UPDATED - TUESDAY - JULY 8, 2008
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Russia threatens military response to US missile defense deal
Russia tonight threatened to retaliate by military means after a deal with the Czech Republic brought the US missile defence system in Europe a step closer.
The threat followed quickly on from the announcement that Condoleezza Rice signed a formal agreement with the Czech Republic to host the radar for the controversial project.
Moscow argues that the missile shield would severely undermine the balance of European security and regards the proposed missile shield based in two former Communist countries as a hostile move.
“We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
************************************************************************************************California's Lead Ammo Ban
Was signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Fish and Game Commission took that law and RAN with it, expanding the ban to include ALL ammo, not just centerfire ammo in the range of the California Condor. This brave new law takes effect July 1st of this year.
Check out their helpful FAQ sheet.
How very kind of them to acknowledge that nobody currently manufactures non-lead ammo in 22LR!
"So if you live in the range of the Condor, and you have ground squirrels tearing up your land and leaving holes for your livestock to break their legs in, tough shit. The Condor's more important. Unless you want to change to a caliber that does offer lead free ammo. Sorry about the expense there - there was going to be an ammo voucher program, but it wasn't funded. Now piss off and don't bother us anymore, peasant."
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| Tuesday, July 8, 2008 |
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Congress examines EMP threat
Iran believed to test missiles for attack on U.S.
Posted: July 07, 2008
10:42 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – More than four years after a stunning report about America's vulnerability to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack was released to Congress, the House Armed Services Committee will hear testimony from the scientist who issued the warning and who believes Iran is pursuing such an option.
William R. Graham, President Reagan's top science adviser and the chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, will update the committee Thursday morning.
Graham warned in 2005 that Iran was not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, but was already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure with the aim of neutralizing the world's lone superpower.
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Iran arms IRGC with smart munitions
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:26:42
 Katyusha rockets |
Iran's advanced ammunition will be used to protect Iranian territory, said commander of the IRGC missile systems Brigadier General Mahmoud Chaharbaghi.
"Fajr 3 and Fajr 5 long-range rocket launchers along with Zalzal rockets with a range of 150 kilometers are among the high-tech military equipment the IRGC will employ," Gen. Chaharbaghi said.
The top IRGC commander added that Iran has launched a production line for smart munitions, which can hit small mobile targets, and long-range cluster shells.
“IRGC artilleries across the country are currently equipped with 130, 150, DC122 heavy cannons and powerful Katyusha rockets," Gen. Chaharbaghi said.
He concluded that in the event of an attack on the country, IRGC forces would 'overwhelm invaders with their fire power'.
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The world’s second-richest man is Mexican. His estimated net worth is $60 billion. Yet, more than 40 million people living south of the border live on just dollars per day—and the standard of living for many millions is about to get worse.
Over the past few years, Mexico has made big strides in reducing poverty and increasing the standard of living for many. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that the Mexican miracle was built on a sand foundation. The economic tide is now turning, and the current pillars of its economy—oil production, foreign remittances and low inflation—are being undermined.
Mexico is primed to boil, and the spillover could scathe the United States.
Oil’s Slippery Plunge
Mexico supplies massive amounts of oil to the United States—behind only Canada and Saudi Arabia in volume. So any interruption in the flow of oil will have huge implications for America as well as Mexico. In dollar terms, oil is the single most important revenue stream for the Mexican government, providing for a whopping 40 percent of all federal spending.
However, Mexican oil production is plummeting. Much of the problem stems from Mexico’s super-giant oil field Cantarell. Located in shallow waters off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, this one field alone supplied about 60 percent of Mexico’s output until recently. Output peaked in 2004, after which pumping volumes drastically declined. Production cascaded 15 percent in both 2006 and 2007, and 2008 looks like it may be an even bigger disaster.
Making matters worse is that for every 10 barrels of oil produced last year, only four barrels were discovered. If trends continue, Mexico will stop exporting oil and begin importing it in just four to six years. A turnaround is not likely, due to a number of factors.
