#statutory demand

[lexlawuk]

Abusive Winding-up Petition Based on DIY Statutory Demands Restrained (Invenia v Hudson)

In the recent case of Invenia Technical Computing Corporation & Anor v Matthew Hudson [2024] EWHC 1302 (Ch), the High Court issued a landmark judgment that serves as a stark costs warning against the misuse of statutory demands and winding-up petitions. This case highlighted the severe consequences that can follow when a creditor takes a DIY approach and fails to seek appropriate legal advice…

[defective-titan]

Shitty that I kinda miss 2019-2021 era bc my ex made me so horrifically depressed I was actually Skinny for a hot minute.

[itsbansheebitch]

The Cody Ko Allegations: It was a CRIME

TW: Sexual violence

Cody Ko has been accused of committing statutory rape against Tana Mongeau. These allegations have been around for years, but he he, his friends, and his subreddit have repeatedly covered them up. I would recommend D'Angelo Wallace's video on the topic.

Not only has Tana's story stayed consistent, but also, she has a WITNESS. Gabbie Hanna saw what was happening and tried to stop Cody, but he continued anyway.

Gabbie has been seen on video telling the EXACT SAME STORY.

The idea that if you lose good will in the eyes of the public that it doesn't matter what happens to you... it's terrifying. People will do ANYTHING to demand a perfect victim.

It doesn't matter if you don't like Tana or Gabbie. IT WAS A CRIME

Cody's fans have taken two different approaches:

1, insulting Tana in pretty much anyway you can imagine/saying that if Tana is fine, then why should we care

2, demanding a response from Cody. Since Cody has been vigilant with his comment moderation, his fans have moved to his wife's channel to demand an answer.

[no-passaran]

[...] The International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, FIBA, and other sports organisations are complicit as they allow a continuous participation of the occupying apartheid regime in their events. Following a swift response and an instant suspension of Russia, it is now difficult for them to justify turning a blind eye to the Israeli government’s actions.

We must however take heart from history and support the liberation of Palestine as generations before us brought apartheid to an end in South Africa. That struggle took on all possible dimensions, with one of the earliest being suspension of sporting ties – which aided in peacefully isolating the South African regime, demonstrated a global rejection of apartheid and changed domestic perspectives in the country.

This act must now be extended to Israel – not only due to its practice of settler-colonialism, military occupation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, apartheid and illegal exploitation of natural resources on occupied territories – but also due to its brutal assault on cultural, academic and sporting life of the Palestinian society.

We thus urgently demand:

An immediate suspension of Israel from participation in all international sports until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations

For global and European sports governing bodies to immediately uphold their statutory obligations – especially their own rules on human rights and non-discrimination given Russian, South African and other precedents. This would include, inter alia, a ban on Israel competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, UEFA’s European Championship and FIFA’s World Cup.

For a deeper analysis on the rationale to suspend Israel from international sports, please review this paper (also available in Spanish) that will be sent to sports organisations.

[palestinegenocide]

More than 300 Palestinian sports teams are calling to ban Israel from the Olympics over its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The Israeli offensive on Gaza has claimed the lives of 26,706 civilians, including 11,422 infants and children. Ninety percent of Palestinians are internally displaced and living in inhumane conditions with “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.” No functional hospitals. No mosques. No churches. No libraries. No schools. No universities. No bakeries. At this rate, the brutal Israeli regime will soon destroy every aspect of life in Gaza, including its sports.

Join the global campaign to peacefully disrupt the road to Paris 2024 calling on the IOC to #BanIsrael until it ends its crimes against Palestinians and recognizes our UN-stipulated rights.

Register your group to join the campaign

We thus urgently demand:

An immediate suspension of Israel from participation in all international sports until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations

For global and European sports governing bodies to immediately uphold their statutory obligations – especially their own rules on human rights and non-discrimination given Russian, South African and other precedents. This would include, inter alia, a ban on Israel competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and UEFA’s EURO. 

For a deeper analysis on the rationale to suspend Israel from international sports, please review this paper (also available in Spanish) that will be sent to sports organisations.

Here’s what you can do.

1. Join the Global Day(s) of Action, March 15-17 

Ahead of the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne Switzerland (March 19-21), take the call from Palestinian teams to your National Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations and Recognized Sports Federations. Organize protests, sit-ins, peaceful disruptions, or awareness raising events on Israeli attacks on Palestinian sports. Register your group for more information.

2. Olympics qualifiers and events

From now until the Olympic Games start in July, the road to Paris will be filled with opportunities to remind the IOC that there is no place in the Olympics for genocide perpetrators. Earlier this month, four runners took the #CeasefireNow message to the Olympic Trials Marathon in Florida, crossing the finish line with Palestinian flags. Find information on Olympic time trials and qualifiers (also here) or other Olympics-related events in your area. Register your group for more information.

3. Kick Israeli apartheid out of sports

Is your country a signatory to the International Convention Against Apartheid in Sports? If so, it has an obligation to “take all appropriate action to secure the expulsion of a country practising apartheid from international and regional sports bodies.” Register your group to learn what you can do.

4. Sign the petition to ban Israel from world sports

Join more than 70,000 people from all over the world who have signed the petition calling for banning Israel from international sport.

