Man arrested for suspicion of fraud and impersonating a police officer

8 November 2020

A 56-year-old man has been arrested today (Monday 26 October 2020) in Brecon on suspicion of fraud by false representation in addition to impersonating a police officer. This arose from a complaint of courier fraud on October 23rd.

Police will be actively present in the areas concerned to offer advice to those concerned with issues of fraud. They are also seeking further information to find the identity of another man who has purportedly been involved in the fraud incident.

If you have information, please contact the police. The reference number is: DPP/1726/23/10/2020/02/C.

Fay Jones MP – Refuses to answer reasons for voting, then bans person from asking!

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

The following article was formed through a quick chat interview with someone who claimed Fay Jones blocked their questions on her facebook page.

I was concerned why Fay Jones, MP for Brecon and Radnorshire voted against the implementation of the Grenfell recommendations. Given the tragic loss of life from the inferno, I thought that nobody would actually vote to not implement safety recommendations. It turns out that Fay Jones MP voted against the Grenfell recommendations, therefore in light of this I asked on her public facebook page the reasons as to why she voted against implementing safety through the Grenfell recommendations.

Shortly after, Fay Jones then voted to break international law. Breaking international law could cause detrimental problems to the UK, there is an issue of trust. Breaking international law puts the UK on the same par as other countries who disregard it, Russia and China being examples.

My questions on the facebook page for Fay Jones were valid questions. However, despite this, I was labeled a “vile troll” from someone who claimed to know Fay and her family for around 50 years!

WOAH! I am a vile troll simply for asking why Fay voted against breaking international law and voted against implementing the Grenfell recommendations?

Seemingly, Fay Jones only allows supporters to interact on her page since she then banned me from posting there. She has muted me and stopped my rights of freedom of speech and expression, all for asking reasonable and valid questions.

It should be noted that none of her supporters on the page could provide reasons as to the voting actions of Fay Jones.

For an MP to stop someone asking valid and reasonable questions as to voting is extremely derisory. It simply shows a lack of both integrity and credibility as they fail to provide any answers of substance as to their actions, they simply block and ban those people who are in disagreement and ask for explanations.

At the time of writing, Fay Jones has on her facebook page the following post:

“Join me for a live Q&A”
My next facebook live event will be Friday 9th October at 4pm.

Unfortunately I cannot answer enquiries via social media. If you are a constituent please call 029 2233 8545 / 07515 034124 or email the office [email protected] Fay jo

Exactly how Fay Jones can host a live Q&A on facebook whilst stating she cannot answer enquiries via social media remains to be seen. Perhaps she follows bumbling Boris with his contradictions? Either way, I will be using my friends facebook account to ask her some pertinent questions, namely:

What are her reasons for voting against the Grenfell safety recommendations?
What are her reasons for voting to break international law?
Why friends of her family call me a vile troll for asking the above and why she decided to block me from commenting on her page?

Prospective Swansea official accused member of public of being a peadophile

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

Stan Robinson is a prospective swansea candidate as a local councillor actively campaigning for street names and statues glorifying oppression and slave trading to remain.

An article from WalesOnline shows that Stan is campaigning against the removal of statues and place names which seek to glorify racists / oppressors and slave traders. Also in the article its shown that Stan Robinson has made vile racist and derogatory comments towards Pakistani people. He has also said that a sky news presenter should be castrated in relation to their news report. Also reported is that Stan Robinson shared an inaccurate claim that a Muslim terrorist was responsible for stabbing 2 people in London.

An online debate saw Stan Robinson declare a member of the public to be a pedophile because Stan Robinson was accused of being a racist. It was seen that in one particular Facebook group where several people were calling him racist that he declared one of the people to be a pedophile, this was in an open public online debate.

Let the enormity of this sink in for a moment! Here we have a prospective future Swansea official wishing to be elected – who is not only guilty of the above but is also guilty of calling a member of the public a paedophile simply because many members of the public calling out Stan on regards to what they believe to be racist posts and views.

Stan Robinson runs a far right Facebook group along with Dan Morgan. This Facebook group is at the moment actively trying to oppose the renaming of picton arcade in Swansea.

It is crystal clear that Stan Robinson has no place as a Swansea official and should not be elected as such. People should not declare others to be a paedophile simply because they disagree with an opposing view. For a prospective Swansea candidate to do so is disgusting. Stan Robinson has shown himself to be lacking in both integrity and credibility in this instance.