According to Mexican law, Petroleos Mexicanos (pemex), the state-owned oil company responsible for all the nation’s oil production, is not allowed to partner with any foreign oil corporations to look for oil on Mexican territory. This is a huge handicap for pemex because it does not have the technology it needs to efficiently explore the Gulf’s deep water. So potential resources are left undiscovered and untapped.
Additionally, since pemex is government-owned, its annual profits are used to cover government spending as opposed to exploration and development. Instead of creating future revenues, current revenues subsidize the living standards of the Mexican populace. The state requires pemex to sell fuel at prices sometimes less than half the market value. This kind of management has virtually bankrupted the company, despite the fact that oil is trading at over $140 per barrel. In 2006, pemex was the most indebted oil company on the planet.
If not for record-high oil prices, both pemex and Mexico would have already faced a severe budget crisis. With 40 percent of government revenues at risk, the whole country could have easily descended into chaos, with resultant devalued currency, rising interest rates and much higher taxes. Record oil prices have temporarily plugged the gap left by plunging production levels. But if high oil prices eventually retreat, Mexico is going to face a huge cash crunch.
For now, there are other serious ramifications.
Declining Mexican oil production means that either Mexicans or Americans will have to do without. With global oil supplies as tight as they are, either decision will have far-reaching effects.
Mexico is left with ugly choices. If it chooses to reduce exports to America, it will lose its largest source of foreign capital. Consequently, the Mexican trade gap will soar, government spending will plummet, and the peso will come under intense pressure—leading to price inflation even more severe than current levels. Yet if Mexico decides to restrict local supply in order to maintain its foreign income streams, it risks choking off local commerce by inducing local price spikes and shortages not only of fuel, but also of essential petrochemical products like lubricants, synthetic fabrics, plastics and fertilizer. A cauldron of social and political upheaval is bubbling.
Mexico’s easy oil days are over. Currently, it looks like Mexico has decided to limit exports to America, recently announcing a sizeable reduction of 150,000 barrels per day. So America’s easy oil days are ending too.
Money Not Sent Home
But faltering oil prices are not the only problem facing Mexico. Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign income, the U.S., is also wavering.
The phenomenon of Mexicans working in the United States and sending money home to Mexico is well documented. In fact, foreign money sent home from Mexicans working abroad totaled $24 billion in 2006, which was nearly 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. But these remittances are going off a cliff too.
Mexican workers’ remittances decreased 2.4 percent in the first four months of this year. This was the first decline for a January-to-April period since the central bank began tracking the data in 1995, and could mark an important turning point in the structure of the Mexican economy. Add on the fact that a weak U.S. dollar means that the dollars that are sent back are worth less, and Mexicans are really feeling the pinch.
There are several theories explaining the dropoff, but it is most likely a combination of a slowing U.S. economy, a drastically reduced home construction sector, and reduced immigration due to increased border security. Regardless of cause, the effect is that Mexican Americans have less money to send home, and Mexicans have less to spend.
Inflation Problem
And falling oil revenues and foreign remittances probably couldn’t have come at a worse time, because inflation is also tugging at Mexico’s economic and social fabric.
Although the government has sought to shelter Mexicans from rising fuel prices, it has not been able to protect them from soaring food and import prices. Since 2000, the price of corn, wheat and rice have each risen over 200 percent, even spiking into the 300 percent range at times. And much of the price increases have come during the past two years. For example, cooking oil has risen 50 percent since January.
In 2007, thousands of protesters in multiple cities took to the streets to protest the rising price of tortillas.
The food situation is especially dangerous for Mexico since it relies on imports for the majority of its grain consumption, 30 percent of its corn consumption and over 80 percent of rice consumption.
The government’s solution will only make matters worse in the long run. On June 18, President Felipe Calderón announced a price freeze on 150 processed food items including refried beans, tinned tomatoes, fruit juices, ketchup and canned chilies. But artificially lowering prices has a nasty side effect. It reduces the incentive for producers to increase production. If producers cannot make a profit because the government mandates that you must sell at a loss, it makes more sense to close up shop. This is why price freezes don’t work and can actually lead to higher prices—because artificial price freezes create further shortages. If conditions deteriorate enough, and price freezes become more widespread, Mexicans won’t be complaining about the high cost of food, they will be complaining about the widespread shortage of food.