Add your signature here

Israel has killed Palestinian Olympic Football coach Hani Al Masdar, destroyed the Palestinian Olympic Committee offices, and turned sports facilities into shameful mass detention and torture centers.

We can’t sit back as the IOC allows Israel to use the Olympics to sportswash its genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime against Palestinians everywhere. Support the call from Palestinian teams. 

Join the campaign to #BanIsrael from the Olympics and peacefully disrupt the road to the Paris 2024 games. 

[torillatavataan]

Finland seizes Russian state-owned property

Finland's National Enforcement Authority has begun seizing properties in Helsinki that belong to the Russian state. The agency operates under the remit of the Justice Ministry and is responsible for undertaking the state's statutory enforcement duties.

The seizure of the property is related to compensation claims made by the Ukrainian state-owned gas firm Naftogaz. Naftogaz has demanded more than five billion euros in compensation from Russia following the Kremlin's invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the firm's subsequent loss of gas reserves, pipelines, and warehouses in the Crimea region.

Full article by YLE

According to Helsingin Sanomat, 44 properties have been seized, most of them located in Helsinki. The seized properties include the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, an office building, four waterfront properties, and several limited liability housing shares.

According to Iltalehti, in Finland, Naftogaz are represented HPP Attorneys, pro bono.

"This is something that we feel is important and we want to play our part in helping Ukraine. We felt that this is a meaningful way for us to help."

Images via Iltalehti

[pluckyredhead]

Character Profile: Rose Wilson (Ravager)

By popular demand, the next member of the Lost Titans: Rose Wilson!

Rose was introduced in Deathstroke the Terminator #15 in 1992. She is the daughter of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator, and at the risk of rehashing stuff everyone knows, I have to give you the basics on Slade, too.

Slade Wilson was a soldier (originally in Vietnam, though that's obviously been updated since) who was so good at soldiering that the army gave him a super soldier serum that made him faster and stronger than any normal human. After leaving the military, he became an assassin - unbeknownst to his wife, Adeline, and their young sons Grant and Joey. When Slade's secret assassin-ing and ego caused Joey's throat to be slit, rendering him mute for life, Adeline left him.

The Wilson family first crossed paths with the New Teen Titans years later when Grant became the supervillain Ravager. When Grant's own janky powers got him killed, Slade decided this was the Titans' fault somehow and vowed revenge. This involved sleeping with a fifteen-year-old girl for some reason. Slade is a terrible person.

Meanwhile, Joey grew up to become the superhero Jericho, and became a long-standing member of the Titans. However, he got possessed by like a thousand ghosts at once, like you do, and went crazy and evil, and Slade had to kill him for his own good.

By this point, Slade had become such a popular character that he'd shifted from villain to antihero. (Never mind all the attempted child murder and statutory rape.) It was in this context, fresh after Joey's death, that Rose was introduced.

Rose is the daughter of a woman named Lillian Worth, a.k.a. Sweet Lili, a Cambodian woman who Slade once helped escape from the Khmer Rouge. Lili set up a high-end brothel in the States, and she and Slade became essentially fuckbuddies (this was after Slade's divorce), which eventually led to Rose. Lili didn't tell Slade about Rose because of his...everything, and Rose had a happy childhood, growing up with the other sex workers' kids in the brothel.

Unfortunately, Slade's enemies eventually came for Rose. Specifically, Slade's evil, shitty half-brother Wade LaFarge. (If you're thinking "Wait...Slade Wilson has a brother named Wade?" then yes, Deadpool was in fact Rob Liefeld shamelessly ripping off Deathstroke. Liefeld's collaborate Fabian Nicieza named him Wade to acknowledge this, and joked that he was Slade's brother. So Marv Wolfman gave Slade an actual brother named Wade, who sucks so bad and who nobody likes. I don't think Marv was happy about Deadpool.)

Anyway, Wade became the fourth Ravager (don't worry about the second or third, they don't matter) and kidnapped Rose. Slade...basically decided not to try to rescue her because he was busy, leaving the job to Lili and his best friend Wintergreen. Rose, who had been trained in martial arts by her mother, managed to partially escape on her own...at which point Lili showed up and tried to kill Wade by hitting him with her car...and driving them both off a cliff. This is usually described as Wade killing Lili, which...okay. (She died, but he secretly survived, because of course he did.)

Slade refused to take any responsibility for Rose, afraid of putting her in even more danger, so this extremely traumatized tween was placed in the care of the Titans, who at this point were led by Roy Harper. She was still a civilian at this point, although she did spar with the team, and she also showed she was not to be fucked with when women and children were in danger:

This is when Rose's powers first manifested: she has precognitive abilities, which originally involved lengthy visions of the distant future but quickly became flashes of what is about to happen, which makes her particularly good in a fight because she can predict what her opponent will do.

Also! During this period she became friends with Grant and also developed a brief but adorable crush on Kyle Rayner, while Bart Allen developed a brief but adorable crush on her. Babies!

She later shows up in the 1999 Titans series, considerably older (I'm assuming she's at least 18 here), when Roy hires her to be Lian's nanny, a job she takes very seriously:

But then the 1999 series was canceled. Then the 2003 Teen Titans series began, and very quickly it was revealed that Joey Wilson was alive, that he had been possessing his father, and that that was the reason for Slade's turn as an antihero, not any actual desire on Slade's part to be good. A newly freed Slade decides he wants a do-over with one of his kids.

