Category: Non-EU Countries

Broken Britain: Blame the Interpreters?

Jonathan Downie

“People in Britain who cannot speak English have cost the taxpayer almost £180m in interpreters over the past three years,” says a prominent report by Kevin Dowling and Mark Hookham in a recent Sunday Times article (23.10.11, page 7). In fact, the topic is considered so important by the Sunday Times that it also gets discussed in an opinion piece (‘Immigrant integration gets lost in translation’, by Dominic Raab, Conservative MP for Esher & Walton, page 31) in the same issue of the newspaper.

In the course of these two articles, interpreters are held doubly responsible for the state of the nation. For one thing, they are – we’re told – a huge drain on public resources at a time when we can least afford it. And for another, they stop immigrants settling firmly into the community by enabling them to resist any requirement to learn English.

The “enormous” expense of interpreting services, says the MP, “highlights the hidden costs of uncontrolled immigration”. The solution, we’re told, is pretty straightforward. Interpreters will be hired through a private contractor and paid £22 an hour. Now, let me think, what might suffer if the sums spent on interpreters are so sharply reduced?

Oh, yes – that would be quality. Why is it hard to understand that the knee-jerk of paying poorly will just create different problems?

One, it will mean that experienced professionals will not take on this kind of work. The gaps will be filled by less-qualified people. Now, which other public service professionals – police officers, teachers, doctors who will not be able to do their jobs properly without effective interpreting – would consider £22 an hour to constitute fair and appropriate recognition of their skills?

Two, it will mean that the interpreters available will not be as well-trained for the task. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to spot the clamour for reducing the training required for surgeons or riot police. What’s behind this disparity? Could it be the myth that any bilingual can automatically interpret?

Thirdly, and most importantly, cutting corners and therefore failing to put effective communication in place is a false economy. This Department has argued long and hard for some serious accounting for the real, hidden, long-term costs of inadequate interpreting. Where are the public policy economists who will work with us on this issue? We’re more than ready to take up the challenge.

From 1993-1995, I researched court interpreting (click herehttp://forestbookshop.com/pages/Categories/0946252483.html for some published results of this research) with one group of minority language users in the UK. I watched from the public gallery as a lengthy trial collapsed owing to inadequate interpreting. That false start alone – back in the mid-90s, mind you – cost over £1m.

And, fortunately, the problems in that instance were noticed. What happens when they’re not? What then is the cost in mis-diagnosis, wrongful imprisonment, lost business and, above all, the loss of human well-being?

Of course money shouldn’t be squandered. And without doubt, it is good to facilitate English-language development enthusiastically and in appropriate ways. But, please, let’s not fool ourselves that the cost of decent interpreting can disappear by magic. These measures will not remove those costs, but only ensure that they come with a side-order of misery.

lifeinlincs.wordpress.com,

November 10, 2011
Bankers admit they DO earn too much and “power and glamour” of money dehumanised people

Bankers have finally admitted they are paid too much.

Christian think-tank St Paul’s Institute found many believe their pay is too high compared to teachers or nurses.

The poll of 500 bankers also revealed that only 33% believe in God.

Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser and Reverend Graeme Knowles both quit St Paul’s Cathedral amid anti-greed protests.

The Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu said the “power and glamour” of money dehumanised people.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband last night said the protesters were a wake-up call to the Government.

In a scathing attack he blasted PM David Cameron for protecting “the privileged, the powerful and the wealthiest 1% of society”.

The Mirror

November 7, 2011
Ex-top banker sees “moral disaster” in market

(Reuters) – A former top banker, weighing into a protest movement in Britain against abuses and excesses of modern capitalism, said on Sunday the market economy had lost “its moral foundations with disastrous consequences.”

Ken Costa, a former chairman of UBS Europe and Lazard International, spoke out after being appointed by Bishop of London Richard Chartres to lead an initiative aimed at “reconnecting the financial with the ethical.”

Britain has become preoccupied with the ethics of elite financiers since a group of protesters, unhappy at the excesses of modern capitalism and its huge inequalities in wealth, pitched tents outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London last month.

The controversy brought to a head by the St Paul’s protest has elicited comments from Prime Minister David Cameron and the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, raising questions about regulation, including a financial transaction tax.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Costa said he would look at “how the market has managed to slip its moral moorings.

“For some time and particularly during the exuberant irrationality of the last few decades, the market economy has shifted from its moral foundations with disastrous consequences,” he said.

While still regarding financial incentives as “both valid and effective,” he said there was a need to “rebalance the equilibrium between risk, responsibility and reward.”

The St Paul’s demonstration replicates others worldwide, but has spotlighted not only banker bonuses and directors’ pay but also relations between politicians, financiers and the Church and the role they should play in society.

On Sunday, leader of the opposition David Miliband entered the fray, writing in the Observer: “You do not have to be in a tent to feel angry.

