The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations, was mourned Wednesday as the loss of as a rare leader who changed the world and for a time gave hope for peace among the superpowers.
month, with the rising cost of fuel even more worrying for her winter energy bills.
“I don’t want to end up, like, skeletal… eventually it’s gonna have to stop. But whether I’ll be able to afford to eat by then, I don’t know,” she told CNN in a phone interview.
Vyonne DeBurgo, 77, says the government has "no clue what it's like to live on the amount of money I have to live on in a week." - Independent Age
The average British household will see its annual energy bill rise to £3,549 (approximately $4,180) from October – a rise of £1,578 ($1,765), an 80% increase – after the country’s energy regulator raised the price cap last week. The price cap sets the maximum amount that energy suppliers can charge for each unit of energy and gas.
It’s a crisis that should be at the forefront of government action. But instead, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been all but absent, taking two vacations in less than a month. His critics have accused him of washing his hands of the energy crisis and deflecting the blame onto Russia’s war in Ukraine. “We also know that if we’re paying in our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood,” Johnson said in a visit to Kyiv on August 24.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has said it is up to the next prime minister to introduce any major new spending plans to support those suffering hardship. Two candidates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, are currently battling to become the next Conservative Party leader, and so prime minister, with results expected on September 5. Only grassroots Conservative Party members, who represent less than 0.3% of the electorate, can vote in the contest. Demographic data suggest they are more likely to be White, male and middle class than the general British population.
And while research shows older people are more likely to vote Conservative, neither candidate has outlined a clear plan on how to tackle a cost-of-living crisis that’s already being felt acutely by many in that age group.
Conservative Party leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.
Around 2 million pensioners were already living in poverty prior to the crisis, according to data from the Center for Ageing Better, a charity focused on improving the lives of older people, whose 2022 annual report found that there were more than 200,000 more poor pensioners in 2021 than in the previous year.
Around 44% of people who have reached the current UK state pension age of 66 say it is their main source of income, according to figures from the Money and Pension Service, which is sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. Most pensioners are on the basic state pension at £141.85 a week (around $170), or about £7,400 ($8,770) a year, with a newer pension introduced in 2016 equal to about £9,600 ($11,376) a year. The state pension rose by 3.1% in April, a figure far below the inflation rate at the time, at 9%. The next increase in state pension will be next April.
“So those people were already struggling, and now we’re in a situation where they will be having an even worse time and many more will have fallen into poverty because of what’s happening,” said Morgan Vine, head of policy and influencing at the charity Independent Age.
People who responded to a survey conducted by Independent Age in June and July painted a dismal picture of their daily life. “I have turned my heating off, I don’t mop my floor as often. I do not vacuum as often, I only wash up if I really have to, I can no longer bake with my grandchildren which breaks my heart,” said one, whose name was not given.
“Holiday a thing of the past, social life a thing of the past, if the costs continue to rise I have no answers, wouldn’t mind work but am 88 no one wants me,” said another respondent, also unnamed.
Such poverty is exacerbating health conditions, with life expectancy also dropping, according to the Center for Ageing Better report, which noted that the number of years older people are spending in good health is also on the decline.
The NHS Confederation, a body representing leaders in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) said this month that fuel poverty in particular is creating a “vicious cycle of healthcare need,” explaining that doctors can treat a patient’s illness but that if the ailment – for example, a chest infection – is caused by cold, damp housing, the cycle of infection will continue when the patient returns home.
It’s a concern that’s on DeBurgo’s mind. She’s not sure how she’ll afford to keep the heat on this winter to manage the symptoms connected to her fibromyalgia and arthritis.
Rather, the driver had just left a brothel in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, and sheriff's police officers had been watching. What Sgt. Timothy Hannigan and his team really wanted was information.
"How to get in; what do you got to do when you get in? Who do you pay? What do you got to pay? Is there any secret word? Is there a secret text message you've got to send to get in there?" are the questions to which police want answers, Hannigan explained.
The people who are pulled over do talk to officers – and tell them everything, Hannigan said.
"Usually, they're nervous, and then, they don't want to get caught up with their wife," Hannigan said. "So we talk to them. We just ask them if they'll cooperate with us, and they do."
Hannigan told Donlon the Sheriff's police had been watching the Bridgeport brothel for two and a half weeks. The next step was to shut it down.
Joining a raid for the first time, was Pamela Nicole Dukes. She joined the Cook County Sheriff's Police Special Victims Unit in January.
But the man who died at age 91 on Tuesday was also reviled by many countrymen who blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union and its diminution as a superpower. The Russian nation that emerged from its Soviet past shrank in size as 15 new nations were created.
The loss of pride and power also eventually led to the rise of Vladimir Putin, who has tried for the past quarter-century to restore Russia to its former glory and beyond.
“After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms. He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation” President Joe Biden said.
Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War but although widely feted abroad, he was a pariah at home. It was unclear how news of his death will be received in Russia amid its nationalist war in Ukraine.
World leaders paid tribute to a man some described as a great and brave leader.
Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “in a time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all.”
French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened up a path of liberty for Russians. His commitment to peace in Europe changed our shared history.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called him “a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history” and “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War.”
“The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace,” the U.N. chief said in a statement.
