HUMAN rights campaigners planning to picket the Israeli ambassador when he comes to Cardiff tomorrow have attacked a university debating society’s decision not to invite any Palestinian representative to an event they have branded a “PR initiative”.
Cardiff Stop the War Coalition have indicated they will be staging a protest when the Israeli ambassador visits the city tomorrow evening to give a speech at Cardiff University Debating Society.

TIM Henman has said the appointment of Leon Smith as Davis Cup captain would be a “steep learning curve” for Andy Murray’s former coach.

The former British number one said Smith could be just the sort of coach that Britain needs right now to head up the team.

But he also criticised the current crop of players below Murray for not “maximising their potential.”

Forking out £5.50 everyday to get home seems extreme but it is a reality hundreds of Welsh people who work across the Severn estuary face on a daily basis.
Since 1966 the Severn Bridge has allowed easy passage between Wales and England and as a result it has connected Wales with the rest of the UK, but this has come with a high price tag for those who use the bridge on a regular basis. In November 2009 an e-petition was started in an attempt to gain support for a campaign to get tolls on the Severn Crossing reduced.

More than 100 commuters an hour could travel from Penarth to Cardiff by boat as a Cardiff company takes the first step towards having regular water bus services.

At 25 minutes, the journeys on a fleet of five £90,000 boats, which would run every 15 minutes between around 7am and 7pm and stop at Cardiff Central station and Bute Park, could be quicker than commuting by car.

Yet company owners have criticised the Cardiff Council-controlled Cardiff Harbour Authority, saying the boats could go twice as fast if speed restrictions on the River Taff were lifted.

A charity night to raise money for a cancer charity will be held in Cardiff tonight.

The evening, which has been put together by a local art student with the help of The Exemplars, a London based volunteer group which puts on events for various charities, will raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

WHEN most people hear the words unlicensed boxing they think of illegal, underground, bare-knuckle bouts like those seen in Snatch or Fight Club.

But on Saturday, 1000 fight fans will descend on the Cardiff City Stadium for the ground’s first boxing event. Like professional boxing, unlicensed boxing has all the same regulations; there is a referee, a round system, gloves and Queensbury rules, the only difference is that it is not covered by the British Boxing Board of Control.

A CARDIFF Assembly Member hit out today at suggestions all primary school children should receive free school meals, saying the scheme would be unaffordable for Wales. Jenny Randerson AM slammed a study by trade union GMB which suggested trials of free school meals for all primary school pupils in two English councils should be extended across the UK.

The announcement of 250 jobs created in Cardiff by Barclaycard today has been hailed a “big vote of confidence for Wales” by Welsh Assembly Government’s First Minister Carwyn Jones.

Barclaycard confirmed it will move work from Barclays Partner Finance in Glasgow in the summer, following months of consultations. The jobs will be in the same building as First Plus, another loans company, based in Pontprennau, to the north east of the capital. Roles will include management trainees and customer loan advisers.

First Minister Jones said: “I welcome the announcement by Barclays of …

The Welsh Assembly decision on whether electronic pet training devices should be outlawed may raise support for a simultaneous campaign against cruelty to greyhounds today.
The vote to decide on the Assembly Government’s proposal, put forward by Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones last month, to ban the use of collars administering electric shock to dogs or cats, will be held this afternoon.
Ms Jones AM said: “The legislation I am bringing before the National Assembly for Wales today will, if approved, ban the use of electric shock collars in Wales.
“This has not …

The tapping of laptop keys is a sound which has come to characterise cafés such as Starbucks, as freelance workers and entrepreneurs settle themselves in these spaces as an alternative to forking out high prices for their own offices. But accountant Mark Hooper is turning this culture on its head.
Mr Hooper has brought the growing craze of co-working, which has become massive in America, to Cardiff as an alternative to working alone in cafés.
Indycube is a concept Mr Hooper has been developing for the past five years, but the space itself has been situated in the ITV media centre at Culverhouse Cross, Cardiff, for the past six months.

PROPERTY investors who have benefited from a 50 per cent council tax discount have targeted Butetown and Grangetown as prime locations for purchasing second homes in Cardiff.

The two districts south of the city centre have more than a quarter of the capital’s unoccupied furnished properties. Butetown has 553 and Grangetown 295. At the other end of the scale, St Mellons and St Fagans have only 11 and six second homes.

Up to now these second homes and those properties unoccupied between lets have been eligible for a 50 per cent reduction in their council tax. But from next month the city’s 2,795 unoccupied furnished properties will be liable for the full amount.

