Saturday, July 31, 2010

Dinosaur skulls exhibit new long-necked class who didnt gnaw their food scrupulously

Four impressive skulls from a new species of dinosaur have been unearthed by palaeontologists.

Abydosaurus was a type of sauropod, a group of huge plant-eating dinosaurs - including Brachiosaurus.

Complete skulls are incredibly rare - only eight of more than 120 types of sauropod had been found to date.

Dr Brooks Britt

Dr Brooks Britt with a Abydosaurus dinosaur skull, a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur

So researchers were shocked and thrilled when they found four Abydosaurus skulls - including two fully intact - at a quarry in the Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah, US.

The fossils were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains from the sandstone.

Dr Brooks Britt, a palaeontologist at Brigham Young University who worked on the project, said: "Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks.

"Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are made of thin bones bound together by soft tissue. Usually it falls apart quickly after death and disintegrates."

Most of what scientists know about sauropods is from the neck down but the newly discovered skulls provided a few clues about how the largest land animals to roam the Earth ate their food.

Dr Britt said: "They didn"t chew their food; they just grabbed it and swallowed it.

"The skulls are only one two-hundredth of total body volume and don"t have an elaborate chewing system."

Enlarge dinosaur skulls

The newly discovered skulls measured around 12inches across. They belonged to juveniles who were 25ft long

Dr Britt said Abydosaurus is thought to have lived 105 million years ago as crystals of the mineral zircon within the surrounding rock have been dated to that period.

Bone analysis suggests Brachiosaurus, which grew to around 80ft long and lived 45 million years earlier than Abydosaurus, is thought to have been its closest relative.

Dr Britt said the skulls were from juveniles which were estimated to be around 25 feet long but other bones, including vertebrae, suggest the mature Abydosaurus were "substantially larger".

In the Jurassic Period - between 206 to 144 million years ago - sauropods showed a wide range of tooth shapes but by the end of the dinosaur age - around 65 million years ago - all sauropods had narrow, pencil-like teeth.

Dr Brittconception of dinosaur

Dr Britt (left) at the Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah where the dinosaur skulls were found. Right is an artist"s conception of what they may have looked like

The fossils were excavated from the Cedar Mountain Formation in Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah.

The skulls are on temporary display at Brigham Young University"s Museum of Palaeontology, in Provo, Utah, where visitors can also watch students prepare other bones from Abydosaurus.

A paper about the discovery was published in the journal Naturwissenschaften today.The new dinosaur species was given the name Abydosaurus mcintoshi.

The skull was found in a quarry overlooking the Green River so took the name Abydos from the Greek name for the city along the Nile River (now El Araba el Madfuna) which was the burial place of the head and neck of the Egyptian god Osiris. Sauros is the Greek word for lizard.

The mcintoshi honours the American palaeontologist Jack McIntosh for his contributions to the study of sauropods.

Evertons Steven Pienaar arrested and charged with splash pushing and trade corruption

Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar has been charged with being drunk at the wheel.

He was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning after celebrating his team"s 3-1 victory over Manchester United on Saturday. Police charged him with drink driving, and for failing to comply with a traffic signal.

The player was arrested at the roadside in Liverpool city centre,although the exact street is not known. He will appear in court nextmonth.

Steven Pienaar (centre)

Court date: Steven Pienaar (centre) will face charges on March 9

A police spokesman said this morning: "Merseyside Police can confirm that a 27-year-old man has been charged with drink driving and failure to comply with a traffic sign.

"He was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning and charged later that day.

"Steven Pienaar from Woolton will appear at Liverpool City Magistrates Court on 9 March, 2010."

The South African arrived at Goodison Park on loan in the summer of 2007. The move later became permanent after he signed for 2million from Borussia Dortmund.

He last had a brush with the law in October 2008 when he was quizzed by police after an alleged assault in the Sefton Park area. No charges were ever brought against the player.

A spokesman for Everton said it had "absolutely no comment" to make and that the latest charge is a "private matter". It is thought the 27-year-old will remain available for selection.