He added that “these were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”
China's ruling Communist Party will hold its five-yearly congress beginning on Oct. 16, with Xi Jinping poised to secure an historic third leadership term and cement his place as the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
The Politburo announced on Tuesday the start date for the congress, which typically lasts about a week and takes place mostly behind closed doors at the Great Hall of the People on the western side of Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
Xi, 69, has steadily consolidated power since becoming party general secretary a decade ago, eliminating any known factional opposition to his rule. He is expected to exert largely unchallenged control over key appointments and policy directives at a Congress that many China-watchers liken to a coronation.
Despite headwinds that have buffeted his path to a third term - from a moribund economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and rare public protests to rising frictions with the West and tensions over Taiwan - Xi is poised to secure a mandate to pursue his grand vision for the "rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" for years to come.
Since assuming power, Xi, the son of a communist revolutionary, has strengthened the party and its role across society and eliminated space for dissent.
Under Xi, China has also become far more assertive on the global stage as a leader of the developing world and an alternative to the U.S.-led, post-World War Two order.
"He will take China to an even more Sino-centric approach to policy, particularly foreign policy," said Steve Tsang, director of the University of London's SOAS China Institute. "He will also reinforce the importance of the party leading everything in China, and the party following its leader fully," Tsang said.
Xi's likely ascendancy to a third five-year term, and possibly more, was set in 2018 when he eliminated the limit of two terms for the presidency, a position that is set to be renewed at the annual parliamentary meeting in March.
On Wednesday, the website of the party's official People's Daily posted an infographic highlighting Xi's vision, including one of his signature pronouncements: "Party, government, military, people, education; east, south, west, north, central: the party leads everything."
KEY PERSONNEL
A day after the 20th Party Congress, Xi is expected again to be conferred the roles of General Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
With little change expected in broad policy direction, key outcomes from the Congress will revolve around personnel - who joins Xi on the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and who replaces Premier Li Keqiang, who is set to retire in March.
Contenders to be premier, a role charged with management of the economy, include Wang Yang, 67, who heads a key a political advisory body, and Hu Chunhua, 59, a vice premier. Both were previously the Communist Party boss of the powerhouse southern province of Guangdong.
Another possibility for the premiership is Chen Min'er, 61, a Xi protege who is party chief of the vast municipality of Chongqing but has never held nationwide office.
The makeup and size of the next PSC, now at seven members, will also be closely watched.
Two current members have reached traditional retirement age, and China-watchers will look for whether the inclusion of any new member reflects a need to accommodate alternative viewpoints, although under Xi the notion of "factions" in Chinese politics appears largely to have become a relic.
"After putting his loyalists into positions of power with this party congress, Xi will have a bigger mandate to push through whatever policies he wants," said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
BEYOND THE CONGRESS
After the congress, many in China and globally will watch for Beijing's efforts to stave off a protracted economic downturn, which raises the chance COVID curbs being eased, although a lack of widespread immunity among China's 1.4 billion people and the absence of more effective mRNA vaccines remain constraints.
Beijing's strict "dynamic zero" COVID policy has led to frequent and disruptive lockdowns that have frustrated citizens, battered its economy and made China a global outlier.
Investors will also watch for how Beijing copes with souring relations with the West.
Xi's stated desire to bring Taiwan under Beijing's control will also be in focus during a third term, especially with tensions heightened following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent Taipei visit. Taiwan's democratically-elected government strongly rejects China's sovereignty claims.
Since assuming power, Xi has quashed dissent in the once-restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang and brought Hong Kong to heel with a sweeping national security law.
Few China-watchers expect Beijing to make a military move on Taiwan anytime soon, and there is little sign of preparing society for such a high-risk step and the blowback it would provoke, such as heavy Western sanctions.
But for Xi, successfully resolving the "Taiwan question" would secure his place in Chinese history alongside Mao's.
Daily Mail Australia has been told Victorian prisons have been flooded with Wifi signals over the past two years, with tablets provided to prisoners in an effort to keep the peace and allow inmates to maintain contact with loved ones.
Hope, 26, has been caged for the past 10 years and has another five to serve after initially being placed into juvenile detention for what was supposed to be a maximum of 16 months.
It was May 18, 2012 when Hope was first locked-up and since that day he has spent most of his time caged in isolation cells due to his targeted violence against prison staff.
'When I was 17, most kids were in school trying to get their first kiss. I was at f**king adult prison,' he told Obeda from his prison cell.
Hope had been moved to adult jail after he bashed staff at Parkville Youth Justice Centre, which houses children aged between 15-17 years of age.
Hope's 'chin-check' on a Parkville guard earned him an additional two-and-a-half year stay in an adult jail.
Housed in isolation alongside the likes of Obeda, things went from bad to worse for the young offender.
Due for release in December 2015, Hope, aged just 20, went on a bloody rampage two months before his release date while caged within Barwon Prison, which also houses some of the nation's most violent criminals.
'The screws were just racist c**ts. Just bad, racist f**king scumbags,' Hope claimed.
When his request to be moved back into isolation was rejected by prison management, Hope said he decided 'to go hard on the screws'.
'Bashed the whole unit and got 10 years for it,' Hope said.
Stuck again in isolation, Hope had yet another nine months added to his sentence just a couple of years later when he attacked the guards while trying to bash Christopher Dean Binse - aka 'Badness'.
Binse is one of Australia's most infamous criminals, who like Hope has spent most of his life behind bars.
Hope said he was compelled to bash Binse, who claims to have reformed in recent years, because of his persistent ratting on other inmates.
'Apparently he's an alleged underworld figure, biggest dog going around, lagging everyone,' Hope said.
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