Monday March 19 2012 | freeword – Est. 1972 | Issue 974

gair rhyddA gair rhydd survey has indicated that only 40% of students are satis-fied with the service that their let-ting agent or landlord supplies. The survey, carried out during the first four weeks of the Spring semester, asked students in their second year of study or later to rate their hous-ing experience on topics such as the condition and quality of their house, and the helpfulness of letting agencies in resolving problems.

Over six hundred students living in rented accommodation replied to the online survey, represent-ing a wide range of letting agents and years of study. The survey has provided information about the student satisfaction achieved by different letting agents as well as showing differences in students’ experiences based on whether their property is managed by agent or by landlord.

As stated above, only 40% of stu-dents gave a positive response to the question of whether they were sat-isfied with their letting agent. How-ever, for individual letting agents this fell much lower. CPS Homes, tenants of whom made up 11.7% of respondents to the survey, achieved the lowest number of positive re-sponses with 15.5%, very closely followed by Keylet with 15.9% (see table). At the other end of the scale, 63.4% of Horizon tenants and 52.6% of Cardiff Student Lettings tenants gave a positive response.

Asked about the results of the survey, CPS Homes suggested that they did not recognise the findings of the survey, saying: “We are sur-prised and disappointed with the outcome of the survey, especially as they [sic] appear to contradict our own findings. The current lettings period for the 2012/2013 academic year has seen us house a record number of students - over 2,000 in total - and conduct viewings with in excess of 10,000 students.”

Equally, Keylet denied that they had a problem with student satis-faction. They said: “Though we are disappointed with the results, our own in house surveys, customer satisfaction levels and retention of tenants, supports and better proves our ongoing and dedicated efforts toward the highest level of custom-er service.”

Both claimed that they would be receptive to any students who brought forward complaints.

Chris Davies, Welfare Officer, said: “The Union is committed to tackling housing issues for our students and this survey will un-doubtedly shape our strategy going forward. It is disappointing to see two of the biggest letting agents perform so badly and we hope this acts as a wake up call for them. Of course it is great to see Cardiff Stu-dent Lettings perform strongly in all areas and equally it is pleasing to see that previously poor perform-ing agents have improved.”

The survey also brought up in-teresting results around the rela-tionship of student, agency and landlord. Students were asked whether their property was man-aged by landlord or letting agency on a day-to-day basis. This refers to the party that students would con-tact in case of a problem or query with their house.

The question showed overwhelm-ingly that students in properties managed by landlords had had far better experiences with their resi-

dences. For example, only 26% of those managed by the letting agen-cy responded positively when asked about the speed of the resolution of problems with the property, com-pared to 54% of those managed by the landlord.

This trend continued for all oth-er questions, suggesting that gen-erally, students whose property is managed by a landlord have a bet-ter experience.

Matt JonesNews Editor

Welfare Officer Chris Davies presents the wooden spoon after the results conclude that Keylet comes out bottom of those letting agents included in the survey

A new Horizongair rhydd reveals the results of the 2012 housing survey

The annual elections hustings took place on Thursday March 15. Can-didates for part-time elected officer and sabbatical positions were given the opportunity to present their campaigns for student scrutiny.

The occasion proved popular among campaign teams but failed to garner the support of the wider student body, and turnout did not reflect levels of participation.

The format was regimented which prevented the evening from running into its fourth hour. Can-didates were allowed one minute to introduce themselves and a précis of their campaign. Afterwards, the part-time officers were subjected to two questions from the floor and the full-time officers were given three.

The part-time candidates were largely uncontested with the excep-tion of the LGBT+ position with two candidates.

The first of the three full time po-sitions brought to the floor were the Athletic Union President, Educa-tion and University Affairs Officer and Head of Student Media with three candidates standing for each post. The questions posed to the candidates were all fairly unchal-lenging and responses were gener-ally strong.

The position of President proved more contentious with five can-didates standing and with a trio of more taxing questions. Marcus Coates-Walker, Students’ Union President posed a galling question about leadership and how candi-dates plan to build a rapport with the prospective Vice Chancellor. The question was met with uncer-tainty among candidates but was eventually answered to a certain degree by all five.

The Societies Officer candidates, numerous in number, all presented convincing presentations. Their first question, posed by Edmund Schlussel, President of the Univer-sity’s Socialist Party related to the role of societies in activism and left all candidates in bewilderment, not receiving any adequate answers.

The final two were the Welfare and Community Officer and Union development and Internal Affairs Officer, the latter being a newly cre-ated post. Audience numbers were dwindling by this point, all can-didates answered questions well although Chris Davies’ question proved challenging to candidates, but, by his own omission, it was in-tended to test them.

Voting for Elections remains open until Tuesday March 20.

Elections hustings Henry McMorrowNews Editor

Above: gair rhydd 2008 survey results

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�EDITOR GAIRRHYDD�COM02gr

Sudoku.

For the answer and more puzzles, head over to page 30

Get involved. GAIR�RHYDD�

- Mondays - 5.00pm -

Mar 19 - Aneurin Bevan Room- Cardiff Students' Union -

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The University of St Andrews held a ’60 Hour Film BlitzFestival’ to celebrate the university’s upcom-ing 600th birthday. Overthe three days, students were given the task of creating their own three minute-short-film. The finished products were then judged by film experts including thedirector of the Edin-burgh International Film Festival, Chris Fujiwara. Therewere three categories depending on the film-maker’s previous experience: Best

‘HomeMovie’, Best ‘Indie’ Film and Best ‘Blockbuster’. The festival was open to allstudents, regardless of their abilities and could hone their skills at a numberof pre-festival workshops. The eventual winners included a meta-film comedy, “The-Director” and romantic tragedy, “Sunder”.

The festival was founded last year by a group of Film Studiesstaff and students as a part of the univer-sity’s 600th anniversary prepara-tionswhich they will celebrate next year, in 2013.

Kayleigh ChanNews Reporter

CONTRIBUTORS

Anna HickmanTim MukasaAlex Greig

Joanne FaulknerLindsey Frodsham

Rhys ClaytonNick EvansHelen Cox

Demetrios Chatzidakes-Zavorianos

Agnieszka MiszczukSophie Chamberlain

Helen CameronCatherine Airey

Matt BradleyTom Wilson

Louice Tapper JanssonAlexey UnderwoodOgbo Oruaro Enoch

Sam ThorpeJoanna Lucas

Ross GellerJames Woods

Viktor Tsvetanov

EDITOR

Oliver Smith

CO-ORDINATOR

Elaine Morgan

/.,).%�%$)4/2

Chris Williams

NEWS

Sheri HallHenry McMorrow

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OPINION

Izzy VossLibby van den Bosch

COLUMNIST

Lydia Davies

POLITICS

Luke SladeSophie Gidley

FEATURES

Ellen AtkinsonAli Ishaq

Jenny Kendall

SCIENCE

Jenny LambourneNatalie Healey

SOCIETIES

Isabelle Roberts

LISTINGS

Gareth Johnston

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Caio IwanOsian Gruffydd

SPORT

Jamie EvansZac Cole

Jonathan Frank

Uni watch.

The Russell Group has announced that it will expand its membership from 20 to 24, with the addition of 4 new universities. The group, of which Cardiff is a member, is re-nowned for its world leading re-search and is often considered as a who’s who of the best universities in the UK. It is the British equiva-lent of the Ivy League.

The chair of the Russell Group, Prof Michael Arthur, said of the expansion:

“We are delighted to announce that the Russell Group board has invited four more members to join the group, all of whom have ac-cepted.

“Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary and York have demonstrated that - like all other Russell Group mem-

bers - they excel in research, in-novation and education and have a critical mass of research excel-lence across a wide range of dis-ciplines.”

The new members join the University of Birmingham, Uni-versity of Bristol, University of Cambridge, Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, Univer-sity of Glasgow, Imperial College London, King's College London, University of Leeds, University of Liverpool, London School of Economics & Political Science, University of Manchester, New-castle University, University of Nottingham, University of Ox-ford, Queen's University Belfast, University of Sheffield, Univer-sity of Southampton, University College London, and University of Warwick.

News Reporter

Russell Group starts to expand

St Andrews 600th anniversary

news. opinion. politics. features.

During the election period, from the close of nominations until the an-nouncement of the result on March 20, Cardiff Student Media and gair rhydd are not allowed to express comment, criticism or offer opinion about any candidate involved in the election process. We are also not allowed to publish the name of any candidate involved in the election process, aside from regular contributors and current elected officers when operating in their capacity as elected officers.

To adhere to these rules certain contributors names have been ommited from gair rhydd this week, we appologise for this and will publish these articles online under their correct authors once the election period is over.

Oliver SmithEditor

%LECTIONS

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25

Listings26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29

Sport33 - 36

03Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�EDITOR GAIRRHYDD�COM

In this week's gair rhydd.....

Opinion explore the backlash to Kony 2012pg. 9

science. societies. taf-od. sport.

News break down the results of their housing surveypg. 4 - 5 Societies catch up with the team

behind Self-Harm Awareness Daypg. 24

Science find out if the Raspberry Pi is the future of computingpg. 21Features answer the question

'Will your degree get you a job?'pg. 16 Sport explore the backlash as Dow Chemical becomes an

Olympic sponsorpg. 34

&OLLOW�YOUR�FAVOURITE�SECTIONÐ

@GairRhyddNews

@GairRhyddOp

@GairRhyddPol

@GairRhyddFeat

@GairRhyddSci

@GairRhyddSoc

@GairRhyddList

@Taf_Od

@GairRhyddSport www.gairrhydd.comThe debate continues online.....

04News Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�NEWS GAIRRHYDD�COM

GAIR�RHYDD������HOUSING�SURVEY�Analysis of the results of the widest investigation of students' housing experience in Cardiff for four years

#ARDIFF �3TUDENT�,ETTINGS� �/WEN�3PACIE���ND�YEAR�!DULT�.URSING

"Generally they are good. I have always been pleased with them. Happy smiley faces and voices. Happy to help when you have a prob-lem. When we have had issues with appliances in the house or other general problems, they have sent staff out to fix the problem as soon as they could usually within 48 hours. My house-mate and I locked ourselves out once, and they were more than happy to drive out and let us back in."

#03�(OMES� �2YAN�*AMES���ND�YEAR�%LECTRICAL�AND�%LECTRONIC�%NGINEERING

"CPS don't want to know if you have any problems. If you ring them saying something they say that they'll ring you back and don't. I have to ring them all the time and they rarely get someone to come round to sort anything out."

+EYLET� �!NDREW�(OLDROYD���ND�YEAR�#HEMISTRY

"On the whole I stay clear of the business side of things in the house, but from what I can gather they are fine. Recently they installed a new cooker, and they've sorted out our damp. Also they've fixed our toilets and our fire alarm pretty efficiently. On the other hand they are a bit expensive."

0INNACLE� �*ONNO�&RANK���RD�YEAR�3OCIOLOGY

"They are really good. I reported a maintence problem with a light fitting two days ago and they have already got back to me. There's always someone available to talk to when you go in there. They seem to be making a conscious effort to stay in touch with students - they're always liking things on facebook. Having previously had a bad experience with 2let2 they are really accessible and helpful."

(ORIZON� �(ARRY�.EWMAN��3OCIETIES�/FlCER

"Horizon were good letting agents; they managed to sort most of our problems out fairly quickly, although sometimes communication was challenging."

"We are extremely pleased that the majority of our tenants have been happy with our service and would recommend us. Of course there is always room to improve and we are keen to receive feedback on any part of our service that students' are unhappy with. For this reason we are already in the process of arranging our own satisfaction survey of tenants' in our hous-es. We are particularly keen to hear any negative feedback so we can develop and improve those areas to ensure we run the business alongside Students' needs."

"We have been very well received by present tenants when en-tering their homes to carry out viewings and complete periodic inspections. This is in addition to a great number of current tenants extending their stay for a second year or moving to an-other property managed by CPS Homes, as well as recommend-ing their friends to us."

"Though we are disappointed with the results, our own in house surveys, customer satisfaction levels and retention of tenants, supports and better proves our ongoing and dedicated efforts to-ward the highest level of customer service. We would therefore urge any tenants who feel disappointed to contact us as soon as possible for us to better understand their individual concerns."

"Although the Pinnacle survey results are ok, they are not good enough. We love our customers at Pinnacle, so we definitely want to do an even better job!"

"We were very pleased to hear that such a high number of stu-dents are satisfied and would recommend Horizon Properties.We put this down to the fact that the properties are ours, we are a family run business and we deal directly with our students.Due to the fact that we do not need to consult the landlord/third party we can act promptly. We have a 24-hour call out number, should any of our tenants have urgent problems."

�LET�� �3ARAH�(ALPIN��(EALTHCARE�/FlCER

"The agency were very helpful showing us plenty of options, if a little pushy in encouraging us to choose them. They were good with maintenance of the house but we struggled to directly contact the landlord. However despite cleaning the carpets professionally and repainting the walls, they charged us ridiculous amounts for non-existent blue tack marks and blown light bulbs. In summary, nice agency but like all of them, tried to scam us out of our bond money."

2let2 declined to reply to a request by gair rhydd for comment.

Letting agents respond to the results One student from each agent talks about their experience

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25

Listings26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29

Sport33 - 36

News05Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�%MAIL�THE�NEWSDESK�AT��NEWS GAIRRHYDD�COM

47.9%

Satisfaction in landlord- managed

properties

36.2%

Satisfaction in letting agent-

managed properties

9.8%size

unimportant

67.2%of students

pay £225-275

44.2%would not

recommend their letting agent

44.6%of students rated loca-

tion as 'very important' when

choosing a property

very satisfied with the

condition of their

property

15.3%

Percentage of students who would recommend their letting agent

Horizon

2let2

Keylet

CSU

Pinnacle

CPS

65%

64%

42%

24%

22%

22%Note: Insufficient number of responses to provide credible information for other letting agents

90.2% Size of house a key factor in

choosing a house

3TUDENTHOUSING�

SURVEY�STATISTICS

06News Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�NEWS GAIRRHYDD�COM

Laura EvansNews Editor

Cardiff University is one of the many institutions that have seen an increase in academic misconduct over the past three years.

Cases of plagiarism have more than doubled, from 81 cases record-ed in 2008/09 to 195 cases recorded 2009/10.

A Cardiff University spokesper-son claimed that "the slight rise in cases… can be largely attributed to one specific incident", but 2010/11 saw a further rise with 217 recorded cases of plagiarism.

The level of unfair practice in exams has also risen slightly, from 21 recorded cases 2008/09 to 26 re-corded cases 2010/11.

gair rhydd asked Cardiff Uni-versity to release the figures after a study conducted by The Indepen-

dent found that over 45,000 students had been caught cheating in exams and coursework in 80 universities across Britain.

A third of these cases were re-corded in the past year alone, indi-cating the problem is on the rise.

Amongst the worst offenders were Greenwich University who re-corded more than 900 cases in one year alone. London Metropolitan was second, followed by Sheffield Hallam, Leeds Metropolitan and Wolverhampton.

The study found that students have gone as far as paying private companies to write essays, as well as taking mobile phones and notes into exam halls.

