year olds have shown a dramatic improvement in maths tests over the past decade. A worldwide study yesterday revealed they had shown the biggest improvement of any country since 1994..In the 15 countries which have participated in all three tests, England's score in mathematics has improved the most, by 47 points, to place it 10th in the world in an international league table.
EducationThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
A cross party attempt to block legislation allowing seriously ill patients to refuse treatment was defeated in the Commons yesterday after the Government reassured MPs it would not lead to euthanasia by the back door. The Government bought off the rebels by slipping out an exchange of letters between the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and a leading Roman Catholic archbishop guaranteeing the Mental Capacity Bill would be changed in the Lords to ensure it would not allow mercy killing.
PoliticsThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
France has ordered a satellite television station run by the extremist Hizbollah movement in Lebanon to be banned from the French airwaves by tomorrow for promoting the hatred of Jews. Al-Manar television has outraged Jewish groups and infuriated politicians of all stripes in France by broadcasting a series of programmes which promote Arab conspiracy theories about Jews and glorify violence against the Israeli state.
MediaThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings this year found that 272,000 British workers - equivalent to the entire population of Hull - are illegally being paid less than the national minimum wage. Most of them are women working out of their own homes.
Work/EmploymentThe Independent – 15th December 2004
 
Ministers are to consider scrapping the law which allows the eldest son of the British monarch to become king even if he has an older sister. Almost 30 years after the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act, aimed to ensure equality between the sexes, an attempt is to be made to end the system of male primogeniture.
Odd FactsThe Independent – 9th December 2004
 
Britain looks likely to miss a key target in the fight against global warming by a wide margin, the Government was forced to admit yesterday.By 2010, Tony Blair said, the UK would achieve only a 14% cut in emissions of CO2 from 1990 levels. This compares with a planned reduction of 20% set in 1994 by the Labour Party, which has since appeared in its election manifesto.
EnvironmentThe Independent – 9th December 2004
 
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