Meanwhile, Rose has been placed with a foster family, because I guess she's somehow underage again? But said family is then murdered by Wade LaFarge - remember him? - who then kidnaps Rose. Who is rescued by Slade:

Rose, at Slade's encouragement, kills Wade and becomes the new Ravager. It's later revealed (to the reader, not to Rose) that Slade anonymously hired Wade to kill Rose's family because he wanted exactly this setup: for Rose to become completely emotionally dependent on and devoted to him.

Rose spends the next few years by her father's side, attacking the Titans and saying "Yes, daddy" in a sexy baby voice a lot. It's...tiresome. She's so determined to prove her loyalty that she even stabs her own left eye out, because we're in the mid-2000s now and it's peak edgelord time, baby! It's later explained that she's behaving like this because Slade drugged her with the same super soldier serum that gave him his powers (???), so Rose is now also extra strong, fast, etc.

Slade blackmails Dick (in his "villain" era) into briefly training Rose, and I have to include this panel because it kills me every time:

She's trying to be mean and scary but she loves the Harpers so much. I'm cry.

Anyway, Slade has only involved Dick as part of a convoluted plot to kill Superman by putting kryptonite in Rose's empty eye socket (sure), and when Dick reveals that kryptonite causes cancer in humans and that Slade knew that perfectly well and just didn't give a shit about Rose, Rose decides to go back to the side of good and join the Teen Titans properly.

It...does not go smoothly. Cassie hates and distrusts Rose and makes that very clear, and Rose responds by being as obnoxious and antisocial as possible, constantly accusing the other Titans of not trusting her, and basically causing problems on purpose. Like slipping naked into Tim's bed to surprise him problems:

I want to be clear that the writing here is absolutely abysmal. Johns and later writers (and artists) were trying to make Rose sexy sexy jailbait and also going for some kind of reductive Madonna/whore dichotomy with her and Cassie, and it's all very sexist and boring. But if you look past the, uh, actual comics, I do think that a lot of Rose's characterization here makes sense. She's a very traumatized teenager who expects people to dislike her, so she ensures that they dislike her to maintain control of the situation. She sees sex very much as something transactional and rooted in power exchange - which makes a lot of sense, since she was raised in a brothel! Plus she likes starting shit for fun. The comics are bad, but the idea of Rose is so, so good.

Another thing that is good in concept but shitty in execution: Rose/Eddie. As I mentioned in my Eddie profile, Eddie is utterly smitten with Rose pretty much immediately and he is both not at all subtle about it but also not at all a Nice Guy - his feelings are his to deal with and he never puts them on her to manage for him. Rose, for her part, doesn't seem to know how to handle just...a sweet boy who adores her, and so she alternates between flirting with him, being extremely mean to him, and being fiercely protective of him.

That last comes into play when Eddie is abducted by a villain team called (sigh) the Terror Titans. Rose fights her way through a gauntlet of them to rescue him, which is SO DAMN ROMANTIC even if the comic looks like shit. But she's so ruthless about it that Cassie and Tim discuss kicking her off the team, which she overhears - so she defects to the Terror Titans. Her plan is to go in undercover and take them down, but during the storyline she starts to wonder if maybe this isn't where she belongs after all.

Rose. Honey. Baby girl. The Terror Titans are led by the fucking Clock King, a loser in clock glasses who likes to sleep with teenage girls and is making other teenage superheroes fight each other to death in a ring. No, this is not where you belong.

(During this period Rose also becomes addicted to huffing adrenalin. I truly do not know how I made it through the late 2000s, y'all. The comics were abysmal.)

Somewhere in there Joey Wilson comes back as a hero, and he and Rose quickly bond, which is as touching as it is heartbreaking. But Joey is still deeply unwell, and despite Rose's best efforts, he goes villain again, and she has to help the Titans take him down. After butting heads with Cassie again, Rose decides to leave the Titans, again. She tries to convince a depowered Eddie to come with her, but he declines. She then stars in her own backup feature where she travels to a remote Canadian village and saves a bunch of women and children from trafficking; while she's gone, Eddie is killed. Rose then returns to the Teen Titans for the fifth time and remains on the team until Flashpoint.

New 52 Rose is...honestly I'm not even going to try to explain her, because most of it is just incomprehensible nonsense. She shows up as a supporting character (with two eyes) in Superboy and The Ravagers, but it really feels like Lobdell just used the character name (and a worse design, which is saying something) for an OC. She's basically hired muscle for an evil lab, and there's no mention of Deathstroke for ages.

Eventually over in Deathstroke's book, it's revealed that Rose's mother is Adeline in this universe, not Lili, which means that Rose has been completely whitewashed. Of course most art of her has always depicted her as white, but this erased any possibility of her being biracial. The Wilson family's New 52 adventures culminate in Slade killing both Grant and Joey by sticking a sword through their heads (?) while Rose watches in horror, which is so awful as to be actively hilarious.

Also the New 52 is of course where we got the first hint of a Jason/Rose relationship, when she appears in Red Hood and the Outlaws as his ex. This has nothing to do with any of her other completely contradictory appearances during this era. The New 52 was a goddamn mess.