Unfortunately, both Dan and Stan make wild claims which are arguably false, based upon their claims some people generally believe them and naturally follow and lend support to them. You only have to look at their youtube channel to see further examples of spurious claims. In one video, Stan Robinson can be seen pouring a glass of water over a wall and then daring to complain to Rob Stewart (Swansea Council leader) that there is no drainage at the bottom of the wall for the water to drain away. This would be comedy if it were not a genuine belief of Stan.

A councillor of official should have integrity and credibility. Stan Robinson has failed in this instance by declaring that a member of the public is a paedophile, simply because various members of the public were discussing Stand perceptively racist agenda.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/facebook-swansea-castration-adam-boulton-18564207

Editors note: The article written above by Jake is not a reflection on Swansea City Council, almost anyone can stand for election as a Councillor.

THIS IS A STUB ARTICLE, IT WILL BE EDITED AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ADDED IN THE FUTURE

Cambridge University – showing ghostly images from a Welsh manuscript

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

One of the UK’s most important medieval manuscripts is revealing ghosts from the past fter new research and imaging work discovered eerie faces and lines of verse which had previously been erased from history.

Dating from 1250, The Black Book of Carmarthen is the earliest surviving medieval manuscript written solely in Welsh, and contains some of the earliest references to Arthur and Merlin. The book is a collection of 9th-12th century poetry along both religious and secular lines, and draws on the traditions of the Welsh folk-heroes and legends of the Dark Ages.

However, despite its importance (the manuscript is designated ‘MS Peniarth 1’ in the National Library of Wales) and decades of scholarly research, the work of a PhD student from the University of Cambridge has illuminated tantalising new glimpses of verse from the 750-year-old book.

Myriah Williams and Professor Paul Russell from Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC), believe that a 16th century owner of the book, probably a man named Jaspar Gryffyth, summarily erased centuries’ worth of additional verse, doodles and marginalia which had been added to the manuscript as it changed hands throughout the years.

However, using a combination of ultraviolet light and photo editing software, the 16th century owner’s penchant for erasure has been partly reversed to reveal snatches of poetry which are previously unrecorded in the canon of Welsh verse. Currently, the texts are very fragmentary and in need of much more analysis, although they seem to be the continuation of a poem on the preceding page with a new poem added at the foot of the page.

Williams said: “It’s easy to think we know all we can know about a manuscript like the Black Book but to see these ghosts from the past brought back to life in front of our eyes has been incredibly exciting. The drawings and verse that we’re in the process of recovering demonstrate the value of giving these books another look.

“The margins of manuscripts often contain medieval and early modern reactions to the text, and these can cast light on what our ancestors thought about what they were reading. The Black Book was particularly heavily annotated before the end of the 16th century, and the recovery of erasure has much to tell us about what was already there and can change our understanding of it.”

Williams and Russell will present a lecture at The National Library of Wales today, part of a larger exhibition on the life and work of Sir John Price, one-time owner of the Black Book. There, they will detail some of their findings, stressing the importance of continued research on the manuscript.

“What we have discovered may only be the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be discovered as imaging techniques are enhanced,” said Russell. “The manuscript is extremely valuable and incredibly important – yet there may still be so much we don’t know about it.”

The faces are visible under UV light, but not to the naked eye.
Despite its value today, the Black Book of Carmarthen (so called because of the colour of its binding) was not an elaborate production, but rather the work of a single scribe who was probably collecting and recording over a long period of his life.

This is readily visible on the manuscript pages themselves; the first pages feature a large textura script copied on alternating ruled lines, while in other parts of the manuscript – perhaps when vellum was scarce – the hand is very much smaller and the lines per page tight and many.

That the Black Book may have been something of a labour of love is also reflected in its content by the breadth of genres represented. These range from pieces of religious verse to praise poetry to story poetry.

An example of the latter is the earliest poem concerning the adventures of the legendary Arthur, which sees the famed hero seeking entrance to an unidentified court and expounding the virtues of his men in order to gain admittance.

Other heroes are praised and lamented in a lengthy text known as Englynion y Beddau, the Stanzas of the Graves, in which a narrator presents geographic lore by claiming to know the burial places of upwards of eighty warriors. Arthur makes an appearance here as well, but only insofar as to say that he cannot be found: anoeth bid bet y arthur, ‘the grave of Arthur is a wonder’.

Other famous figures also appear throughout, including Myrddin, perhaps more familiarly known by the English ‘Merlin’. There are two prophetic poems attributed to him during his ‘wild man’ phase located in the middle of the manuscript, but additionally the very first poem of the book is presented as a dialogue between him and the celebrated Welsh poet Taliesin.

