Category: Blog

According to Irish the journal 10 hours ago

9,753 people were recording living in emergency accommodation in December.

HE NUMBER OF people living in emergency accommodation dropped in December, but Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has said this number was “anticipated given the time of year”.

Emergency accommodation figures for December show that there were
collectively 9,753 people living in emergency accommodation across Ireland, a drop of 215 people when compared with November.

The vast majority of these are in Dublin, and include families living in
hotels.

The number of homeless adults rose by 37 in December to 6,194.

Despite the rise in adults presenting as homeless, the Department of Housing noted there was a decrease in the number of families accessing emergency accommodation nationally with 111 fewer families, including 252 children.

For the fifth consecutive month, the number of families presenting to
homeless services in Dublin has decreased.

In December, 70 families were prevented from entering emergency
accommodation in Dublin.

Commenting on the figures, Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy said that the increase of adults accessing emergency accommodation last month

was expected given the large numbers of new beds introduced for rough sleepers in the Dublin region”.

These individuals are now receiving the care and support that they need to
exit homelessness to an independent tenancy,” he said.

Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that he welcomed any
reduction in the number of people homeless, but said this was a result of the usual annual seasonal drop in the number of families with children that occurs every Christmas”.

What today’s figures tell us is that the Government still has not got a grip
on the homeless crisis,” he said. “They are failing to stem the flow of
families into emergency accommodation and are not getting homeless families
into permanent tenancies fast enough.”

Weather 

Yesterday, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) urged members of the public to report anyone sleeping rough in the capital as temperatures plunge over the next few days.

A Status Yellow weather warning issued by Met Éireann kicked in at 6am
yesterday morning and will remain in place until 6pm on Saturday.

Commenting on this, Murphy said: “I issued instructions to all local
authorities to ensure that shelter is available to all those at risk of
sleeping rough. Increased outreach activity will encourage those who are rough sleeping to avail of the available shelter.”

It was announced in November that the DRHE was to make 333 extra
beds available this winter as it aims to meet a rise in demand for its services during cold weather.

 

 

Three Hongkongers arrested for running operation that sold fake Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton handbags

Gang only sold items to foreign domestic helpers making it hard for officers to investigate

Hong Kong customs officers arrested five people, seized HK$11 million (US$1.4 million) worth of fake luxury goods, and broken up a crime ring that targeted foreign domestic helpers in the city.

Officers said it was the biggest seizure of its kind in a decade, and was the first time a crime syndicate that sold fake goods to domestic workers had been broken up.

The haul is the biggest seizure of this kind in terms of its value in 10 years,” said superintendent Guy Fong Wing-kai, head of the Intellectual Property Investigation group at the Customs and Excise Department.

Fong said an initial investigation suggested the syndicate was run by three Hongkongers who recruited two foreign domestic helpers to work in its showroom in Sham Shui Po.

The showroom, located in a commercial building in the district, was about 100 sq ft in size and connected to a 200 sq ft room that was used for storage. Another two units in the same building were also used by the syndicate for storing counterfeit goods.

Some 18,000 fake products, including from Vietnam and mainland China, were found in the showroom and storage rooms during a raid by customs officers on Sunday.

The goods included handbags, wallets and sports shoes, bearing famous names such as Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Nike.

In the showroom, three Hongkongers – one man and two women – and two foreign domestic helpers were arrested.

To avoid detection, “this showroom only served foreign domestic helpers and no locals were allowed to enter”, Fong said.

In the showroom, which opened on Sundays and public holidays, catalogues printed with photos of goods and prices were available for clients to choose the products. Fake goods were then taken from the storeroom next door and given to customers.

Divisional commander Peggy Tam Pui-ying called the quality of seized goods poor, and said the fakes were sold for between HK$50 and HK$1,300 each.

The price was between 1 and 10 per cent of the cost of genuine products,” she said.

Customs officers began investigating the gang after receiving intelligence about the operation two months ago.

Intelligence showed that the syndicate also sold fakes to hawkers who targeted foreign domestic helpers, according to the customs department.

Fong believes the gang had been operating for about three months.

We did come across difficulties during the investigation, because this showroom was only available to foreign domestic helpers,” he said.

So, we used a lot of different methods to conduct surveillance during the investigation.”

He said customs officers would continue to fight against counterfeit crime from different angles.

The five suspects, aged between 35 and 42, have been released on bail.

Over three consecutive Sundays this month customs officers mounted a separate operation against the sale of fake products at mobile hawker stalls in Central district.

During the operation, seven people – five men and two women – were arrested, and 900 fake brand-name products valued at HK$70,000 were seized.

In the run-up to Lunar New Year, local authorities have stepped up enforcement against counterfeit activities across the city. Customs officers have increased patrols at popular shopping spots in various districts, and have reminded traders to comply with the requirements of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.