St Patrick’s Day celebrations began early in Cardiff city centre as world champion Irish dancers took to the streets with staff from O’Neill’s pub to raise money for local Welsh charity LATCH.
Cardiff is one of four cities taking part in the national “Join the Jig” campaign, which is one of many fundraising activities taking place across the 62 O’Neill’s pubs in the UK in the run up to St Patrick’s Day on Wednesday.

Two Cardiff men are embarking on a new venture to connect local businesses in Cardiff and give something back to local charities through a new online business directory with a twist.
Cardiff Business Online will launch at the end of March and is the first part of a three-stage-plan to help connect Cardiff-based businesses. The online directory will offer businesses the opportunity to place their profile online for just £10 a month and advertise to consumers in a new way through the use of Twitter.

Unstaffed tanning salons could soon be outlawed after a proposal by Cardiff North MP Julie Morgan today moved a step closer to becoming law.

The Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill would also make it illegal for people under the age of 18 to use sunbeds, with a fine of up to £20,000 for any salons caught breaking the law.

Cardiff councillors charged the taxpayer over £30 every day in travel expenses during the last financial year.

Forty per cent of the bill came from taxi charges after councillors argued the public transport in the city, including the council-owned Cardiff Bus, was not good enough.

A senior Cardiff councillor spoke in support today of a steep pay cut proposed for Cardiff council’s highest-earning members. Plaid Cymru executive member for transport Delme Bowen said he supported cutting cabinet members’ maximum allowances by 9.1 per cent, as recommended in yesterday’s annual report by the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales.

Musing on “How we came to live in unforgiving despair,” the incomparable stylings of Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip effortlessly produce the thought-provoking social commentary many have failed to elucidate.

A tax consultant from Cardiff has written a novel in a bid to become an independent MP. Alun Mathias, 49, distributed 1,200 free copies of his book Vicky and the Pit to homes in Cathays at a personal cost of nearly £3,000.

Entering the large, over-polished restaurant in Cardiff’s Brewery Quarter, the impossibly white linen and delicate floral displays might make you think you had entered an art gallery instead of an eatery.

Thai Edge is the epitome of contemporary oriental design. It looks flawless, and even if the atmosphere is slightly pretentious, the food lives up to the high price tag.

The platform for Asian music in Wales has been put under threat by the proposed axing of the Asian Network by the BBC director-general, Mark Thompson, this week.
The station, which has come under severe criticism recently for falling listener numbers, plays a vital role in the promotion of Asian music across Wales but without its powerful backing, Welsh Asian music will find it difficult to reach the mainstream audience.

CARDIFF Council’s Labour leader said he will call for a commemoration of former leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot, who died this week.
Councillor Ralph Cook said there was frenetic activity in the Labour office the day Mr Foot died, but he was unsure if there were any plans for a formal tribute as of yet.
“I was fortunate enough to meet Michael Foot quite by accident about ten years ago, just before I became a Councillor.
“It was at Newport Train Station and, even though the person I was with didn’t …

Danish pop outfit Alphabeat have been filling their diaries of late, with any available slot seeming like an affront to their current work ethic.
This said, the group’s vocal duo, Stine Bramsen and Anders SG, seemed surprisingly relaxed as they sat in a dingy office above Cardiff’s HMV this week.
Surprising, that is, because their second album, The Beat Is…, was released on Monday, mid-way through their UK tour with chart impresario Lady Gaga, leaving them just enough time to squeeze in a spate of in-store performances around the country.
But this visit …

On the face of things, physical violence towards a team-mate should be at least on a par with putting a colleague through emotional turmoil.

So why is Craig Bellamy being hailed as a paragon of virtue for vilifying John Terry a mere three years after attacking John Arne Riise with a golf club?

An exhibition to celebrate Cardiff and East Glamorgan Girlguiding has opened to celebrate the centenary of the movement.
The exhibition, which began on Tuesday March 2,  is being held at The Cardiff Story exhibition space in the Old Library, Hayes, and will celebrate the girl guides history throughout the UK and the world.
The Cardiff Story spokesman Jim Groves said: “On display there are different examples of camping methods used by the Guides from the 1950s up to the futuristic look of 2050, and they’ve got a dragon boat which was used …

PROTESTORS picketed outside a Cardiff nightclub last night against the final of the Miss University GB final which was being held inside.
The protest, organised by the National Union of Students women’s campaign, was a continuation of their campaign against objectification in student unions. About 25 people, men and women, gathered outside Oceana nightclub in Cardiff city centre, with placards and leaflets with slogans such as “Mark my essays not my looks” and “Lectures not letching”, before the final was due to begin at 6.30pm.

The BBC’s announcement to axe Radio Station 6 Music today has angered listeners and musicians throughout the UK. The BBC Introducing programme, run through 6 music, has helped many Welsh bands by giving them a platform and radio air time.
This is the only chance for bands, like Cardiff’s Decimals, who played at last year’s Swn festival at the Cardiff Arts Institute, to get recognition and build their fan base and without the radio station local artists will suffer.