Since the creation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae in the 12th century there has been a connection between Carmarthen and Merlin, and it may be no accident that the Black Book opens with this text.

Measuring approximately only 17cm by 12.5 cm, the book is made up of 54 pages of vellum (animal hide) and came to the National Library of Wales in 1904 after being bought, alongside other manuscripts, by the Library’s founder, Sir John Williams.

Creative Commons License
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Images credit: National library of Wales
Source: www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/ghosts-from-the-past-brought-back-to-life

Excess mortality in England and Wales during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

This article has not been peer-reviewed

Abstract

Background Deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic result directly from infection and exacerbation of other diseases and indirectly from deferment of care for other conditions, and are socially and geographically patterned. We quantified excess mortality in regions of England and Wales during the pandemic, for all causes and for non-COVID-19 associated deaths. Methods Weekly mortality data for 1 Jan 2010 to 1 May 2020 for England and Wales were obtained from the Office of National Statistics. Mean-dispersion negative binomial regressions were used to model death counts based on pre-pandemic trends and exponentiated linear predictions were subtracted from: i) all-cause deaths; and ii) all-cause deaths minus COVID-19 related deaths for the pandemic period (07-13 March to 25 April to 8 May). Findings Between 7 March and 8 May 2020, there were 47,243 (95%CI: 46,671 to 47,815) excess deaths in England and Wales, of which 9,948 (95%CI: 9,376 to 10,520) were not associated with COVID-19. Overall excess mortality rates varied from 49 per 100,000 (95%CI: 49 to 50) in the South West to 102 per 100,000 (95%CI: 102 to 103) in London. Non-COVID-19 associated excess mortality rates ranged from -1 per 100,000 (95%CI: -1 to 0) in Wales (i.e. mortality rates were no higher than expected) to 26 per 100,000 (95%CI: 25 to 26) in the West Midlands. Interpretation The COVID-19 pandemic has had markedly different impacts on the regions of England and Wales, both for deaths directly attributable to COVID-19 infection and for deaths resulting from the national public health response.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Clinical Trial

This is a study based on publicly available official government mortality data

Funding Statement

No external funding was received for this study

Author Declarations

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study is based on publicly available official government mortality statistics and hence did not require specific ethics approval.

All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.

Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

Yes

I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.

Yes

View ORCID Profile Evangelos Kontopantelis
View ORCID Profile Mamas A Mamas
View ORCID Profile John Deanfield
View ORCID Profile Miqdad Asaria, Tim Doran

doi: http://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.26.20113357

The copyright holder for this preprint has granted www.newsonwales.com a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Swansea Castle

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

Swansea Castle was founded by Henry de Beaumont in 1106 as the caput of the lordship of Gower, in Swansea, Wales.

The original castle seems to have been a sub-rectangular/oval enclosure overlooking the River Tawe on the east, surrounded on the north, west and south sides by a larger sub-rectangular outer bailey. The inner bailey probably contained a motte but the other view is that it was a ring work. The new castle was attacked by the Welsh in 1116 but the inner castle held.

After various other unsuccessful attacks the castle fell in 1217 but was restored to the English in 1220 as part of the settlement between Llywelyn ap Iorwerth and Henry III of England. Immediately after this the inner castle was probably walled in stone with at least one tower.

Later in the 13th century the large outer bailey was also walled. The only visible remains are two sides of a rectangular “new castle” built in the South East corner of the outer bailey in the late 13th/early 14th century. The south face (which ends in a tall garderobe tower) is capped with an elegant series of arcades at the wall-head, which are similar to structures at the Bishop of Saint David’s palaces at Lamphey and St David’s.

By then the castle had lost its military importance. It is not known whether it fell to allies of Owain Glyndŵr early in the 15th century.

In the 18th and 19th centuries parts of the castle were variously used as a market, a town hall, a drill hall and a prison.

Now

Part of the interior of the new castle was demolished early in the 20th century in the construction of a newspaper office. The remains have now been consolidated and opened up to view from the street.

References

See generally B Morris, Swansea Castle; RCAHMW, Glamorgan, Vol III, part (1b), The Later Castles (2000).

This article is licenced under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Source: http://www.1066.co.nz/

I’m a Celebrity 2020 – Images of “TV Studio” in North Wales

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

8 November 2020

Drone images have been released showing Gwrych Castle and the preparations involved as it prepares for the ITV series of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here”

A popup TV studio has been constructed along with other temporary structures which are believed to be for individual challenges.