Pressure is building in America’s southern neighbor. Jim Willie, editor of the Hat Trick Letter, described how conditions in Mexico are commonly coming to include extortion-motivated kidnappings, revolutionary insurgency, murders of police officers, execution-style killings, gangster warfare and bomb attacks against oil pipelines. Willie thinks the future could be even more drastically unstable:
A failed nation state is the likely outcome south of the U.S. border. Energy network attacks, growing poverty and inequality, inadequate government services, growing power of organized crime, corruption and desertion of police forces, assassination of judges and officials without consequences, and growing farmer bankruptcy are contributing to a failed system in Mexico.
And this is coming off relatively good times, economically.
Things are going to get much worse. America’s increasingly unstable southern neighbor is facing many stressors and declining revenue, and the situation could melt down quickly. Our Mexican readers would do well to be wary of these conditions. And the amassing of tens of millions of hungry and unhappy people across the Rio Grande is sure to also affect America far beyond simply reducing oil deliveries. •
THIS IS A MUST READ NOW...
AS AMERICA COLLAPSES US SECRET PLANS REVEALED
A secret meeting of Congress discusses immanent martial law.
B.A. Brooks
The United American Freedom Foundation
March 13, 2008
On March 13th 2008 there was a secret closed door meeting of The United States House Of Representatives in Washington. In the history of The United States this is only the fourth time a secret meeting was held by the house. Even though Representatives are sworn to secrecy by House Rules XVII, some of the members were so shocked, horrified, furious, and concerned about the future of America by what was revealed to them inside the secret meeting, that they have started to leak this secret information to independent news agencies around the world. The mass media said almost nothing about the secret meeting of the House, mentioning only one of the items being discussed. (The new surveillance techniques that are going to be used by the U.S. Government to watch all American citizens). The story was first released in a newspaper out of Brisbane, Australia revealing the contents of the secret U.S. Government meeting and plans for America including all of it’s citizens. Shortly there after, David J. Meyer from Last Trumpet Ministries found it and made it more available for the world to see.
Here is what was revealed:
- The imminent collapse of the U.S. Economy to occur sometime in late 2008
- The imminent collapse of the U.S. Government finances sometime in mid 2009
- The possibility of Civil War inside the United States as a result of the collapse
- The advance round-ups of “insurgent U.S. Citizens” likely to move against the government
- The detention of those rounded up at The REX 84 Camps constructed throughout the United States
- The possibility of public retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses
- The location of safe facilities for members of Congress and their families to reside during massive civil unrest
- The necessary and unavoidable merger of The U.S. with Canada and Mexico establishing The North American Union
- The issuance of a new currency called the AMERO for all three nations as an economic solution.
Except for a few hundred thousand U.S. Patriots, most Americans have no clue what has really been going on within The United States over the past 100 years, and the sad thing is that most do not want to know the truth. The further you look into the rabbit hole, the deeper it gets. Go to any currency conversion sitemassive decline of the dollar. Look at how much money is and has been spent on the Iraq War to date, ($12 billion per month). Look at our currency and when it stopped being backed by gold. and convert U.S. dollars to Euros so you can see for yourself the
The Federal Reserve is not federal but a private bank who does not have Americans best interests at heart. We no longer have any manufacturing really based out of America and there is no way that our economy can survive this incredible strain very much longer. The IRS strong arms every American yearly with income taxes, yet there are no laws saying an income tax is to be paid.