Rebirth erased all of that mishegas, thankfully. Rose is once again Lili's daughter, and Lili is specified to be Hmong, meaning Rose is too. In a change from the pre-Flashpoint continuity, Rose was conceived while Slade and Addie were still married, meaning Slade was cheating on Addie with Lili. In fact, Slade was out of town saving Rose's life when Joey's throat was slit, so Addie viscerally hates Rose even though obviously none of that was Rose's fault. Despite this, Rose and Joey are quite close and love each other fiercely, which is nice, even if the astonishing toxicity of the Wilson family means they can't really do anything in a healthy or functional way, including love.

Here's an example of what I mean: during this period, Rose became possessed by an ancient Vietnamese warrior princess who occasionally took over her body. During one of those times, she killed Joey's fiancee (who was also sleeping with Slade) (and who Joey was cheating on with Slade's friend, a man at least twice his age). Joey forgave her. So that's...nice? I guess?

Both of you need so much therapy and also to go no contact with your father.

As of Infinite Frontier, Rose's original history seems to be pretty much intact, except that she has two eyes. (Her missing eye was restored by the New 52, although she was wearing an eyepatch in Death Metal. Maybe just for fun?)

She next appeared in Robin, hanging out on Lazarus Island with Damian, partially to keep an eye on him but mostly because she was trying to figure out what the deal was with one of the other competitors in the assassin tournament, a kid named Respawn. Eventually Respawn was revealed to be a clone of Talia and Slade, so basically Rose's younger half brother. Rose tried to take him under her wing, but she made the mistake of introducing him to Slade, who was like "Yes! A third chance to have a son and not fuck it all up entirely!" Rose was like "Hey maybe don't hang out with Slade" and Respawn was like "No this seems fine" and then Respawn was almost instantly murdered. So. That was a bummer.

Should've listened, Grant 2.0.

These days, Rose is a member of the clandestine team Stormwatch for some reason, and is appearing with them in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Rose is one of those characters who is a fan favorite of gross dudes and so a lot of the writing (and art, oh god the art) around her has been truly abysmal. But she's so popular that every so often she's in something really solid, and even when the comics are bad, she somehow shines as a really fascinating, heartbreaking, lovable character. Maybe someday we'll get a really good Ravager and Jericho miniseries, that would be nice. In the meantime, there's always twelve thousand shitty issues of Teen Titans!

[agp]

lets talk about birth assignment as sexual assault. lets talk about how the logic of statutory rape is used inversely to conclude that it cant be sexual assault. lets talk about the manufactured necessity of this intrusiveness. lets talk about the institutions that demand, facilitate, and execute this violence. lets talk about the coloniality of surveying, classifying, and discriminating between people. lets talk about the conquest of the human body by the medical system. lets talk about our morally mandated surrender to these institutions. lets talk about health as responsibility. lets talk about it in the context of those fourteen words. lets talk about how this applies to the distribution of labor and access to healthcare among different people. lets talk about having been assigned a gender as a unifying force, as a universal prerequisite to personhood. lets talk about who this duty falls back on - what category of person is constructed by its necessity. lets talk about bioessentialism and destiny. lets talk about violence in the context or birth assignment as sexual assault.

[corviiids]

(inspired by your earlier post about if L accused Sayu of being Kira) How do you think an au where Sayu got the death note would play out?

amazing question. i wrote so much more than i thought i was going to im so sorry. tl;dr i don't think the ultimate plot would change much but the beginning would sure be interesting.

i think if sayu found the death note, she would tell light before anyone else. he's clearly her most trusted confidant. light would tell her not to worry because it's clearly some chain letter shit but because she's clearly frightened of it he'd offer to hold it for her and get rid of it so she doesn't have to think about it.

now whether ownership officially passes to light at this point might depend on the specific wording they use. if light says 'hold onto it for you' or something to that effect it would likely just be sublet to light (wording from rule 13) - for our purposes im inclined to go with this version of events but i note the rules are really ambiguous on what the specific requirements and conditions are regarding ownership.

(i keep wanting to go through and do a full review of all the manga rules from like. almost like a statutory interpretation kind of lens but that's a stupid project i need to convince myself out of lmfao jesus)

hey this got really long and complicated. i thought it was going to be simple but now im going through branching possibilities literally for the sole purpose of analysing the rules so let's put the rest under the cut. click for me citing specific death note rules in the middle of my work day i guess GOD. you can also scroll to the bottom if you want to skip me talking about death note rules and just see my projected course of events

the issue of ownership actually doesn't matter that much at this point for reasons we will see but might change things a little bit down the road (see below re: ryuk and discussion of rule 47). let's go with the sublet thing for now and assume sayu is still the owner of the notebook but light is holding it.

light keeps the book, sayu tries not to think about it and fails. light can't resist testing it without sayu's knowledge. light meets ryuk. i note rule 13 states the death god will stay with the owner of the note. since light and sayu are in the same household (ie geographic distance is not an issue) and ryuk would find light more interesting, it's a coin flip which person he'd show up to (probably depends on the degree to which shinigami are bound by their rules which i don't have access to and can't review lol). let's assume for now that ryuk meets light first just for ease, but i will come back to this later because i actually prefer him showing up to sayu first while light is holding the notebook.

