Mill Junction – a former grain silo block in Johannesburg – reborn as student accommodation after an innovative conversion by South African property management outfit Citiq.
By converting the silos and adding stacks of shipping containers to the sides and top, the development – completed in January and opening this month – has 375 apartments along with study rooms, libraries, computer rooms and stunning views of the city from the rooftop terrace 40 meters up.
Fintan O’Toole writes in today’s Irish Times about why he feels libel actions taken by columnists should be an “absolute last resort”.
He tells how the Sunday Times, in 2010, reported that he drove home from an Irish Congress of Trade Unions rally in his series 5 BMW, therefore depicting him as something of a hypocrite.
Only he doesn’t have a series 5 BMV, or any other kind of car, because he cannot drive.
He writes:
I am a national newspaper columnist. I occupy a position of enormous privilege. I’m allowed to take part in what we might call the semi-official national discourse. I’m allowed to be robustly critical of all sorts of people. I’m allowed to enrage some of those people and (though I don’t set out to do so) to upset others. I’m given those freedoms because there is a working assumption that free and open and robust debate is not just permissible in, but essential to, a democracy.
…
So instead of hiring a lawyer and suing the Sunday Times, I talked to the paper’s Irish editor. He agreed pretty quickly that the article was inaccurate and indefensible. It was taken off the paper’s website and a retraction was published the following week. And that was the end of it.
…
..there’s a price to be paid for the considerable privilege of being granted an especially loud voice in the national conversation. With the megaphone comes a duty to protect freedom of expression and a vested interest in keeping it as open as possible.
A columnist’s job confers some privileges, and obligations (Irish Times)
Gareth Chaney/Photocall Ireland
The slogan for a new campaign by Australian authorities aimed at deterring asylum seekers. The Guardian is reporting that the campaign has been launched on the country’s Department for Immigration and Border Protection website and on on its Customs and Border Protection website.
Alternatively.
Here’s a video from Pivotal Arts, called Burden Of Proof, about a mother and son’s journey to Ireland in search of asylum.
Watch the video here.
Australian government launches new graphic campaign to deter asylum seekers (The Guardian)
Thanks Mark Geary
Bewildered student writes:
Further to the disgusting removal of the Screen Cinema’s neon lettering, [emblazoned above the cinema for 30 years], you can still get this lovely poster {above [for sale, [€20] before the rest disappear….
Previously: IMC Clearly Now
A nightmarish typeface designed by creative director JC Debroize of Studio Kerozen in Brittany. Shaped in modelling clay and finished in Photoshop using facial features sampled from the seven-person design team.
Seamus O’Connor has qualified for the semi-final of the halfpipe at the Winter Olypmics with a top score of 71.50. pic.twitter.com/uV3eYmQguT
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) February 11, 2014
Update:
Seamus O'Connor has failed to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics men’s snowboard halfpipe competition. #hardluck pic.twitter.com/bZYMaWKak7
— BreakingNews.ie (@breakingnewsie) February 11, 2014
Previously: Born: 1997
[Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, top,
and Dr Vicky Conway]
Dr Vicky Conway, a senior lecturer in criminal law at the University of Kent and author of The Blue Wall of Silence, about police accountability and the Morris Tribunal, has written about the Garda Ombudsman bugging controversy on the Human Rights in Ireland blog – asking six specific questions:
Her slightly-edited questions are:
1. Who was doing the surveillance and why? GSOC has access to a great of sensitive data, of both personal and State security nature. It is a statutory body which someone has been, in essence, spying on. The reason that some have raised the issue of Garda or Government involvement relates, I suspect, to the well-documented poor relationship between an Garda Síochána and GSOC. Indeed, just last September, around the time of the security sweep, new arrangements for the requesting and sharing of information had to be negotiated between the two, after GSOC publicly complained of delays in accessing material. Others may believe that Government Departments might have an interest in the operations of GSOC. There are of course many criminals and complainants who would have a vested interest in the operations of GSOC.
2. How did they manage to conduct the surveillance they did conduct?
3. What, if any, data was compromised? GSOC have stated that their databases were not compromised but this does not exclude the possibility of data being accessed either through access to emails or overheard by bugging equipment. Those who have complained, and those who have been complained about, should rightly be concerned about their privacy, not to mention any information pertaining to the operation of the state police service which may have been discussed and overheard.
4. Having received the report in December, why did GSOC not report it to the Minister, the Garda Síochána or other relevant departments? Section 80(5) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 states:
“5) The Ombudsman Commission may make any other reports that it considers appropriate for drawing to the Minister’s attention matters that have come to its notice and that, in its opinion, should, because of their gravity or other exceptional circumstances, be the subject of a special report to the Minister.”
Clearly GSOC is not legislatively required to report this to the Minister, but nonetheless, if an agency so central to the justice system has concerns about its security, it is not unreasonable to expect that they would report these to the Minister or even the Taoiseach. The gardaí, one might think, should be informed as criminal activity must be suspected.
GSOC has given some reasons as to why it is did not do so. Some may leap to conclusions that GSOC either didn’t trust the Minister, or they feared a garda/ministerial connection. In the context of the poor relationship already noted, this is perhaps understandable.
We should not get caught up, for now, in blaming GSOC for not reporting this: that is tantamount to victim-blaming. It is disappointing that GSOC’s statement focuses on expressing regret for not contacting the Minister and that the Garda Commissioner’s statement focuses on why gardaí are being eliminated from suspicion. Similarly many national newspapers are leading with the Commissioner’s concerns. This is not the primary issue at this moment in time. The focus should surely be on who did this, why, and what did they get access to. GSOC is, in essence, the victim here and yet they have ended up expressing regret for their handling of matters.
5. Where is Shatter’s response?
6. What should happen now? Every effort to be made to find out who did this and why. The public should be reassured that data held by GSOC is secure and that the situation is under control. And all players involved should seriously question how politics has distorted this issue. My own view is that this is a further example of the politicisation of policing in Ireland and that the need for a police authority to break that direct political control is more evident than ever. In 2006 Fine Gael agreed with this view-point in a co-authored an agenda for the reform of policing in Ireland. Now in government one might hope that they would act on such commitments.
Surveillance of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Human Rights In Ireland blog)
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
A snow warning comes into force later. Mainly a hill/mountain feature, with more than 10cm for some in next 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/NscwEwgGd0
— Barra Best (@barrabest) February 11, 2014
Status Orange.