Washed It!

BNP faces legal threat over membership policies

Equality watchdog accuses far-right party of three breaches of Race Relations Act

The BNP is facing the threat of an injunction from the official body on race discrimination, in what is believed to be the first such action against a political party.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the independent watchdog on discrimination, wrote to the BNP today stating that it believes the party is in breach of the Race Relations Act on three counts.

“The legal advice we have received indicates that the British National party’s constitution and membership criteria, employment practices and provision of services to constituents and the public may breach discrimination laws which all political parties are legally obliged to uphold,” said the commission’s legal director, John Wadham.

The letter gives the BNP until 20 July to provide written undertakings in response to the allegations, including a statement that it will not discriminate in party recruitment.

Currently, BNP recruitment is open to members of the party who, according to its constitution, are of … “‘indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race”.

“The commission thinks that this requirement is contrary to the Race Relations Act, which outlaws the refusal or deliberate omission to offer employment on the basis of non-membership of an organisation,” a statement released by the commission says. “The commission is therefore concerned that the BNP may have acted, and be acting, illegally.”

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Other potential breaches of the law raised in the letter include concerns that the BNP’s elected representatives may not intend to offer or provide services on an equal basis to all their constituents irrespective of race and their membership criteria.

After the BNP won two seats in the European parliament earlier this month, the Guardian reported numerous grounds for legal challenge against the party. Lawyers said the BNP’s rise in public office would have increasing legal significance, including a possible investigation by the commission.

The action by the commission is likely to have serious implications, and could lead to further measures, including an injunction against the party and possible legal challenges in court.

“We await a response from the BNP to our letter before deciding what further action we may take, ” Wadham said. “Litigation or enforcement action can be avoided by the BNP giving a satisfactory response to our letter.”

The controversial move is the first time the commission has used against a political party new enforcement powers it obtained after taking over from the former race watchdog, the Commission for Racial Equality, in 2007.

The BNP said it had passed the letter on to its legal team.

“We were expecting something like this but we are not too bothered. We are quite happy with our position,” a spokesman said.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama cited his own long struggle to quit the cigarettes he took up as a teenager as he signed the nation’s strongest-ever anti-smoking bill Monday and praised it for providing critically needed protections for future generations.

“The decades-long effort to protect our children from the harmful effects of smoking has finally emerged victorious,” Obama said during the sun-splashed Rose Garden signing ceremony.

The bill marks the latest legislative victory for Obama’s first five months. Among his other successes: a $787 economic stimulus bill, legislation to expand a state program providing children’s health insurance and a bill making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination.

The president has frequently spoken, in the White House and on the campaign trail, of his own struggles to quit smoking. He did so again during the ceremony, bringing it up while criticizing the tobacco industry for marketing its products to young people.

“I know — I was one of these teenagers,” Obama said. “I know how difficult it is to break this habit.”

Before dozens of invited guests, including children from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the president signed legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate tobacco.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act allows the FDA to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, ban candy flavorings that appeal to kids and block misleading labels such “low tar” and “light.” Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

The law won’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency will be able to regulate what goes into tobacco products, make public the ingredients and prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children.

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“It is a law that will save American lives,” Obama said.

Anti-smoking advocates looked forward to the bill after years of attempts to control an industry so fundamental to the U.S. that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the Capitol.

Opponents from tobacco-growing states such as top-producing North Carolina argued that the FDA had proved through a series of food safety failures that it was not up to the job of regulation. They also said that instead of unrealistically trying to get smokers to quit or to prevent others from starting, lawmakers should ensure that people have other options, like smokeless tobacco.

As president, George W. Bush opposed the legislation and threatened a veto after it passed the House last year. The Obama administration, by contrast, issued a statement declaring strong support for the measure.

While most U.S. voters still blame the Bush Administration for the nation’s economic problems, a growing number are inclined to blame President Barack Obama.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of voters now say the country’s economic problems are caused more by the policies Obama has put in place. That’s a 12-point jump from a month ago.

Fifty-four percent (54%) still say the country’s economic woes are due to the recession Obama inherited from President Bush. That figure is down eight points from 62% from early June.

By a two-to-one margin, voters also have more confidence in themselves than in the president when it comes to the economy. This marks a significant shift from just after Obama took office.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters now trust their own economic judgment more than the president’s. In early February, 49% had more trust in themselves while 39% trusted the president more.

Now only 30% trust Obama more when it comes to the economic issues facing the nation.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter.