The maximum penalty for selling or possessing for sale counterfeit goods is five years in jail and a HK$500,000 fine

The most common methods the drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera used to avoid imprisonment in Mexico was to either escape (which he did twice) or to not get caught in the first place.

But now that the kingpin, known as El Chapo, is standing trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, his lawyers have been forced to mount an actual defense. On Tuesday, as many had suspected, it emerged they did not offer one.

Mr. Guzmán’s case to the jury began at 9:38 a.m. when one of his lawyers, Jeffrey Lichtman, called to the stand an F.B.I. agent who explained his own small role in obtaining a piece of evidence that did not relate to the defendant. Mr. Lichtman also read aloud a stipulation, noting that for several years, his client was in debt.

Mr. Lichtman finished his presentation at 10:08 a.m. “And with that, judge,” he said, “the defense rests.”

It was clear from the beginning of the trial that little could be done for Mr. Guzmán who, after all, had been under investigation by American authorities for more than a decade. Complicating matters, he had also effectively confessed to being a drug lord in an interview with Rolling Stone two years ago.

But Mr. Guzmán’s 30-minute jury presentation seemed particularly small compared to the monumental case prosecutors brought to a close on Monday. For more than 10 weeks, the government buried the defendant in a Matterhorn of evidence from 56 witnesses, including recorded phone calls of the kingpin doing business and intercepted messages of him, his wife and mistresses.

Mr. Guzmán’s courtroom troubles began in November from the moment Mr. Lichtman delivered his opening statement. In a bold move, he claimed his client had been framed for years by his partner in the Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael Zambada Garcia, who Mr. Lichtman alleged had conspired with “crooked” American drug agents and a hopelessly corrupt Mexican government.

Two main problems emerged with this argument. One was that Judge Brian M. Cogan cut it short at the government’s request, stopping Mr. Lichtman in the middle of his speech by telling him that anything he had said was unlikely to be supported by evidence. The other was that the argument, even if true, did not exclude the possibility that Mr. Guzmán was a narco lord guilty of the charges he was facing.

During the trial, Mr. Lichtman and the two other members of Mr. Guzmán’s legal team — William Purpura and A. Eduardo Balarezo — largely spent their time attacking the credibility of the government’s 14 cooperating witnesses. Their efforts sometimes worked and sometimes did not. Most of the witnesses had also been previously charged with federal crimes and usually confessed to their misdeeds before the defense could bring them out.

Before the trial, the kingpin’s lawyers had mostly focused their attention on pointing out the harsh conditions of his confinement in the high-security wing of the Manhattan federal jail. Given Mr. Guzmán’s history of jailbreaks, he was kept for several months in isolation, forbidden to occupy the same room as his lawyers. Pretrial meetings were conducted — awkwardly at best — through a perforated plexiglass window.

In several motions, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers sought to persuade Judge Cogan that such severe conditions had eroded their client’s right to adequate legal counsel under the Sixth Amendment. While the judge improved the circumstances slightly, he was mostly unconvinced that Mr. Guzmán’s constitutional rights had been violated.

Last week, intense speculation arose over whether Mr. Guzmán might take the stand and become his own star witness. But after days of conversations with his lawyers, he told Judge Cogan on Monday that he did not plan to testify.

Little is known about those conversations because of the protections of the attorney-client privilege. But after Mr. Guzmán addressed the court, Mr. Purpura told Judge Cogan that he and his partners had explained to their client the legal perils of undergoing cross-examination. Mr. Guzmán then decided not to testify “knowingly and voluntarily,” Mr. Purpura said.

The kingpin’s lawyers will have one more shot at persuading the jury Thursday when they deliver their summation. But even that will be severely restricted if the government has its way.

On Monday night, prosecutors filed a motion to Judge Cogan asking him to preclude the defense from arguing, as they did in opening statements, that Mr. Zambada, known as Mayo, had quietly conspired with Mexican and American officials to target Mr. Guzmán.

The prosecutors not only said the claim was “preposterous,” but also quoted back Judge Cogan words from the second day of the trial.

“You can have two drug dealers, one of whom is paying off the government and one of whom is not,” he had said. “That does not mean the one who is not didn’t do the crimes.”

NICOSIA, Cyprus Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte says five European Union nations are stepping forward to help resolve the latest impasse involving migrants stuck at sea on a humanitarian ship, but he bemoaned the lack of a systematic EU way to deal with migrant rescues.

A coastguard boat approaches the German humanitarian group’s rescue boat Sea Watch 3, to deliver food and blankets for the cold, off the coast of Syracuse, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. The Italian coast guard is bringing socks, shoes, bread and fruit to 47 migrants who have been stranded at sea for nine days aboard a German ship

Conte said Tuesday that the crisis over the Sea-Watch 3, which has been stuck off Sicily with 47 rescued migrants since Friday, demonstrates the EU’s incapacity to manage this phenomenon with shared European mechanisms.” He spoke Tuesday in Cyprus at the close of a southern European summit.