More...Everton facing battle with Bayern Munich and Man City to keep PienaarEverton 3 Man United 1: Soft centre of Sir Alex"s team is exposed by ToffeesEVERTON FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB

Friday, July 30, 2010

Green Queen: Bag yourself one of these fairtrade beauties

These amazing Chameleon Earth handbags are stylish and eco-friendly

These amazing Chameleon Earth handbags are stylish and eco-friendly

ECO CARRIER

Chameleon Earth was set up toprovide stylish, luxury bags while supporting fairtrade and, wherepossible, using recycled materials.

I love the Classic Athens coffee brown leather bag, made using natural extracts from African trees to tan the leather.

Priced 189 from chameleon earth.co.uk.

WILD FOR LINEN

Who says organic can"t be cute? Organictowels get softer with wear, so are perfect to wrap children in. Theelephant and giraffe designs with spotty backgrounds are adorable andthere"s a lovely bathrobe, too. The Move Organic towels are luxurious and soft

The Move Organic towels are luxurious and soft

Towels from 14 for the smaller size from 020 7923 7840 or dotmaison.com.

The Green Living guide is packed full of handy tips and pointers

The Green Living guide is packed full of handy tips and pointers

THE GOOD LIFE GUIDE

Just out is the new Green Living Guide, with 300 pages packed with useful and practical advice for those wanting to live a greener life - or those who just want to dip in at their convenience.

The guide is in a magazine format, so it"s fun to read even if you"ve only got five minutes to flick through it. It covers all aspects from children, to pets and more heavyweight issues for the committed.

From WHSmith at 7.99, or from magbooks.com and amazon.co.uk.

NATURAL OILS

The custom-blended special oils are perfect to combat dry skin

The custom-blended special oils are perfect to combat dry skin

Using Chinese principles of living in harmony with nature, acupuncturist Anee de Mamiel has created a stunning organic fusion of oils to put back what nature has taken out over the colder months. This oil is a true gift to skin and the first of a range of custom-blended seasonal oils.

Costs 65 for 25ml from 07516099010 or demamiel.com.

ECO-FRIENDLY CAT NAP

If you like to pamper your cat, check out this fabulous hemp bed. With lovely deep sides, your moggy can really snuggle in comfort.

This hemp cat bed is perfect for eco warrior moggies!

This hemp cat bed is perfect for eco warrior moggies!

It is stuffed with part-recycled polystyrene beads and the hemp is naturally repellent to fleas.

The cover can easily be removed for washing.

Costs 34.99 from the Eco Outlet 020 7272 7233.

NATO airstrike kills twenty-one civilians: Afghan supervision

Ismail Sameem KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:24am EST Related News Q+A: NATO still faces resilient Taliban in Afghanistan assaultSun, Feb 21 2010Factbox: Security developments in Afghanistan, Feb 20Sat, Feb 20 2010Afghan police deploy early in anti-Taliban pushWed, Feb 17 2010Missile that killed Afghan civilians not faulty: NATOTue, Feb 16 2010Missile that killed Afghan civilians not faulty: NATOTue, Feb 16 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan has killed 21 people after an aircraft fired on civilians mistakenly thought to be insurgents, the Afghan government said on Monday.

World

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement civilians had been killed as they approached a joint NATO-Afghan unit in Uruzgan province on Sunday, but did not say how many.

Civilian casualties have been a major cause of friction between the Afghan government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, who have launched two big offensives in the past eight months in a bid to turn the tide of a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

"I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission," U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, said in the ISAF statement.

Zamari Bashary, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said 21 civilians were killed and 11 wounded, including women and children.

"ISAF troops were suspicious that several civilian vehicles contained insurgents and bombed them," Bashary said.

Amanullah Hotak, head of the Uruzgan provincial council, told Reuters the people were traveling in three mini-buses through a pass in the Char Cheno district.

An investigation has begun, ISAF said.