The same examples of malprac-tice were found at Cardiff Univer-sity, as well as incidents of copying from other students, taking anno-tated dictionaries into exams, talk-

ing during exams and writing after exams had finished.

In one case a student was pena-lised when an unauthorised piece of paper fell out of their pocket on the way to the toilet.

Penalties imposed by the Uni-versity for cheating have included study skills training, cancellation of marks, recommendation that a student be disqualified from future examinations, students required to resubmit work.

One student was found with writ-ings on their hand and were asked to wipe it off, with no further ac-tion.

A Cardiff University spokesper-son said: " The University took ap-propriate disciplinary action with those involved and has introduced measures and additional study skills support designed to prevent any repetition."

Universities have spent mil-lions of pounds on computer pro-grammes to identify plagiarism, but Tessa Byars, an advice services manager at Anglia Ruskin Univer-sity, said technological advances were making it almost impossible to identify cheats: "It’s only going to get worse. From next September we expect to see cheating incidents rise. The introduction of tuition fees will increase pressure and anx-iety to get a good degree. They’re all worried about their employment prospects."

In 2009 the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Willis led an inquiry into academic misconduct at universi-ties.

He has urged ministers to help institutions crack down on profes-sional essay-writing agencies: "We were disappointed that the last gov-ernment ignored our recommenda-

tions on making these firms liable for criminal prosecution.

"Something needs to be done to bring them into line."

The figures mentioned for Car-diff University only include re-corded cases that resulted in disci-plinary action, meaning cases that received warnings or were acquit-ted due to lack of evidence would make cheating figures even higher.

A Cardiff University spokesper-son said: "Cardiff University takes all cases of unfair practice and pla-giarism extremely seriously and takes firm action whenever such cases arise.

"However, these cases involve only a small minority of University students and should be seen in the context of 105,000 individual exams and the many thousands of course-work assessments conducted at Cardiff over the course of the aca-

NUS walkout protests failed to gain support last week with only 10 peo-ple participating.

Protests were due to take place outside Cardiff Students’ Union on Park Place last Wednesday with calls from the National Union of Students to stage a walk out of lec-tures and demonstrate at noon, but participation at Cardiff University was very limited.

The protest was called against the privatisation and hidden costs in higher education following on from recent changes in UK govern-ment policy.

Edmund Schluessel, Socialist activist at Cardiff University said that the "NUS utterly failed to sup-port the action.

"Indeed, NUS Wales President Luke Young was actively discourag-ing Wales' Students’ Unions from taking part.

Ben Meakin of Aberystwyth Guild of Students, even proposed an alternative plan to: "Post pairs of underpants to Wales education minister Leighton Andrews in pro-test."

Schluessel indicated that he was unsurprised by that lack of sup-port: "We were expecting this, given NUS’ failure at the top. Nonetheless, Socialist students will continue fighting against cutbacks, fees and privatisation on every level."

Cardiff Students' Union invited students to comment on its services last week by posting comments on the 'Thought Wall'.

The event, called 'Think Tank: Think Different', was a success with a number of students pass-ing through Solus and leaving their thoughts and recommendations.

The wall had different categories to enable students to leave focused

suggestions.Categories ranged from events

and entertainment to food and bev-erages.

The event coincided with the introduction of Katrina Rohman as Events Co-ordinator of Cardiff Students’ Union and will allow stu-dents to be at the genesis of innova-tion. She said: “It’s been set up to get students opinions on what they want to see next year.”

AU and society representatives were invited to attend the event in

the evening before Student Coun-cil,

Cathy Tuke, third year medical student and student councillor said, "I think it was a great idea to allow students to voice their opinions in such an accessible way. Hopefully we'll see some of our ideas brought into action."

The event comes at a time of flux with the union cancelling Fun Fac-tory earlier than usual in the first semester meaning Union nights are dwindling in number.

The introduction of katrina as Events Co-ordinator coninciding with the Think Tank Wall may pro-vide an antidote to the Union and allow it to more adequately meet student demands.

Katrina concluded, “It seemed really successful, we had a lot of students participate. We have got a broad range of things we can work on now with a wider perspective than normal.”

Anna HickmanNews Reporter

Henry McMorrowNews Editor

#HEATING�AT�#ARDIFF �5NIVERSITY�DOUBLES

No support for NUS walk-out pro-tests

BBC Wales’ Roath Lock Studios was officially opened by Welsh First Minister, Carwyn Jones, last week.

The new 170,000 sq ft complex will provide exciting opportunities to Cardiff students for both audi-ence participation and those look-ing for a career in the media.

The drama village is the central hub of Porth Teigr project, a Car-diff Bay regeneration initiative the Welsh government claims will cre-ate 8,000 jobs. Many of those will be in the creative industries.

“This studio complex is a major

step forward for the creative indus-tries in Wales”: said Carwyn Jones speaking at the opening ceremony.

“It will be the home to famous drama productions that are viewed across the world.”

Last weekend 1,000 guests took part in behind the scenes tours of Roath Lock Studios which will be the new home of Doctor Who, Up-stairs Downstairs, Casualty and Welsh language soap opera Pobol y Cym.

Claire Smith, a Journalism, Me-dia and Culture Masters student, who attended the event said: “It was a good day out. The studios are ab-solutely huge.

"I was a little surprised by the lack of Doctor Who stuff but I’m sure that will come in time."

As well as established shows, the BBC has announced plans to nur-ture new talent and productions as part of its 2008 commitment to double television network produc-tion in Wales.

Head of drama at BBC Wales, Faith Penhale, stated: ”It’s a huge-ly exciting time for drama in Wales. There’s a great creative appetite here.

“As we officially open our new studios today, we want to share the ambition and potential of Roath Lock and to support and encourage

Welsh writing talent – both emerg-ing and established.”

Delivering on that promise, to coincide with Roath Lock’s open-ing the BBC and National Theatre Wales have announced a £10,000 Wales Drama Award for Welsh based writers.

The award winner will be given a chance to develop their script with BBC Wales. Two other selected writers will each receive £1,000 and script development opportunities.

Interested writers must submit a 30 minute script, in any medium, on a topic of their choosing by July 16th.

Tim MukasaNews Reporter

New BBC studios bring media opportunities to Cardiff

Students post feedback on the Union's wall

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Science20 - 21

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Listings26 - 27

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Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�OPINION GAIRRHYDD�COM 09Opinion

Kony. It’s a name you may have seen plastered across Facebook over the last week or so due largely to a group called Invisible Children (IC), who aim to stop him. Joseph Kony is head of the Lord’s Resist-ance Army (LRA) in Uganda, Africa. The LRA have been abducting chil-dren for almost 30 years now, a sus-pected 30,000, and forcing them into soldier-hood and sexual slavery.

The problem is that Kony has realised that people are attempting to stop him. He’s changed his tac-tics, and vanished. To catch him, the Ugandan troops need training, which requires the US troops to re-main in the country. The mission risks abandonment due to lack of support. So it all seems pretty sim-ple: IC makes Kony well known, gain support for the mission and the Ugandans can be trained to help capture Kony. However, a few twists have been added to this saga.

Firstly, people have noted that large portions of IC’s money pays for transport, filming, salaries etc. whilst only around 37% goes di-rectly towards programs in Africa. Although this is true, one must re-alise that without the money fund-ing all of these aspects, we would not have the fastest ever growing

(viewings to time ratio) YouTube film on our hands. I would not have logged onto Facebook this morn-ing, having never heard of Kony, watched the video, and been so moved that I dropped all my es-says in order to write this article.

Next up come claims that the company are exploiting facts and figures to make Kony seem more villainous than he is. They’ve come under criticism for being ‘unprofes-sional and dishonest’. So what? So what if they’ve emphasized certain aspects of his regime to capture our attention? The fact remains that he’s abducting children. Murder is occurring everywhere, Kony has moved out of Uganda and is spread-ing fear into neighbouring coun-tries. By allegedly exaggerating, IC have brought our attention to some-thing that has been going on for too long. That is surely a good thing.

Moreover, people are bringing up issues of ‘the white man’s burden’, and attacking the campaign because it seems like there is a ‘we must save Africa’ attitude, though work is be-ing done at Uganda’s grassroots already. There is talk of the danger of naivety surrounding IC’s ap-proach. They say that they realise this issue, and they ‘learned very quickly that a top - down, Western approach was not the answer. And that local solutions were needed to

fill critical humanitarian gaps. It is for this reason that over 95% of IC’s leadership and staff on the ground are Ugandans’. Moreover when it comes down to it, if it stops the mur-der, the rape, the abduction, torture and maiming of innocent people, we’ve got to question whether, in the scheme of things, it really mat-ters about any saviour-complex that may or may not be there.

So far I’ve pointed out issues that have some strong counter-argu-ments. There are issues with IC’s plan that are problematic. Before we all run away with ourselves at the idea of the revolution and stop-ping the world’s most wanted man, we should sit back a moment and think about how this arrest will come about. IC supports military involvement. Kony has child sol-

diers, if the Ugandan military tries to attack him, children will be in the line of fire, as they are likely personally protecting him. Further-more, think of the morality of the soldiers. Say they find Kony, but come under fire from these child sol-diers who are forced into shooting, evidently against their will. Do they fire back and sacrifice a few to save more? Is that a call anyone is will-ing to make? It’s a problem which is made all the more difficult by the failure to find any better solution.

What if an attempt to arrest Kony provokes a retaliation? What if he ups momentum and kills more, abducts more, spreads more fear? There needs to be a decision made about whether it’s a risk worth taking, and frankly it is a hard call. Perhaps the approach that IC is taking is overly simple.

We are starting to recognise the issues out in Uganda and the neighbouring countries, and this is great news. It must now be assessed what the best approach is. The risk is that more and more coun-tries will find themselves pulled into the conflict and some state of war could erupt. A careful balance between the military and peace must be found - moving forward is going to be difficult, but one way or the other, it needs to be done.

Ambiguous aims for the Kony campaign

Gloss begins to wear off for Action Man PutinEmotions appeared to overwhelm Vladimir Putin as tears filled his eyes during his victory speech. Over the last 12 years the ex-KGB agent has been transformed from a Kremlin official into a public figure and for a long time enjoyed high approval ratings, bolstered by his alpha male persona. How-ever, tides appear to be changing for Putin as his most recent vic-tory was met with mass outcry.

Despite growing opposition to life under Putin, Russia's lack of functioning political institutions and stifling political system, means that Putin is returning to the Kremlin for another six year term.

Recent protest and demonstra-tions are a new phenomenon. Last November at Moscow's Olymp-isky Stadium, Putin was booed by crowds at a boxing match. Al-though there are varying versions of events, the crowd’s reaction was completely denied by his officials. However subsequent YouTube videos fuelled rumors about the president's fading popularity.

In December further protest was triggered by evidence of vote rig-ging. The increasingly negative public reaction leads us to question how Putin will respond to what seem to be cracks appearing in his propa-ganda machine, a machine that he

has worked so hard to maintain.Over the years, Putin has in-

dulged in many a PR stunt to main-tain his public image, often flashing his bare chest. The official Kremlin line is to rubbish accusations of heavily choreographed photograph opportunities; Putin can't help it if the state-controlled Russian TV idolize him and invade his life to film his daily business. Maybe it's just a coincidence that they cap-tured him saving a TV crew from a Siberian tiger attack or shoot-ing a gray whale with a crossbow.

Putin also furthered his ‘action man’ image when he took to the skies in 2010 to aid in the extin-guishing of forest fires.The Russian president may have stretched his credibility a little too far however, when in my personal favourite publicity stunt, Putin happened to discover ancient Greek urns from 6th century AD on only his third ever scuba dive. In the same place where, over the last two years, ar-chaeologists and divers of the Rus-sian Academy of Sciences managed to find only a few pottery shards. Some people have all the luck.

As demonstrations continue, the question is what will Putin do now? Will he be awakened by the new real-ity and recognise that real political and economic reforms are needed? Putin has never had to engage with his people in a meaningful way and now faces a tough balancing act. If

he cracks down too hard on the op-position or attempts to control the Internet and the independent broad-casters that have helped become platforms for free discussion, he would surely only ignite further an-ger. Yet by actually opening up the political system, Putin would run the risk of losing control of a system that will only return him to power under suspicious circumstances.

The Arab spring has clearly dem-onstrated that public opinion can be formed and influenced by active use of modern technology. Internet use in Russia has sky rocketed in recent years, and whilst Putin has slammed it as 50% pornography and chooses not to enter the debate, 44% of Russians now use it as their main source of news. Although this does not yet rival the 78% who use state-dominated television news there is an obvious growing trend in the influence of the Internet Rus-sia. Although Putin's campaign manager brands it as a ‘rubbish dump’, if the growing political un-rest and growth in Russian blogs and social networking sites tell us anything, its that fewer peo-ple are believing what they see on TV. The Internet is a growing dan-ger for Putin and one that he can not continue to ignore any longer.

Bare chested wrestling and deep sea diving may not be enough to main-tain image, popularity and control.

Joanne FaulknerOpinion Writer

Alex GreigOpinion Writer

“Cheating in uni is spreading because lecturers don’t make subjects interest-ing enough. If you have a 9am and you know it won’t be engaging, there’s no motivation to go, and then people end up having to learn from Google and Wikipedia. I’ve definitely been tempt-ed to get coursework from the internet or re-use old essays.”

Brent Williams, 2nd year Criminology student

“Everyone wants to get involved in as many different things as possible at uni, and that can mean work some-times takes a back seat and suddenly a deadline is closer than you thought. It’s all too easy to cheat at the last min-ute instead of putting in the hard graft, you just have to be willing to take the risk of getting caught!”

Gbade Adewole, 3rd year Law student

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�OPINION GAIRRHYDD�COM

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“It’s actually surprised me that cheat-ing is such a big problem, I don’t see how it’s really possible to get away with it. There is so much security in place in exams and software to de-tect plagiarism in essays. Maybe now that uni fees are going up, people feel more pressure to try and get a 1st but won’t put in the work.”

Aelish Potter, 2nd year Computer Sci-ence student

“I think that the better technology gets, the easier it becomes to cheat. Now we can access the internet anywhere thanks to smartphones, it creates a lot of problems that the universities just can't keep up with. Cheating has been on the increase for years, it’s just only recently become a hot topic in the media.”

Matt Evans, 2nd year English student

“I think some people feel the need to cheat because so much is expected of them and there aren’t always good resources available. Essays demand so many references and I often find there’s only one copy of a really rel-evant book in the library. When you can get a quote online without read-ing a whole book, who wouldn’t?”

Kristine Putnina, 1st year Business student

“Has cheating actually risen or is it just that technology for detecting it is much more advanced now than it was 4 years ago? I think people have always and will always cheat, but they’re the minority of students. Most people getting into so much debt to study are hardworking and honest.”

Beatrice Xu, 1st year Maths student

9OU�2EPLY��If you feel strongly about any article you have read in gair rhydd this week, and wish to respond, please contact us Opinion@gairrhydd.com

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Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd 11

Silver Linings

By Lydia Davies

There is nothing the Western World loves more than a cause. We punctuate the ce-lebrity-bloated Chil-dren in Need with

hard-hitting mini-documentaries that, quite rightly, horrify and sad-den us. We can’t get enough of it. So when KONY 2012 went viral, it was no surprise to see Facebook and Twitter bubbling with enthusi-asm at the prospect of activism; of change.

