Police launch online neighbourhood crime maps

There appear to be some bugs in the system. I had an incompatibility with Adobe report. Quite how these maps are going to make the streets safer, I really havent a clue, but I suppose it's cheaper than investing in real police officers!
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/ia/atlas.html is the URL for the master map. It doesnt go down to neighbourhoods, just to Basic Command Units. City was the lowest level I was able to reach locally, but maybe its too sophisticated for me. I was expecting something a little more like one of those house price maps. Silly me!
BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7811742.stm

France braced for "rebirth of violent left"

"The Coming Insurrection" is apparently a pamphlet on how to carry out an insurrection. Scaremongering? Sounds awfully like it, but one to keep an eye on.

Honey laundering

If you werent aware of the collapse of bee colonies in the US and Europe, then you should be. Now you can worry about disguised imports of contaminated honey from China, too...

Facing Down the Camorra

Letter to the Guardian which refers to a demonstration on 20th December 2008 to show solidarity with writer Roberto Saviano, author of Gomorrah, who is under threat of death from the Camorra.
There are Facebook groups supporting him and a social networking website, originally created to organise the demonstration: www.iosonosaviano.ning.com
A database is also being created
The website is, of course, in Italian

The Paranoia Squad

i assume George Monbiot is OK? This from "the Truth Seeker", which sounds a bit swively-eyed and green inky: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/

But fits with today's other posts: end of the animal rights militia, so the cops need a new enemy!

Boat burglaries up says insurer

Winter a common time for burglaries from boats. Leave a note saying all valuables have been removed. Not sure how many boatowners read this blog, but thefts up 20% in 2008

Animal Rights Activists Guilty of Blackmail

End of a particularly unpleasant campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences and its suppliers?

Police crackdown on prostitution expected to close 1,200 brothels

I wonder if anyone has worked out the economic consequences of that? Risk-profiling? It all sounds good as an attack on human trafficking, and on class A drug taking, but there are other impacts to assess.

The results of the privatisation of immigration detention

Given that all UK politicians seem capable of doing is copying US madness, here's a vision of our future. If you pay $100 a day for each suspected illegal immigrant locked up, everyone gets locked up.
"In a sinking economy, immigration detention is a rare growth industry."
Just make sure you have papers and they're in order!

Scores held in anti-Mafia raids

Aim of carabinieri to prevent the rebuilding of the Sicilian Mafia. Other papers say that those arrested were trying to set up a Supreme Council to resolve disputes