Cardiff council has moved to curb the soaring number of taxis in the city today – against the legal advice of its own officers.
The decision was made at a meeting of the council’s Public Protection Committee this afternoon. The public gallery was crammed with taxi drivers, who had organised a protest about the issue outside County Hall before the meeting started.
Current policy is to issue a taxi license to any applicant with a vehicle that meets the council’s standards. But drivers say this has led to a huge rise in the number of taxis in the city over the past two years, to almost 1,000.

Welsh hurdling legend, Colin Jackson, launched the Welsh leg of The National Lottery’s Britain has Balls tour in Cardiff, yesterday.

The tour which celebrates all things ballsy Welsh people do with lottery funding, saw Jackson joined, in Queen Street, by a number of projects including drummers from Valley Kids, lifeguards from Aberavon Surf Lifeguard Club and the Construction Youth Trust.

The lottery has so far given more than 27,000 grants and pumped more than £1 billion into projects across Wales, since its launch in 1994.

The name milling around music venues across the UK is Ellie Goulding.

After winning the BBC Sound of 2010 the young star-let has been propelled into the spot-light and endorsements from the likes of Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens, have helped boost records sales and led to a Critics Choice Award at the recent 2010 BRIT Awards.

Cardiff is gearing up for a host of new challenges as the Six Nations rolls into town for Wales’s first Friday night home game, bringing with it an expected 100,000 supporters.
The police, trains, taxis and street pastors are all making plans for operations in the city before, during and after tonight’s clash with France at the Millenium Stadium.

AN ORGANISATION responsible for running community projects throughout Cardiff has been heavily condemned by a Government committee, even though local people have called it a success.

The Communites First project, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, has spent £214million of tax payers’ money since its launch in 2001, and a report published yesterday suggests, after severe managerial failures, there is no justification for its existence.

CARDIFF’S driving test centre is to perform a basic manoeuvre as it relocates just around the corner.
The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) confirmed they will be relocating from their current location at Norbury Road, Fairwater, to another site they have already identified within the Fairwater area.
Pamela Matthews of the DSA said: “We have not submitted a planning application to the Council, but we are currently in negotiations with the landlord.”
She said there will be no redundancies as a consequence of the move, nor will there be any new positions created. She …

Madame Fromage is the kind of restaurant a small, malicious part of you doesn’t want to live up to the hype. Homemade pies, locally-sourced food, a deli you can drool over as you wait for your lunch to be prepared – it ticks too many boxes.

CARDIFF Council has issued a plea for bidders which could give the capital its long-awaited Snow Dome, a permanent ice rink and a city-centre conference centre – but still no housing.

The property slump and the recession still threaten deals at the International Sports Village (ISV) in Cardiff Bay. One company has already gone bust and another lost its original contract with Cardiff Council.

Housing firm City Lofts bought an area of land at the site which the council sold to raise money for the ISV. They were supposed to build up to 40% affordable housing on the site, but they went into administration in 2008 and the land remains barren having changed hands several times.

Hispanic nu-gypsy rock isn’t the most well known genre in the musical world but Alejandro and the Magic Tombelinos provide such a performance you can hardly fail to get swept away.
Alejandro has toured with the famous Fanfare Ciocarlia and on Thursday February 18 he brought his eccentric style and unruly backing band to St David’s Hall, Cardiff.
They didn’t have the most auspicious of starts. When we arrived, the band were still huddled in a corner behind the speakers, busy drinking beer rather than tuning up. But a heavily accented apology …

“Progressive” is not a term often applied to religion, but it is the cornerstone of belief for Cardiff’s Bahá’í community.
Bahá’ísm is one of the world’s youngest faiths, and its message is simple: all the world’s transcendent figures – such as Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, Krishna, and Buddha – are true messengers from God, and are part of a recurring phenomenon of leaders sent to earth to spread His word.
In other words, Bahá’ísm is interfaith because it integrates the key figures of all religions, believing they are all sent by the …

Cardiff residents face a council tax hike after South Wales Police approved a five per cent rise in the amount they request for their annual budget. The decision to endorse the £257 million budget will add more than £7 to the annual council tax bill of the average home in the city.
The rise is a pre-emptive move to bolster the police’s resources after Chief Constable Peter Vaughan warned the force could be “facing a financial black hole in the next few years” with significant cuts expected from 2011. Addressing South …

Progenteq, a sister company of Cardiff University’s commercial partner Fusion IP, has taken significant steps towards a “miracle cure” for acute knee injuries.