Perhaps some of you have been under a rock for the past fortnight. No judgement here. My idea of a social occasion is going out to buy apples. KONY 2012 is a half-hour documentary created by Invisible Children, a non-profit organisa-tion dedicated to raising aware-ness about the activities of Joseph Kony and the LRA (Lord’s Resis-tance Army) in Uganda. The film, hard-hitting and beautifully edited, spread like wildfire across the blo-gosphere, catalysing Facebook and Twitter-users and inspiring them to “fight” for change. As my Facebook news feed belched out re-posts of the video and statuses concerning it (“This is sooooooo humbling!”), I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about the speed of the reaction.

Alongside the trigger-happy Fa-cebook campaign crept a quieter beast, and slowly its concern for the editing of the docu-film and its creators, has engendered an inter-national furore. Invisible Children are not all they would seem. Along-side criticism about their distri-bution of finances, they’ve raised eyebrows in aligning themselves with the Ugandan government, whose own human rights record is less than exemplary. It appears that when researching the situation in Uganda, we hit on the Wikipedia version.

What disturbed me most about KONY 2012, was how quickly it became about the West. The scene rapidly shifted to the inside of a modern American home, where a father encouraged his beautiful little boy to dish out definitions for the “bad” guys and the “good” ones. The message I received was that Uganda’s heroes weren’t those working from within the country to achieve change, but young “armies” of peacekeepers (surely a confusion of terms) who had merely watched a film. Let’s not forget that what we see is only ever a representation of

the “truth”.Yes, Joseph Kony needs to be

stopped. His crimes defy humane understanding, and it is right that we are shocked and disgusted by the activities of the LRA. But the danger comes when non-profit or-ganisations instigate what could become mere fashion trends in or-der to save the world. Of the KONY 2012 Action Kit, Invisible Children says, “People will think you’re an advocate of awesome.” I had to take a minute to pause and gag, before I was able to cast my eyes over to the next sale item: the Kony bracelet, deemed (I kid you not) “The ulti-mate accessory”. It is disturbing how quickly a voice for change can morph into something that defines us instead of being about the people at the centre of it.

The film appeals to the fledg-ling hero in each of us. It moves and inspires us. But in doing so it also shifts the balance of power en-tirely in our favour. At what point

in our self-appointed heroism do we stop and consider that we might not know what is best for Uganda? Somewhere in the last 30 minutes, the voice of Jacob, an incredibly brave former child-soldier, has been lost amidst the chants of the white West, complete with hipster t-shirts and bracelets.

“When researching the situation in Uganda, we hit on theWikipedia version

Just because we are calling at-tention to Uganda’s plight does not mean we are representing its people with fairness and accuracy. Getting involved should mean more than an ego-trip for the armchair activist, who considers clicking a button to be political activity.

Yes, there must be change. But let that change be directed from within Uganda, and aided from out-side. It is easy to forget that Africa is in fact a continent, made up of 56 countries with their own govern-ments, political agendas and intel-ligent opinions. Instead, we shake our heads patronisingly, smile and say, “Wow, they have so little and yet they’re so happy. It’s beauti-ful.” Then we bring back some nice fabric and consider ourselves “changed” by the trip.

There is no cut and dry answer to politics. Nothing is black and white, and real life is certainly not a block-buster film in which there are good guys and bad guys and everything can be solved simply by finding the courage within. Apparently, there are some problems that even a good dance number can’t solve. Am I right, Danny Boyle?

The video is humbling and in-credibly moving, and we are right to have an emotional reaction. How-

ever, emotion comes and goes. Inter-est in political causes is fleeting, as Syria and Libya have taught us. If anyone reading this has ever lost a loved one, encountered depression or long-term illness, you’ll under-stand that after the initial, agonis-ing shock comes the long hard slog towards “betterness”. Sadly, this is also the time when people’s interest drops: people forget to ask how you are, to keep in touch. Time passes and the struggle becomes a little boring for everyone.

How often do we talk about Libya now? It’s no longer exciting and rev-olutionary, but has joined the ranks of hundreds of genuinely emo-tional, heart-wrenching situations headlined under the yawn-inducing term, “Politics”. As a consequence, the majority of us do not go near it. There is something uncomfortable about Westernised social and po-litical heroism, when more time is spent directing importance towards the spectator than to the people who have lived the struggle themselves.

I’m not sure that I’ve a coherent opinion this week. It’s only now beginning to dawn on me just how much more I have to learn about all this. But there is surely more to us than armchair activism. Research your arguments, form opinions, and for goodness’ sake – sustain your interests in people and situ-ations longer than after that first heady rush of publicity.

While you’re spouting nonsense about reaching out to those less fortunate, there’s someone sitting in your peripheral vision who is struggling, often silently. And they don’t need you to save them! What they do need, however, is your friendship. They need your time. They need you to listen to them, to take five minutes out of your day to help them figure out how to get by. And there’s no glory in that, I’m afraid. It’s not the kind of thing you can post on Facebook.

The LRA isn’t breaking news. It’s been causing suffering since before we were toilet-trained. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be passionate about it. Compassion, however, lasts far longer. I’m not saying, “Who are we to change the world?” Research, reblog, post, talk, debate, but keep this about Uganda, not us.

Lydia x

ColumnistMonday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd

Politics12 Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�POLITICS GAIRRHYDD�COM

Child benefit, the system first im-plemented in August 1946, has been up for much debate in Parliament recently. At the moment, child ben-efit is a tax-free, non-means tested payment that parents can claim for their child, with separate rates pay-able for each child.

The proposed new system would be means tested, with the cut-off point being £42,475. It is claimed that only 15 per cent of taxpayers would be affected, and that 77 per cent of voters support the move. And why not? A system, although more rudimentary than the income tax system, means that someone earning more money does not get aid, whilst someone earning less, will still receive it.

As to be expected, the proposi-tion has faced criticism. The pro-posed £42,475 threshold is for the individual worker, not the overall household, meaning that a couple each earning slightly less than the top rate could together take home £80,000 and keep the benefit.

Obviously, this anomaly is wrong. Any policy that encourages families to stay together and avoid divorce is to be applauded, but not when such drastic financial imbalances would be in place. My ignorance of the mi-nutiae of the tax system means that I fail to see a reason why the policy cannot simply be changed to “per household”, but if it was as simple as that, Britain would not have a £1 trillion debt. Another obvious prob-lem is that someone earning, let’s say, £42,400, would, perversely, be much worse off if his or her salary was to rise by £1-£1,000+.

Of all the solutions suggested, the most likely outcome being touted is to raise the threshold to a figure more like £50,000. Again, the

same problems as above remain, but the further this figure increas-es, the more diluted the negative variables are.

Mr Cameron, and the Conserva-tives in general, must feel like they are in a perpetual winless vortex. The country is fundamentally bank-rupt, and we have to find ways to curb the deficit, but every idea they put forward is branded as a “savage cut”. The Labour Party, who put us in this mess, demand the “Robin Hood Tax” at every turn; taking from the rich, giving to the poor. The Coalition is trying to do this under their proposed scheme, but it still draws criticism from all but their own. And when the Conservatives dare to suggest anything other than anti-business, anti-wealth, they are inevitably, branded the 'rich' party and 'toffs'.

Furthermore, policies such as taking away child benefit from higher earners are likely to affront their natural supporters. And it’s not even as if they are penalising the richest in society. With record fuel prices, rocketing utility bills, increasing food bills, wage freezes and high inflation, a salary of £45,000, especially in city areas, will take a huge hit if more than £1,000 of child benefit is taken away.

There is little doubt that the po-tential new scheme needs tweak-ing, but the Treasury has already included the £1bn saving in its cal-culations. U-turn on this scheme, and it will have a domino effect on the whole budget.

As a side point, I have always maintained that child benefit should stop after one’s first child. I fully expect to be labelled a barbar-ian for even suggesting that the gov-ernment should now aim to control our rights to birth, and normally I am an advocate of less government intervention in our everyday lives.

But I believe if you are happy to have a second child, it should be of no responsibility of the govern-ment to support you. I despair when I read ever more regular articles of families with multiple children, liv-ing in council houses, and funded solely by the taxpayer. There must be an end to this madness.

I’ll get down off my high horse now, and admit to not knowing what the solution is (and it seems neither does anyone in Parliament). On the one hand, cuts needs to be made, and those who earn more, should be taxed/receive fewer benefits, than those who earn less. However, the 'wealthy' cannot always be the fall guy in the economic mess, and the middle class not always the ones taking the hit.

Thanks to a minority of reck-less bankers, all “rich” people have been unfairly tarred with the same greedy, consumerist and ruthless brush. Regardless of this, someone earning £50,000 isn’t necessarily that rich. Putting economics to one side, there is something sentimen-tally soothing about an ubiquitous level of child benefit. It is the one benefit that was not means tested, where the joy of having a baby made those with millions, and those with nothing, absolute equals. Still, now is not the time for sentiment (is it ever?).

If child allowance must be scrapped, then surely the highest earners should be the first affected. Though, as stated above, I fail to see why a staggered system akin to in-come tax, cannot be implemented. Heck, why not use the same thresh-olds? Perhaps a system where your first birth is non-means tested, and your second child is “more” means tested, might suit all parties in-volved. If my idea isn’t accepted, I may just throw my toys out of the pram.

#HILD�BENEFIT�MAY�BE�ABOUT�TO�FLY�THE�Rhys ClaytonPolitics Reporter

Chancellor George Osborne announces the child benefit reform

Politics Reporter Nick Evans comments on the PM's re-sponse in light of increasing death tolls in the Middle East

We re-c e n t l y marked t h e d e a t h toll of

British troops in Afghani-stan passing 400 after

fatal protests claimed the lives of six British

troops when their transport was

caught in an ex-plosion. The

protests were in response to the burn-ing of Qur'an in a NATO

base; an eye for an eye, as the

proverb goes.

That was in February and before those wounds could heal, they were recently ripped open when an ap-parently lone US soldier marched six kilometres from his base in Kandahar, descended upon three lo-cal communities and brutally mur-dered 16 Afghan civilians. It's Abu Ghraib round two. How much can Afghanistan's people be expected to put up with before they reach breaking point? They mourn their dead just as we mourn ours; neither side will accept this level of blood-shed for much longer.

The brutal slaughter was de-scribed in graphic detail by eyewit-nesses. One civilian claimed she saw a gunman drag a woman out of her house by her hair and smash her head against a wall until she lay unconscious on the ground. An-

“A lone US soldier brutally murdered 16 Afghan civilians

$AVID�#AMERON�DEFENDS�MILITARY�PRESENCE�IN�!FGHANISTAN

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Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�POLITICS GAIRRHYDD�COMMonday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�POLITICS GAIRRHYDD�COM

The big thing the government seems to be tackling this week is the housing market and the impos-sibility that many people face when attempting to jump onto the hous-ing ladder. This attempt to rescue the market comes in two guises: the new ‘NewBuy’ scheme, and a plan to help social housing tenants pur-chase their own homes through the application of major discounts, up to the tune of £75,000.

The ‘NewBuy’ scheme, which was announced on Monday, aims to help people onto the housing ladder by offering up to 95% mortgages.

These mortgages will be from NatWest, Barclays and Nationwide, with Halifax and Santander already expressing interest in joining the scheme. The guarantors for these mortgages will be the taxpayers and building firms. This may prove to be a very beneficial scheme as it may help people’s confidence in the banks, encourage more people to join the property market and will also stimulate the building industry as demand for houses will increase. This does of course, like anything, come with some possible negatives. It could all go horribly wrong and the banks may end up lending too much money again. Additionally, it is only being rolled out across England, meaning that people in

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to

struggle to join the property ladder.

As well as the ‘New-

B u y ’

scheme being implemented, an expansion of the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme has been announced, with higher discounts being made avail-able. The new arrangements mean those who have lived in a council house for five years could receive a 35% discount, with an extra 1% for each added year up they have lived there, to a maximum of £75,000. The ‘Right to Buy’ scheme was introduced in the 1980s by Marga-ret Thatcher and allowed council house tenants to purchase their home. This recent expansion of dis-counts has been both praised and criticised; it allows more people the chance to buy their home, but it also saddles people with higher debts and mortgage repayments.

Mr Cameron spoke of both schemes, saying: "Strong families and stable communities are built from good homes. That's why I want us to build more homes and I want more people to have the chance to own their own home.

"We're rebooting the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme to increase discounts for two million tenants in social housing in England. And we're de-livering on our promise to offer af-fordable mortgages to buyers who might otherwise not be able to raise the money to buy a newly built home."

He added, "It's no good hoping people will climb the property

ladder if the bottom rung is missing.”

The outlook on both of the schemes

is generally opti-mistic, with

many

hoping that it will kick-start the economy. The building industry is hoping this will fuel demand for hundreds of thousands of new homes, and will create jobs in the process.

John Cridland, director general of business body CBI, said: "Un-freezing the housing market will be a major game-changer in the drive for economic growth, which is why we called on the government to support home buyers by making it possible for them to take out low-deposit mortgages.

"Spring is traditionally a great time for house buying, and I hope it won't be too long before home buyers benefit from the ‘NewBuy’ scheme."

Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey expressed concerns about the implications of the mortgages and the debt involved, saying: "Re-ports have also suggested that few, if any, mortgage products will be available straight away and that the interest rates might not be attrac-tive to would-be buyers.

"It would be absolutely wrong for the government to raise the expecta-tions of families and young couples only for them to find little choice and that they're unaffordable."

These schemes have been set up to help people get on the property ladder. It appears, however, they only assist those in England and who can afford to raise the deposit (at 5% of the house's value). There-fore, the schemes are still lacking in some respects and these flaws will be made clear in the future. Why the government has restricted the scheme to England is uncertain, but it is an unwise move – the economic problems that Britain faces span the whole of the UK, and a boost to the English housing market will have little effect on the bigger society.

Politics13

Helen CoxPolitics Reporter

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other boy's father was reported to have told his son to "keep quiet…the Americans are here." The fa-ther was shot dead through an open window and his wife and son fol-lowed in quick succession. The wit-ness managed to survive by 'playing dead' when, he claims, more than one gunman entered his home to inspect the macabre results of their lethal labour. Further confusing the situation: was the gunman alone or were these the machinations of a group?

The US government have in-sisted that this was the work of a 'rogue' soldier, acting alone. They have worked as hard as possible to detach themselves from this soldier, who may have been "drunk" or "suf-fering from a nervous breakdown." Hilary Clinton was pushed out onto the stage like a ventriloquist dummy to regurgitate some well-re-hearsed sentiments about how she "can't imagine what the families are going through." Plenty of empathy and sympathy but not a single ad-

mission of guilt or fault that appar-ently lies with the individual, not the macro schema of this unwin-nable and futile war. They fervently adhere to the notion that their cru-sade is just and the "mission must be completed."