in the version where light meets ryuk first, then depending how forthcoming ryuk is with information, either sayu sees ryuk before light realises that's a risk or light realises sayu will see ryuk before she actually does. im leaning towards the latter because in canon light finds out in this order:

people who don't have the note can't see ryuk (when his mother comes into the room during their first meeting)

people who have touched the note CAN see ryuk (when sayu comes into the room asking for help with homework some days later)

so in this au, between events 1 and 2, light would realise that since sayu has touched and owns the note, she'll be able to see ryuk. i think light at this point would ask ryuk if there's any way to undo that effect at which point ryuk should inform light that forfeiting the note will allow sayu to stop seeing ryuk.

ok, now let's backtrack to before and say instead of light, ryuk shows up to sayu first. ryuk appears, sayu screams, ryuk informs sayu that light has used the note. light comes running because sayu screamed. light again in this timeline immediately demands to know how to get sayu out of this situation, partially because she's freaking out and partially because he's already pondering the possibilities and absolutely needs sayu not to know about any of this. she is already hysterical because hey, did this monster just say that her big brother killed someone?

ok here's where i got into a rabbithole digging through the rules for a loophole because i found a problem. (it's ok, i found one.)

we know a death note can pass from person to person because it happens in canon multiple times. we also know that losing the death note will erase your memory of the note (rule 22). where it gets interesting is that rule 47 provides that you will only lose your memories of the death note if you actually used it:

[...] You will not lose memory of the Death Note, for example, if you merely owned it and had not written anyone's name. [...]

you won't be able to see the shinigami anymore, but you'll still remember the notebook. not good enough for light - he needs sayu to forget completely or she'll be traumatised and he'll be compromised, especially because now she knows he used the notebook which makes her a liability. light now has two thoughts

he could ask sayu to kill one person using the notebook and then forfeit it so she doesn't remember the crime and can be free of the notebook forever, or

see if the shinigami can offer any other options.

1 is an interesting place for light's mind to go, but he goes with option 2 first because sayu looks like she's going to have a panic attack. luckily, there is another option, and we know ryuk is aware of it because of the events of the a-Kira story - this is lucky because even if a rule existed there's no guarantee that the shinigami know about it as ryuk demonstrates multiple times. (they also don't need to tell their human any of the rules at all - rule 4.) lmao. anyway im talking about rule 67:

Regarding the memories mentioned in Rule XLVII, the owner can have their memories of the Death Note erased if they so desire.

(well, it's more like 67.1, because there are three completely unrelated sub-rules in this rule. kind of justified because we know rule 67 was a last-minute amendment but seriously who fucking drafted these rules in the shinigami world i'd like a word)

under rule 67, sayu could forfeit the death note and willingly have her memories erased without needing to kill anyone. light asks sayu to do this and promises he won't kill anyone else with the book and that he'll burn it as soon as she's forfeited her memories.

sayu trusts light so much that she does not ask why he doesn't just burn it now. she forfeits the book and forgets the death note ever existed.

i think from that point everything else goes the same way it does in canon.

tl;dr, again - my projected course of events, preferencing the branches i personally find most likely:

sayu finds the death note

sayu tells light about it

sayu sublets the death note to light, remaining the note's official owner

light tests the death note without sayu's knowledge

ryuk shows up to sayu and informs her that light has used the death note

light joins the conversation and demands to know whether sayu can be rid of the notebook

ryuk informs them sayu can forfeit the notebook and will no longer see ryuk, then states anyone who's killed with the notebook would lose all memory of it once they had done so

light correctly infers that by default, your memory will remain unless you have killed with the notebook.

light realises he needs sayu to lose ALL her memories of the notebook, both for her mental health and because she knows he's killed someone with the notebook and is a liability

light briefly considers asking sayu to use the notebook once before forfeiting it

light dismisses this as an option

light asks ryuk if there are any other options

ryuk reluctantly informs light that yes he can erase sayu's memories of the notebook if she willingly chooses it

light convinces sayu to give up her memories and the notebook and promises he will destroy it

sayu trusts light and doesn't push him to destroy the book in front of her

sayu gives up the notebook and her memories

light becomes owner of the death note

story proceeds per canon

[coochiequeens]

"118 unaccompanied children remain unaccounted for, some as young as 12."

Children missing from Home Office hotels likely to have been trafficked, report finds

Exclusive: Study sparks new calls for public inquiry into ‘scandal’ of missing migrant children in UK

Mark Townsend Wed 17 Jul 2024

Scores of asylum-seeking children are still missing from the UK’s Home Office hotels as a new report reveals that many are likely to have been trafficked.

The most recent figures show that 118 unaccompanied children remain unaccounted for, some as young as 12. The study, released on Wednesday, is the first to conclude that children placed inside the hotels were at “increased risk of trafficking”, contradicting Home Office claims that the youngsters were not exploited.

Experts said the findings reinforced demands for an official inquiry into the “national scandal”.

The report, by the University College London (UCL) and Ecpat UK, was commissioned after it was revealed last year that dozens of asylum-seeking children were kidnapped by criminal gangs from hotels run by the Home Office. Basic checks to keep youngsters safe were not carried out in a scandal regarded among the most shameful of the last government.

The new report details interviews with professionals involved in the care of the children, including a former Home Office hotel worker who knew of three trafficking incidents from their hotel. Traffickers contacted the young people, they said, “via a fake [social media] account or Facebook … [It] is not that they are naive, but when in such a bad situation, they think: ‘OK, it’s the risk but this place is also bad.’