Based on the research of Charlie Archer’s connective tissue research group at The Cardiff School of Biosciences, Progenteq is developing a novel method for replacing knee cartilage.

Welsh rugby ace, Andy Powell has been arrested following an incident involving a golf buggy near the M4.

It is believed, Powell and another unknown male took the golf cart from the teams’ base at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel, Golf and Spa resort and drove it to a service station on junction 33 of the M4.

Cardiff University student, Nathan Cleverly has vowed to smash Italian Antonio Brancalion and win the vacant European light-heavyweight belt when the pair go toe-to-toe tonight.
The undefeated 22-year-old, who has vacated his Commonwealth crown to take up the fight, will face the 34-year-old Italian in a top-of-the-bill bout, at Wembley Arena.
And the Cefn Fforest fighter, who has been tipped to follow in the footsteps of Joe Calzaghe, is in confident mood:  “I’m really looking forward to the fight and I’m getting really excited.  It will be great to get back in …

From the midst of the smoke in front of us emerged a lone figure standing strong as the music slowly built to a crescendo. Through the clearing smoke, a spotlight followed the figure as they glided forwards , effortlessly moving across the ice as if they were one.
They came to a halt and suddenly, with a bang, the rink was flooded with light and the figure multiplied as the daring and visually spectacular show Holiday on Ice kicked off at Cardiff International Arena on Tuesday.

A football match at Cardiff International Sports Stadium is one of many events being held to support the rehabilitation costs for a Cardiff teenager told there were no suitable aftercare facilities in Wales after he suffering a brain hemorrhage.

Cardiff hotels are booked out as early as June as rugby fans save their places in the city for a boisterous celtic Six Nation match weekend.
Hotels and bars across the city are squashing in the last few customers today as the city fills with Welsh and Scottish supporters preparing for tomorrow’s match.
At the Cardiff Marriott in Mill Lane, where all 184 rooms are full, they received bookings as early as June when the preliminary fixtures were released. Other hotels said customers had made a blanket booking for the whole of …

It was all change yet again in Cardiff city centre last week, as the council implemented phase one of its plan to pedestrianise St Mary Street and High Street.
Of course, you could be forgiven for thinking we were well past the early stages of the plan and nearing completion. But the last two and a half years, which have seen partial pedestrianisation and the replacement of gas pipes running under the street, have in fact been nothing but a prelude.

Wales have made two changes to the side tripped up at Twickenham ahead of Scotland’s visit to the Millennium Stadium on Saturday.
Jonathan Thomas replaces Luke Charteris to form an all Osprey second row with Alun Wyn Jones, who has escaped further punishment for his indiscretion at HQ, and Leigh Halfpenny coming in to the side at the expense of his regional team mate, Tom James.
Wales head coach, Warren Gatland said: “Jonathan’s been playing well for the Ospreys, we felt we wanted that experience in out tight-five and also he gives …

American football’s showpiece event, the Superbowl, is always an ostentatious spectacle; and proof, if it was needed, American sport is almost peripheral to the commercial interests of everyone else involved — other than the two teams.
But even though it is a bloated and hyperbolic event, all the peripheral grandstanding does give the event an aura which makes it one of the highlights of the sporting year. Although the timing of games is prohibitive to British audiences, the NFL is growing in this country.
On Sunday, Cardiff’s Hard Rock Café stayed open …

A 20-year-old man is still in hospital following an assault outside Cardiff Barfly after closing time last night.
The area outside the alternative music venue was still cordoned off late this morning while police gathered forensic evidence and interviewed possible witnesses and suspects.
The victim was taken to University Hospital of Wales, Heath, Cardiff, following the assault in Castle Street at 2am.
Passers-by this morning reported seeing blood stains on the pavement, covered by a sheet of cardboard weighed down by two Kronenburg beer bottles.
South Wales Police have not yet issued descriptions of …

Beer festivals still seem the last preserve of the alpha male, the heady scent of hops in the air, burly arms pressed together, men eager to get a taste of the latest ale with its suitably odd name. Women enter at their peril, or gather shivering outside the tent waiting to pick their errant beer-expert up off the floor at closing time.
Of course it’s an exaggerated picture, but walking into one of these bastions of masculinity as a woman can still turn heads. Not so at the NosDa beer festival …

Cardiff University’s Act One went for laughs over substance at their performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the YMCA theatre in The Walk, Roath.
It was a risky choice, and one made even more questionable by the programme blurb, which told us: “There isn’t really anything we cut out… Okay, so maybe two characters and two scenes, but trust us… they were rubbish.”
After such a casual dismissal of none other than Shakespeare,  I watched the curtain rise with more than a little scepticism. But the gamble payed off – mostly. Their …

Some lighter goings-on in Cardiff this week.