David Cameron has echoed simi-lar sentiments, encapsulating this vile atrocity as "absolutely dread-ful". It stupefies me how even in the face of turmoil for international re-lations Mr Cameron maintains his veneer of British genteel. In fact, in his 1:30 address, he spends exactly 15 seconds describing how "one's heart goes out to the families" and the rest of it re-addressing "the plan for Afghanistan" and re-enforcing support for British troops and how they are "doing a fantastic job."

The "plan" for Afghanistan began on October 7 2001 when the US and the UN. bombarded Kabul with air-strikes and since then, it has been a miasma of failure, corruption and exploitation of power. We are apparently training up the Afghan army and police force to govern themselves, but why has that taken over ten years? We have come to re-gard the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as cultural givens, but we are numb to them. We no longer ques-tion or critique our purpose there, but are battling a faceless enemy in the Taliban. Our mission is skewed and our purpose ambiguous.

This war is eerily reminiscent of British occupation of Egypt. We are attempting, and failing, to impose our ideals in a foreign land and I feel it will end in the same way, with revolt and bitterness. Like America failed in Vietnam, they will fail in Iraq and Afghanistan and all they will have done is re-enforced their bully-boy stereotype on the nation-al stage.

“Mr Cameron main-tains his veneer of British genteel

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�POLITICS GAIRRHYDD�COM

)CELAND�S�EX 0-�FACES�CRIMINAL�TRIAL

Mass protests have taken place in Moscow and Saint Peters-burg after the announcement

of the victory of Vladimir Putin in the first round with the result of 63 per cent of the vote. The pro-testers chanted anti-Putin slogans, demanding him to step down and repeat the elections. They accuse Putin of mass frauds and an unfair campaign. These frauds have since been confirmed by independent

observers. There is reasonable

doubt as 95 per cent of voters in

C h e c h -

nya voted for Putin, according to official results. This may be odd as Putin is responsible for the second war in Chechnya with thousands of civilian victims, and for devasta-tion of the main city in Chechnya-Grozny. Putin also received more than 90 per cent of votes in other Caucasus republics, official results say, despite armed rebels there ac-tively continuing to defy Russia. The protests were ended by mass arrests of protesters after two days. However, on March 10, the protest-ers were back in Moscow, asking for

a new elec-tion and chanting, "this has not been

an election, Putin is not President". The presi-d e n t i a l

c a m -p a i g n w a s n o t f a i r . M e -

dia controlled by the government displayed Putin’s propaganda of a strong and stable Russia. Other can-didates were not allowed to present their arguments and no TV debates have taken place. Some candidates were not registered based on a ‘technicality’.

Unfortunately, protests in Mos-cow are not highly dangerous for Putin who has support from poor, unqualified citizens living in thou-sands of Russian villages with no access to the internet or indepen-dent press. The internet campaign on blogs and Facebook by indepen-dent candidates is a positive signal; however, protests in Moscow do not affect other parts of the country. The new-old Russian President de-nies these accusations and claims that both voting and campaign met democratic standards, simultane-ously hiring bloggers to support and promote his image in the only free medium that (some) Russian people can access.

Putin will probably send the protesters to jail instead of using tanks like his Syrian friend, presi-dent Assad, because many Russian

tanks are currently in Syria help-ing to end the Revolution, and Putin wants to avoid publicity. Sending the opposition to jail, like he dealt with ex-oligarch Chodorkovski, is definitely less of a spectacle. Those measures will probably be enough to keep his power as it is very un-likely to have bigger social support and a universal Russian revolution is not considered serious. Russia is a divided country, mostly economi-cally. There is no middle class but a huge gap between poor and rich, and between cities and vil-lages. Russia has never had a real democracy and many people miss the Soviet Union and a powerful Russia.

Russia also has many ethnic mi-norities that suf-fer from ‘white Russian’ acts of violence. The shift to democra-cy may weaken Russia and lead to the indepen-dence of some

Russian republics, like Chechnya. Furthermore, Putin has strong sup-port from his army and oligarchs, who earn millions of US dollars through contracts with the public sector. Protesters and Putin are also aware that the Western world will not help by any means other than diplomacy, as fighting against Russia may lead to world crisis and a potential world war with China and Cuba, who will engage on Pu-tin’s side. The USA, the main global actor, cannot risk it. Neither can

Europe, which is dependent on Russia's gas supplies. With-

out the interven-tion of other dominant inter-national powers,

this contest will ultimately rest on who can se-cure the great-est amount of power within Russia: Putin, or the people?

Governments should fear their people as opposed to people fearing their governments. This expres-sion has become well known thanks to Alan Moore’s infamous graphic novel and even more so thanks to the blockbuster film it inspired. I recalled that expression with the opportunity of the trial of Iceland’s ex-prime minister over the crisis that beset his country in 2008.

From 2008 onwards, the small is-land nation became the centre of at-tention as its banks' debts brought the country to its knees with more than 80 per cent of their debt be-longing to the banking sector. The way in which the Icelandic people survived the matter politically in order to place their country on the recovery track is of great signifi-cance.

Under increasing popular dis-content, for which the Icelanders tasted tear gas in the streets of Reykjavik for the first time since WWII, the government resigned at the beginning of 2009 and the new coalition governmental scheme proposed a bill to pay the UK and the Netherlands for the bailout of customers of the private Icelandic banks. Their view was to increase external pressures, which bordered on extortion. President Ólafur Rag-

nar Grímsson vetoed the proposal on January 5 2010, and in a subse-quent referendum held in March of the same year, the very first referen-dum ever held in Iceland, the people voted overwhelmingly against that option. A second, somehow more le-

nient debt payment proposal was ve-toed yet again in February 2011 and a second referendum left no doubt as to what the people wanted.

In the meantime, as of Novem-ber 2009, 25 Icelanders were chosen from their fellow citizens to rewrite

the nation’s constitution. The only thing these 25 had in common was the absolute absence of any ties be-tween them and the political system as it was thus far. The articles of the new constitution were written one at a time and then published online. All people had the opportunity to view, comment and suggest on their new constitution in the making and each article was corrected and fi-nalised after all propositions were taken into account.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, member of the Icelandic parliament, com-ments on the need the country had to change its political system as it did: "The ministers do not control anything; they are in truth con-trolled by the bureaucrats. Utilising the internet made direct democracy possible. In order for democracy to be real it has to be simple, otherwise bureaucracy makes it exceptionally difficult for people to participate let alone understand the process-es. Thus we can understand that the failing of the system was not because of wrongful persons that had power." She added, "the flaw was in the system itself and it was the system that had to be changed, not merely the persons in office, if things were to improve."

The problem may be in the flaws of the system but at any case there are key persons responsible for key decisions taken in key moments.

And this is where the legal perse-cution of all those responsible for what Iceland went through comes into play. The trial of Geir Haarde, Iceland’s prime minister from 2006-2009, which began this, month defi-nitely surpasses all other relevant ongoing legal cases in Iceland be-cause it is unusual to see an ex-head of state accused of criminal respon-sibilities for his time in office any-where in the world. He is not alone; several ministers and bankers face persecution while the then-secre-tary of the ministry of finance has already been convicted.

The persecution of the ex-PM was made possible thanks to a 1905 Icelandic law that allows for a spe-cial tribune to be set to examine cases related to ministers. This is the first time this special court is activated. Mr Haarde of course per-ceives this as an attack on him and his party. He adequately forgets that the Icelanders have also ousted the previous opposition parties, claim-ing that they had a share of the re-sponsibility as well.

Whether politicians should be legally accountable for their deci-sions while in office is a matter for one’s own discretion. It is my per-sonal opinion that Iceland is cur-rently teaching the world what true democracy is and should be hailed as the new fatherland of (true) de-mocracy for the third millennium.

0ROTESTORS�DEFY�2USSIAN�ELECTION�FIXPolitics Reporter Agnieszka Miszczuk addresses growing public discontent in Russia after the outcome of the presidential elections that ‘voted’ Putin back into power

Demetrios Chatzidakes-ZavorianosPolitics Reporter

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16FeaturesWill your Degree get you a Job?

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is one of the most c o m m o n

questions that everyone gets asked from a very young age. You can probably remember the answers you may have said or heard at that age, ranging from being a fireman, doctor, policeman, princess or power ranger. The answer to this question tends to change over your lifespan; I know my answer has changed considerably from “a vet” at the age of about seven years old before I found out the ‘ins-and-outs’ of the job. Subsequently, my deci-sion moved from being a teacher to a magazine editor to a speech and language therapist to the point where I am now: I have no idea. So ‘indecisive’ is probably an under-statement for me when it comes to what I want to be when I grow up, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

The luxury we had as five year olds with a whole world of different career possibilities has shrunk con-siderably and now it’s not so much ‘what we want to do’ as whether we actually get a job when we fin-ish our degree. A day hardly goes by without the mention of the fact that it’s almost impossible to get a job in today’s employment climate.

This inevitably makes every stu-dent question whether they should even be spending a massive amount of money for a degree which could actually turn out to be worthless. An article in The Independent has set out statistics showing just how many graduates obtained a job in their relevant field of work in 2008.

According to these statistics, you are more likely to get a job if you have a degree in Middle East-ern & African Studies, with 36% of graduates obtaining a job, than if you have a degree in something like English or Psychology, both with only 29%. Professions such as Den-tistry or Medicine rank the highest with 83% and 87%, while Law ranks the lowest with only 20%. So ac-cording to these statistics, if you’re a Law student, only 20% of you and your fellow classmates will get a job in that field when you graduate; but if you plan to be a doctor or a den-tist then you’ll be fine! I’m not go-ing to say whether these statistics are right or wrong, or whether I agree or not but I will definitely say that I find them more than a little shocking!

With only 150,000 graduate level jobs available each year and 333,000 students ready to graduate this year, I wanted to look into all the different opportunities people take after the big step of graduating uni-versity from travelling the world,

diving straight into a job, or tak-ing a further degree to better their chances of getting a job.

When landed with the choice of making endless amounts of CV’s, applying for what seems like a mil-lion jobs or sitting on a Thai beach sipping a cocktail in the warm Asian climate, it’s no wonder that many graduates decide to take off to a sunnier setting whilst work-ing out what they want to do with the rest of their life. It may seem like you’re shooting yourself in the foot by spending yet more money on going abroad after university, but with the job opportunities in bars, restaurants and other tourist attractions, it appears to be quite a simple solution to the waiting game of the perfect job opening.

If jetting off to the other side of the world doesn’t seem like your sort of thing, many graduates are doing a post-graduate degree or an entirely new degree altogether in order to improve their chances of employment. The most popular Masters in the UK are business and management courses. However, a MA costs considerably more than an undergraduate course does. Some look at this as an investment in their future and decide to save on as many costs as possible and live at home whilst doing their post-graduate course. 40,000 UK students embark on a Master’s degree every

year; many are probably more than content to stay a student for that lit-tle bit longer. It's another great way to postpone the moment you have to look for a job, or if you need just a little bit more time to work out ex-actly what you want to do.

A thread on thestudentroom.co.uk features a question by a stu-dent basically asking fellow stu-dents to state what they are doing/what they want to do after univer-sity. The student who posted the question is likely to be in their last year as they say it’s now hitting them that the end of university is in sight and a range of replies have been posted. Many state that

they are going to do a postgradu-ate course or a Master’s, one reply-ing that they’d rather get it out of the way whilst they’re still in “the education rhythm”. Some write jo-vial comments such as simply “cel-ebrate” or share their plans to burn all of their lecture notes in “one epic bonfire”. Another has written that they want to move abroad, en-joy their youth and start a graduate career in their mid to late twenties.

My favourite answer from this thread is “I’ll just go with the flow and see where life leads me”. This is mainly due to the fact that I still don’t know what I want to do when I finish university, but I look for-ward to the possibilities that the future will bring. The huge amount of societies and clubs you can join may also push you in the direction of a career. Or a specific module you take on your course might just make you realise what you have al-ways wanted to do.

So figures may claim to tell you that one degree will be more likely to get you a job than another, but these statistics change from year to year and don’t show what the other percentage of students do with their life. Sure, a degree is not what everyone needs for a job and for many, university is not for them. But I do think university brings so many more opportunities than just a certificate at the end of it all.

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�FEATURES GAIRRHYDD�COM

Features writer, Sophie Chamberlain, discusses the state of graduate employment.

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Features17

I got bitten with the volun-teering bug during Sixth Form. I opted to help out with a mentoring scheme af-ter hearing in an assembly that it was something that

would embellish our CV’s. I was appointed to guide a Lower Sixth Form student through any troubles he had and helped him whilst he in-tegrated into his new surroundings. The experience of helping him was thoroughly rewarding, seeing him slowly relax into the Sixth Form flow, finding his place in the class-room and more generally in his new environment. I was his key contact in settling into Sixth Form life and was there to help him in whatever way I could, whether it be academic problems or general advice.

I then decided to take this fur-ther and volunteer to be a one-to-one guide for a year nine student, who needed extra assistance with his literacy skills. I met with him twice a week, listening and reading with him in the school library, not-ing down his performance and aid-ing him in any way I could.

To see him make such great prog-ress throughout the year really was fulfilling. He gained confidence in his abilities and his level of read-ing flourished. He started with such a reluctance to even attempt what you or I may consider the simplest of words, but then grew so confident that he wanted to try ev-ery word he came across! This may seem like a small feat, but to those with a severe reading impairment this was a huge achievement. Help-ing him to reach this point made me value my own abilities and feel immensely proud of his effort and commitment to improve.

When I moved on to university I was presented with the huge ar-ray of volunteering opportunities. I wandered around the Fresher’s Fayre and saw so many stalls brim-

ming with chances to help those in need. I came across the SVC (Stu-dent Volunteering Cardiff) stall and found my niche. It provided the chance to help in a range of projects and many where you did not need to dedicate weeks of your time in one go. I was aware that I would have a heavier workload at univer-sity, as well as my involvement in societies, clubs and sports. I wanted to ensure that I could participate in the projects, but not commit to

something I could not fulfil to my best ability. I signed up to SVC andthey said they would be in contact with upcoming opportunities by email and on their Facebook group.

Shortly after this I noticed there was a post on the Cardiff Art Soci-ety’s Facebook wall, where SVC was looking for help with a one off proj-ect. They had many students and members of other societies already involved, but requested the help of other budding artists. They were looking for members of our society to support their latest project, plan-ning, painting and preening the lo-cal primary school.

As a committee, we jumped at the chance. The committee members and myself arranged with SVC to meet and plan the event. We also in-vited our society members to come along to the meeting, present ideas, get sketching and generally get in-volved in the event. We started to

brainstorm how we might restyle this playground with simply paint and brushes, and found ourselves with an abundance of ideas.

After this primary planning the committee and I liaised with the SVC team and arranged to meet at the school on the 26th of November 2011, primed and ready to start the make-over project. We had dona-tions of paints and brushes from local organisations and knew that the pupils were unaware of what we were creating, so it would be a surprise for their arrival on Mon-day morning.

Paintbrush in hand, with chalk at the ready myself and around 40 other volunteers began to sketch our designs on to the bare brick walls and already the playground was coming to life. The SVC team leaders divided the volunteers into groups, each assigned a section of the playground to transform. The school had requested that we paint an array of flags as their students came from a range of diverse back-grounds, so we made sure to paint every flag that represented the students with care. The students also wanted a dance floor painted, so we set to work creating a disco ball and dance mat in one corner of the playground. By the time lunch break hit, we were well on our way to reaching our goal. As the day progressed each segment was com-ing together, and all the volunteers were getting a real buzz from their efforts – despite the freezing cold weather.