“Many of those who earn the most, exercise great power, enjoy enormous privilege — in the City and elsewhere — do so with values that are out of kilter with almost everyone else,” Miliband said.

“Only the most reckless will ignore or, still worse, dismiss the danger signals.” He said corporate bosses should have to justify their rewards to an employee who sits on a committee deciding salary packages.

The Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, wrote in a regional newspaper over the weekend: “The ill effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive.”

A new survey showed that Britain’s top company directors received a 50 percent average pay rise while the majority of Britons are having to endure a pay freeze during a period of austerity imposed by the government to reduce high debt.

Reuters

November 6, 2011
Broadcast Journalist, BBC Turkish Service

Job Ref. No 705031

Location London

Contract Type Fixed Term

Job Category: Journalism

Closing date for applications 1 December 2011

Department

BBC Turkish is a multi-platform department, providing news and information to Turkish speaking audiences in Turkey and around the world on Online, social media and TV seven days a week. It requires a number of Broadcast Journalists to work across the range of its output. Working under the supervision of Senior Broadcast Journalists, Broadcast Journalists produce accurate, informed and interesting news and programming to the highest possible standards. The role demands creativity and flexibility, as well as a genuine passion for explaining the world to our audiences. This position is offered on a 12 month attachment/fixed term contract basis and the salary will between £30,594 – £32,000pa.

Role

You will research, write, translate, edit or adapt items, stories or programme material for the BBC Turkish Service. You will find contributors and interviewees as well as other sources of material whilst maintaining professional journalistic standards. Alongside this, you will undertake pre and post production and studio work, live and pre-recorded as well as perform on air, conduct interviews and chair discussions.

Requirements

You will be fluent in written and spoken Turkish and have a good level of English with the ability to work effectively in both languages. You will have significant and recent experience as a journalist, with good knowledge of production techniques. The ability to write, adapt and translate with accuracy, clarity and style appropriate to differing audiences and forms of media is required. As well as this, you will have strong team working and highly developed communication skills, with the ability to build strong relationships with a range of people.

via BBC Careers – Job Advert.

October 31, 2011
Murdoch lawyer accused BBC of phone hacking vendetta

(Reuters) – A lawyer for Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers earlier this year accused the British Broadcasting Corporation of pursuing an investigation of alleged computer and phone hacking to “undermine” Murdoch’s bid to acquire full ownership of satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Julian Pike of the London law firm Farrer & Co, which also represents Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, sent a series of letters last March to the BBC expressing concerns at the British arm of Murdoch’s News Corporation that the BBC might have transgressed its commitment to impartiality for commercial or political reasons. The BBC denied this was the case.

The letters, whose full contents have not previously been reported, were sent in response to requests by journalists from the BBC newsmagazine Panorama to News Group for comment regarding alleged phone and computer hacking conducted by journalists for the Sunday tabloid News of the World.

Murdoch shut the paper last July amid a torrent of allegations about alleged ethical and legal lapses by its staff.

The Panorama program, headlined “Tabloid Hacks Exposed” focused on the alleged role of Murdoch journalists in employing “dark arts” – Fleet Street jargon for dubious and potentially illegal reporting tactics – and in particular allegations of “blagging” (jargon for pretending to be someone else) and computer and phone hacking at the News of the World.

Pike laid out News Group’s complaints about the BBC’s investigation in letters sent to Panorama in early March headed

“NOT FOR PUBLICATION & NOT FOR BROADCAST: STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL.”

In two letters, dated March 10 and 11, Pike suggested that the BBC might be pursuing the hacking story for business or political reasons rather than for journalistic motives.

Pike said that BBC Director General Mark Thompson had been “required to apologize” in November 2010 for adding his signature to a letter from a group of companies who were critical of News Corp’s bid to acquire the balance of shares in BSkyB which it did not already own.

In his March 10 letter, Pike noted that the BBC was planning to broadcast Panorama’s investigation at a time when the British government was actively considering Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB’s remaining shares. He noted that the BBC had an “obligation to avoid embroiling itself in a political and commercial battle that it should have nothing to do with.”

BSkyB is a principal competitor with the BBC in Britain.

In a lengthy letter sent to the BBC the following day, Pike said it had “not gone unnoticed” that the BBC, along with “certain other media organizations,” had been in “the vanguard of running a campaign against” News Corp regarding alleged News of the World phone hacking. Pike asserted that the BBC had “obvious political and commercial reasons” to use the phone hacking allegations “to attack our clients and undermine New (sic) Corp’s Sky bid.”

Pike said it was “quite apparent” that the program the BBC was preparing was “yet another attempt to undermine New Corp’s bid for Sky” (sic).

In the letter, Pike also accused the BBC of planning to take out of context an investigation by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office which alleged that publications other than the News of the World, including The Observer, a Sunday newspaper which is affiliated with the Guardian daily, had also engaged in questionable or illegal reporting practices.