Researchers found that Home Office attempts to protect the children actually drove them into the hands of criminals. Hotel staff were instructed to knock on the doors of children every hour throughout the night, especially for nationalities deemed to be of high risk of going missing, such as Albanians.

“Ironically, [this was] the reason that most kids went missing,” said the former Home Office hotel worker.

Seven hotels were run by the Home Office to accommodate minors who arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats, many from Africa, including Eritrea and Sudan. Such hotels were in operation from 2021 until January 2024 after a high court ruling deemed them unlawful.

In total, 440 children went missing from them, with 144 not found by last November and 118 still unaccounted for in March, according the most recent update.

The report’s lead author and principal investigator, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, of UCL’s department of risk and disaster reduction, said: “This is a national scandal which must not be repeated. It is still not clear what attempts have been made to find those who remain missing and make sure that they are safe.”

Patricia Durr, the chief executive of Ecpat UK, added: “This research confirms our fears and emphasises the need for urgent action to find the missing children, and for a statutory independent inquiry to ensure this child protection scandal never happens again.”

One social worker told researchers that boys from Albania were “very vulnerable, very frightened” due to a “targeted campaign” against them and concerns that they may be sent home imminently.

Although the hotels for children are now closed, researchers also found significant concern that youngsters seeking asylum were being incorrectly assessed as above 18 and placed in adult hotels, where they risked sexual abuse and exploitation. Several child-protection experts highlighted safeguarding risks from children forced to share rooms with traumatised adults.

Ayeb-Karlsson added: “Children who are incorrectly determined as adults are deprived of their rights to education, protection and safeguarding.”

Durr urged the new government to scrap the “catastrophic” Illegal Migration Act, which allows the Home Office to directly provide accommodation for unaccompanied children.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The allegations in this report are very serious. Unaccompanied children in the asylum system can be extremely vulnerable and their welfare and safety should be a central concern. We will consider these findings carefully.

“A new government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly, and ensures the rules are properly enforced.”

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What do you think about harry given approval to appeal the court's decision about his police protection?

I would think at this point he is a malicious litigant.

He is basically stating that the judge's decision is not fair and another judge could have possibly arrived at different conclusion. Or at least this is how I understand it.

It's judge shopping. An abuse of privilege. I don't think it'll end well for him.

Not going to lie, I did initially think this had something to do with the upcoming election. Again, I don't know a whole lot about UK politics or if there's a separation of powers but my thought was 'ah, the judge trying to give him a chance in case the government changes hands and there are new appointees to RAVEC that are sympathetic.' But then I found this old article from 2022 that said of the 10 positions on RAVEC, only 2 positions are government officials that would probably change if the government administration changes parties.

Anyway. For everyone who needs the TL;DR of what happened, here's the timeline as I understand it:

January 2020: Harry and Meghan announce that they're quitting the parts of monarchy they hate (daily engagements, bread and butter work, and the media) to become content creators but keeping the parts they love (money, foreign tours, and private security). The Queen says "ha, no the fuck you are not" and orders everyone to Sandringham. They demand "in or out." Harry tries to negotiate "half-in half-out". Queen laughs and announces that they're stepping down as royals in March but they remain much loved members of her family. Harry and Meghan go all 😮 because they thought they were getting half-in half-out.

February 2020: RAVEC convenes and decides to downgrade Harry's security status (and accordingly Meghan's and Archie's) because they will no longer be senior royals or working royals.

March 2020: Harry and Meghan come back to the UK on a revenge tour expecting everyone to fall over them sobbing "don't go." William and Kate ignore them at the Commonwealth Service (after they whined about not being in the official profession). They flee to Canada because no one begged them to remain. Then they flee to the US because of COVID.

Harry gets word of the RAVEC decision, collapses on the floor sobbing.

{{{Stuff happens}}}

January 2022: Harry requests a judicial review of RAVEC's February 2020 decision. He basically accuses RAVEC of not fulfilling their statutory duty by including him in risk analysis and demands that they give him back the status he had prior to the February 2020 decision because he and his family feel unsafe in the US because of Al Qaeda.

{{{More stuff happens}}}

November / December 2023: They're in court to hear the case.

February 2024: The judge rules that RAVEC's decision was properly made and within the law. He dismisses the case. Harry appeals immediately.

April 2024: Judge throws out Harry's appeal saying he has no grounds to appeal. Harry's lawyers appeal the appeal.

(Today) June 6, 2024: A judge reverses the April 2024 decision denying Harry the ability to appeal. Harry is now permitted to appeal the February 2024 decision.

It doesn't undo the February 2024 or February 2020 decisions just yet.

A couple of posts earlier I mentioned how quiet it was from Sussex camp and I think this may be it. The judge's ruling reversing the April 2024 decision was made on May 23rd, so perhaps Harry has been meeting with the lawyers to work on the new lawsuit/appeal request.