The day came to a close and the head teacher began to approach. We all waited, hoping what we had created was how she had imagined it would be. She thanked us greatly, stating it was better than she could have imagined and that the children would be very pleased. That’s the point when you really reap the benefits! When you realise that the people you are helping are going to be pleased. The thought of the children coming into the school on Monday and seeing their dreary playground transformed into this colourful play zone; a place which they actually look forward to visit-ing, was a wonderful feeling.

The experience proved to be a great way to make a difference in the local community and to meet new people. A range of students came together to achieve the goal of making young student’s school environment that little bit bright-er. The project also helped us vol-unteers to develop so many skills that are applicable to everyday life, including the world of work. We had to work together in a team, col-laborating and negotiating how we should tackle the task in order to

achieve the result. We also had to manage our time well and be self-motivated to ensure our goal was reached, all of which are precious qualities needed in future careers.

There are so many chances to vol-unteer within university life and be-yond, and with such great rewards, it really is an opportunity not to be missed. There is a project for every-one, from helping the homeless, to having tea and biscuits with the el-

derly. Whatever your vice, it really is something to experience. Volun-teering gives you the opportunity to make a difference in the commu-nity and actually see the effects of what you have generated. It really can enhance your career prospects, showing employers you have the te-nacity and skills to go the distance, as well as giving you the pride that you have achieved something that will enrich the local community.

Your Space.

“All the volunteers were getting a real buzz from their efforts - despite the freezing cold weather.

This week, Helen Cameron shares her experience of student volunteering.

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd s�FEATURES GAIRRHYDD�COM

We want to hear your stories so get in touch: features@gairrhydd.com.

Are you a Natural Napper?

On average, how many hours do you sleep for each night? As a univer-sity student, I am aware that at times

our sleep patterns are highly irreg-ular. I can vividly recall memories from my year as a fresher, which involved a somewhat nocturnal pat-tern whereby daytime ‘naps’ were obligatory if one wanted to sur-vive the week of partying late into the night and making lectures in the day. But would I call it a “natu-ral sleep pattern”? I don’t think so. Eight hours kip a night, other-wise known as the recommended amount of sleep for an adult human being; the amount of hours that we strive so desperately to achieve, in the knowledge that we may be a complete misery to those around us if this is not achieved. Eight hours

sleep, allowing us to be ready for the day ahead... or not.

Evidence has recently emerged from both science and history, pro-posing that the so called perfect 8-hours sleep is unnatural. This seemingly bizarre concept was first uncovered in the early 1990s by psychiatrist Thomas Wehr. Wehr noticed, when carrying out an ex-periment involving plunging indi-viduals into darkness for fourteen hours every day for a month, that their sleep began to regulate into an unusual pattern. They slept for four hours before waking briefly for two hours, then falling back into a sec-ond block of sleep for four hours. This study seems to indeed prove that our bodies may naturally pre-fer to sleep in two lengthy blocks, but could it be that with not much else to do in the prolonged period of complete darkness they just saw it as an opportunity to catch up on their beauty sleep?

Nevertheless, further evidence has appeared supporting this pe-culiar pattern. In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a paper, which revealed 16 years of research and supported the segmented sleeping pattern much akin to that demonstrated in Wehr’s experiment. Addition-ally, historical evidence referring to the use of “first” and “second”

sleeps by authors such as Dickens is again supportive: "He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream." Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1840).

But what does all this tell us? Should we be getting up in the mid-dle of the night and gathering with cups of tea and biscuits before go-ing back for a further forty winks? Evidence has shown that histori-cally individuals were quite active during this “waking” period and of-ten got up to smoke tobacco or visit neighbours. Whilst at university, I’ve often known of people who get up in the middle of the night before

an exam to have an extra twenty minutes of “cramming.” Addition-ally, friends claim to have insomnia from a sleep pattern which involves “playing on the X-box until 4am and then sleeping in until 2pm the next day”. Moreover, this idea of a secondary snooze is not that alien when we consider the Spanish dis-appearing off at lunchtime for their Siestas. But is this really the same?

Is this lengthened double dosing pe-riod natural?

Our regimented eight hour slot gradually took over Western soci-ety and by the 1920s the idea of a first and second sleep had been lost from our social awareness. Shifts towards this one sleep period have been accused of being down to im-provements in street lighting and domestic lighting, encouraging individuals to be more active dur-ing the night and having less time available for rest. Historian Craig Koslofsky claims that respectable people began exploiting early hours too, with Protestants and Catholics becoming accustomed to holding secret services at night, during pe-riods of persecution. By the 1700’s, more than 50 of Europe's major towns and cities were lit at night.

Night became fashionable and spending hours lying in bed was considered a waste of time.

The Industrial revolution inten-sified the already emerging attitude towards the need for time efficien-cy, claims Roger Ekirch. Society has certainly become more fast-paced and unsurprisingly sleeping for the majority of the day is out of the question for most. Professionals

with demanding jobs often struggle to fit five or six hours sleep into their packed schedules. Potentially

this could be a reason why many people in challenging occupations

are so stressed. Psychologist Gregg Jacobs suggests that the waking pe-riod between sleeps, when people were forced into periods of rest and relaxation, could have played an im-portant part in the human capacity to regulate stress naturally.

The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damag-ing, claims Ekirch, as if it makes people who wake up at night anx-ious, this anxiety is likely to seep into waking life too. Ekirch claims that many of us with sleeping prob-lems or insomnia could root back the cause of these difficulties to the human body's natural preference for segmented sleep as well as the presence of artificial light. An ex-cuse most definitely to be used then, if you are one of those who have an over-active Xbox obsession as men-tioned above! Equally, therefore, if

you find you wake up in the early hours and feel an urge for a night on the town you can always claim it roots back to part of normal human physiology.

More traditionally it is known that in a full sleep cycle our bod-ies supposedly progress through four differing stages of sleep; this involves passing through a fairly light to a much heavier sleep and back again and includes a phase where we are likely to dream. Doc-tors have failed to acknowledge that this process within a consolidated eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

Despite this, the evidence proves strong that two sleeping periods is beneficial for us when looking at our ancestry and I am willing to accept this idea with open arms. As long as the body gets rest and recuperation, does routine matter? Think of our pre-industrial ances-tors the next time you wake mid slumber and relax knowing that you are a natural napper.

Features writer, Catherine Airey researches the possible myth of the eight hour sleep.

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18Features

Google's decision to change its pri-vacy policy has caused discomfort among the search engine’s users who have raised concerns over a loss of privacy and control. Google, on the other hand, argues that the changes will actually benefit the user, making the policy more coher-ent and allowing the company to tailor content according to the cus-tomer’s desire.

The new privacy policy enables Google to collect personal data through two different methods. The first is through the information that users give to Google when set-ting up their Google Account. The other, and perhaps more controver-sial, method is to collect informa-tion from when people are using the Google services. This could be location information, search his-tory and device information spread across each of the platforms run by Google including YouTube, Gmail and their mapping service.

Google has argued its purpose is merely to improve the service expe-rienced by the user, providing “tai-lored content” from relevant search results. Yet controversy has been fueled over Google’s intentions to extend this “tailored” service to the advertisements the user will re-ceive, a change that has ruffled the feather of many a techno blogger.

Criticism of the changes primar-ily arose over the possibility of the beginning of a descent into Big Brother-esque monitoring and also the ambiguous nature of the policy itself. Speaking at a meeting in Westminster, David Smith, deputy Information Commissioner, called the policy “too vague” and stressed Google’s claims that the changes of-fer clarity to the user were not sup-ported by their policy.

“Being vague does not help in giving users effective control about how their information is shared,” he said. “It's their information at the end of the day."

He also criticised other search engines including Google for their adopted “mere conduit” role, which enables the sites to side-step liabil-ity.

“Google can't just say: 'I'm just a

messenger, I have no responsibility at all for the messages I carry.'” he said.

“Given their dominant role and their huge influence here they have a responsibility to ensure they op-erate in a fair and reasonable way.”

The policy has similarly been criticised in Europe, specifically by the French data protection au-thority, CNIL. The European Jus-tice Commissioner Viviane Reding also expressed her concern to BBC Radio Four saying it could "vio-late European data laws by failing to consult consumers making the

changes, among other complaints."In an interview with BBC News,

Google representative Peter Barron stated that the intention of the new privacy policy is to make it more ‘simple’ for the user. Instead of having around 70 different privacy policies for the Google services, the idea is to have one combined priva-cy policy that will collect data from Google’s services.

Although Google insist that data will not be given to advertisers, it has been stated that the personal data will be used to give “relevant information”. A common concern appears to be the lack of under-standing of what exactly Google will use the personal data for. Matt Hodkinson, a social media expert, told BBC News that the debate over the new privacy policy is merely a “storm in a tea cup” and thus noth-ing to worry about.

Google’s privacy policy to keep an electronic monitor on searches may seem a step too far, but it is worth considering that it may simply be the first online towards a changed meaning of privacy. Ultimately, it is still possible to control the elements of their personal data that are col-lected and currently, Hodkinson’s comments appear to ring true.

For the moment that is.

A 5,300-year-old corpse, affection-ately known as Ötzi, has had his DNA sequenced by researchers at the Italian Institute for Mummies and the Iceman of Bolzano. The re-search clues about his appearance, reveal that, despite the vast tempo-ral gulf between Ötzi and ourselves, we share some of the same health problems.

Discovered by hikers in the Italian Alps in 1991, Ötzi’s frozen corpse has been the subject of ex-tensive research for over 20 years, as well as much speculation about the suspicious circumstances of his death after being shot with an arrow. Much is already known about Ötzi, including the fact that he had tooth cavities and a number of tattoos, but genetic research is now bringing to light a much more detailed picture of the Copper Age

man’s life.Previous research in 2008, rely-

ing on DNA sequenced from Ötzi’s mitochondrial cells, had already hinted at some of his origins, but the new study, published in Nature Communications, has been able to account for 96% of Ötzi’s genome. A team led by Professor Albert Zink extracted DNA from the nuclei of a piece of pelvic bone, and was able to use next-generation genome se-quencing to build up a picture of what Ötzi would have been like.

Among the things the team were able to ascertain were that Ötzi had

brown eyes, type O blood and an infection from Lyme disease bacte-rium, making him the first docu-mented case of the condition.

His ancestors were probably from the Middle East, migrating slowly into Europe as agriculture spread. He was lactose intolerant, probably due to the relative novelty of livestock rearing, and that milk was unlikely to be on the menu. Re-searchers also found that Ötzi was predisposed to heart disease, which might explain calcium deposits found around his heart during pre-vious research.

Monday March 19 2012 #gairRHYDD�s�SCIENCE GAIRRHYDD�COM Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�SCIENCE GAIRRHYDD�COM20Science3EQUENCING�SUCCESS�FOR�)CEMANMatt BradleyScience Writer

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PRIVACY�ROWLouice Tapper JanssonScience Writer

“Google have a responsibility to ensure they oper-ate in a fair and reasonable way

“Ötzi's frozen corpse has been the subject of ex-tensive research for over 20 years

UK scientists have announced that they have developed a protection system for satellites against po-tential damage from violent solar storms.

These days almost everything depends on satellites, from mobile phones to advanced weaponry so there is an increasing dependence on the global positioning system, or GPS. These systems are particularly vulnerable to solar radiation from solar storms as they orbit closer to the Earth, passing through the Van Allen belt where radiation levels are higher than in a geostationary orbit due to the Earth’s magnetic field.

With solar activity reaching the peak of its 11-year cycle next year, countries and corporations across the globe are starting to take notice and search for ways to protect their satellites.

Fortunately, several research groups across Europe, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), have developed a way to potentially

save these satellites. “For the first time, we can now

forecast radiation levels for a whole range of different orbits, from geo-stationary to medium Earth orbit where there is a tremendous growth in the number of satellites,” said BAS project leader Richard Horne. “Nobody has done that before.”

According to the BAS, a solar “super-storm” similar to one seen in 1859 would wreak an estimated £19 billion of damage to satellites alone, and in 2003, a geo-magnetic storm caused more than 47 satellites to malfunction and led to the loss of one satellite valued at roughly £405 million.

Compare that to the price of one

of the new BAS-developed systems at £2.15 million, and it is easy to see that even just a few more hours’ notice to move their satellites will save countries and companies a substantial amount.

The issue of solar storms has risen into the public sphere recent-ly, as one of the largest solar storms in recent years battered the planet a fortnight ago.

Air traffic was rerouted away from the poles and other defensive measures had been put in place to limit the damage of the onslaught, but our satellites and navigational systems (those most at threat from theses incidents) remained largely unharmed.

Tom WilsonScience Writer

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“In 2003, a storm led to the loss of one satellite valued at roughly £405 million

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Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�SCIENCE GAIRRHYDD�COM

2ASPBERRY�0I��FOR�a����BUY�A�SLICE�OF �THE�FUTUREAs a credit card sized computer designed to teach children programming goes on sale, Alexey Underwood investigates the impact this might have on the way we view technnologyThe year is 1987 and highly pro-grammable computers such as BBC Micro, Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64, each boasting RAM in the tens of kilobytes, dominate the international home computing market. They can be found in many schools and educational institu-tions, as well as numerous homes. For the only decade in history, programming and tinkering with computers is a true craze among youngsters, and the rise of the youthful “home programmer” is in full swing.

Fast forward 25 years to 2012, and the current computing landscape is noticeably different. Gone is the in-terest in programming; gone is the drive for creativity.

Contemporary games consoles offer us profoundly polished enter-tainment solutions, while modern office and graphics packages allow for quick, easy and efficient pro-duction of high-quality work. As a result of such factors, average com-puter users are nowhere near as exposed to programming or the in-ner workings of computing as they were in the past. There’s simply no need for them to get involved – ev-erything is readily available off the shelf.

One UK-based charity aims to change all this and re-kindle glob-al interest in programming with a bold and daring, revolutionary even, concept – and this organisa-tion is known as the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Its proposed catalyst for the computing revolution? A $25 cellphone-sized, Linux-powered personal computer.

The idea came about in 2006, when Eben Upton and his col-leagues, then working at the Uni-versity of Cambridge’s computer laboratory, became exasperated with the annually plummeting com-puter literacy of undergraduate ap-plicants to study Computer Science at the university.

Thanks to the secondary educa-tion system’s recent obsession with

Microsoft Office and web design packages, applicants to the degree scheme, previously predominantly composed of hobbyist program-mers, nowadays have a very rudi-mentary grasp of computing – with only few having ever been exposed to HTML.

Bemoaning the sorry state of af-fairs, Upton set about rectifying the problem. Part of the solution, in his opinion, was to create and market spartan, compact and easily pro-grammable computers, available to the masses; computers that even children could buy with their pock-et money to tinker with; computers that schools could afford to buy for their pupils.