Younger voters are more likely than their elders to blame the current economic situation on the recession that began under Bush. The majority of middle income voters place more of the blame on Obama’s policies.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of Democrats see the economic problems as ones largely inherited from the previous administration, while 61% of GOP voters point the finger at the actions of the new president. Unaffiliated voters are almost evenly divided on the question.

Men are more likely than women to trust themselves rather than the president when it comes to the economy. Middle-income voters have more confidence in themselves than those who earn more and less.

The partisan split is predictable. Republicans trust themselves more than Obama by a whopping 75% to 19% margin. The findings for voters not affiliated with either major party are virtually identical. But Democrats are much more closely divided, with nearly half trusting the president more.

Obama’s ratings slipped to new lows at the end of last week in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, but he continues to be more popular than many of his policies.

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Despite strong public opposition, the president has pushed hard for bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler, both now in structured bankruptcies aimed at keeping them in business. The government has taken substantial ownership stakes in both companies in exchange for federal bailout money, but 80% of U.S. voters want the government to sell its stake in GM and Chrysler as soon as possible.

Even as Obama announced earlier this month his intention to speed up the pace of stimulus spending, the plurality of Americans (45%) said the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should be canceled.

In fact, most voters (53%) continue to believe increases in government spending hurt the economy. Fifty-one percent (51%) favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the U.S. economy.

While the president last week was aggressively campaigning for the creation of a government-run health insurance company to compete with private insurers, Americans are evenly divided now over whether that’s a good idea.

Americans are similarly divided on the urgency of moving ahead with health care reform right now given the state of the economy.

State legislators faced with mammoth budget gaps and sharply lower revenue are looking to residents to bail them out.

Right now, at least 47 states are facing significant shortfalls in their 2009 and/or 2010 budgets, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington, D.C. And many of those states are looking to tax hikes to help fill the gaps.

“Pretty much everyone is doing poorly,” says Kim Rueben, senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center. “It’s just a question of who’s hurting more than others.”

The top honor goes to California, which is projecting that it will fall about $25 billion short come fiscal 2010. Taking second place is New York with a projected $17.6 billion deficit for fiscal 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan policy research organization in Washington, D.C.

How can these states miss the mark so badly? The recession has sapped the two major sources of state revenue: income taxes (thanks to rising unemployment, fewer people are getting paid) and sales taxes (quite simply, consumers are spending less.) “Those two things together really, really lead to a high loss of tax revenues, far in excess of loss of income,” says Michael Hicks, director of Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

Even though raising taxes are typically a last resort, many states have no choice but to do so. And, in some, lawmakers are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to finding items or services to tax. New York, for instance, has raised taxes on tobacco, wine and limo services. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is proposing a tax on satellite television service and Georgia lawmakers are proposing a “pole tax” that would charge gentlemen’s club patrons $5 at the door.

To figure out which states are inflicting the biggest tax hikes on residents, SmartMoney pored over reports from tax research groups and contacted state budget offices. We looked at state budget deficits tracked by the National Conference of State Legislatures and current sales tax rate data from the Federation of Tax Administrators, a group that provides services to state tax authorities. Finally, we turned to the Tax Foundation — a nonpartisan tax research group — for figures on tax burden, the average percentage of each state’s residents’ income that is paid in state and local taxes (the figures we use are for 2008).

Here are six states where residents should prepare to pay up.

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California: Diminishing This Huge Deficit May Just Be a Dream

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $24.7 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 22.3%
State and local tax burden: 10.5%; Rank: 6

California is facing the biggest budget deficit in the nation, yet voters’ willingness to chip in is starting to wane. Last month, they voted down five ballot measures that included sales and income tax increases. Who could blame them? At 11%, California has one of the worst unemployment rates in the country, the housing market has been decimated, and the state already raised taxes on sales by 1% to 8.25% and income by 0.25% (both of which expire in 2011). Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget plan includes steep spending cuts across the government and cutbacks in social services.

In a testament to California’s grim predicament, one assemblyman’s proposal to legalize marijuana for personal use and allow counties to tax it is gaining public support. It’s one of the “wacky things you might be able to get away with now,” says Rueben.

New York: If It’s Bad for You, It Will Be Taxed

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $17.6 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 31.9%
State and local tax burden: 11.7%; Rank: 2

New York State Gov. David Paterson may have been unsuccessful in levying an 18% tax on soda and other sugary drinks in the name of combating obesity, but he’s had a hand in raising taxes on plenty of other “sinful” items, including tobacco (up to 46% from 37%) and wine (up 58% per gallon, or about two cents more per bottle).