Ant & Dec will be the usual hosts and will be broadcasting during the evenings of the series. This will be the first time that the series has moved away from the Australian outback jungle, the winner will be crowned King or Queen of the Welsh Castle.

The images can be seen below, click on the images to see larger versions.

Images republished from http://dronepics.wales/ under Creative Commons Licence

Fay Jones attempts to encourage people to cross borders and break Covid-19 lockdown

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

1 November 2020

Fay Jones, MP for Brecon & Radnorshire requested Boris Johnson to “encourage” travel and to stop the Welsh Government creating artificial barriers between Wales and England.

Fay Jones said “Brecon and Radnorshire has around 50 miles border between Wales and England. My constituents who are in lockdown regularly travel across the border for work, healthcare and education. Can my Right Honourable Friend confirm that essential travel across the border is not only permitted but also encouraged and that the Welsh government should not be using this pandemic to create artificial barriers between Wales and England.”

Boris Johnson replied “Urr, Umm, Uhh, Mr. Speaker I’m, I, I understand the frustrations that err my honrouable friend has and I know err how deeply difficult it is for uhh people throughout this country to go through the restriction err on this normal way of life that we have and we are asking people to err to do again and I apologise to her and to the err house in what we are obliged to do but err we must ask people unless its absolutely necessary err to stay at home and err stop transmission of the virus and that err that applies throughout the UK”

On her Facebook page, people again showed their disgust towards Fays actions and made many comments. In an attempt to negate the negative comments towards her, Fay Jones replied “My question was misunderstood. I want to make sure that my constituents are still able to access work, health care and education. The statement from the First Minister today creates some impression that there is a solid border between the two countries. This is not the case and people need to know they can visit Hereford Hospital or Shrewsbury Hospital for treatment, particularly when appointments are at an all time low. Hospital appointments must not be missed, businesses should be encouraged to continue operating following Covid guidelines and education must continue.”

Fay Jones’s attempts to negate and deflect criticisms of why she requested that people from England should be encouraged to cross the border into Wales and vice versa were met with people pointing out that her claim that people need to know they can visit hospitals, education are allowed and have always been allowed.

Here we have a Conservative MP in Wales who has openly shown her disregard for the Welsh Government in requesting that Boris Johnson encourage travel across the border. Fay Jones has previously shown her disregard for laws in her vote to break international law which has been condemned here: www.janedodds.wales/internal-market-bill

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Geoff Charles (photojournalist) “Bad Language is Degrading” sign on a steam roller in Pontardawe

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

12 October 2020

A "Bad Language is Degrading" sign on a steam roller in Pontardawe

Teitl Cymraeg/Welsh title: Arwydd “Bad Language is Degrading” ar rholer metlin

Pontardawe.Ffotograffydd/Photographer: Geoff Charles (1909-2002).
Nodyn/Note: An image of Tommy Jones, Arthur Lewis (Llanrhidian), Dennis Parkin (Bridgend) and Emrys Davies (Penclawdd) standing with the steam roller which had a sign that read “Bad Language is Degrading” on it. .

Dyddiad/Date: September 14, 1951..Cyfrwng/Medium: Negydd ffilm / Film negative.Cyfeiriad/Reference: (gch14502).Rhif cofnod

Geoff Charles was a photojournalist who worked for over 50 years capturing images of Wales with his camera. From the 1930s onwards he worked extensively in north and mid Wales for newspapers such as The Wrexham Star, The Montgomeryshire Express and Y Cymro. On his retirement in 1975 he gave his collection of about 120,000 negatives to The National Library of Wales. The work of digitising this enormous collection began in 2000, and at present just over 30,000 of his images of Wales in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are available on the National Library’s website.

Fearing the national security law, Hongkongers say farewell to their home city

Citizen Journalism Newsbot

1 October 2020

Farewell to Hong Kong. Image from Stand News, used with permission.

The following story was originally published in Chinese on Stand News. It was translated into English by Global Voices and will be published here, with permission, in five different parts. Part One of the series follows.

Between August 29 and September 1, Stand News asked its readers in Hong Kong, through a series of online polls, how the national security law has impacted their lives.

More than 2,580 people responded — and about 37 percent revealed that even before the Steering Committee of the National People Congress announced its decision to implement the national security law on May 21, they had considered leaving Hong Kong. Since the law’s enactment, 76 percent of respondents said their desire to emigrate had intensified.

The most popular destination for relocation is Taiwan (32.3 percent), followed by the United Kingdom (23 percent).