The CIA is involved in everything from global drug trafficking and covert military missions, to assassinations around the world and including U.S. Soil. Look at JFK for instance. It did not take long after JFK announced that he was going disband the CIA that he was shot in Texas. America’s new StasiThe Department Of Homeland Security is and has been slowly eradicating our rights for a few years now. based organization called
House Bill H.R. 1955/S-1959 was read by the senate and then sent to DHS for some reason, but is now back and sure to pass. Once passed, this bill introduced by Jane Harman (D/CA), will be the proverbial last nail hammered into every American patriots coffin. H.R. 4279 or the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 which was recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, will give the government draconian powers to do just this. This legislation gives the government the power to seize property that facilitates the violation of intellectual property laws. The legislation also mandates the formation of a formal Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General to enforce this insanity…
It has been revealed that F.E.M.A. has been building internment camps all over America granting Halliburton a massive $385 million dollar construction contract to make this happen. Most of these sites only need refurbished because they are mostly closed prisons, old WW2 internment camps still intact and other facilities taken over by the government. Some people have referred to them as F.E.M.A. Death Camps where the infamous Red list/Blue Lists will be used to decide who goes where.
Whether you believe that The NWO/Illuminati/Globalization is real or not, there is a lot of proof that exposes definite plans or plots by the rich, political and religious elite to bring on an era of the end times. It is almost like some individuals are trying to make bible prophecy come true in their own sick and twisted ways. Not to mention that the world only has about 10 to 15 years of drinking water left before the wars fought for oil today will be fought for water in the near future. It has been said that these powers want to depopulate the planet of over 30% of it’s human inhabitants in the coming years. Examine all of the executive ordersnational emergency. that have been signed into place allowing the president to basically become dictator in control of all government from tribal to federal in the event of any
If you did not know, In late 2006, Congress revised the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act to make it far easier for a president to declare martial law. Those changes were repealed at the end of this January as part of Public Law 110-181 (HR 4986), the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (signed into law by President Bush on January 28, 2008). Unfortunately it is not the great victory in which one might think because of the total militarization of all local and State police forces all across America.
Will there be martial law? Is martial law coming soon to America? When you see law enforcement being armed with automatic weapons, bullet proof vests and riot gear in small towns that have not had a murder or crime in years, then you have to ask yourself why.
The United States has more people locked up in prisons today than Russia and China combined. It comes out to one in every hundred Americans is behind bars. Our once great country that our ancestors fought and died for has become exactly the tyrants they were fighting. Fascists! When has America ever used words like Homeland? Never!
If you spend a few weeks reading all the info, watching the videos and following the links at The U.A.F.F., you will then have a better understanding of what has led to The Decline And Fall Of America. Remember that Knowledge is power! Learn, look, listen, read, share, prepare, train, stock up on food and water supply for one year.
Fill your pantry with non perishable foods, medicines, cooking oils, tinned meats and veggies. Flour, oats dried corn peas, beans and lentils.. Teach your self how to preserve food for storage. Check out your local potable/ drinking water supplies, non perfumed chlorine bleach is a good sterilizer for water, about 2 teaspoons full per 2 gallon bucket, stirred well and allowed to stand for at least 24 hours with a lid on it or until it no longer smells of bleach. Boiling water helps but it is not always enough to kill off the bacteria which can resist high temperatures.
Americans have been warned for years of the things to come, but have blindly looked away from the truth, which has been available for all to see. There are no more excuses not to prepare for the possible future. The time to act is now before it is too late. Check The United American Freedom Foundation for daily updates and news you won’t see in the mainstream media.
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KNIFE DEFENSE VIDEO
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1270589/knife_defense_disarm/
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UK: Reducing knife crime, We need to ban the sale of long pointed kitchen knives
British Medical Journal ^ | 05/28/05 | editorial
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 9:27:55 AM by Pikamax
Reducing knife crime We need to ban the sale of long pointed kitchen knives
"Britain in the grip of knives terror—third of murder victims are now stabbed to death." Daily Express, 31 January 2005 "Stabbing rampage kills one, injures five—a large kitchen knife was found." Independent, 24 December 2004
Violent crime in the United Kingdom is increasing; figures from London show a 17.9% increase from 2003 to 2004,1 and one easily accessible weapon used in many incidents is the kitchen knife. Unfortunately, no data seem to have been collected to indicate how often kitchen knives are used in stabbings, but our own experience and that of police officers and pathologists we have spoken to indicates that they are used in at least half of all cases. UK government statistics show that 24% of 16 year old boys report carrying knives or other weapons and 19% admitting attacking someone with the intent to harm.2 Although other weapons—such as baseball bats, screwdrivers, and chains—are also carried, by far the most common weapons are knives.3 In the United Kingdom in the first two weeks of 2005 alone, 15 murders were attributed to stabbings and 16 other non-fatal attacks.4
To tackle this increasing problem, various measures are being considered by the government, particularly targeting the adolescent age group. These include raising the minimum age for purchasing a knife from 16 to 18 years and allowing head teachers the power to search pupils for knives.5 However, not all crimes are committed with newly purchased knives, and every household and home economics department in schools contains a plethora of readily available weapons. The modern stainless steel kitchen knife has a high quality blade that makes it unnecessary to look further for another lethal weapon.
