Reading Roars!

Reading West MP Martin Salter (Lab) has called for the introduction of biometric identity cards.

Speaking at the Commons on Tuesday 18 October 2005, Salter rejected a claim that the cards would cost UK citizens GB£ 300 and said that they were quick to process. He continued:

I support identity cards. I campaigned for them before they became trendy and fashionable. I firmly believe that ID cards have a role to play in 21st century Britain. That is why most liberal democracies in the European Union have embraced the concept. Identity cards will disrupt the use of false and multiple identities by organised criminals and those involved in terrorist activity. They have a role to play in tackling illegal working and immigration abuse. They will enable easier and more convenient access to public services and ensure that they are used only by those who are entitled to them. They will help to protect the British people from identity fraud and theft.

Click here to read the full verbatim.

Simon Jones, Editor-in-Chief at West London & Bucks, is to replace Anthony Longden as Senior Editor-in-Chief at Berkshire Regional Newspapers, the Press Gazette reports. Jones will be responsible for the Reading Chronicle and midweek freebie, the Midweek, along with a number of other titles. Longden will become Managing Editor at the Watford Observer.

The Reading International Festival 2005 has commenced! It is time to report.

On Saturday evening, my friend and I went to one of the more intriguing events of the RIF: the Dussera Festival celebrated by the Thames.

The Festival comprised a funfair, with your usual games and whiteknuckle rides, a large effigy of the evil Rawan, and a line of stalls.

A crowd began to assemble a safe distance in front of the effigy, located away from the funfair. Of crude construction, the effigy looked ugly, almost like a totem pole, with a wing on either side of its head. Both wings seemed to support missiles, aimed squarely at east Reading. Continue Reading »

Outsourcing and technology company Xansa, headquartered at Thames Valley Park in Reading (pictured), is to become the Renault F1 Team’s Official Supplier of Software Development and Consulting.

Xansa will create more intelligence interfaces between off-car systems and better data analysis capacity. Or something like that. This is expected to result in improved on-track performance.

Renault’s Fernando Alonso of Spain won this year’s F1 Championship and the team hopes that Xansa will keep them at the top of the sport.

Reading Mayor Cllr Riaz Chaudhri has launched an appeal for victims of the terrible earthquake which struck Pakistan on Saturday 8 October 2005.

Details of how to pay are as follows:

In addition, the Mayor is willing to offer support to fund-raising initiaves in the town. To arrange this, click here.

All donations will be given to the President of Pakistan’s Relief Fund for Earthquake Victims 2005 set up by Pakistan’s government.

We are already living in an age of fear. Now experts are saying that a flu pandemic is on its way.

The bird flu detected in Turkey is now said to be the same deadly strain as that found in Asia: H591. Furthermore, the death of three ducks in Romania will probably also be attributed to the same virus. Fine. Ducks are ducks. But if this flu mutates and spreads from human to human, we may well have a wave of death sweeping the globe (not unlike the Spanish Flu, responsible for 40m deaths in 1918).

The Director of the Animal Production and Health Division at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Samuel Jutzi, believes that the virus is more likely to progress into neighbouring countries and Africa, rather than western Europe. This is pretty rotten, as Africa has it’s fair share of bacterial nasties already.

So, who do we blame (a pertinent question these days)? Tricky. And where does Reading fit into all this? Continue Reading »

Super Reading Uni student Vanessa Clark has won the Cadbury Schweppes Award for the Best Food, Nutrition and Health Student at the 2005 Science Engineering & Technology (SET) Student of the Year Awards (like the chocolate, that’s a bit of a mouthful!).

Vanessa, who is now studying for a PhD at the University’s School of Food Biosciences, won the prize for her final year project on a

comparison of modification of protein by sugars and sugar degradation products under in vitro physiological conditions and temperatures more relevant to food processing

Uh?

Commenting on the prize, Vanessa said:

I’m thrilled to have won this award. It is fantastic to have my work recognised at a national level. It represents not only a personal achievement, but is a real tribute to the excellent teaching I’ve been privileged to receive during my four years at the School of Food Biosciences at the University of Reading.

Well done, Vanessa.