In 2006, Upton created an early prototype. A far cry from the elegant and compact design of its modern counterpart, it was approximately 9” long and able to (just) render 3D graphics, but there was no denying that it was functional. Since then, the prototype has enjoyed a num-ber of refinements, with many of Upton’s old friends and colleagues joining the cause and contributing

to the effort. The exponential development of

mobile phone technology has meant that processors have become signif-icantly more powerful and compact over the years, making them per-fectly suitable for integration into the Raspberry Pi project.

Finally, after many years of work by the Foundation, the Rasp-berry Pi computer was released at the beginning of this month. The computer is available in two speci-fications: the $25 Model A, which features 256Mb RAM, one USB port, RCA and HDMI video outputs (video is displayed through a TV), a 3.5mm audio output, a power inlet and an SD card slot; and the $35 Model B, which offers the same features as Model A but has an additional USB port and an Ethernet port.

The Raspberry Pi, or RasPi as it’s affectionately known, lacks a hard drive – which contributes to its diminutive size of 85.60mm x 53.98mm x 17mm. Instead, an exter-nal storage device can be connected via USB, while the computer itself boots from the SD card. The rec-

ommended operating system is the freely obtainable and user-friendly ‘Fedora Remix’ Linux distribution, which comes pre-installed with office and graphics applications – although any operating system compatible with 256Mb RAM and bootable from an SD card could be used. As such, the RasPi offers the basic functionality of a convention-al desktop PC at a fraction of the price. The programming languages offered by default are Python, Perl, Ruby and Bash.

It is therefore clear that the Pi was designed as an educational tool, a cut-price home computer, and a techie’s plaything.

However, the tiny size, reason-able power, and cheap price of the device make it extremely versatile, lending it perfectly to a variety of incredible potential applications that not even its creators had an-ticipated.

Take Cryptocat, for example. Cryptocat is a browser-based en-crypted web chat system developed by security researcher Nadim Ko-beissi, who was inflamed by the

Arab Spring and “decaying state of digital privacy worldwide”. Speaking to the BBC, he revealed his intentions to use Raspberry Pi computers as servers running Cryptocat, which encrypts mes-sages before they reach the main server (unlike Facebook or Google).

Kobeissi hopes that the system will help liberate speech in countries where free speech is under threat.

Harriet Green of Premier Far-nell, one of RasPi’s distruibutors, told the Guardian how one Middle Eastern school plans to supply each schoolgirl with one of the comput-ers, while RaspBerry Pi’s official website reports interest from hos-pitals and museums in using the computers to power display devices and from developing countries un-able to afford “traditional” desktop PC infrastructures.

The inspirational list of applica-tions for the device goes on. Rang-ing from the superficial to the glob-ally profound, interest in the device has been shown by seemingly all groups of people, from mothers of severely disabled children in need of affordable monitoring appa-ratus, to technophiles wanting to build Sonos-style multi-room music players.

My planned use of the RasPi is a lot less noble. I personally just want a media cent1re and Python work-horse hidden within the hollow shell of a Nintendo Entertainment System. Perhaps, then, it’s appro-priate that I haven’t been able to get hold of one so far, what with initial demand running at 700 orders per second and the online store, unable to cope with the traffic, taken down until further notice.

But if I ever do manage to get hold of a Raspberry Pi, I have no doubt that it will be the best £22 I’ve ever spent. For now, I’m happy to just sit back and watch a computing renaissance spring into existence.

“It's 2012. Gone is the interest in programming and the drive for creativity

“Compact and eas-ily programmable computers, that even children could buy with their pocket money

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TESTIMONIALS

ANNY ~ POLITICS

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NUMBER OF CARDIFF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS THAT KEYLET HAVE SUCCESSFULLY HOUSED. OCT 11~MAR 12

1,820**8.9% OF TOTAL STUDENTS AT CU

20,694

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KEYLET IPHONEAPP DOWLOADS[TO DATE]

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#80,567

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15 YEARS*

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HOME.CO.UK STATISTICS

#16*

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ONLY 1.75%* 100%

Keylet Professional/Student1a Mundy Place, Cathays, Cardiff C24 4BZE lettings@keylet.co.ukT 02920 388 399 F 02920 376 922 www.keylet.co.uk

Mon 19 MarchArt Society Workshop7.00pm - 9.00pm, Aneurin Bevan, SU

Wed 21 MarchWales Psychiatry AGM 8.00pm - 1.00am, The Heath Pub

Sat 24 MarchHarry Potter Society Charity Ball7.00pm - 1.00am, CF10, SU

Sat 24 MarchCatholic Soc Spring Concert7.00pm - 9.30pm, Chaplaincy

Tue 27 MarchArt Society Clay Workshop7.00pm - 9.00pm, Gareth Edwards Room, SU

Sat 24 MarchHealth Care Music Concert7.30pm, Albany Baptist Church

Fri 30 MarchPhysics Society Ball7.30pm - 11.30pm, The Angel Hotel

Sat 24 MarchSSAGS Society Ball1.00pm - 1.00am, Clare Colledge Cambridge

Societies24 Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�SOCIETIES GAIRRHYDD�COM

Follow @GairRhyddSoc for the latest news

and info on future articles.

Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�SOCIETIES GAIRRHYDD�COM

3ELF (ARM�!WARENESS�$AY��0UTTING�

Mental Health Out in the Open

Isabelle RobertsSocieties Editor

In Issue 971 of gair rhydd (Monday February 27), the Features section ran an article called 'Self-Harm: the Sufferer and the Witness'. Now it's time to follow up on how the Self-Harm Awareness Day went.

Self-Harm is one of the most prominent mental health issues among young people and it was revealed by the Royal Institute of Psychiatry (November 2011) that as many as one in 12 young people self-harm. For the first time ever in Cardiff, Cardiff Mental Wealth Society hosted an all-day awareness campaign on na-tional Self-Harm Awareness Day (Thursday March 1) to shed some light on this hidden problem.

There were a number of events and projects going on all through the day to get people thinking and talk-ing about self-harm. Particularly well received was the ‘Scar Project’ and guest speaker Body Gossip’s Sarah Fullagar, who gave an inspirational talk about her nine-year battle with self-harm and recovery.

For the Scar Project, Cardiff Mental Wealth Soci-ety rounded up a brave group of volunteers who were prepared to pose for some very emotive and expres-sive images designed to represent the feelings associ-ated with self-harm.

“Words such as ‘pain, anxiety, anger, regret, shame

and torment’ were written across body parts which would normally be hidden from view in order to sig-nify the secretive nature of self-harm and how scars are often hidden. The end result produced some very intriguing and poignant images which were displayed on plasma TV screens in the foyer and a number of people stopped to look at them and talk about the im-ages. However, the 'Scar Project' didn’t stop with our volunteers. Throughout the day we were encouraging any student who walked past to write the word ‘scar’ on them in order to demonstrate what it is like to live with scars from self-harm. Thankfully many of the students were interested and happy to comply.

Self-harm doesn’t just involve cutting; it can in-volve hair-pulling, sticking hands into hot water or tea, skin-picking, scratching etc. In order to educate people about the reality of self-harm, some of the Mental Wealth volunteers put together a ‘separate the fact from fiction’ game about self-harm where we asked students to decide whether statements such as ‘if it’s self-inflicted it can’t be serious’ (fiction) were

fact or fiction. The game elicited a lot of surprised faces and many students were enlightened to hear the truth about this prominent issue.

In addition to the Scar project, Cardiff Mental Wealth also created a formspring account which we used to anonymously collect peoples’ experiences with self-harm and recovery. Statements and recollec-tions of self-harm were used in a non-triggering way to form a ‘recovery and telling’ board displayed in the students’ union throughout the day.

Our biggest event of the day was our guest speaker event hosted by Body Gossip’s Sarah Fullagar. Sarah came to discuss her nine-year battle with self-harm and how she found recovery.

“In her talk, she debunked many of the myths sur-

rounding self-harm including how there isn’t always an intense traumatic event preceding self-harm and the session became interactive at the end when she took questions on her experiences from the audience. Following the talk, members of the Cardiff Mental Wealth committee assisted Sarah in leading a discus-sion group about self-harm which many people found moving and thought-provoking.

Self-harm is a behaviour frequently hidden from view. It is a mental health issue that desperately needs addressing amongst young people and many people said that Cardiff Mental Wealth Society did a brilliant job of bringing this issue to light. Speaking about her experiences of the day, Sarah Fullagar said, ‘I was thrilled to be part of such a wonderful day. This issue is so infrequently spoken about and it was bril-liant to see this being so passionately challenged by the Cardiff Mental Wealth team.'

For information on where to find support for self-harm issues please email cardiffmentalwealth@hot-mail.co.uk. Sarah Fullagar works for Body Gossip; a national body image campaign, for more details on Sarah’s work and how to contact her please visit: www.bodygossiping.tumblr.com

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Words such as 'pain, anxi-ety, anger' [...] were written across body parts.

Debunked many of the myths surrounding self-harm.

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21 Societies

24 - 25

Listings26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29

Sport33 - 36

Mon 19 MarchArt Society Workshop7.00pm - 9.00pm, Aneurin Bevan, SU

Sat 24 MarchCatholic Soc Spring Concert7.00pm - 9.30pm, Chaplaincy

Tue 27 MarchArt Society Clay Workshop7.00pm - 9.00pm, Gareth Edwards Room, SU

Sat 24 MarchHealth Care Music Concert7.30pm, Albany Baptist Church

Fri 30 MarchPhysics Society Ball7.30pm - 11.30pm, The Angel Hotel

SSAGS Society Ball1.00pm - 1.00am, Clare Colledge Cambridge

25SocietiesMonday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�SOCIETIES GAIRRHYDD�COM

Are you: Putting on a play? Playing in a concert? Hosting an event? Doing a workshop? Raising money for charity? Going on a trip?

Then write about it! Email: societies@gairrhydd.comIf you would like to join a society, or see a full list of opportunities, visit: http://groups.cardiffstudents.com/societies/home

)N�/THER�.EWS���

Action Against Cuts-Cardiff, which Cardiff Uni Socialist Students supports, lead the NUS-supported student walkout at Cardiff on March 14th to express anger against the privatisation in higher education.

The lecturers' union UCU supported the walk out. More information can be found on http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5983

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Ogbo Oruaro EnochSocieties Writer

.IGERIAN�3TUDENTSg�3OCIETY�GETS�STRONGER

The Nigerian Students Society, which has been somewhat quiet, is buzzing with activities. Nigeria is the most popu-lated Black country in the world, so it is no surprise that a large number of the diverse students at Cardiff University are either from Nigeria or have a Nigerian heritage; how-ever, the society has still been lagging in terms of activity levels until recently. In February alone, four events were put in place with laudable attendance.

Kicking things off was a fun-filled quiz session on the February 17 about Cardiff City and the Students’ Union. Members were split into groups; contagious fun and laugh-ter soon filled the room, with food in the mix and inter-group

banter flying across the room the only way Nigerians know how. It was a relaxed scene and the winning group emerged with lovely prizes.

This team spirit fostered was carried along to a seven-a-side football tournament organised by the Kenyan Society the next day. Even in the rain, members came out to cheer the players on. Team Nigeria – a team of generally unfit, un-trained and untested players – came out with a respectable third place finish out of eight. It was all for fun, and as foot-ball is the common ground of almost every male in Nigeria, it brought about friendships beyond mere acquaintances.

The following Friday (February 24) another quiz night was organised as per members’ request. This time, though, it was on Nigeria, and another lovely fun-filled night was ensured with more gifts given and smiles on all faces at the end.

On the last Sunday of the month, the members gathered at the Society President’s house to help out in cooking Ni-gerian dishes for the last day of Go Global and Global Vil-lage later that night. Support for Cardiff City FC was in the air, which resulted in the food arriving a couple of minutes late in the arena, but that didn’t stop the booth being filled up in seconds with a long queue – showing the popularity of Nigerian food even though it is poorly represented on the international scene.

The revival of the Nigerian Students Society is underway and will grow from strength to strength not only as a social point for people of common descent in Cardiff University but also in displaying the melting-pot of cultures in Nigeria. The society hopes to have even greater collaborations with other societies in the future.

Isabelle RobertsSocieties Editor

In Issue 972 of gair rhydd we reported that the first ever Society Exchange was taking place. The event consisted of 2 parts. Firstly, members of certain societies had switched to another society for a week to experience something com-pletely different from what they are used to. To conclude the exchange a fundraising evening on Tuesday March 6 was then held, where participants pay £3 towards charity and then enjoy an evening of 30min taster sessions put on by 10 different societies.

The exchange week went well with everyone who took part really enjoying themselves. For example, Cerys Williams ex-changed from Pole Dancing to Capoeira. Cerys comments that “through society exchange I was able to be part of the Capoeira Society, where I took part in the training sessions, was shown how to use traditional Brazilian instrument, sang Brazilian songs and socialized with the members after training classes. Being able to experience a different society gave me the opportunity to meet new people and get a taste for something new. I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the society exchange.”

Another participant, who exchanged into the Expression Society, described the experience as “fun and enlightening. Everyone immediately introduced themselves and made me

feel welcome. The thing that struck me most was the music which was played by members of the society and extremely simple, but when accompanied by the singing/chanting of all the fighters the atmosphere was unique. A great exchange”.

On March 6 the event concluded with a fundraiser held in Solus. Photosoc ran photography workshops throughout the night, and took some hilarious portraits of some of the participants. RAG organized all of the charitable side of the event and made a presentation urging for people to support a petition to help reduce the age of the smear test. Star gave out Asylum Seeker’s questionnaires at the beginning of the night and revealed the very difficult answers later on. Every-one tried to get to grip with some pole dancing (with some people definitely succeeding, and some not so much). Slash performed an outstanding extract of their Go Global per-formance, with everyone getting involved for a house dance workshop and freestyle circle. Capoeira ran an exciting, but rather tranquil and mesmerizing workshop with their repet-itive dance combinations and singing in Portuguese; Expres-sion brought out the contemporary dancer in everyone by teaching an extract of their choreography and the boys from Act One certainly impressed the crowd of non-thesbians with their fun, exciting and extremely tactile improvisation games.

Breakdance revealed the true difficulty of looking quite so laid back whilst ‘freezing’ and doing the ‘6-step'. LMS’s

band Horizon finished off the night with some amazing folk music to whilst everyone sat and listened, feeling positively shattered after 5 hours of workshops.

When asked about how the night was for the individu-als who participated there were a lot of positive comments. Most people “loved it because I got to have a go at societies I wouldn’t usually have sought out”; “I got to pretend to be a breakdancer for the night!”; “really enjoyable, a great way to get people involved”; “loved that people were all willing to have a laugh and try something new”; “we need more eve-nings like this please” ; “amazing, haven’t laughed this much in a while”; “an absolutely incredible night”; “ a really good opportunity to try out lots of societies before joining”; “go nuts! Get everyone in the union involved”.

There were also many suggestions how the evening could be improved for future events: “Bigger space”; “have it on a weekend so that we can do more”; “have the live band earlier or in between workshops”; “create an all day event so that it’s not quite as tiring and we can fit in more”; “get more people and more societies involved”; “publicise it more”.

Overall, the event was a success and £170 was raised for charity. Everyone who came left having had a good time. If these comments are taken on board then the next Society Ex-change could be even better.