But Conte said individual countries had stepped forward late Tuesday to say they would take some of the migrants. The Italian news agency ANSA, citing Conte, said the five countries are Germany, France, Portugal, Romania and Malta.

There was no immediate word on when or where the migrants, who were rescued Jan. 19 off the coast of Libya, would disembark. Conte was to meet with the leaders of Italy’s two governing coalition parties, including hard-line Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the League party, upon his return to Rome.

Italy’s populist government has refused to allow humanitarian ships to dock in its ports in a bid to force its European partners to share the burden of arrivals. During the same press conference as Conte, French President Emmanuel Macron said France abided by three principals: respect for humanitarian rights in maritime matters, disembarkation at the nearest port and distributing the migrants. He said these standards should become a permanent mechanism

The Dutch-flagged Sea Watch 3, which is operated by a German humanitarian group, was allowed into Italian waters late last week off the Sicilian port of Syracuse due to deteriorating weather conditions.

Human rights activists and some politicians have denounced Italy’s refusal to allow the migrants to land as inhumane. “The psychological conditions of these people is worsening quickly. They need to get immediate medical attention on land,” EU lawmaker Cecile Kyenge told Sky TG24.

Earlier Tuesday, Europe’s human rights court denied a request by the head of the Sea Watch group, the Sea Watch 3’s captain and one of the migrants to disembark the 47 migrants. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, however requested in its decision that Italy “take all necessary measures as soon as possible” to give the migrants adequate medical care, food, water and supplies. And it said the 15 unaccompanied minors on the boat should receive legal guardianship.

Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli claimed on Twitter that the human rights court had sided with Italy. “We must guarantee the migrants food, treatment and adequate assistance. And that is what we are doing. But we don’t have an obligation to disembark,” he said.

In another similar instance, Salvini faces possible charges for failing to allow 177 migrants to disembark at a port in Catania in August. Prosecutors have declined to press charges for kidnapping and abuse of office, saying Salvini was enacting government policy beyond the scope of the courts. But a judicial review body ruled otherwise, and has asked the Senate, where Salvini has a seat, to allow the case to procced.

The migrants in that case were allowed to disembark after five days.

WASHINGTON The Latest on Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone all times local: 11:45 a.m. Donald Trump’s longtime friend and confidant Roger Stone has made an uncharacteristically silent exit from his court hearing.

Former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, arrives at Federal Court, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019, in Washington. Stone was arrested in the special counsel’s Russia investigation and was charged with lying to Congress and obstructing the probe.

Stone left the federal courthouse in Washington on Tuesday without speaking publicly after entering a not guilty plea to charges filed in the special counsel’s Russia investigation. Stone raised his hands to make victory signs and smiled as he hopped into a black SUV amid a swarm of protesters and supporters.

The political operative was arrested last week in Florida and spent the weekend publicly blasting special counsel Robert Mueller’s case against him as politically motivated. He’s charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Prosecutors say Stone lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton released during the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone has pleaded not guilty to charges in the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

Stone appeared Tuesday for his arraignment at the federal courthouse in Washington after spending the weekend blasting special counsel Robert Mueller’s case against him as politically motivated.

The self-proclaimed dirty trickster was arrested last week during a pre-dawn raid at his Florida home. He is charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering. Prosecutors say he lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton that the anti-secrecy group released during the 2016 campaign.

Stone is also accused of corruptly influencing the testimony of another witness.

Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone has arrived at the federal courthouse in Washington as he faces charges in the Russia investigation.

Stone arrived Tuesday in a black SUV wearing an all-blue suit and tie. He waved to a small crowd of supporters and protesters, including some yelling, “Lock him up.”

The longtime political operative is appearing for his arraignment after spending the weekend blasting special counsel Robert Mueller’s case against him as politically motivated.

Stone was arrested in Florida last week and is charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Prosecutors say Stone lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton that the anti-secrecy group released during the 2016 campaign.

After a weekend of publicity and television news appearances, Roger Stone will come before a federal judge who may look to silence the Donald Trump confidant.

Stone faces a Tuesday morning arraignment in Washington, where he is expected to plead not guilty to charges that he lied to Congress and engaged in witness tampering.

Stone is a self-described dirty trickster and longtime confidant of the president. He has asserted his innocence in a series of TV interviews since his pre-dawn arrest Friday in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Being outspoken is an unusual strategy given that most defendants tend to stay quiet as their case proceeds.

It’s unclear whether Mueller’s prosecutors will look to have Stone locked up, and whether Magistrate Deborah Robinson might impose a gag order.