'Bad taste' as McDonald's moves into Louvre
Since Monday, a group of 14 people have been fasting outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) in Whitehall over lamb and sheep exports. And I think people in those two towns were horrified when they first saw the trucks start coming by."I think the concern about exports is as high as it's ever been. First, the veal exports moved - to Dover, following a High Court ruling. In March, they ended after the EC's ban on beef exports from the UK over fears of mad cow disease.Now Dover typically sees a mere 50 people a day, protesting about the export of live lambs and sheep. "There's never been the size of demonstration in Dover that there were in Shoreham or Brightlingsea," said Peter Stevenson, political and legal director of the pressure group Compassion in World Farming "It's .. a two-hour train ride from London, longer from elsewhere. Policing costs hit pounds 6 million for the months of protest.
Commentators hailed the rise of "single-issue politics": in the future, they suggested, people with no political leaning in common would come together on specific causes. The police in those towns are now back to their normal business. What a difference 18 months makes. In February last year, the seaside towns of Brightlingsea in Essex and Shoreham in Sussex were in uproar over the export of veal calves to the Continent. Up to 1,000 protesters would turn up every day; one, Jill Phipps, died under the wheels of a lorry. The key, it says, is to "know your client" and design audit procedures accordingly, especially where there appears to be a higher than normal risk of laundering occurring.The technical release also helps auditors with what they should do if they suspect money laundering. While they must report to the authorities any knowledge or suspicions of drug money laundering or financial arrangements that facilitate terrorism, they should also report any knowledge or suspicion relating to the proceeds of other criminal conduct.That sounds straightforward enough, but as the faculty points out, "difficulties can arise in the interaction between an auditor's statutory responsibilities in reporting on the financial statements and those of reporting suspected money laundering to the police."Moreover, Prem Sikka, the accountancy academic who has long been a scourge of the profession, argues that the involvement of accountants and other professionals can often be much more than incidental. After all, the complex webs of transactions required to make laundering schemes work can only be set up with their help, he argues in a recent paper written with Labour MP Austin Mitchell and fellow academic Hugh Willmott.The paper also makes the trio's already well-rehearsed allegations about the inability of the professional bodies to regulate their members.But, as the audit faculty release points out, the law in this area is complicated and experience of how it affects auditors is limited.
"We believe in biblical justice, but not biblical patriarchy," she said.Ms Zelter was converted to left-wing politics by her experience in Africa, where her husband was working on an aid project."I learnt that most of the problems Africa was experiencing originated in the way we lived our lives in the West ... Lala Winckley, a member of Catholics for Women's Ordination, makes the connection clear. The Christian pacifist movement is as much in favour of female priests as of peace. But in the present climate of the opinion in the Vatican, world peace may be easier to achieve.Some of the most respectable, middle-class stalwarts of the Anglican Movement for the Ordination of Women used to spend time at Greenham Common.