Stand News’ reader survey on emigration attitude.

On July 22, the UK government introduced a policy that facilitates the emigration of residents from its former colony, by allowing eligible Hong Kong British National (Overseas) passport holders and their family members to settle in the UK for work and study. After five years of residency under this British National Overseas (BNO) arrangement, they can apply for full citizenship.

The new immigration scheme will begin accepting applications in January 2021. For now, though, eligible Hongkongers can apply to enter the UK based on “Leave Outside the Rules” (LOTR) — guidelines that allow UK Immigration to exercise discretion on the basis of compelling compassionate grounds.

YM [pseudonym] and her family decided to use this option. They left Hong Kong and, upon their arrival in the UK on August 6, applied for “Leave Outside the Rules” entry. Along with about ten other Hongkongers who were queuing up for the interview, they were asked about their occupation, financial conditions, and religion, as well as about their relatives and acquaintances in the UK.

Born in the 1980s, YM was working as a manager in a public relations firm in Hong Kong, but decided to leave the city with her family in August 2019 after the infamous attack at Prince Edward subway station, in which riot police indiscriminately assaulted passengers in an attempt to arrest protesters.

They sold their apartment for six million Hong Kong dollars (approximately 781,000 US dollars) and lived in a hotel for six months. At first, they planned to immigrate to Cyprus by investing 200,000 Euros in the country, but that plan was put on hold due to the outbreak of COVID-19. When the UK introduced the new BNO scheme, they decided to settle there.

Like tens of thousands other Hongkongers, YM was active during the year-long, anti-China extradition protests. She had joined a number of Telegram groups and made donations to fellow protesters who needed to equip themselves with protection gear. Three of the Telegram groups she belonged to were deleted after their administrators were arrested.

In a protest photo that was widely circulated online, YM’s face was recognisable; quite apart from her worry about getting caught in the cross hairs of the authorities, she told Stand News she was also concerned about her seven-year-old daughter’s education:

The patriotic education would turn her into ‘little pink’. What you learn in the textbooks would no longer be the truth. How could a government treat its young generation like this? In Hong Kong, it is a crime to be young. My daughter is now seven, after a few years, she will be in high school, what would become of her? I don’t want to see her getting arrested.

“Little pink” is a term used to describe young Chinese nationalists on the internet.

Now that YM and her family have successfully entered the UK under “Leave Outside the Rules”, they have started a Facebook page aimed at providing other Hongkongers with information on immigrating to the UK. Within one week, the page received more than 60 inquiries.

YM and her family have since decided to buy a property in the UK, and have no plans to visit Hong Kong in the near future.

Stand News’ reader survey on emigration.

Peter [pseudonym], a civil servant who plans to move to Taiwan with his wife, has signed up for a migration scheme under which he would invest a minimum of HK $530,000 in a Taiwan-based start-up. After five years, he will be able apply for permanent residency.

He chose Taiwan because he believes the fate of Taiwan and Hong Kong are intertwined: “Both Chinese regions are subjected to the tyranny of ‘One China’,” he said:

Taiwan is near to Hong Kong; I can travel back to Hong Kong as frequently as possible. I can also join solidarity rallies in Taiwan and give support to the exile protesters there. In Hong Kong, the space for voicing out has shrunk.

According to Taiwan’s immigration authorities, the island granted 3,161 residency permits to Hongkongers in the first half of 2020. The figure reflects a 116 percent increase when compared to 2019.

Many of those who don’t plan to emigrate — or want to but still haven’t left — have transferred their savings to offshore bank accounts, since the national security law gives police the power to freeze the assets of anyone being investigated. In the Stand News reader survey, 55.8 percent of respondents admitted that they’ve considered transferring their savings abroad, with around 27.8 percent having already moved their money into foreign accounts.

Mr. Lam [pseudonym], an environmental project engineer, made the decision to transfer his savings to an offshore account in May, soon after Beijing announced the implementation of the national security law. He feared that, like mainland China, Hong Kong would restrict foreign currency exchanges, or that the Hong Kong/US dollar peg would be undermined as a result of US sanctions. He therefore converted his HK $10 million nest egg into US currency and moved the money to bank accounts in Singapore.

Since Mr. Lam is already in his fifties, he is considering emigrating from Hong Kong upon his retirement. As a BNO passport holder, one of his options is to settle down in the UK, but he has also considered applying for a retirement visa to Thailand, as the country only requires a savings account worth HK $200,000 in order to apply for residency.

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