In response to a request for comment, the BBC told Reuters: “Panorama investigations always come from a point of public interest and operate within the BBC editorial guidelines and Ofcom’s code. This program was no different and…details of the phone hacking scandal has been widely reported by numerous media organizations. Any suggestion it was made to further the BBC’s own interests is utterly without foundation.”

A spokesperson for News International, Murdoch’s principal newspaper publishing company in Britain, said the company had no comment on Pike’s accusation that the BBC had pursued the phone hacking inquiry for ulterior motives.

However, the spokesperson noted that the company on October 14 had issued a statement acknowledging that its Management and Standards committee, supervising News International’s response to the phone hacking controversy, had agreed with Farrer & Co. that the law firm would “stand down” from representing Murdoch’s News Group properties in “current or future” lawsuits filed by alleged News of the World phone hacking victims.

At a hearing before a British parliamentary committee which has been investigating phone hacking, Pike acknowledged that in 2008 he became aware of documentary evidence contradicting public statements by Murdoch aides that phone hacking at the News of the World had been the work of a “single rogue reporter.”

Pike told the committee he did not believe he had an obligation as a lawyer “to go and report something that I see within a case where there might have been some criminal activity.”

In a report on his testimony and other aspects of his letters to the BBC, the Guardian last week reported that Pike had admitted to parliament that he knew public statements by News of the World executives about the rogue reporter were misleading when he sent a letter to the BBC threatening “successful” litigation for defamation if the BBC accused News International executives of knowingly making untrue or misleading public statements.

The Guardian also reported that the BBC had referred Farrer & Co to a disciplinary authority for British lawyers because of this aspect of Pike’s letter.

The BBC confirmed that it had “written to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. seeking advice in relation to their rules governing the conduct of solicitors.”

In Britain, solicitors are lawyers who handle most out of court and pre-trial litigation, while barristers are lawyers who handle trials and appeal proceedings in higher courts.

Pike did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. But a representative of Farrer & Co. disputed the Guardian’s interpretation of Pike’s letter and what Pike had said to Parliament. The firm had no further comment on its accusation that the BBC had acted for commercial or political motives.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority said that in July, it had launched a “formal investigation into the role of solicitors in events surrounding the News of the World phone hacking crisis,” and that it could make no further comment while that inquiry was under way.

October 26, 2011
Nicolas Sarkozy tells David Cameron: ‘We’re sick of you telling us what to do’

David Cameron clashed repeatedly with Nicolas Sarkozy today after the French President tried to exclude Britain and non-eurozone countries from a critical Brussels summit to rescue European banks.

By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels

During two hours of bitter exchanges during a meeting of all 27 EU leaders before a crisis summit of the eurozone’s 17 members on Wednesday, President Sarkozy fought hard to get the Prime Minister barred from talks that would finalise a 100billion euros cash injection into banks.

”We’re sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro, you didn’t want to join and now you want to interfere in our meetings,” the French leader told Mr Cameron, according to diplomats.

Mr Cameron supports steps that the eurozone is taking to boost its banks and bailouts funds as part of wider moves towards closer fiscal union in order to avert a European debt crisis that has threatened to plunge the global economy into a slump.

But he fears that regular meetings of the euro’s 17 governments will lead to the creation of a Franco-Greman dominated “caucus” or a bloc that could hijack the EU’s single market for its own ends, damaging the British economy by imposing regulations that benefit Paris or Frankfurt over the City of London.

”There is danger that as the eurozone comes together that those countries outside might see the eurozone start to take decisions on some of the things that are vital to them in the single market, for instance financial services,” he said.

Following strong and vocal support from Sweden and Poland, Mr Cameron secured agreement that he and non-euro countries would be invited to the bank rescue summit next week, even at the price of having to reschedule his planned trip to Australian and Japan.

He also won a fight to include a “safeguard clause” that the eurozone would not be allowed to take any decisions on issues, such as regulation of financial services, that affected all the EU’s 27 members.

”I have secured a commitment today that we must safeguard the interests of countries that want to stay outside the euro, particularly with respect to the integrity of the single market for all 27 members.

The EU text, described as a “major victory” by British diplomats, calls on the European Commission “to safeguard a level playing field among all member states including those not participating in the euro”.

Amid growing Greek anger, strikes and conflict, Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president, said that “further steps will be needed” to impose austerity and praised European leaders for defying popular opposition to bailouts and Brussels-IMF imposed austerity measures.

”Some of those steps were and are unpopular; be it measures taken in your countries or our joint decisions taken here as a Union,” he said. “I thank you for your political courage, often underestimated.”

But Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament warned the summit that growing public anger over the EU’s handling of the crisis could endanger plans to change European treaties towards greater fiscal union.

”I am concerned, however, that our citizens might not be ready for another round of referendums and ratifications,” he said. “MEPs keep telling me that in their constituencies, many people now see Europe as part of the problem, and not as part of the solution.”

www.telegraph.co.uk, 23 Oct 2011

October 25, 2011