For those living in New York, all those tax hikes can really add up. Second only to New Jersey, New Yorkers bear the second-highest tax burden thanks to a high income-tax rate of 7.85% (for those earning more than $200,000). And property and gas taxes are among the highest in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation. Nevertheless, shoppers can rejoice: The sales tax here remains relatively low at just 4%.

Florida: Driving and Smoking Will Cost You

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $6 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 27%
State and local tax burden: 7.4%; Rank: 47

Florida passed its budget in May with a not-so-pleasant surprise for smokers: a $1-per-pack hike (the first such increase in 19 years). Motorists also got hit with higher fees to renew a license or register a vehicle. It could have been worse, though. Senate lawmakers had proposed eliminating the sales tax exemption on items like bottled water and tickets to sporting events, both of which didn’t make the cut.

Still, residents here aren’t feeling as much tax pain as some of their peers in other states. Overall, Florida’s tax burden is the third-lowest in the nation and it’s one of eight states that imposes no individual income tax, according to the Tax Foundation. But those perks may be outweighed by the rest of Florida’s economic situation. Home values are among the nation’s hardest hit and the state’s $6 billion budget deficit could mean more tax hikes are on the horizon.

Massachusetts: Shoppers and Couch Potatoes, Prepare to Pay Up

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $3 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 11.2%
State and local tax burden: 9.5%; Rank: 23

Just when Massachusetts was starting to shake its “Taxachusetts” nickname (it’s ranked a middle-of-the-road 23rd in the Tax Foundation’s tax burden assessment), the state is preparing to hike taxes on everything from alcohol to satellite TV.

The most hard-hitting for residents is a proposed increase in the sales tax to 6.25% from 5%. Both the House and Senate approved the measure and it’s looking likely the increase will pass by the July 1 deadline, says Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, an independent research group. Satellite TV subscribers may also get hit. The state is proposing a 5% sales tax on satellite services. Providers, of course, are fighting the tax.

Arizona: Proposed Sales-Tax Hike Could Hurt Already-Strapped Residents

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $3 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 28.2%
State and local tax burden: 8.5%; Rank: 41

The recession has thumped Arizona harder than most other states, says Lee McPheters, research professor of economics at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey business school. The housing slump is partially to blame: During the boom, construction accounted for at least a quarter of new jobs created. Since home prices have fallen 43% from their peak, the construction industry has lost tens of thousands of jobs, says McPheters. Arizona’s unemployment rate in April was 7.7%, shy of the 8.9% national average.

If Gov. Janice Brewer gets her way, residents will pay for the state’s problems by shelling out an extra 1% at the cash register. The proposed sales-tax hike, which would bring the rate to 6.6%, was omitted from the budget the legislature passed this month, but the governor may veto the budget until it’s put back in. (She could also place it on a November special election ballot.)

Nevada: What Happens in Vegas Is Going to Cost You More

State deficit estimate for fiscal 2010: $1.2 billion
Percent of general fund budget: 32%
State and local tax burden: 6.6%; Rank: 49

Nevada’s freewheeling, low-tax past is coming back to haunt it like a bad hangover. The state levies no personal income tax and imposes some of the lowest taxes on businesses in the nation, says Bert Waisanen, a fiscal analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nevada used to be able to afford being so generous with its residents. Revenue from tourism and gambling supported the state just fine. But now, as consumers would rather put their coins in a bank account than a slot machine, that revenue source is drying up. In fact, the state boasts the dubious honor of having the largest deficit in the country as a percentage of its budget – 32%. It’s hiked the sales tax by 0.35% to 6.85% and taxes on hotel rooms are up 3%. It’s even gambling with its business-friendly climate by raising taxes on businesses.

_ GDP: North Korea’s gross domestic product was estimated at about $20.2 billion in 2007, according to a report last year by South Korea’s central bank. That was about 2.6 percent the size of neighboring South Korea’s. The Bank of Korea will release its estimate for 2008 later this month. North Korea does not publish economic statistics.

_ STEADY DECLINE: North Korea’s economy over the past two decades has steadily declined. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s deprived the country of a key source of trade and aid. Subsequent mismanagement, periodic bouts of severe flooding, crop failures, a famine and a standoff with the international community over its nuclear development that led to sanctions have also hurt the economy.

_ TRADE: North Korea’s top trade partners are China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Russia and Brazil. Japan once was but commercial ties rapidly deteriorated after Tokyo imposed sanctions and restrictions over the North’s abductions of Japanese nationals and its nuclear and missile tests.