The incident was not part of Operation Moshtarak, the major NATO-led offensive to clear Taliban militants out of neighboring Helmand province.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul, Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Paul Tait)

World

WINTER OLYMPICS: British span smashed and painful after terrifying bobsleigh pile-up

John Jackson and Dan Money

Terrifying: John Jackson and Dan Money

Britain"s two-man bobsleigh team John Jackson and Dan Money walked away from aterrifying crash during heats at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Jackson and Money lost control of their sled five curves from the end of theirheat one run and it overturned.Money was thrown out of the back as the sled flipped over and slid down thetrack on his back.

Pilot Jackson was trapped inside the upturned car until it came to a haltfurther down the run.

Jackson was able to climb out of the sled when it came to rest, helped out bytrack officials.Money, who suffered a gash on his left calf, said: "The track"s fast, thefastest track in the world but it"s a technical track.

"If you get it wrong at ahigh speed it can go very wrong."

Jackson had bloody scrapes underneath his shoulder blades after being draggedalong the ice while stuck inside his overturned sled.

He said: "I can"t wear my race jersey because my back is stinging."

The British pair hugged each other in relief when they met up and Money climbedinto the grandstand to reassure family and friends that he was ok.The Australian pairing of Jeremy Rollerston and Duncan Pugh also suffered acrash minutes after the British duo.

Their sled also flipped over and they too seemed to have escaped relativelyunhurt.The British and Australian sleds were disqualified from the second heat havingfailed to finish their first runs.

John Jackson

Battle scars: John Jackson hugs American sledder Bill Schuffenhauer

The Liechtenstein pairing of Michael Klingler and Thomas Duerr also lostcontrol of their sled but remained in the competition after crossing thefinishing line.The start of heat two was delayed because of the crashes.

The latest incidents are bound to raise concerns about the safety of the trackalthough earlier today Games organisers stressed that the bobsleigh federation(FIBT) were happy with it despite several injuries to athletes during training.

Swiss brake-man Daniel Egger suffered a spine injury after crashing during apractice heat on Friday, prompting he and driver Daniel Schmid to withdraw fromthe competition.

And American women"s bobsledder Shauna Rohbock has branded the track "stupidfast".

bobsled

Ordeal: John Jackson and Dan Money"s bobsled

But Tim Gayda, VANOC"s vice president of Sport, said: "The FIBT is extremelyhappy with the track and happy to race on it. We listen to them, they are theexperts."

Safety concerns have been heightened following the tragic death of Georgianluger Nodar Kumaritashvili in training on the same track.

But Gayda believes everything that could be done has been done to protectathletes.

"To make it 100 per cent safe you would need to put the track in a tube and that isnot what the sport is about," he said.

"My heart goes out to Nodar. It is something that has hit us all. But theincident that happened was extremely unfortunate and something no-one could havepredicted.

"We"ve always maintained the track is safe. Both federations (FIBT and lugefederation FIL) are part of the design process.

"It was they who recommended the designer we used. Both federations signed offon the design of the track."

More...Britain"s new Olympic champion Amy Williams reveals: I thought I"d finished thirdMinichiello: I want gold to answer bullies who made my life a misery No snow and no track, but still Great Britain rules the skeleton bob

Sudan signs ceasefire with Darfur JEM rebels

Andrew Heavens KHARTOUM Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:49pm EST Related News Sudan, Darfur rebel group sign deal -presidentSat, Feb 20 2010Darfur rebels say ready for temporary ceasefireSat, Feb 20 2010URGENT-Darfur rebels say ready for temporary ceasefireSat, Feb 20 2010Protest at funeral of "tortured" Darfur studentMon, Feb 15 2010Hundreds protest at funeral of "tortured" Darfur studentMon, Feb 15 2010

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan agreed a ceasefire with Darfur"s most powerful rebel group on Saturday as part of an agreement to "heal" the war in the western region, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said.

World

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said the framework agreement reached in the Chadian capital N"Djamena was not a final peace deal but set out the terms for negotiations that could still fail if it saw signs of bad faith from Khartoum.

Bashir said he would cancel death sentences handed out to JEM prisoners and free 30 percent of them immediately. More than 100 men were sentenced to death by hanging after being found guilty of taking part in a JEM attack on Khartoum in 2008.