Most domestic kitchen knives are based on two designs, the dagger variety with a pointed tip—for example, vegetable knife or carving knife—and the blunt round nose variety—for example, bread knife. When using a knife to harm, a blunt nosed knife is unlikely to cause serious injury, as penetrating clothing and skin is difficult with it. Similarly an assault with a knife with a short blade such as a craft knife may cause a dramatic superficial wound but is unlikely to reach deep structures and cause death. A dagger type knife, however, can penetrate deeply. Once resistance from clothing and skin is overcome, little extra force is required to injure vital organs, increasing the chance of a fatality (likened to cutting into a ripe melon).6
As knives are so readily available, does a culinary reason exist for so many domestic knives to be of the dagger variety, or are we just sticking to tradition? Knives as we recognise them were made first from copper and bronze between 3000 and 700 bc, and some are very similar in design to those used today. Personal eating knives were first used in Britain in the 14th century and became commonplace during the 1800s when manufacturing processes improved.7
Knives were used to spear meat, lifting it from plate to mouth, so pointed tips were vital for this function. Also, with repeated sharpening of a flat blade, a pointed tip inevitably develops. However, now domestic knives do not need sharpening, and numerous other kitchen utensils can be used to spear food. The current practice of eating with forks and blunt ended table knives was introduced in the 18th century to reduce the injuries resulting from arguments in public eating houses. In 1669, King Louis XIV of France noted the association between pointed domestic knives and violence and passed a law demanding that the tips of all table and street knives be ground smooth.8 Today many households have a block of kitchen knives of which several will be of the long pointed variety.
Perhaps the pointed kitchen knife has a culinary purpose that we have failed to appreciate? We contacted 10 chefs in the UK who are well known from their media activities and chefs working in the kitchens of five leading London restaurants. Some commented that a point is useful in the fine preparation of some meat and vegetables, but that this could be done with a short pointed knife (less than 5 cm in length). None gave a reason why the long pointed knife was essential. Domestic knife manufacturers (Harrison-Fisher Knife Company, England, personal communication, 2005) admit that their designs are based on traditional shapes and could give no functional reason why long pointed knives are needed. The average life of a kitchen knife is estimated to be about 10 years.
Many assaults are impulsive, often triggered by alcohol or misuse of other drugs, and the long pointed kitchen knife is an easily available potentially lethal weapon particularly in the domestic setting. Government action to ban the sale of such knives would drastically reduce their availability over the course of a few years. In addition, such legislation would make it harder to justify carrying such knives and prosecution easier.
The Home Office is looking for ways to reduce knife crime. We suggest that banning the sale of long pointed knives is a sensible and practical measure that would have this effect.
Emma Hern, specialist registrar in emergency medicine, Will Glazebrook, specialist registrar in emergency medicine Mike Beckett, consultant in emergency medicine************************************************************************************
Nirj Deva, Tory MEP for the South East, claimed that although it is illegal for under-16s to buy knives, a five second search for the word on Ebay gives them the chance to buy a knife without any form of background or age check.
All flick knives with a blade of in excess of three inches are illegal under British law.
According to figures issued by the Home Office, up 60,000 people - or 160 people a day - were stabbed and injured in the period leading up to March 2007, said Mr Deva.
Mr Deva said: “I am shocked to learn, following the dramatic increase in knife crime in the UK over the past few years, that flick-knives are so easily available online.