_ ILLICIT ACTIVITIES: North Korea has long been accused of engaging in illicit economic activities to supplement its economy and support the ruling regime, including counterfeiting cigarettes and U.S. currency, and drug-smuggling. A U.N. report in 2007 said North Korea makes an estimated $500 million to $1 billion annually from criminal enterprises.

_ CHINESE INFLUENCE: China has become the biggest foreign economic player in North Korea. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, a South Korean trade agency, said in a report in May that Chinese exports to North Korea in 2008 totaled $2.03 billion, while North Korea’s exports to China totaled $750 million. North Korea’s main imports from China were oil and textiles. The North’s key exports were coal and iron ore.

_ RELATIONS WITH SOUTH KOREA: Economic ties with the South flourished throughout much of this decade as Seoul pursued closer political ties with Pyongyang. Joint projects in manufacturing and tourism boosted trade. Relations, however, have deteriorated since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office early last year with a vow to get tough with the North. Tourism projects have been suspended and a joint industrial zone has been adversely affected by tightened border controls.

_ NATURAL RESOURCES: North Korea’s resources, which include coal, gold, graphite, iron ore, magnesite, silver, tungsten, zinc have drawn the interest of investors. South Korea’s state-owned Korea Resources Corp. is involved in mining projects in the North.

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Sources: The Bank of Korea, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, AP reports.

A prehistoric complex, including two 6,000-year-old tombs, has been discovered by archaeologists in Hampshire.

The Neolithic tombs, which until now had gone unnoticed under farmland despite being just 15 miles from Stonehenge, are some of the oldest monuments to have been found in Britain.

Archaeologists say they will hold valuable clues about how people lived at the time and what their environment was like.

The discovery is also close to Cranborne Chase, one of the most well researched prehistoric areas in Europe.

“It’s one of the most famous prehistoric landscapes, a Mecca for prehistorians, and you would have thought the archaeological world would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb,” Dr Helen Wickstead, the Kingston University archaeologist leading the project, said.

From examining similar sites, archaeologists know that complex burial rituals were common at the time. Typically bodies would be left in the open air until the flesh had decayed, leaving only a skeleton. Then bones were put in special arrangements in the tombs.

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“The tombs were like bone homes for important people in the community,” Dr Wickstead said.

The tombs were discovered by Damian Grady, an English Heritage photographer, who flew over the area in a light aircraft taking aerial photographs of the land, looking for marks or features on the landscape suggestive of ancient monuments. One photograph showed two long mounds.

After discussions with colleagues, Mr Grady was left in little doubt that the mounds were the site of ancient tombs. He contacted Dr Wickstead inviting her to investigate.

After carrying out a survey of the land using electromagnetic detectors and ultrasound, Dr Wickstead created a map of what lay beneath the fields. She was able to identify the two tombs with troughs on each side, known as long barrows, typical of Neolithic burial sites.

Her team was also found artefacts, including fragments of pottery, flint and stone tools, close to the surface.

So far Dr Wickstead’s team have only used non-invasive techniques to figure out what lies inside the tombs, which are located on the land of a local female farmer.

Because the original surface of the land has been preserved beneath the mound, scientists will be able to examine it for traces of pollen and identify which plants and trees were common at the time.

Whether they are excavated will depend on local feeling, she says.

“We’re treading very carefully on the excavation issue,” Dr Wickstead said.

“We want to be sure that it’s what people living in Damerham village want. It’s their heritage.”

The Kingston University team are due to publish preliminary findings of their research in the journal Hampshire Studies.

National Security Agency-backed TopCoder Open competition raises big questions

By Patrick Thibodeau

Programmers from China and Russia have dominated an international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components.

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Whether the outcome of this competition is another sign that math and science education in the US needs improvement may spur debate. But of the 70 finalists in it, 20 were from China, 10 from Russia and only two from the US.

TopCoder, which runs software competitions as part of its software development service, operates TopCoder Open, an annual contest.

About 4,200 people participated in the US National Security Agency-supported challenge. The NSA has been sponsoring the program for a number of years because of its interest in hiring people with advanced skills.

Participants in the contest, which was open to anyone – from student to professional – and finished with 120 competitors from around the world, went through a process of elimination that finished this month in Las Vegas.

China’s showing in the finals was also helped by the sheer volume of its numbers, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers were finalists. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234; Poland, 214; Egypt, 145; and Ukraine, 128, among others.

Of the total number of contestants, 93 percent were male, and 84 percent were aged between 18 and 24.

Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, said the strong finish by programmers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere is indicative of the importance those countries put on mathematics and science education.

