Welcome to Newslip. I'm Wesley Gerrard. Today is the summer solstice, 21st June 2009. here are the stories making the news this week.
647 workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire were sacked after they called wildcat strikes. Their unsympathetic employers, French oil giant Total, had been in a bitter dispute with the union who claimed that promises not to make further job cuts had been broken. The refinery had been subject to strikes against the use of foreign labour back in January. The latest row began after Total sacked 51 employees working on a construction project at the plant. Workers who joined the wildcat action included those at the Staythorpe power station in Nottinghamshire, Ferrybridge power station in Yorkshire and around 1,100 construction workers building a bio-fuel plant on Teesside. Total apparently didn't turn up to a meeting with the union and the leader of the GMB Union, Paul Kenny, said: "Total has not even had the decency or courtesy to turn up at the meeting that they themselves arranged... Bullying and intimidation is not the way to bring about peace."
A truck bomb killed 64 people near the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Saturday, the country's bloodiest attack in 15 months. The attack, which also wounded 202 people, struck near a mosque in Taza Kharmatu, a predominantly Turkmen Shiite town south of Kirkuk, at around 1:00 pm on Saturday and claimed women and children among its victims, officials said. More than one ton of explosives was used in the bombing. Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, is plagued with intercommunal tensions among its Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab communities.
Scotland Yard has decided to launch an investigation into MPs' misuse of expenses. Its economic and specialist crime command will investigate several MPs, Labour's Elliot Morley and David Chaytor have admitted that they are among those under scrutiny. Both apparently claimed interest payments on mortgages they had already paid off. They have been barred by Labour in standing at the next election. Scotland Yard have previously made parliamentary investigations which have ended in no criminal prosecutions. In addition to this new leaf in the ongoing saga, it has been revealed that over 50 MPs had been guilty of overclaiming their council tax expenses. After checking data with local town halls it was discovered that these MPs had falsely inflated the amount that they were actually being charged.
The British and Irish Lions played the first test in their tour of South Africa and were unfortunate to lose. A disappointing first half left them trailing to the hosts by about twenty points. The Lions forwards were letting them down with Phil Vickery performing badly in the scrummage and the Lions lacking the Southern Hemisphere ferocity at the breakdown. Changes were made and the Lions started a comeback which left South Africa shellshocked but it was too little too late and the match was abruptly ended by an under-the-cosh South Africa with them pipping the legendary tourists to a 26-21 defeat and condemning the Lions to the necessity of another comeback if they wish to gain victory in the overall series.
A record crowd has gathered at Stonehenge to witness the summer solstice. 36,500 people gathered at the prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise, putting massive pressure on local transport infrastructure. By 3AM revellers were struggling to lift their beer cans to their mouths. Sensibly, the druids held their ceremony beside the heel stone, a leaning monolithic a few dozen yards from the main stone circle. They were joined by a group of Papuans who made the pilgrimage in an effort to draw attention to their struggle with the Indonesian authorities in their homeland. The record crowds were lucky enough in that the sun was shining. The high numbers are due to the solstice falling on a weekend this year.
A row has erupted in Formula 1, threatening to end the sport as we know it. The eight Fota teams - McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Brawn, Toro Rosso, Renault and Toyota - released a statement declaring their intention to quit Formula 1 and set up a breakaway group. Their move is as a protest to the planned budget caps which would limit the amount of money each team could spend. Also they are discontented with FIA President Max Mosley who they see as having an autocratic grip on the sport. He allowed the Concorde agreement to lapse which gave the teams rights in determining the rules and regulations of the sport. Mosley described the breakaway threat as "posing and posturing", adding: "Always with these things in the end there's a compromise."
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft are on their way to the moon atop the same Atlas V rocket. LRO will go into orbit around the moon, turning its suite of instruments towards the moon for thorough studies. The spacecraft also will be looking for potential landing sites for astronauts. NASA plan on landing humans on the moon again some time before 2020. In addition to the probing, the current mission, which is due to reach lunar orbit on Thursday, will be seeking to find sources of water on the Moon.
Pressure on the Labour government continued with Hazel Blears, the former communities secretary, narrowly escaping deselection in her Salford constituency. Her decision to quit the cabinet prior to the European elections was said to have been within a hair's breadth of bringing down Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister, this week, spoke of not enjoying the pressures of office and how he could quite easily walk away from his position. The trappings of power continue to haunt him at cabinet level as he faced a hostile pack regarding his plans for taking on the Tories at the next election.
The Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq have handed over two dead bodies to British government officials in Iraq. The dead men have been identified as security guards, Jason Swindlehurst, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and Jason Creswell, from Glasgow. They were part of the hostage party seized by militants in 2007. They had been guarding computer expert Peter Moores, who remains hostage with two other guards. It is believed that the release of the bodies was a goodwill gesture after Laith al-Khazali was released by the Americans last week. The British government has a policy of not paying extortionate ransoms for kidnapped Brits, which has been criticised and also praised.
And this week's top story...
The aftermath of the controversial Iranian election has been the principal headline of the week. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke out against foreign nations and claimed that the UK was the most evil of all these governments. the Iranians have criticised international media bias in its reporting and believes that the current unrest is a result of foreign stirrings. Riots between police and opposition protestors has left at least ten people dead. Authorities are firing into crowds of demonstrators with live ammo. The BBC, whose Persian language channel is very popular in Iran, has evacuated its main Tehran correspondent. There has been a general media blackout in the Pariah state and people there have turned to social networks in their droves to push information out. President Obama has begun to criticise the events after initially maintaining silence.
That's all for Newslip this week. Thanks for tuning in. See you all again soon. Goodbye.
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