Bashir told state television: "Today we signed an agreement between the government and JEM in N"Djamena, and in N"Djamena we heal the war in Darfur."

Khartoum has agreed to a series of ceasefires during the seven-year conflict, but some have fallen apart days after their signing, and distrust between the warring parties remains deep.

Talks between JEM and Khartoum, hosted in Qatar, have been stalled for months. But there has been a flurry of activity in recent days against a background of thawing relations between Sudan and Chad, which borders Darfur.

Sudan and Chad, both preparing for elections, agreed earlier this month to end their long-running proxy war, fought by arming each other"s rebels. Chadian President Idriss Deby has ethnic links with JEM"s leaders and has been accused of backing JEM.

"BEGINNING OF THE END"

JEM officials said the "framework" agreement would include a list of areas to be fleshed out in negotiations, including compensation for Darfuris, humanitarian access and the broad topics of "power sharing" and "wealth sharing."

"This is not the end. It is the beginning of the end," senior JEM official Al-Tahir al-Feki told Reuters.

JEM officials said Saturday"s deal would be formally ratified by Sudan"s president and JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim in the Qatari capital Doha early next week.

Before the deal was signed, JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam said the ceasefire would be temporary and dependent on Khartoum"s behavior.

"We will not play their game if they are only interested in buying time, in tactics, in just signing papers to make it easier for them in the elections," he said. "The vicious circle can begin again and we can resume our armed struggle."

Sudan holds presidential and legislative elections in April, its first multi-party contests in 24 years.

Sudanese presidential advisor Ghazi Salaheddin, who reached the deal in Chad, told reporters on his return to Khartoum he was ready to sign similar agreements with other rebel groups.

JEM and Darfur"s rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) took up arms against the government in 2003, accusing Khartoum of leaving their region marginalized and underdeveloped.

SLA founder Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, with strong support among the region"s displaced population, is refusing to talk to Khartoum, demanding an end to violence before negotiations.

The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur"s crisis, but Sudan rejects that figure. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Bashir last year to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Abdel Aziz in Khartoum and Betel Miarom in N"Djamena; editing by Myra MacDonald)

World

ATHLETICS: Meadows pockets key reward as she smashes Kelly Holmes 800m British jot down

Jenny Meadows earned a welcome bonus after one of the best performances of her career and it could not have come at a better time.

;Pocket Rocket Meadows won 4,200 from the sponsors after breaking Dame Kelly Holmess 800metres British record at the Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham.

Jenny Meadows

Record breaker: Jenny Meadows beat Kelly Holmes" record by 0.10secs

She is coached by husband Trevor and Meadows revealed: ;Hes going part-time in his job from April 1 so he can devote more time to the training group, so the money will definitely help.

Meadows, 28, will be one of Britains major medal hopes at next months World Indoor Championships the selectors meet today to choose their team for Doha after taking her form from last summer into the winter season.

She won 800m bronze at the Championships in Berlin last August and at the Nnational Indoor Arena on Saturday she beat Holmess record by 0.10sec as she triumphed in a time of 1min 59.11sec ahead of Ukraines Yyuliya Krevsun and fellow Briton Vicky Griffiths.

Holmes, who won Olympic 800m and 1500m gold in Athens in 2004, was a delighted spectator and she backed 5ft 1in Meadows for glory next month.

Holmes said: ;I didnt do indoors that much but I benefited from being small. I could make the moves and just nip in when it matters and Jenny can do that, too.

"I will be surprised if she doesnt come back with a medal. Shes the right build for indoor running. She is small and thin. And she believes in herself. Thats the main thing.

Phillips Idowu, Britains world triple jump champion indoors and out, was fourth with a seasons best of 17.25m. The 2004 Olympic champ Christian Olsson, of Sweden, won with 17.32m.

More...Sebastian Coe v Steve Ovett: There was only one winnerOlympic star David Davies tells his parents not to travel to DelhiHagen claims victory in the closing time trial of the Tour of Oman

Future of AIDS gels might distortion in drug experts contend

Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:59pm EST Related News U.S. company Virxsys says using AIDS to fight AIDSThu, Feb 18 2010HIV drugs prevent infection in African studyWed, Feb 17 2010HIV/AIDS drug puzzle crackedMon, Feb 1 2010Scientists say crack HIV/AIDS puzzle for drugsSun, Jan 31 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The quest for a cream or gel to prevent AIDS infection has narrowed to using powerful HIV pills that are already on the market, scientists say.