“We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there,” Hughes said. He said the US needs to make earlier inroads in middle schools and high school math and science education.

That’s a point Hughes is hardly alone on. President Barack Obama, as well as many of the major tech leaders including Bill Gates, have called for similar action.

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Of the participants in the contest, more than 57 percent had bachelor’s degrees, most in computer science, and of that 20 percent had earned a masters degree, and 6 percent a PhD.

But the winner of the algorithm competition was an 18-year-old student from China, Bin Jin, who went by the handle “crazyb0y”. Chinese programmers have a history of doing very well in this contest.

Mike Lydon, TopCoder’s CTO, said Jin’s future in computer science is assured. “This gentleman can do whatever he wants,” he said.

The participants are tested in design, development, architecture, among others, but one of the most popular is the algorithm coding contest.

To give some sense of difficulty, Lydon provided a description of a problem that the contestants were asked to solve:

“With the rise of services such as Facebook and MySpace, the analysis and understanding of such networks is a particularly active area of current computer science research. At an abstract level, these networks consist of nodes (people), connected by links (friendship).

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“In this problem, competitors were given the description of two such networks, but with the names of all the nodes removed from each. The networks were each scrambled up before given to the competitors. The task was to determine if the two networks could possibly be from the same group of people.

“The competitors were to unscramble and label the two networks so that if Alice was connected to Bob in one of the two networks, then Alice was also connected to Bob in the other network. This problem is known as the network isomorphism problem, and solving it for large networks is a major unsolved problem in the realm of theoretical computer science.”

Lydon said the overall problem is unsolved for larger networks, and what’s considered a correct answer for this problem would not be considered large enough for the solution in this case to be groundbreaking.

Two people solved the problem.

Reporting from Seoul — North Korea has positioned its most sophisticated long-range ballistic missile at a launch site for a test firing that could come within weeks, a newspaper here reported today.

Pyongyang, which last month raised tensions worldwide by conducting a nuclear test, could even fire its missile June 16, when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Obama in Washington, according to the report.

The report, citing unnamed sources, said the missile had a range of up to 4,000 miles and could reach Alaska.

Both South Korea and Japan acknowledged today that a new North Korean long-range missile test could come within weeks.

“Given that North Korea has carried out a nuclear test, we can’t deny the possibility that they will further test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference in Tokyo.

Without mentioning the new North Korean missile, South Korean President Lee said in a radio address that his nation would not tolerate further provocations from Pyongyang.

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“North Korea’s second nuclear test last week brought great disappointment and shock not only to our people, but the entire world,” Lee said, who echoed U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ claim that the world would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.

During a news conference in Manila, where he is meeting with Filipino military officials, Gates confirmed that North Korea appears to be preparing a long-range missile. But, Gates added, “at this point, it’s not clear what they’re going to do.”

Following last month’s nuclear test by North Korea, Seoul joined a U.S.-led initiative to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons — by North Korea or any other nation.

Pyongyang responded with anger, implying that it would no longer abide by the armistice that was signed to bring an end to fighting between north and south in 1953. But Lee indicated today that Seoul would not back down.

If Pyongyang “refuses to take the path to dialogue and chooses the path of military threats and provocation, [South Korea] will never tolerate such threats.”

“We sincerely hope for peace but will sternly deal with any threats,” said Lee, who is attending an Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations summit on the southern island of Jeju.

South Korean newspapers have reported that a train carrying a long-range missile arrived at a missile base 120 miles northwest of Pyongyang, where a launch pad had been erected. The press reports speculated that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il might visit the site in early June.

In a release on Friday, Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said that the nation had “a right to conduct as many nuclear tests or missile launches as it wants in the event that the supreme interests of the state are infringed upon.”

“Such self-defensive measures do not run counter to any other international law,” the release stated.

Analysts say Pyongyang may be looking to disrupt the June summit between Lee and Obama, who will discuss the ongoing crisis on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang’s last rocket launch, in April, was timed to coincide with an international summit in Europe.

“North Korea could possibly launch its missile during the summit between South Korea and the United States,” said Choi Choon-heum, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “The last rocket launch was in April when the G20 meeting took place.”

Other analysts agreed that a missile launch appeared certain if the U.N. lays out new sanctions.

“North Korea has said that if the U.N. Security Council agrees on sanctions, it would stage a nuclear test or missile test,” said Paik Hak-soon, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at Sejong Institute near Seoul.

“They think this is their chance to test fire an ICBM. They’re thinking: Let’s get a status of a nuclear state. And besides that, we can achieve a capability for the ICBM.”