Jun 11, 2018 at 4:53 PM | Supertroll

Is it a case of the buildings being worthless apart from the rents, but a pile of rubble with no obligation to rehouse the tenants would mean the land would become a valuable site for redevelopment?

This would leave a big problem for the City / Social Landlord, as they would not be able to rehouse the tenants without incurring substantial additional costs.

Under UK Law, those rendered homeless through no fault of their own, are entitled to rehousing by the Local Authority. Some Local Authorities have ignored obvious building defects and deficiencies to rehouse people to meet Government targets

Purportedly all from "individual contributions" - I find that quite hard to believe.

Jun 11, 2018 at 7:40 PM | tomo

The new Italian Prime Minister has made it clear that Italy is fed up with being abused by bogus asylum seekers, and the EU is unable to compensate Italy for "assurances" made by Merkel.

Greeks are fed up, and Malta don't want to know.

France could have offered, but didn't, Spain did. Surely they are not going to Catalonia ....... ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_declaration_of_independence

This is the EU giving a green light to people to defraud the EU. If the "rescue ship" had been chartered to pick up people, fare paying or not, so they could claim to have rescued them, so they could shortcut/short circuit immigration controls, then an EU Country should have the ability to impound the ship and detain the Captain.

A Port Authority can seize a vessel to pay off debts incurred by the "Ship" or its owner or crew???? The ships flag is of no relevance, but certain vessels flying certain flags of convenience are seized more often than others, and some are simply abandoned by the owners.

I wonder what the new Italian Prime Minister said, such that the ship turned around and headed for Spain? Economic migrants are a lucrative cargo, and the carriers never lose.

If the BBC has given up describing them as "refugees", it would suggest that that BBC has realised

The BBC continues to use the word "migrants" to describe the passengers on the "Rescue" ship turned away by Italy and rejected by Malta, that Spain has agreed to receive. I have not heard "refugees" whether fleeing war, famine or Global Warming once.

GolfCharlie. Not all buildings are earthquake resistant in San Francisco. In the poorer districts, like the Tenderloin, many of the buildings, even quite tall ones, are brick built. With a strong shake these can simply fall apart as the mortar is shaken apart. Over time these buildings progressively become fewer and fewer. This is especially true of areas underlain by made ground.

It appears that the second case has now finally reached the sentencing stage:

http://www.thelawpages.com/court-hearings-lists/crown-court-daily/33/lists/2018-06-11

It was NOT the case when TR appeared outside (and inside!) the court: that day the judge completed his summing up and directions to the jury (started the day before), and the jury retired to start to consider verdicts. The jury were very much in attendance. The jury spent several days of debate - hardly a surprise for such a lengthy trial with so many charges to be decided.

Sentencing for this group will not be finalised until 21/22 June.