2024

It's always someone else's fault.

There's more to pensions than the funds themselves, such as the underlying annuity rates. I doubt the average man in the street benefited greatly.

Interesting speculation that if the CDU win next years German elections they will probably need a coalition partner,the CDU say they will not cooperate with the AfD at national level (although they do cooperate at a local level) so they might ask the BSW to be a coalition partner,if they do the BSW will demand an end to German military aid to Ukraine.

Die Linke are finished, should have been banned anyway,the KPD was banned in West Germany after reunification the ban should have applied to all communist associated parties from the East too.
I think though that this leftist nationalist idea will attract a lot of voters, BSW and AfD have some similar policies and both will syphon support fom the tired old parties,its the same in France,in fact its the same all around Europe.

Grenfell inquiry blames governments, companies and fire service in damning final report..by Emily Atkinson and Marita Moloney

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'Dishonesty and incompetence': Seven takeaways from the report

1..Manufacturers of cladding products – which were “by far the largest contributor” to the fire – were found to have engaged in “systematic dishonesty”, and used “deliberate and sustained strategies” to make their products appear safe

2..Arconic, the company which made the cladding panels on the tower’s exterior, are found to have “deliberately concealed” the safety risk; two firms which produced insulation - Celotex and Kingspan - were found to have “misled”

3..“Incompetent” companies involved in the 2011 refurbishment of the tower – Studio E and Harley Facades – are found to bear “significant” responsibility for the disaster, while project manager Rydon’s oversight of the work led to a culture of “buck-passing”

4..“Many opportunities” to address the risks posed by flammable cladding were missed by governments from the early 1990s onwards, culminating in “decades of failure”

5..The 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat government is strongly criticised for its focus on cutting regulation, which led to safety matters being “ignored, delayed or disregarded”

6..Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council and its social housing arm, the Tenant Management Organisation, had a “persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people”

7..London Fire Brigade lacked a strategy to evacuate the building once they had lost control, and had an “unfounded assumption” the type of blaze which occurred at Grenfell Tower could not happen


The publication of the final 1,700-page report comes more than seven years after the fire took hold and spread through cladding on the West London block

Everyone best change to Tesco Mobile then !

No one comes out of this well!
Interesting that very little has changed since and companies are still cutting corners.
Many buildings are still highly dangerous as the tenant leaseholders can't afford to pay for the enormous cost of changing the outside cladding whilst the freeholders who have leased the buildings seemed to have escaped scot free.

Cladding boss denies contributing to Grenfell disaster..Tom Symonds, Callum May, & Bruno Bolpaep in France, BBC News

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Claude Wehrle (pictured) was the technical manager for French firm Arconic and crucial in the development of highly flammable cladding panels

A cladding company boss heavily criticised by the Grenfell Tower inquiry has denied playing a part in the disaster.

Claude Wehrle, the former head of the technical sales support team at manufacturer Arconic, told BBC News the deaths of 72 people was "a tragedy".

He said he was “not the one making decisions” about the sales of flammable Reynobond PE cladding.

The inquiry's final report said Mr Wehrle resorted to “deliberate dishonesty” to sell the product, including to firms in the UK.

Mr Wehrle prompted outrage among Grenfell victims by refusing to give evidence to the inquiry in person, saying he was prevented from doing so by French law.

The inquiry’s final report criticised him and two other Arconic employees for putting “the debatable requirements of French law above the interests of the survivors".

The report found that following successive fire performance tests in the 2000s, Mr Wehrle realised the cladding was more likely to burn if it was folded into box shapes, a standard design in the building industry, and the form that was used on Grenfell Tower in west London.

In 2010 Mr Wehrle sent an email to colleagues pointing out that, in this shape, the Reynobond PE product would not meet European fire standards for tall buildings, adding “we have to keep [this] as ‘VERY CONFIDENTIAL’”.

The same year he wrote to a customer that the box shape would be safer.

The Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry said this comment demonstrated “his willingness to resort to deliberate dishonesty in order to support the sale of the product”.

Arconic also withheld the test results from a British body which issued product safety certificates used in the construction industry.

Asked by the BBC why, Mr Wehrle - who has since left Arconic and lives in eastern France where he volunteers as a firefighter - insisted it had not been his decision.

He said: “There are people in that company who were better placed than me to make that kind of decision.”

Responding to the fact his name appears more than a hundred times in the inquiry's final report, Mr Wehrle said: “I can’t say whether it is fair or unfair. That’s about justice.”

He said the deaths in the tower were “a tragedy and more than a pity".

“I feel the same way any other human being would, whether bearing no responsibility at all or not," he added.

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Elon Musk is on track to become the world's first trillionaire by 2027..by Taryn Pedler

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Elon Musk 53, is heading towards becoming the world's first trillionaire by 2027, according to a new global wealth report.

However, a new report by Informa Connect Academy has revealed Musk's wealth has been growing at a staggering average rate of 110 per cent a year.

This means that if the Tesla CEO's wealth continues to climb at the same rate - he could be crowned the world's first trillionaire within the next three years, according to the findings. The report - titled the 2024 Trillion Dollar Club - puts Musk's Tesla business at a market value of $669.3billion.

The company's growth rate is also impressively high, at 173.3 per cent according to Informa Connect Academy, which means Tesla alone could exceed $1trillion by as early as next year. The academy's analysis suggested business conglomerate founder Guatam Adani from India would be second in line to achieve trillionaire status. That would reportedly happen the year following Musk, in 2028, if his annual growth remains at 123 per cent.

Just days before Informa Connect Academy crowned Musk as the most likely to become the world's first trillionaire, the businessman said astronauts could land on Mars within four years as NASA faces pressure over its delayed plans to land on the moon.

Musk's SpaceX is set to launch its first uncrewed Starships to the Red Planet in two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens- to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If the tests prove unsuccessful, SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2022, will launch crewed flights to Mars in four years.

Musk's other businesses include neurotechnology firm Neuralink, and The Boring Company - a tunnel construction company.

He also brought Twitter for around $44billion in late-2022 before controversially rebranding it X and most recently the multi-billionaire faced a feud with Brazil' Supreme Court which saw the platform banned in the country.

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