EU calls for the creation of alert for missing children/Portuguese Resident

The European Parliament approved this Monday a declaration that calls on member countries to set up an alert system for missing children to facilitate their location and rescue, the news agency Lusa.

The initiative was driven by Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of Madeleine McCann, disappeared in May 2007 in the Algarve, with the support of several British MEPs.

The system requested by the European Parliament requires, in case of disappearance, which are delivered immediately to the media, border and customs authorities details about the child - like a photo - and data on the disappearance and the alleged hostage, thus as a phone number for information.

The declaration of Members also calls for member states to sign cooperation agreements with neighbouring countries to ensure an early warning and development of a common system to assist and equip the national capacity to respond.

http://diario.iol.pt/sociedade/criancas ... -4071.html

Where is everyone ?? this is Great News

In what will inevitably be seen as tacit acceptance that public interest in the Madeleine McCann story is dwindling.

Clarence Mitchell tells Mandrake that he will be joining Freud Communications, which was founded by Lucian Freud's nephew, Matthew.

"I'm going to specialise in crisis management for a range of clients which might include businesses, football clubs or even showbiz personalities," says the former BBC reporter. "I want to broaden out my portfolio of interests."

Mitchell, 47, told me in July that he had been advising the parents of Jimmy Mizen, the 16-year-old schoolboy murdered in London in May, and Fiona MacKeown, the mother of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, who was murdered in Goa in February, on a pro bono basis, but wanted to put himself on "a firm financial footing".

He stresses that he will still represent the McCanns, whose daughter went missing almost a year-and-a-half ago, and adds that he will be paid on a retainer basis from the "Find Madeleine" fund.

"Kate and Gerry are happy for me to do this, it became clear that I wasn't needed on a full-time basis to work for them anymore so this move makes sense," he says.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... Freud.html

Is it just me or is Madeleine coming home

An image I see which is very clear ... MM shares a walk along a beach in secrecy with a smiling Gerry & Kate. They go on holiday somewhere within the UK prior to the announcement to the world. There is a time ... a number of weeks ... where silence surrounds the camp as MM is able to be brought back into the family unit. It is only when they 'risk' a McDonalds of a KFC .... that a passer by recognises MM and rumours spread that MM has been sighted in a southern UK town. It is denied for weeks before the announcement is made that MM has indeed been returned. I note in the image it is not Clarence Mitchell who makes that announcement. It is a woman ... someone I do not recognise.
Added by Matthew James At 11/30/2007 08:31:00 PM

http://mara-gamiel.blogspot.com/search?q=announcement

It has been in the news for a couple of days. Apparently, during the last EU portuguese presidency, a request for an early warning system for missing children was layed. We know that an european telephone number has been implemented since, although I do not see very well how useful it may be.

But now the portuguese Ministry of Justice is studying a system to be implemented in Portugal that seems very similar to the AMBER alert, from what I heard of AMBER and their plans: after THREE hours of receiving the information, the police will send the missing's child picture to be showed on tv, ATMs, petrol sations, motorways information signs, etc. If there are fears that the child might be/have been taken out of the country, other countries (with the same system?) will be alerted, etc.

So sorry it took an innocent child to be abducted to wake up our authorities to these problems. Thank you Gerry and Kate for your fight and campaign.

Thats brilliant news. I know not all the systems are the same but co operation between the countries is a real positive.

To think of the arguments myself and vee8 have had with drachensachen about this its good news that the EU woke up and that Kate and Gerry had a lot to do with it.

Kate and Gerry,



Drachensachen, who freely confessed that his ONLY reason for opposing the Amber alert was because of who was proposing it,

What a P***K - I shall have to find out how to say that in German !

Hi Maria,

Any progess that protects our children is a step in the right direction.

I agree with the other comments too, I think a lot of antis opposed that legislation, purely because of the McCanns promoting it. They used it as another imaginary tool to bash them with.

The Online Resident

Updated: 25 September 2008

Cooperation in finding missing children

Photo: Supplied

A PROJECT to increase public awareness of missing children could see pictures of children being sent to mobile phones within three hours of them being reported missing to the authorities in Portugal.

This is one of a number of new measures being proposed to the Ministry of Justice in Portugal which aims to harness the power of radio, television, billboards, phone messages and even advertising on multibanco machines (ATMs) in an effort to improve the chances of recovering missing children more quickly.

Statistics from the US Department of Justice have shown that more than 70 per cent of children that are killed after being kidnapped are murdered within the first three hours of their disappearance.

A document of proposals has been created by the deputy director of the PJ, Pedro do Carmo, to increase police and public response to missing children in Portugal in response to flaws that were revealed in the process following the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Media

The proposal by Pedro do Carmo suggests the use of putting details of an abduction in all forms of the media as quickly as possible, while long term campaigns can look to utilise public transport advertising and internet campaigns.

Initial messages about a missing child, it is proposed, can be shown on television and broadcast over the radio and repeated every 15 minutes for three hours or longer if judicial authorities choose.

“The success of this system depends on the speed with which it might be activated.  It is essential that the entity receiving the news of the disappearance immediately fulfils their obligation,” said Pedro do Carmo.

The system will only be used in exceptional cases and can only be activated after careful analysis of the cost – benefit ratio based on information known by police at the time of the report of the abduction.

The proposal is now being considered by the Ministry of Justice although the ministry has announced that they will promote the partnership between public and private entities in the any proposal that improves the process of finding missing children.

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Further to the information kindly supplied by Maria, I thought this article might be of interest.

Please not the line "to increase police and public response to missing children in Portugal in response to flaws that were revealed in the process following the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann"

So after all the criticism that Madelienes parents and their advisers were subjected to, for promoting the publishing of their missing daughters image, it seems that Portugal has finally accepted that this is what is required and that this should have been done by the relevant Portuguese authorities at the time of her abduction. I know it is too late for Madeleine ie in terms of promoting a speedy recovery of the missing child, but I do hope it helps any other unfortunate child that disappears from the face of the earth, as Madeleine and Joanna did in such close proximity to eachother and not many years apart from one another.

As the the word 'flaws,' well, that has to be the understatement of the century



Edited to post the link http://www.portugalresident.com/portugalresident/showstory.asp?ID=29440

Thank you for these news. I had no access to written news, keep forgetting about the net itself!