Health

AIDS experts have long been searching for a microbicide -- a cream, gel or vaginal ring that women or men could use as a chemical shield to protect themselves from sexual transmission of the deadly and incurable virus.

Several substances have been tried unsuccessfully but experiments presented this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a scientific meeting of AIDS experts, suggested HIV drugs might hold the key to making such gels work.

"The next wave of compounds is all going to be based on antiretroviral drugs," Dr. John Moore of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York told reporters.

Moore"s team tested Pfizer"s new drug maraviroc, sold under the brand name Selzentry. It is in a new class of drugs called CCR5 entry inhibitors, designed to stop the human immunodeficiency virus from getting into human cells using a type of cellular doorway or receptor named CCR5.

"The CCR5 inhibitors are compelling candidates as an alternative because these drugs are not being used for treatment in, for example, Africa," Moore said.

That means there is less risk of resistance developing -- when viruses evolve to get around the effects of drugs.

Moore"s team took a unique approach to formulating their experimental microbicide using Selzentry.

"We found a friendly physician, scrounged a tablet, ground it up," Moore said. "I assure you it actually works very well," he told the San Francisco meeting.

Tests in monkeys showed it would protect a female from sexual transmission for about four hours. "You couldn"t apply these gels in the morning and have protection in the evening," Moore said.

A vaginal ring with a time-release formula may work better for longer-term protection, Moore said.

The approach is affordable, he said. "A single maraviroc tablet, about 300 mg, retailing for about $15 on the Internet, contains enough drug to fully protect around 15 macaques. That is broadly going to be applicable to women."

Laura Guay of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation said the approach sounds reasonable. Her group supports the development of microbicides to protect women and by extension their children.

"The hope is by putting antiretrovirals into the microbicide, you can prevent the virus from either entering or replicating," she said in a telephone interview.

Last year researchers found Gilead Sciences Inc."s drug Truvada also might work as a microbicide. But a gel made by Massachusetts-based Indevus Pharmaceuticals that did not include an HIV drug failed in human trials.

The AIDS virus, which infects 33 million people globally and has killed 25 million, is mostly passed sexually. In Africa women account for more new cases than men and are often infected by their husbands.

Abstinence and condom use are not options for women trying to have children, but a microbicide would be. Microbicides using HIV drugs would represent a large new market for the companies that make the drugs, which are currently now used only to treat infection.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Health

Glimmer of goal in writer payrolls romantic

James B. Kelleher - Analysis CHICAGO Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:42pm EST Related News Climate control supporters focus on job creationWed, Jan 27 2010 Stocks & &

CHICAGO (Reuters) - If you thought the recent recession was hard on U.S. blue-collar workers, wait till you see what the recovery has in store for them.

The U.S. economic downturn that began in December 2007 was especially brutal for manufacturing workers, who absorbed a disproportionate share of the job losses associated with the slump.

Manufacturing generates less than 12 percent of U.S. economic output and accounts for less than 9 percent of the jobs in the country. Yet it accounted for more than 26 percent of the 8.4 million layoffs in the downturn, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Now, as the economy slowly recovers, and producer payrolls show encouraging signs of growth again, many of the 2.2 million manufacturing employees idled in the slump are hoping the long-awaited call back to the plant may finally be coming.

But executives, economists and long-time industry watchers have some bad news for them. "I wouldn"t hold my breath," said Eli Lustgarten, an industrial analyst at Longbow Research.

Even under the best-case scenario, more than half the U.S. manufacturing jobs lost over the past two years will never return, they say. Those that do will return far more slowly than in past recoveries and offer far less employment security than industrial jobs of old.

What the country definitely will not see, experts say, is a repeat of 2005, 2006 and 2007, when the industry scrambled to keep up with record global demand by adding capacity -- and headcount -- with little regard for the effect on margins and bottom line.