[lexlawuk]

Amanda Staveley fails to Set Aside Victor Restis' £3.5 Million Statutory Demand

British financier labels demand an ‘abuse of process’ that should be settled through arbitration. A recent ruling of the High Court has left Amanda Staveley, the co-owner of Newcastle United football club, facing payment of her substantial debt of nearly £3.5 million following a legal dispute with the Greek shipping tycoon Victor Restis. Victor had issued a statutory demand against Staveley,…

[meandmybigmouth]

Legal analysts dive into new demand to remove Judge Cannon from classified documents case

Legal analysts dive into new demand to remove Judge Cannon from classified documents case (msn.com)

Judicial oversight is the process by which the judiciary examines the legality of actions taken by public or private entities to ensure that they comply with the law and the Constitution. This process is also known as judicial review. 

Judicial review allows the judiciary to invalidate laws, acts, or governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority. The power of judicial review is considered an implied power derived from Article III and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. The landmark decision of Marbury v. Madison established judicial review in the U.S. system of government. 

Judicial oversight mechanisms also help to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, and to promote compliance with ethical, statutory, and regulatory standards.

WHERE IS THE JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE NOT STEPPING IN AND REMOVING HER?

[mariacallous]

Last month, US president Joe Biden signed a surveillance bill enhancing the National Security Agency’s power to compel US businesses to wiretap communications going in and out of the country. The changes to the law have left legal experts largely in the dark as to the true limits of this new authority, chiefly when it comes to the types of companies that could be affected. The American Civil Liberties Union and organizations like it say the bill has rendered the statutory language governing the limits of a powerful wiretap tool overly vague, potentially subjecting large swaths of corporate America to warrantless and secretive surveillance practices.

In April, Congress rushed to extend the US intelligence system’s “crown jewel,” Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The spy program allows the NSA to wiretap calls and messages between Americans and foreigners abroad—so long as the foreigner is the individual being “targeted” and the intercept serves a significant “foreign intelligence” purpose. Since 2008, the program has been limited to a subset of businesses that the law calls “electronic communications service providers,” or ECSPs—corporations such as Microsoft and Google, which provide email services, and phone companies like Sprint and AT&T.

In recent years, the government has worked quietly to redefine what it means to be an ECSP in an attempt to extend the NSA’s reach, first unilaterally and now with Congress’ backing. The issue remains that the bill Biden signed last month contains murky language that attempts to redefine the scope of a critical surveillance program. In response, a coalition of digital rights organizations, including the Brennan Center for Justice to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is pressing the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the nation’s top spy, Avril Haines, to declassify details about a relevant court case that could, they say, shed much-needed light on the situation.

In a letter to the top officials, more than 20 such organizations say they believe the new definition of an ECSP adopted by Congress might “permit the NSA to compel almost any US business to assist” the agency, noting that all companies today provide some sort of “service” and have access to equipment on which “communications” are stored.

“Deliberately writing overbroad surveillance authorities and trusting that future administrations will decide not to exploit them is a recipe for abuse,” the letter says. “And it is entirely unnecessary, as the administration can—and should—declassify the fact that the provision is intended to reach data centers.”

The Justice Department confirmed receipt of the letter on Tuesday but referred WIRED to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which has primary purview over declassification decisions. The ODNI has not responded to a request for comment.

It is widely believed—and has been reported—that data centers are the intended target of this textual change. Matt Olsen, the assistant US attorney general for national security, appeared on an April 17 episode of the Lawfare podcast to say that, while unable to confirm or deny any specifics, data centers today store a significant amount of communications data and are an “example” of why the government viewed the change as necessary.

A DOJ spokesperson pointed WIRED to an April 18 letter by Garland that claims the new ECSP definition is “narrowly tailored.” The letter includes written reflections on the provision by the assistant attorney general, Carlos Uriarte, who writes that the “fix” is meant to address a “critical intelligence gap” resulting from changes in technology over the past 15 years. According to Uriarte, the DOJ has committed to applying the new definition internally “to cover the type of service provider at issue” before the court.

Ostensibly this means the government is promising to limit future surveillance directives to data centers (in addition to the companies traditionally defined as ECSPs).

The surveillance court that oversees FISA and the appeals court that reviews its decisions sided two years ago with an unidentified company that fought back after being served an NSA order. Both courts ruled that it did not, in fact, appear to meet the criteria for being considered an ECSP, as only part of its function was storing communications data. Finding the government’s interpretation of the statute overly broad, the court reminded the government that only Congress has the “competence and constitutional authority” to rewrite the law.

Digital rights groups argue that declassifying additional information about this FISA case may help the public understand which types of businesses are actually subject to NSA directives. Practically speaking, they say, that information is no longer a secret anyway. “Declassifying this information would cause little if any national security harm,” the letter says. “The New York Times has already revealed that the relevant FISC case addressed data centers for cloud computing.”

In the aftermath of the FISA court’s ruling, the NSA and other spy agencies began lobbying the House and Senate intelligence committees to aid the administration in redefining what it means to be an ECSP. Members of both committees have subsequently portrayed the court’s ruling as a “directive” that Congress needs to expand the NSA’s reach. In a floor speech last month, Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “So what happened was, the FISA Court said to Congress: You guys need to close this loophole; you need to close this and change this definition.”

But in fact what the court asserted was that the government had exceeded its authority and that it was Congress’ job, not the Justice Department’s, to revise the law. “Any unintended gap in coverage revealed by our interpretation is, of course, open to reconsideration by the branches of government whose competence and constitutional authority extend to statutory revision,” the court said.