“All someone wanting to buy one of these deadly weapons need do is log on to ebay.co.uk, input their debit card details and then await delivery of a type of knife that is illegal under British law.
"There is nothing to stop a 13-year-old with a Maestro card, issued to most young account holders by High Street banks, from buying one of these weapons.
“If we are to effectively tackle knife crime, it is crucial that we get these weapons off our streets. Having these weapons available at a click of a button is clearly unacceptable.”
Mr Deva has written to Meg Whitman, the president and chief executive of Ebay, calling for her to immediately ban the sale of flick knives on the website.
He said: “I sincerely hope that she will act immediately to help take these dangerous knives out of circulation.”
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UK Murders Spur Ban on Knives, Cricket Bats
(2008-05-31) — A rash of 11 recent stabbing murders in London has spurred the British Parliament this week to take up debate on a bill to extend its strict gun control laws to also ban knives and other deadly weapons such as rope and cricket bats.
The legislation would ban “switchblades, Leatherman Tools, buck knives, mutton knives and similar offensive weapons.”
“To stop the pain and bloodshed, we need to get to the root causes of this violence,” said an unnamed Member of Parliament. “Despite our longstanding ban on defensive guns, people still hurt people. This will never stop until we get these weapons off the streets and out of the homes of our helpless populace.”
Under the terms of the proposed measure, Britons would be forced to buy a license to carry a cricket bat, a dangerous bludgeoning weapon measuring up to 96 cm long and weighing up to 1.4 kg. Even licensed bat owners would only be allowed to carry the weapon to and from cricket matches, and only if locked in a government-approved case.
While “cricket rage” murders do not yet rank in the top 10 causes of death, officials say that could change as soon as knives are banned.
The bill would allow a homeowner to store rope, wire and cable for personal use, but only in lengths of less than 30 cm (about 12 inches).
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Knife Crime; Britain’s Shame
Every week yields up plenty of reasons why people have good reason to be scared in modern Britain. On Saturday evening 60-year old Stan Dixon, a former soldier, was attacked by youths, for asking them not to swear in front of a woman. He died yesterday in hospital. 17 teenagers have been murdered in London alone this year. The latest victim, 16 year-old Ben Kinsella, was killed on Sunday night. On Tuesday Dee Willis, a 28 year-old woman, was stabbed to death by a female attacker in south-east London. Today, the country woke up to reports of the extremely brutal and apparently motiveless murder of two French exchange students, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez (both 23). The two men had been playing computer games at Mr. Bonomo’s apartment in New Cross, south-east London, on Sunday night, when they were attacked, gagged, tortured (suffering nearly 250 stab wounds between them), and their bodies set on fire.
The police are no longer beloved by the public, it is sad to say. Political correctness and bureaucratic paperwork has meant that officers go for soft targets (including such trivial things as allegedly dropping an apple core), while ignoring serious crime, such as burglary. This week, however, there was a brief spark of hope that things were beginning to turn around. Metropolitan police chief Sir Ian Blair and London mayor Boris Johnson held a joint press conference, announcing that over a thousand arrests had been made, and 538 knives confiscated from youths, in a recent police initiative. Yet, a slap in the face to this hard work, and, indeed, to the general public, the Sentencing Guidelines Council has issued new sentencing guidelines that will mean anyone found guilty of possessing a knife will face only a small fine – no deterrent whatsoever.
The British are not known for protesting. But, today, with a lack of faith in the authorities, a grassroots movement against violence is beginning to emerge. Families of victims of violent crime are making themselves visible, and heard. Yesterday a march was led by the sister of Ben Kinsella, in response to his murder, calling for an end to the epidemic of violence.
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BAN KITCHEN KNIVES TO SAVE LIVES, SAYS DOCTOR
DEADLY: Kitchen knives among a haul confiscated by the police
By Tom Morgan
A SENIOR doctor yesterday called for a ban on long, pointed kitchen knives in a bid to reduce the number of stabbings.
He spoke out after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said that kitchen knives were the weapon most commonly used in teenage stabbings.
