The Inspectorate of Constabulary has said ‘inconsistent’ approaches to policing fraud in England and Wales leaves people at high risk of scams. One officer told its inquiry that a crime was not a priority if it didn’t ‘bang, bleed or shout’. Police said ‘significant’ work was under way to address the problems. By 2017 identity theft had reached epidemic levels. Recent police statistics show that over £190,000 a day is being lost in the UK by victims of cyber-crime, with people in their 30s the most-targeted group. The elderly are ‘under siege’ from scammers. Inspectors visited 11 police forces and other agencies that tackle fraud. One force filed 96% of the cases it received from a national intelligence bureau without further investigation, despite inspectors finding a good deal of evidence, including names of suspects, in some of the cases. Another force had only two dedicated fraud investigators.

Professor Martin Siegert from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London said that the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are now, there were trees at the South Pole, sea levels were 20 metres higher than they are now, and global temperatures were 3C-4C warmer. If we keep carbon emissions going at the current rate, by the end of the century we will have 1,000ppm, compared to the low 280ppm level of CO2 prior to the industrial revolution. The Bible says God created the light, land, sea, vegetation, fish, birds and every living creature and ‘saw that it was good’. The earth and everything on it reflect the wonder of God; our concern for creation should be rooted in our worship of the God who made it all.

Priests at a Catholic parish in northern Poland have burnt books, including the Harry Potter series, and other items that their owners said had evil forces. Images from the burning at Gdansk’s Mother of Church parish on Sunday were posted on Facebook by a Catholic foundation that uses unconventional ways of religious work. In the pictures, flames are consuming an African wooden mask, figurines of elephants, and books on personality and magic, as well as those by J K Rowling, all brought in by parishioners. A priest and altar boys watched the book-burning. The foundation said the book-burning was intended to alert parishioners to bad influences which it says come from magic and the occult. Comments under the post condemned the action, recalling that it also happened in Nazi Germany before World War II.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna delivered the message at the mass on George Vella’s swearing-in as Malta’s tenth president. Scicluna made the point that ‘the economic prosperity of a country is on solid foundations when its leaders embrace wisdom and righteousness’. He said the reputation of Malta’s strength and growth depends on whether the values of integrity, justice and solidarity are made a political priority. ‘If the first or only thing we seek is gain or profits, democracy becomes a kerdocracy - a society based on a rush for profit - and from there on it is easy to slide into a kleptocracy, a society where power is concentrated in the hands of the greediest.’ On the same day, the Council of Europe published its report on the effectiveness of Malta’s prevention of corruption, and called for more robust action in the government and police. See https://theshiftnews.com/2019/04/03/council-of-europe-calls-for-robust-action-against-government-corruption-in-malta/