Unthreaded
"but note the involvement - yet again - of the Chinese."
On a recent Kenya trip, our local guide pointed out the massive and numerous Chinese and Indian construction projects all along the south Kenya border. Whilst the west is hand-wringing about imaginary demons, the rest of the world is quickly - and very quietly - concreting over everything for their own gain.

golf charlie
In my experience anything, including trees, planted by a local authority are usually abandoned and unless local residents take it upon themselves to care for and maintain these investments then they are doomed. Some very sad and neglected areas result and it would have been better to leave them in their previous state of neglect

Mark Hodgson Jun 26, 2019 at 8:11 AM
"However, I would point out that a bar of Tesco essentials soap can be bought for 15p, so the headline is rather the usual BBC inaccurate sensationalising as part of their campaigning rather than merely reporting. The man in question also doesn't look as though he's been short of food."
Yes, yes, yes
Same applies to fake-news "Period Poverty" - <£1 for 20 tampons/pads
BBC - we don't report news, we create agenda driven news


random
I dunno about the Jerusalem Post's rankings in the fake news stakes - but they have reported that French security services intercepted 0,5 ton of TATP from Iran on it's way to Paris from Geneva (where it arrived under diplomatic documentation) last June.
While x-ref-ing this story I discovered that my ISP has killed the DNS for a number of sites that I can see though a VPN that I use....

Jun 26, 2019 at 9:08 PM | Mark Hodgson
China would love to have direct access into the EU. At least the Balkans are in the Mediterranean. I thought they would go for somewhere more Greek.

@Still In The Dark that Mail on Line
what a weird headline
UK has halved air pollution deaths since 1970 but Britain's dirty air is still 'a public health emergency' and is the number one environmental health hazard, scientists say link
Few readers ..top comment has 57 likes
all top comments ..shout ""BS, this is propaganda , there are few pollution deaths ..are they after new taxes ?"

@GC nope we live in Double-class Orwellian land
Metro-lib-class and non-metro-lib class
Tales the metrolib wins
Heads the non-metrolib loses
Hence Sargon makes a point with edgy humour = totally evil
.... Jo Brand makes a point with edgy humour = nothing to apologise for
Caroline Lucas allowed to break law
Farage & Boris should be jailed for walking over the cracks in the pavement

Jun 26, 2019 at 8:42 PM | Mark Hodgson
"We may have to target our money directly on the trees," he said. "We may actually have to plant trees."
Rory Stewart is not old enough to remember this from the 1970s:
Plant a tree in 73
Plant some more in 74
Those alive in 75
Will be sticks in 76

Jun 27, 2019 at 7:47 AM | Still In The Dark
The traditional enemies of saplings have been rabbits and deer. The modern enemy is the strimmer, whether electric/battery fitted with a nylon string, or petrol and armed with a metal blade.
The Grounds Maintenance contractors employed by Local Authorities, Housing Associations, Developers etc tend to be paid by how much they can cut in an hour, not how much they carefully don't cut.
Ensuring new plantings are adequately watered through their first 2-3 summer seasons tends to be forgotten.