Dr Beckett, a consultant in emergency medicine at West Middlesex University Hospital, said: “What people want in a kitchen knife is the edge. It is the edge that does the cutting.
“The point on the end serves little culinary purpose, but it is the point that kills people.”
He added: “The life of a kitchen knife is about 10 years before it goes blunt or is broken or thrown away. So it would be possible, over a reasonable period of time, to get these knives out and, of course, to stop selling them.”
Dr Beckett, who first called for a ban two years ago, said: “There have been many instances where people have disturbed an assailant, grabbed a knife from the block in a kitchen and had it turned against them. These accidents would not have happened if there were not pointed weapons in every kitchen.”
He said that while a blunt-ended knife could still be used to kill, it would take more than a “single lunge,” giving a victim the opportunity to fight back or escape. Daily Express chef Antony Worrall Thompson said that pointed knives were essential for specialised tasks such as filleting fish or meat.
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Knife crime: Anti-stab protection vests given to key staff
· Hospital workers get body armour
· New moves to tackle knife crime
An armed police officer wearing protective clothing stands guard on Whitehall in London. Stab and bullet-proof vests are being ordered in their tens of thousands to protect public sector employees from increased levels of aggression. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
The growing fear of knife crime in Britain is forcing hospital trusts and local authorities to supply body armour to frontline workers, including A&E staff, hospital porters, teachers, benefits officers and traffic wardens.
Stab and bullet-proof vests are being ordered in their tens of thousands to protect employees from increased levels of aggression, a move described as 'a shameful indictment of violence in Britain today'.
The Local Government Association said councils had started responding urgently to staff who 'need a greater level of protection'. Already more than 20,000 sets of Home Office-approved body armour have been issued to local government staff.
The revelations came as Scotland Yard announced that knife crime had eclipsed terrorism as the number one priority for the Metropolitan police. The announcement followed a week in which the latest stabbing deaths included two 16-year-olds: Shakilus Townsend, who died calling for his mother after being stabbed on a south London street; and Ben Kinsella, who was knifed outside a party to celebrate the end of his GCSEs.
A senior Scotland Yard homicide detective said: 'Once councils start resorting to this, it can only be interpreted as a shameful indictment of violence in Britain. Everybody must be asking: when are we going to start tackling this properly?'
In an attempt to curb the menace, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is urgently considering whether to require doctors to report stabbing injuries to the authorities, thereby allowing the police to gather intelligence about gang attacks that would not otherwise be reported to them. The move confirms worries that official crime figures underestimate the number of attacks taking place, and intensifies fears that some victims are settling their own scores rather than going to the police.
Smith has told Channel 4's Street Weapons Commission initiative, in an interview to be screened tonight, that the Home Office was 'moving towards' requiring the routine reporting of knife injuries, adding: 'I think it's pretty unlikely that we [wouldn't] expect hospitals to be routinely sharing that information with police and others locally.'
Her comments came as the LGA vowed to take 'all the necessary steps to ensure staff are safe' by ordering body armour for those most at risk.
The Oxfordshire-based Body Armour Company said it had received about 10,000 orders for protective vests from local government, with frontline NHS staff accounting for most of them. The most popular item requested by councils is the £300 Home Office-approved KR1 stab vest. The firm said it was also receiving more orders for body armour from teachers, whom it views as its 'biggest growth market'.
Peter Warren, a spokesman for the company, said: 'Councils are becoming aware of the need for armour and protecting their staff. We have had many private inquiries from teachers and the rate is going up. Headmasters are aware that teachers are at risk and knife crime is getting worse.'
Experts believe councils are responding to new corporate manslaughter laws that mean organisations failing adequately to protect employees may be prosecuted. Warren said: 'If a schoolteacher can sue for £300,000 for stress, what price a school that failed to protect its staff from knives?'
Tomorrow, body armour firms will meet staff from the Royal Parks authority, which maintains London's green spaces, to discuss supplying stab vests for its 120 staff.
Warren said an order had also been placed by a railway operator for 'ballistic body armour' to protect workers.
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