Listings26 Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�LISTINGS GAIRRHYDD�COM Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�LISTINGS GAIRRHYDD�COM

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What's On in Cardiff

Feb 13th- 19th 2012

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The cheapest, loudest, fancy dress-inspired mad-ness with a theme that is the Lash roars on this week. You can expect to see various victorious can-didates from the elections lapping up the celebra-tions following the previous day's results. Aside from that there will more than likely be the usual sports teams in togas and ballet outfits and prob-ably a few school uniforms as The Lash remains a favourite for sports teams' socials. Drinks start at £1.50 and the entertainment lasts until 2am with post-booze grub available next door; always a blast.

March 19th -26th 2012

3TUDENTSg�5NION�%LECTION�RESULTS�Great Hall, 6:30pm

It's the end of campaign week and unless you have been living in a cave you will have seen the various candidates doing everything in their power to try and get your vote. Whether it's dressing up as a pi-rate, or walking around in a transformers costume, dignity has been sacrificed in the search of a coveted position as one of the 8 Union sabbatical officers. This Tuesday at the great hall the results of the elec-tion will be announced, so if your keen to see if your preferred candidate got the job then head on over to suck up all the drama . There will be a few mock awards handed out too so it promises to be a night of joy, misery and a few laughs too .

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Hailing from Glasgow, Scottish six-piece Yashin have steadily assembled an army of fans across the UK and Europe with their distinctive sound and ability to capture live crowds. Yashin may sound similar to many other bands in their post-hardcore/alternative genre but they are considered among the finest at what they do. Receiving the award for Kerrang's best video of the week for "Stand Up" and with a Download slot safely booked.

*,3Motorpoint Arena, 7:30pm, £35.00

Alongside Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, JLS perhaps represent the most successful act to come out of the X Factor and have enjoyed a succession of number one hits and chart topping albums. Marvin, Aston, JB and Oritse will be performing at the Motorpoint Arena to what will probably be a crowd packed with screaming teen-age girls. Tickets for this one are limited, but as always there will still be a few available if you're desperate to go, and if you're lucky they may stick around the city centre for a few drinks.

)TCHY�&EET�Clwb Ifor Bach, 10:30pm, £6.00

Clwb Ifor Bach will be opening all three of its floors for yet another themed night of the successful "Itchy Feet". It's a chance to ditch the sort of cringeworthy dancing that you might see in town on a Saturday night and bring some class back to the dancefloor with some '50's-inspired moves. Expect the likes of Elvis and some Sinatra with a bit of jazz thrown in to create a vibrant and classy environment. So, pop a feather in your hat, lace your shoes up tight, and be sure to do your stretches,.It'll be a night of big noise, big hair, and big dance moves.

*,3�!FTERPARTY��Oceana, 10:00pm, £5.00

If you missed the show at the Motorpoint and you couldn't face missing the opportunity to see the JLS boys then you can do so at Oceana this Tuesday, as they will be doing a meet and greet for fans. Bring your camera and be prepared to wait a while as this place will be packed!With regard to the venue, Oceana offers the usu-al choice of Ice-House, Disco Room, The French Boudoir and many other exotic environments to relax with friends or hit the dancefloor. Plenty of deals on cocktails and doubles to keep the bank account looking reasonable too.

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25 Listings

26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29

Sport33 - 36

Listings27�������

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As the term draws to a close, Friday nights at the Union have, in all honesty, dwindled in numbers; but this is the last one before Drink the Bar Dry next week and it is perfect for those of you who are operating on an ever-decreasing budget.For 99p, you can get entry and you can enjoy a night out for under a tenner, and if it's not full or to your liking you can always use it as a nice little pre-drink venue before you head to the likes of Glam or Sodabar. It's affordable, it's convenient and it's an institution, it's Boombox.

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This is definitely a girls' night out, as the world-renowned group of male stripping pros, The Dreamboys, will be baring all for tigerti-ger this Saturday night. Ideal for birthdays, hen nights or just for a social with a bit of added spice, there probably won't be any finer male specimens within a hundred miles.Tickets are a little pricey at £29.00, but there is almost always a high demand to see these guys in action, so if you're interested, head down to Tiger in the week to avoid disappointment.

#OMEPLAY�3OLUS������PM��a�����

Let's face it, the city centre on a Saturday night is pretty much a no-go for students so the best option always has been, and remains the Union. The tried-and-tested formula of chart-topping music, competitive prices and a dancefloor packed to the brim with stu-dents remains as potent as ever, in what will be the penultimate comeplay of the term.As always, there are the various bars to take your pick from, whether it's bottles, jaegers or a cold pint of cider for just £1.50. Great music, great prices, always a great night.

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London-based electronic music act Nero will be grac-ing Cardiff with their presence this week and are hot on the heels of their recent success with chart top-ping album "Welcome Reality". The lead single from this, entitled "Promises", was an international hit and shot the act into mainstream recognition. Members Daniel Stephens, Joe Ray and Alana Watson combine to provide a distinctive style that has seen collaborations with Calvin Harris, Skrillex and Enter Shikari, to name just a few.

�!CT�/NE�PRESENTS�$ISCO�)NFERNO��(EATH�3PORTS�AND�3OCIAL�#ENTRE�����PM��a�����

Act One will be signing off the year with the traditional musical to end a run of brilliant productions that have been high in quality and filled with laughter.There's no reason to suggest that this will be any different as Brett Foster and Jim Coyle put together a quality interpretation of Justin Sepple's novel. Full of inspirational themes such as Boogie Nights, Hot Stuff and even a bit of Faust, a guaranteed blast and a great way to sign off the year for Act One.

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One of the country's top reggae and dub acts, found-ed in 1993 by Greg Roberts and Tim Bran, will be at the Globe this Sunday Their debut album, 360°, set the stage for the follow up, "Second Light". Having lit the stage up at Glas-tonbury and picking up numerous awards, they have found their way into mainstream recognition. Continuing to record and release new music, the band have an appetite as big as ever for creative, ex-pansive and unique music a treat for those who enjoy real, raw talent.

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The brand spanking new Sherman Theatre continues its run of high-end productions this week with an elegant and stylish show entitled "The Forest". With strong inspirations from A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is a show where people be-come animals, birds become music, day be-comes night-time, and leaves become light. A feast for the eyes and the ears, highly recom-mended.

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Buffalo Bar is arguably one of Cardiff's top alternative venues, and each night there is usually some live music or a video game tournament. Tonight, it's an energy-fuelled battle of the bands encompassing the genres of ska, punk, reggae, metal, drum and bass and rock. It'll be a great chance to sample some of Car-diff's up-and-coming talent, with bands such as "Sleep", "The Callout" and "Synthetica".

tournament. Tonight, it's an energy-fuelled battle of the bands encompassing the genres of ska, punk, reggae, metal, drum and bass and rock. It'll be a great chance to sample some of Car-diff's up-and-coming talent, with bands such as "Sleep", "The Callout" and "Synthetica".

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Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25

Listings26 - 27 Taf-Od

28 - 29

Sport33 - 36

Taf-od29Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�tafod@gairrhydd.comMonday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�tafod@gairrhydd.com

25ain Mawrth. Cwis. 8yh.Y Mochyn Du, Pontcanna. £1

28ain Mawrth. Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog. 6yh.Canolfan y Mileniwm, Bae Caerdydd. Am ddim.

29ain Mawrth. Bragdy’r Beirdd yn cyflwyno . . . Aneirin Karadog, Catrin Dafydd, Osian Rhys Jones, Rhys Iorwerth. 8:30yh.Rockin' Chair, Heol y Gadeirlan Isaf. Am ddim.

12fed Mai. Geraint Jarman + mwy. 8yh.Clwb Ifor Bach, Heol Womanby. £14

3ydd Mehefin. Gwyl Nyth. Manylion eraill yn fuan.

23-29ain Mehefin. Tafwyl. Lleoliadau amrywiol o gwmpas Caerdy-dd.

13eg Gorffennaf. 'Sneb yn Becso Dam.Cwmni theatr ieuenctid yr Urdd.Canolfan Sherman Cymru. £13.50.

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Puzzles30 Monday March 19 2012 s��gairRHYDD�s�EDITOR GAIRRHYDD�COMsu

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Rhys's riddles.

INTERMEDIATE CHALLENGING

EASYINTERMEDIATECHALLENGINGRiddle answer.

Steve’s office job didn’t go very well and now he wants to fulfil his lifelong ambition of run-

ning a farm in Iceland, with his friend Rosie. They’ll need some livestock however, namely

chickens, pigs, and cows. A new chicken costs 50p, a pig £3, and a cow £10. Steve and Rosie

have £100 with which they want to buy exactly 100 animals, but in such a way that there is

at least one of each kind of animal and they spend exactly £100. How many of each animal

do they need to buy?

The difference between the real

time and the time of the mirror

image is two hours and ten min-

utes (2 ½ hours, minus the 20

minutes of cycling). Therefore,

the original time on the clock at

home that morning could only

have been five minutes past

seven.

word wheel.

C

T REN

E

ON

D

How many words of three or more letters, each including the letter at the

centre of the wheel, can you make from this diagram? We've found 20,

including a nine-letter word. Can you do better?

Sport33Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�SPORT GAIRRHYDD�COM

BUCS ROUNDUP

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25

Listings26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29 Sport

33 - 36

Cardiff thirds relegate medics

Cardiff University Rugby Club’s 3rd XV recorded their second win of the season over the Medics sec-ond XV this past Wednesday, with a devastating 54-13 win.

The previous fixture between the two sides was a slow, muddy, washout of a match in which the third XV prevailed 6-0. Based on the play exhibited by both sides in this second fixture, it’s certainly safe to say that the weather held back both sides in the first match. Played on a sunny day at dry Llanrumney play-ing fields, the weather allowed for some electrifying play.

The scoreboard ticked over steadily in the first half, with both sides exchanging tries and conver-sions. First blood went to the Med-ics after a step in the centres put them one-on-one with the fullback to score an unconverted try.

Cardiff quickly rallied a re-sponse though and soon enough found themselves working on the Medics' five-meter line, before Will Unwin crashed over the line to score one of his two tries for the day. Cardiff ’s solid play also led to a breakaway try by scrum-half Mike Davies after a mix-up at the Medics' scrum, as well as a try for Ali Henderson after a well-executed backs move. Conversions from Dan Brownlee for all three tries took the thirds into the half-time break up

21-13.Some people may claim that it

had been moments of brilliance that had led to Cardiff ’s lead, but the second half showed that the team simply played brilliantly throughout.

The Medics attack was neutra-lised through improved tackling and competition in the tackle area, meaning that Cardiff ’s romping at-tack was able to rack up the tries. Ali Henderson completed a hat-trick, Will Unwin grabbed his second and Jack Watters also crossed to crown a solid performance throughout the game.

The thirds will be hugely pleased to have won both matches against their intra-university foes this sea-son, especially given how close the first, rain soaked match was.

This high-calibre performance kept Cardiff one place above the relegation zone with a big boost to their points difference, it also con-demned the Medics to relegation for the season.

It has been a big week for CURFC in terms of high-scoring games, with the second XV also delivering a big wins, 77-12 in a derby match against Glamorgan second XV.

BUCS Results: L AFC 1 v Swansea 1..................1-0

L AFC 2 v Winchester 1...............2-0

Hockey W 4 v UWIC 3.................3-0

Netball 3 v Gloucester 3...........54-24

Rugby M 1 v Bristol 1...............33-19

Rugby M 2 v Aberystwyth 1....26-29

Rugby M 4 v Swansea 4.............0-24

Medics Rugby 2 v Cardiff 3.....13-53

M AFC 3 v Glamorgan 4..............1-1

M AFC 2 vAberystwyth..............2-2

Medics AFC 2 v Newport 2.........0-3

Medics AFC 1 v Bristol 1............1-2

Hockey W 3 v Gloucester 2.........4-0

Hockey M 2 v Bristol 3................5-0

Netball 5 v Bristol 4.................26-46

Netball 4 v Aberystwyth 1.......37-36

Netball 2 v Glamorgan 1..........37-39

Rugby W v UWIC 1...................14-81

Rugby M 3 v Medics 2..............53-13

Panthers can't contain CobrasIn their first National Champion-ship appearance in three years (having won the National Plate last year) the Cardiff Cobras spectacu-larly defeated the Oxford Brookes Panthers to secure their place in the next round of the National Championships.

With a little help from the sched-uling gods, Oxford Brookes had notched up an impressive 7-1 record over the regular season a great feat for a third-year team.

Oxford Brookes won the toss, but deferred, allowing the Cobras to choose to return the kick off and set their offence out first. The first drive proved fruitless as a re-sult Cardiff were forced to punt on fourth down. The Cobras defence then took to the field looking to shut out Oxford Brookes, but ill

discipline eventually conceded a touchdown.

After minor skirmishes from both teams, Cardiff eventually broke the deadlock with a monster punt from kicker Chris Caldwell, which Oxford Brookes mistakenly fielded at the one-yard line. A muffed long snap sailed out of reach of the punter and out of the end zone for a safety, leaving the score at Cardiff 2, Oxford Brookes 7.

There were no more scores until the fourth quarter, but plenty of changes of possession with mis-takes from Cardiff ’s running backs and Brookes’ quarterbac.

The Cobras offence eventually put together a successful drive with time running out, culminating in a touchdown for rookie running back, Ben Fowle. Richard Gardner converted the two-point conversion and Cardiff led,10-7.

Cardiff ’s defence knew it was on

them to finish off the game, follow-ing some more monster hits from middle line-backer Ollie Devon, and blanket coverage from the defensive backs Oxford Brookes eventually started to panic. Line-backer Luke Haslett, who returned it 30 yards for the score.

The remaining minute and a half saw a return of the normal run of the game; with both defences mak-ing solid tackles, the offences stut-tered until the referees called the game

MVP awards went to Pete Brockway on defence and to Ayo Akintunde and Chris Caldwell on offence, all for outstanding perfor-mances.

Cardiff will now face the Hert-fordshire Hurricanes in the quar-ter-finals, a strong team who will test the Cobras’ talent, the winner progressing to the last four.

Sam ThorpeSports Writer

Sailing earn place in finals

On March 2nd, six of the Cardiff University Sailing Team (Matt Holbourn (capt.), Emily Wiltshire, Becky Diamond, Andy Smith, Rory Jones and Hatty Black) travelled up to Glasgow to compete in the BUCS Team Racing Playoffs. 26 teams had already secured their place in the BUCS Team Racing Finals. Finish-ing sixth overall out of 14 boats saw Cardiff qualify for the BUCS Team Racing Finals.

The day started well, with Car-diff winning two out of their first three races. The wind picking up to-wards the end of the day suited the Cardiff sailors much better. Cardiff took a vital win against Cambridge too, the eventual winners of the event.

The racing was very close, with a particularly tight race against Ex-eter, in which two boats, one from each team, were over the line and had to drag-race to see who could re-cross the line quickest. Rory Jones of Cardiff managed to overtake two of the opposition boats after con-trolling one of the strongest gusts

of the day, allowing the rest of the team to dominate the race.

At the end of the day, Cardiff had won four out of eight races and still had a lot of work to do on Sunday to guarantee a place in the finals.

