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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cardiff Council could be in line for a major shake up following draft proposals to redraw ward boundaries, in a move which one councillor labelled “gerrymandering”.

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.

VERBAL volleyball between Councillor Neil McEvoy and former councillors at a community meeting suggested the new code of conduct is not working.
At a Police and Community Together (PACT) meeting on Wednesday, Coun McEvoy and former Labour councillor Michael Michael argued over the issue of whether the council had or had not gritted the streets and pavements of Fairwater during the recent cold period.
Coun McEvoy defeated Mr Michael at the last council elections in May 2008, and since then signs of their acrimonious relationship have regularly been on display at PACT …

A LIBRARY which will celebrate its 50th birthday this summer has been promised a £150,000 upgrade by the deputy leader of Cardiff Council. But the funding has not yet been secured.

Councillor Neil McEvoy told residents at a Partnership and Communities Together (PACT) meeting at Pentrebane Community Centre they would see a refurbishment of Faiwater library in Doyle Avenue over the coming year. But the council budget for 2010-11 shows the funding for Coun McEvoy’s announcement has not yet been approved.

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 …

The Welsh Communist Party will contest the Cardiff South and Penarth parliamentary seat at the next general election.
Rob Griffiths, the party’s general secretary in Britain since 1998 , has been chosen to run against controversial Labour MP Alun Michael, who was embroiled in the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Mr Griffiths currently lives in Splott and attended Bryn Hafod primary school in Llanrumney, where he grew up. He has been an activist for the Communist Party across Wales and England since 1983, and has also attended party conferences throughout the world, recently returning …

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.

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.

Up to 8,000 new jobs for Cardiff could be at risk after inspectors blasted plans for an International Business Park next to the M4.

Independent businesses in Cardiff are fearing for the future after the closure of a number of restaurants and bars in recent weeks, despite the Welsh Assembly claiming it has taking steps to reduce business rates to help retailers in the area.
Two businesses in the heart of Cardiff Bay have been forced to close their doors in the last few weeks, along with the closure of The Point, a popular music venue, before Christmas, and there is fear among the local community that more will follow.

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.

An interview with Simon Hoare, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Cardiff South and Penarth, at his home in Atlantic Wharf, Butetown.
Mr Hoare spoke about MPs’ expenses, his experiences of campaigning against Alun Michael, devolution in Wales, public sector cuts and the future of South Wales’s economy, among other topics.

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.

An interview with Alun Michael, the MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, at his constituency office in Cathedral Road, Riverside.
Topics included the International Sports Village in Cardiff Bay, a hung parliament and working with Plaid Cymru, whether he has been damaged by the expenses scandal, devolution, fighting a general election through social media, and banning khat.

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 …

A Cardiff community centre has received exactly the same grant money for over a decade even though the real value of the sum has decreased dramatically.

The core grant funding from Cardiff City Council for South Riverside community centre has stayed at £28,035 since 2000 when they received additional funding. The sum in 2000 would now be worth more than £7000 more in real value yet the grant has remained the same.

Almost a month since an earthquake shocked Haiti a CD to help raise funds for the devastated community has been launched in Cardiff.

Chris Rees while in Haiti in 2002
Steve Garrett and Welsh singer/songwriter Chris Rees visited the Caribbean island in 2002 to work with schools in the north of the country as part of The Haiti Fund.

LOCAL residents are “up in arms” about plans to hold two major concerts in a 10-day period at Cardiff City Stadium this summer.

Welsh band Stereophonics are playing a sell-out show in the 32,000 seater venue on June 5, while an announcement about the act or date for the second show has not yet been made.

But Canton councillor Ramesh Patel has accused Cardiff City football club of “moving the goalposts” on an agreement not to hold concerts at the Leckwith Road ground.

A meeting between Cardiff Council and residents living above a Cardiff row of shops is being held tomorrow (Tuesday) in attempt to solve the recent security issues in the area.

A FRUSTRATED single mum is having to watch her garden disappear into a huge ditch she has been lobbying Cardiff Council to fill for nearly 10 years.

39-year-old dental nurse Jacky Pemberton first noticed the vast former railway cutting when she moved into her house in Powderham Drive, Grangetown, in 1995. Next week she will have been campaigning to have it filled for 10 years.

Cardiff officials have dismissed the case for legalising heroin, made yesterday by the leader of Carmarthenshire council, as both impractical and unrealistic — though a senior council official has advised against hysteria from either side of the debate.

Reacting to the comments, made by Meryl Gravell OBE, leader of Carmarthenshire county council, Cardiff councillor Heather Joyce said she saw no logic behind making hard drugs legal.