This would culminate in new language being proposed that quickly alarmed legal experts, including top civil liberties attorneys who’ve appeared before the secret court in the past. The surveillance fears quickly spread to Silicon Valley. The Information Technology Industry Council, one of the tech industry's top lobbying arms, warned that companies like Facebook and IBM were interpreting the bill as having “vastly expanded the US government’s warrantless surveillance capabilities.”

This expansion, the firm added, would also hinder the “competitiveness of US technology companies” and arguably imperil the “continued global free flow of data between the US and its allies.” Customers internationally, it argued, would likely begin taking their business elsewhere should the US government turn data centers into surveillance watering holes.

Concerns about the new ECSP definition have been circulating since December. While largely dismissing them, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees made a few adjustments in February, exempting a handful of business types. This came in response to popular concerns that Starbucks employees and hotel IT staff might be secretly conscripted by the NSA. FISA experts such as Marc Zwillinger—a private attorney who has appeared twice before the FISA Court of Review—noted in response to those adjustments that Congress’ rush to exempt a handful of businesses only served to demonstrate that the text was inherently too broad.

Intelligence committee members kept the pressure on lawmakers to reauthorize the Section 702 program with the sought-after language, going as far as to suggest that another 9/11-style attack might occur if they failed. The power of the committees was on full display, as while neither actually have primary jurisdiction over FISA, a majority of the Section 702 bill that passed was authored by intelligence committee staff.

Even while supporting the new framework and dismissing the intensity of civil society’s concerns, Warner did eventually step forward to acknowledge the new ECSF definition needed additional tweaking. First, on the Senate floor in April, he said that Garland shared his “view” that the language “could have been drafted better.” Later, in response to questions from reporters, he added: “I’m absolutely committed to getting that fixed.”

That appears unlikely to happen soon. According to The Record, Warner indicated that the best time to update the language again would be in the “next intelligence bill,” presumably referring to legislation this fall broadly reauthorizing the intelligence community’s work.

In the meantime, however, more than half of Congress is running for election, and the next US president will have greater surveillance powers than any other before. No one can say for sure who that president will be or how they’ll make use of that authority.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The official Covid inquiry should shine a spotlight on "brutal" Tory austerity and how it left the country "ill-prepared" for the crisis, campaigners and unions have demanded.

It comes as the inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett prepares to launch the first major hearings of the probe into the Government's handling of the pandemic.

Kicking off on 13 June, stage one will examine the UK's "resilience and preparedness" for the crisis, with ex-PM David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne set to appear.

On Monday the Trades Union Congress will launch a major report, alongside families of the bereaved, claiming austerity weakened the UK's ability to cope.

The TUC told The Mirror the inquiry must "look at the impact years of brutal- and unnecessary - spending cuts had on the resilience of our public services".

Part of the report is expected to look at cuts to the Health and Safety Executive - the national regulator for workplace and health and safety.

The TUC says the body had its funding reduced from £231million in 2009-2010 to £123million in 2019-2020 - a cut of almost 50% - while fewer inspections were carried out.

The number of inspectors also dropped every year between 2010-2018, previous figures disclosed during the crisis showed.

One inspector at HSE told The Mirror: "As soon as you start running the resource down you can't get it back up to speed overnight. I think that was the biggest problem that hit them".

Asked how crucial it is that the inquiry examines the cuts, they added: "I think it's one of the most important things because we were not ready.

"We were absolutely not ready for that and it caught everyone off-guard. And I know that that's across the board, but I think for an organisation like ours which is not very big, we were set up to fail from the beginning."

The TUC report is also expected to look at the slashing of real terms budgets to other key departments before the pandemic, including Public Health England.

It will also call for an "unflinching look" at how the "broken" statutory sick pay left the country "brutally exposed" as the virus rapidly took hold.

The organisation has previously highlighted how the UK entered the crisis with the lowest rate of statutory sick pay among the 38 countries of the OECD - at just £94-per-week.

[lihyot-am-chofshi-beartzeinu]

An appalling anonymous letter on behalf of a "collective" of Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) staff sent to their president has been made public. Among its list of "demands" includes this horrific statement:

The letter also refers to the IDF as the "IOF", so automatic F for childishness right there. The rest of it is just as bad; it implicitly blames the October 7 massacre (which isn't even mentioned once) on Israel:

Silly me, I could've sworn the "source of the violence" was when Hamas, the ruling political party of independent, unoccupied Gaza, broke the ceasefire and massacred 1200 Israelis and internationals and kidnapped another 250 to torture and sexually abuse in their tunnels 🤪

But on a more serious note, this revolting letter exposes the level of Israel Derangement Syndrome that has gripped society - finally, the leftists can revel in their Jew-hatred without consequence.

The AHRC is the national human rights institution of Australia. It's a statutory body that's funded by the Australian Government but operates mostly independently. Its responsibilities are primarily in investigating alleged infringements of Australia's anti-discrimination legislation in relation to federal agencies.

So what fucking business does its staff have in demanding the institution, and therefore effectively all of Australia, to not accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism? They don't forbid any other ethnic group from defining what counts as discrimination or racism against their own group. But Jews? Oh, they can't fucking wait to go after Jews - but only to criticise Israel and the evil Zionist lobby, they swear!