Sunday morning dawned wind-less, and even after it filled in, it proved much more fickle than the previous day, so concentration was key. Cardiff won the first two races of the day, but an unlucky call by the umpire in the next race meant a loss to a team that they should have beaten.

With two races left against Lan-caster and Oxford, a lot was on the line if Cardiff wanted to qualify. The first race against Lancaster started well, with the whole team dominating to the end. In addition an illegal manoeuvre from the op-posing team meant that Cardiff gained an extra point, making the next race even tenser.

The committee wanted to get the last race of the day done despite the wind increasing and shifting around. Unfortunately, it ended in another loss for Cardiff, but they still managed to finish with seven wins out of 13 races. Thanks to their strong performance in Glas-gow, they will be competing against the top 32 University teams in the country and their success in this event bodes well for the next stage.

Joanna LucasSports Writer

“success bodes well for the next stage

“Cardiff's attack racked up tries

Ross GellerSports Writer

!BOVE��"EN�&OWLE�EVADE�A�TACKLE�

34Sport Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s sport@gairrhydd.com

The Olympic Games has a history of allow-ing evil to flourish.

In the early months of 1936 there was widespread pro-

test against the decision to allow a group of men to make potentially substantial gains from the Olym-pic Games. The protests were un-successful and the Olympics went ahead as planned. By 1937, the pro-tests were long forgotten. Adolf Hit-ler's regime in Germany had been justified.

If the Olympic Games are embar-rassed to have been the vehicle for the growth of such a regime, the controversy surrounding the in-volvement of Dow Chemical in the London Olympics leaves a similarly bitter taste in the mouth.

There is a large dose of sensa-tionalism in comparing Dow to one of the darkest regimes in history, but the effects of human tragedy are hard felt however they occur. The name Dow Chemical is one that provokes anger and pain in India, out of the spotlight of the main-stream media.

In 1984, a subsidiary of the Union Carbide Corporation was responsible for a gas leak disaster at Bhopal's pesticide plant that has contributed to the deaths of 15,000 people to date. Nearly 600,000 peo-ple were affected by the tragedy in total. 15 years later Union Carbide merged with Dow Chemical, less than a year after the company had agreed a £288 million settlement for those who had been affected by the tragedy.

Dow's link to Union Carbide has not been overlooked by those in In-dia and a 10 year sponsorship agree-ment with the IOC has been met with anger. In December 2011 an effigy of London Olympic Committee chair-man Sebastian Coe was burned on the streets of Bhopal, highlighting the strength with which the Indian

public oppose Dow's involvement with the Olympics.

Bhopal is not the only part of the

world that has reason to oppose the prominence of Dow in world sport's premier competition. In the 1960s

the company was responsible for the production of napalm B for the American forces. The same chemi-

cal compound became the symbol for the Vietnam War.

When considering the tainted past of Dow Chemical, it seems incredible that a governing body whose charter claims to 'encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues' and 'en-deavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to pro-mote peace' can be allowed to be the prominent sponsor of the Olympic Games.

Dow are set to benefit from the Games in a large way. They will pro-duce the urethane foam for the run-ning track, the fibres for the hockey pitches, various other materials in the stadia and the Games' electron-ics. The only loss Dow have suffered amidst the protests in the loss of their logo from a £7 million wrap that will cover the stadium. Howev-er negative the press Dow receives, they will still emerge from their partnership with the IOC better off.

“An effigy of Sebastian

Coe was burned on the

streets of Bhopal

David Cameron placed his sup-port with Dow last week, pointing towards their lack of involvement in the Bhopal disaster. This misses the point. The Olympic Games pro-motes the togetherness of all na-tions under the Olympic banner. Whilst Indian athletes are encour-aged to boycott the Games by their own people, it is evident the compe-tition is failing to promote the har-mony it desires.

The IOC suffered for breaking its own charter in 1936. It would appear that they have not learned their lesson.

!BOVE��0ROTESTERS�REMONSTRATING�AGAINST�THE�NEWS�

!BOVE��4HE�MEN�BEHIND�THE�CONTROVERSIAL�DEAL

Dow causes controversyJames Woods examines the IOC's contentious decision to appoint Dow Chemical as a sponsor for the Olympics

In the avalanche of public-ity that has followed Messi’s five goal-jamboree against a hapless Bayer Leverkusen, many an erudite journalist has put in their two-penny

-worth. Adrian Chiles chimed in as well; His clumsy question of, “Would he score as many if he was playing for Stoke City?” was a tad tactless but it did raise an interest-ing point. He is surrounded by what is widely regarded as the greatest

team to ever grace a football field. Yes, it may be easier to score more goals with a better team, but saying that, it’s also a great achievement to be outstanding among the outstand-ing.

The further argument to this is that La Liga is inadequate to the Premiership. However, Athletic Bil-bao, who are currently seventh in Spain, dominated top of the table Manchester United at Old Trafford.

The "greatest” tag cannot be eas-

ily qualified, as sport, like every-thing, morphs and adapts. But what is incontestable is that Messi has reached the pantheon of the ulti-mate few. The right and left-footed chipped goals at full pace proved this yet again. He can be mentioned in the same breath as Pele and Mar-adona.

Messi is 24, and at this age, Pele had more than 400 goals and two World Cups. While Maradona had 200 goals and was set to single-

handedly win the World Cup for his country. This is often the cited reason why Messi is not the great-est, but firstly, club is now more im-portant than country and secondly, he still has another possible three World Cups ahead of him. Not to mention the fact that he has around 40 prestigious individual awards and is on course to be one of the most internationally capped foot-ballers of all time.

Messi has a sumptuous quality,

a fusion of elegance, skill, control, balance and appetite, but is he bet-ter than those before him? He can score a Maradona-esque wonder goal and execute a perfect Cruyff turn but is it still more impressive to have invented it? Perhaps the "greatest" tag will be for the pio-neers. It is safe to say, however, that no one has played with his juvenile joy, constant smile, modesty and im-mense humility.

Five goal Messi among the bestRhys Clayton ponders football's favourite debate as the Argentinian wows Europe

News1 - 6

Politics12 - 14

Feature16 - 18

Opinion9 - 11

Science20 - 21

Societies24 - 25

Listings26 - 27

Taf-Od28 - 29 Sport

33 - 36

Sport35 Monday March 19 2012 s��gairrhydd�s�SPORT GAIRRHYDD�COM

Your Pitch: the naturalised athlete -Viktor Tsvetanov reviews

Sport on a national level has always been an are-na for fighting for pa-triatoc pride over other countries, of course in a peaceful manner for

the most part. Throughout ancient times, conflicts temporarily ceased with the beginning of the Olympic Games, which were a celebration of God-given talent, a scene where ath-letes from different city-states for a moment became representatives of the unity and uniqueness of their respective societies.

Today, national sport has taken quite a different direction when it is no longer unusual for athletes to “change” sporting nationalities and compete for countries other than the ones they were born in. Following patterns previously valid for club competition, interna-tional sport has also become highly paid and professional in character. As a result, player transfers occur not only on a club level, but in the national sports scene too, both in team and individual sports. Ironi-cally, we have come to the point when the athlete’s name does not signify any more for the country he/she is competing for.

A living example of this is Yamile Aldama - a Cuban-born tri-ple jumper currently competing for Great Britain who won a gold medal in her discipline during last week’s World Indoor Championships in Is-tanbul. Aldama has also competed

for her home country Cuba and for Sudan before her British citizen-ship was eventually approved.

Also, quite an international pic-ture emerges from England’s squad for the Rugby World Cup where five of the 30 athletes are foreign - born; - Matt Stevens - South Africa, Manu Tuilagi - Samoa, Dylan Hartley and Shontayne Hape - New Zealand and Alex Corbisiero in the United States.

The presence of foreign players in football teams has become com-monplace for the fanbase, even in countries with more conservative audiences. Nevertheless, national teams have also become increasing-ly international. Perhaps the most striking example of sports natural-isation is the Qatar national foot-ball team’s ‘quest’ for international talent. In preparation for the 2022 World Cup, which will be held in Qatar, the country has “imported” players from three different conti-nents and 10 different countries.

Similarly, naturalisation in the European football scene also abounds. For instance, Polish-born Miroslav Klose has proudly rep-resented Germany in three World Cups and two European Champi-onships, while the German team’s attack is led by another foreign footballer, the Brazilian-born striker- Cacau. Seemingly, having a Brazilian player in their squad has become a must for many Eu-ropean teams with former Arsenal

player Eduardo da Silva defending the colours of Croatia and Thiago Motta now playing for Italy.

Reasons for change of sporting nationality may be different and some might be more controversial than others. In particular, athletes from less developed countries of-ten leave patriotic feelings behind and choose not to represent their motherland because of the lack of adequate financial support and proper training facilities, but some have done so with the hope that a second citizenship would give them a chance to participate in major in-ternational competitions.

The act of naturalising athletes raises a number of ethical issues regarding the future of national sports. First of all, a debate is go-ing on whether naturalisation in fact supports the development of local sports, or conversely deterio-rates the progress of young local athletes. On the other hand, should sportsmen be denied the opportu-nity to compete on an international level solely because of the fact that they are not born in the country they represent?

Apparently, the field of national sport has gone too “international” and naturally many would agree that this has taken some of its for-mer allure. But after all, who would be disappointed to hear his coun-try’s anthem after a major sports event?

!BOVE��9AMILE�!LDAMA�THE�"RITISH�GOLD�MEDALIST�OF �#UBAN�DECENT

As F1 rolls into its 63rd season on 16th March, "gair rhydd" examines what promises to be a tantalising

year a raft of rule changes look set to level the playing field, while six determined world champions line the grid the most in the history of sport. All eyes will be on Red Bull, which aims to continue its reign of F1 dominance.

It’s a case of evolution instead of revolution as Adrian Newey’s RB8 builds on the strengths of its pre-decessor. Testing has indicated that the RB8 is, yet again, the car to beat. Double World Champion Sebastian Vettel brings with him additional

confidence and maturity and is the immediate favourite to win the title.

Mark Webber will look to re-estab-lish himself in the team – occasion-al flashes of cool-headed brilliance, such as his daring and precise pass on Alonso into Spa’s notorious Eau Rouge corner, show that he has the potential to be a champion. The Australian’s contract runs out at the end of the year – fighting tooth and claw over his seat will be sister team Torro Rosso’s new line-up of drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne.

McLaren’s elegant MP4-27 is the car Brits Lewis Hamilton and Jen-son Button hope to reclaim title glory in. Button’s commanding on-

track style, which combines sheer pace with vast intellect, makes him a formidable threat to the Red Bulls.

Lewis Hamilton will no doubt try to put his off-track troubles of 2011 behind him as he tries to re-instate himself as the squad’s no. 1 driver.

Felipe Massa looks desperate to retain his place in the Scuderia after a string of severely underwhelming seasons. At the end of 2011, Mer-cedes GP was a far cry from its 2009 championship-winning Brawn GP predecessor. Team principal Ross Brawn is adamant that his squad is ready to fight for podiums after two mediocre seasons, and Nico Ros-berg is more motivated than ever to

finally achieve an elusive first win after six years in the sport. Seven-time champion Michael Schumach-er will want to finish above his com-patriot teammate after two seasons with the team.

The first big shock of 2012 is the return of 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, who partners fel-low returnee 2011 GP2 champion Romain Grosjean at Lotus. Fero-ciously fast and aggressive, Raik-konen should be able to surprise the larger teams, while Grosjean will look to build upon his experi-ence and harvest valuable points for the team. Displaced from Lotus is Vitaly Petrov, who joins Heikki Kovaleinen at Caterham. The duo of solid and dependable drivers is just

what the rebranded team needs as it aims for a place in the midfield.

Nico Hulkenberg – who famously placed his Williams FW32 on pole at the 2010 Brazilian GP – returns to F1, partnering promising Brit Paul di Resta at Force India. Both drivers are skilled if inexperienced.

Along with the drivers of Sau-ber and Williams, they look set to entertain us with exciting midfield competition. Fascinating driver line-ups abound throughout the grid – this factor, combined with the unpredictability of new tyres and technical regulations, will defi-nitely make F1 2012 a season to re-member.

'ROWING� EXCITEMENT� AS��&��SEASON�LOOMS�LARGEAlexey Underwood looks ahead to the new season following testing for the new cars

SportNationalities in sport<< Inside

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Team of the week: Mens Cardiff Rugby 2nds

Cardiff University 2nds 77-17 Glamorgan University 2nds

Despite missing sev-eral key players and their goalkeeper out with injury, Cardiff Ladies 1st secured an impressive 1-0

away win over arch rivals Swansea 1st.

This was the ninth consecutive win for undefeated Cardiff, tak-ing them to top of the Western 2B league, six points clear and with two games in hand. Cardiff domi-nated the start of the game, using the width of the pitch to their ad-vantage. Cardiff spread the ball well, switching play and putting some early crosses in which unset-tled the home side.

Centre midfielders Ellie Davies and Emily Davies worked tirelessly in midfield, winning every ball and

troubling Swansea’s dominant mid-fielders.

The first chance came early on from a Cardiff corner; striker Lizzie Fitzpatrick flicked the ball on from the front post onto Em Davies, who volleyed the ball narrowly over the crossbar. Cardiff quickly troubled the Swansea defence from another corner, from which the ball was tussled for in the box but eventually cleared by a green defender.

Cardiff continued to maintain pressure, but Swansea soon settled. The away side struggled with the quick pace of the Swansea left-winger, their only real influential player. Cardiff were kept on their toes with several perfect crosses played from the left into the box, but substitute goalkeeper Emily Giles finally claimed with strong conviction. Centre-back Hannah Mills also commanded the Cardiff defence, chasing down loose passes and clearing most of the Swansea through balls back into Cardiff play.

Swansea’s greatest chance came just before half-time but when faced with a one-on-one with the keeper, captain Sophie Gidley came from the side, nicking the ball with a solid slide tackle.

By half-time, the game still hung in the balance, but Cardiff had held more of the possession and were confident to go back out for the second half. Continuing to keep the ball in their possession, quick, two-touch football saw a ball played from right-back down the wing to Claire Couzens, with Couzens chip-ping a ball through to striker Hay-ley O’Brien, who just struck the ball wide. With both sides aware that the minutes were slowly tick-ing away, play became less com-posed with both sides failing to get any real grasp of the ball.

However, Cardiff ’s patience and skill finally paid off in the 85th min-ute. Couzens made an excellent run down the right-wing, dribbling past several green shirts, and whipping a ball just outside the edge of the

six-yard box. Fitzpatrick took hold of the ball and knocked play onto Ellie Davies, who stormed through the final two defenders and blasted the ball into the back of the net. With full-time approaching, Cardiff

played intelligent football, keeping the ball in the corners of the Swan-sea half. With the final whistle, Cardiff were pleased with a win but look to secure a more significant victory at Varsity.

Above: Cardiff threaten Swansea from a corner

Cardiff earn last-gasp winner away at Varsity rivals SwanseaSophie Gidley reports on Cardiff Ladies Firsts' 1-0 victory

“This was the ninth con-

secutive win for the un-

defeated Cardiff “With the final whistle,

Cardiff were pleased

with a win