Key Quotes for 2005

A world perspective in bite-size chunks
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Last update: Wednesday 25th March
 
In shocking revelations yesterday, the grim reality of daily life for the world's innocent generation was laid bare. More than one billion children are now being denied the healthy and protected upbringing promised by the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child..More than one in six children is severely hungry. One in seven has no access to health care...As two reports showed yesterday, perhaps the most chilling statistic of all is the number of young lives snatched by conflict. Since 1990, 3.6 million people have been killed on the front line in wars around the world - almost half of them were children.
Young PeopleThe Independent – 10th December 2004
 
A new tuberculosis drug is being described as one of the most important developments in the fight against respiratory disease for 40 years. In experiments on mice, the drug dramatically shortened the time taken to rid the lungs of the deadly infection, a prime reason why drug-resistant forms of TB are rising. About 7,000 Britons a year are infected with TB, a rise of about a quarter in 10 years, and about 300,000 cases of multi-resistant forms of TB are detected annually.
HealthThe Independent – 10th December 2004
 
Canada's Supreme Court ruled yesterday that proposed legislation allowing gay marriage is constitutional but the government cannot force religious officials to perform ceremonies against their beliefs.
Religion/SpiritualityThe Independent – 10th December 2004
 
The embryology watchdog should be scrapped because its "appalling mismanagement" of recent controversies, including the "designer baby" row, a leading fertility specialist said yesterday. Lord Winston, a pioneer of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), condemned the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) as incompetent and outdated and called for it to be replaced. The authority was established 14 years ago to regulate IVF, artificial insemination and the storage of sperm and eggs, as well as research into human embryos. It has been caught up in disputes this year over creating "designer babies"- that could provide a tissue match for a sick brother or sister - and over the selection of the sex of children. It also faces a legal challenge after it granted permission for Newcastle University scientists to perform "therapeutic cloning" of human embryos in research into diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
HealthThe Independent – 11th December 2004
 
Lord Falconer of Thoroton moved to defuse an explosive Labour backbench revolt yesterday over claims that a government Bill would allow euthanasia by the backdoor. The Lord Chancellor held behind-the-scenes meetings with Labour MPs over growing anxieties about the Mental Capacity Bill, which will give legal backing to "living wills", enabling people to refuse treatment when they are incapacitated or in a coma. Yesterday, the Lord Chancellor's junior minister in the Commons, David Lammy, tabled a series of amendments with the Health minister Rosie Winterton to try to meet some of the anxieties. Ministers also signalled they may support other Labour amendments, including one by George Howarth, a former minister, making it clear that doctors must assume that the patient's best interest is to live.
PoliticsThe Independent – 11th December 2004
 
A German television development company is planning to launch free viewing on the internet with the help of a revolutionary Web service that aims to give viewers access to any programme they want from almost anywhere in the world. The project is called Cybersky, a pun on the name of its German inventor; Guido Ciburski.Cybersky, scheduled to start in a month or so, aims to do for television what already applies to music and video, which can be downloaded free from the internet. The concept has alarmed Germany's television companies and is likely to concern other broadcasters around the world. Media analysts are expecting a new round of legal action similar to the campaign against Napster.
MediaThe Independent – 11th December 2004
 
Nearly three quarters of Britain's poorest children are concentrated in just four cities, trapped in urban ghettos of acute deprivation that have seen little or no improvement for a generation. Ground-breaking research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the country's leading social policy charity, has found that in the worst pockets of poverty, almost 60% of families claim means-tested benefits - a figure three times the national average. At its centenary conference today in York, where Rowntree founded his trusts in 1904, the foundation will consider the first detailed geographical analysis of poverty by council wards. This shows that 70% of the poorest children are concentrated within the conurbations of London, Glasgow, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
Young PeopleThe Independent – 13th December 2004
 
Children will be able to quit school for good at 14 and learn a trade under a planned government shake-up of the education system. Instead of school, they will be able to study at college full time - and take up a trade such as plumbing or engineering under a "young apprenticeship" scheme for 14-16 year olds.
EducationThe Independent – 13th December 2004
 
Viewing figures for the BBC's two main television channels have fallen to an all time low in the week that the director general, Mark Thompson, announced swinging cutbacks. BBC1's share of all television viewing is set to fall through the psychologically important 25% barrier for the first time in the broadcasters history, according to audience figures for this year up to 9 December...The decline, largely because of the rise of multi-channel viewing, has afflicted ITV1 even more severely than the BBC - since 2000 the channels audience share has fallen 22% to 22.8% of all television viewers. In 2004, for the first time, multi channel television has attracted higher overall viewing figures than either BBC1 or ITV1, with 26% of the audience.
MediaThe Independent – 14th December 2004
 
Life expectancy at birth could reach 100 in the next 60 years on present trends, researchers reported yesterday. While for today's population living to be 100 is an achievement marked by a telegram from the Queen, in two generations it could be as routine as collecting a bus pass. A study of the growth in longevity in Switzerland has revealed that more people live to be 100, taking into account population size, in Europe's most peaceable nation than anywhere else on the Continent...Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled over the past 200 years - from 25 to 65 for men and to 70 for women in developed countries.
The ElderlyThe Independent – 14th December 2004
 
The sanctity of the jury room could be breached for the first time in more than three centuries under government plans to consult the public on how to investigate allegations of juror misbehaviour. A change in the law would end the strict prohibition on jurors disclosing anything said in the privacy of the jury room. The consultation document, to be published next year, will look at ways of investigating juries alleged to have returned guilty verdicts on grounds of racial or other prejudice.
CrimeThe Independent – 14th December 2004
 
School children will have to play up to five hours of sport a week under a £500m programme to tackle childhood obesity to be announced by Tony Blair today. Ministers will more than double the minimum time children should spend on PE each week by 2010 as part of a drive to end the long-term decline in school sports.
HealthThe Independent – 14th December 2004
 
Under 18's are to be banned from buying knives under plans announced by the Government today.The Home Office is also facing demands to bring in tougher punishments for knife crimes. Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens this month said that people carrying knives "for the wrong reasons" should receive mandatory sentences of up to three years.
CrimeSentinel Sunday – 12th December 2004
 
Young people are turning the tables on old habits and saving for the future. A new breed of "young and determined savers" has set its sights on economic prosperity as pensions plummet, house prices rocket and education grows more expensive by the day, according to a National Savings and Investments survey. The NS&I survey found young people across the country are facing up to the reality of the tough financial climate with determination and are leading the way as the nation's best savers.
MoneySentinel Sunday – 12th December 2004
 
The institutional chaos of the Child Support Agency (CSA) was revealed by unions and senior staff yesterday..Unions, parents' groups and MP's have warned that the crisis may worsen, because cuts in the civil service mean that the CSA's staff must be reduced from 12,000 to 8,000 by 2008..Deadlines for Electronic Data Systems to correct the problems have been repeatedly missed and the backlog of cases is now growing by 30,000 a month. Cases are supposed to take a maximum of six weeks from the time a parent makes an application for maintenance to the final calculation of what their former partner should pay. The agency currently takes an average of from 15 to 23 weeks and even then very few parents will actually receive any money.Out of 478,000 applications to the agency since CS2 was introduced, only 61,000 parents have been paid maintenance.
FamilyThe Independent – 20th November 2004
 
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