When the downturn hit, U.S. manufacturers moved aggressively to further streamline operations and slash overhead costs -- in many cases firing 20 percent or more of their workforce.

Their actions have turned the sector into what one analyst recently called an "operating leverage beast," capable of turning even modest increases in demand into big jumps in profitability without needing a lot of extra permanent workers.

"When you get in a crunch like what we"ve been through, you figure out ways to do more with less," said Tom Murphy, head of the manufacturing practice at consultant RSM McGladrey.

But what is good news for investors in the sector is bad news for the United States, which faces spiraling deficits at every level of government.

If the manufacturing sector, where workers earn 20 percent more per week than the average U.S. worker, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is not going to start adding taxpayers back into the system, who will?

BUBBLE TROUBLE

Last year alone, the U.S. manufacturing sector shed 11.4 percent of its total workforce -- the largest one-year percentage drop since the Great Depression, dwarfing even the 10.4 percent drop seen in 1945, when America"s victorious industrial war machine throttled back production.

Why were U.S. producers so hard-hit by the downturn? Analysts say it is simple: Manufacturing was concentrated where the bubble was, making products -- from nails to furniture to construction equipment -- that were either tied to housing or to industries like mining and energy that quickly followed housing into the slump.

So when a DOL report earlier this month showed the first monthly growth in producer payrolls in three years, almost all of it from recalled autoworkers, it fanned hopes that the hard-hit sector had reached a tipping point.

Perhaps the manufacturing sector would lead the recovering economy in job creation just as it led the faltering economy in job destruction.

But such hopes ignore longer-term trends. The manufacturing sector has now cut jobs for 11 consecutive years, a relentless contraction that has eliminated one in every three assembly line jobs. And the long decline in employment in the sector began much earlier than that. In 1979, manufacturing accounted for 22 percent of all nonfarm jobs in the country. Today, it accounts for less than 9 percent.

That is why no one believes the country is on the verge of a massive rehiring. Even Daniel Meckstroth, the relatively upbeat chief economist at the industry trade group Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, has a sobering take on the situation.

"We won"t get back 2 million jobs," Meckstroth said. At best, he says, "the job bleeding is temporarily over for the next two or three years until productivity swamps the growth rate in production. Then you"ll see manufacturing job losses again."

LAW OF NATURE

The reason for the inexorable decline in jobs is simple: The industry does not need as many workers here in the United States as in the past. Moving many lower-skilled products and processes overseas, where labor costs are cheaper, has eliminated millions of jobs.

Fast-rising productivity on the factory floor, thanks to the installation of robots and computerized machining and the adoption of lean manufacturing techniques pioneered by Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) (TM.N), has wiped out millions more.

But in recent years, another factor has come into play. Companies like 3M Corp (MMM.N) and many others have decided the best way to serve rapidly growing emerging markets like China, Brazil and India is by locating factories in those places rather than exporting to them from the United States.

With those emerging markets expected to dramatically outgrow the United States in the coming decades, that means more plants there and fewer plants here.

"The challenge is that right now we have about 65 percent of our sales outside the United States and 65 percent of our manufacturing in the United States," George Buckley, 3M"s chairman, president and chief executive, told an audience in Chicago late last year.

"Unless we can find ways to drive growth in the United States ... the natural laws of nature are going to pull that manufacturing out of the United States."

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Brussels sight crash: Eurostar transport recommendation

Eurostar services to Brussels will be suspended until Sunday at least, delaying hundreds of passengers as the clean-up operation after Monday"s crash makes slow progress.

Three days after the fatal collision which killed 18 people, the wreckage remains on the tracks nine miles south of the city, disrupting the rail network around the European transport hub.

Eurostar has urged those who do not need to travel to cancel their trip but a shuttle coach service to Lille is being operated for those stranded in Brussels.

Eurostar on empty platform

Suspended: Eurostar will not be running services to Brussels until Monday 22 February

The high speed rail company is offering refunds and exchanges to passengers holding tickets for travel to the Belgian city between 15 and 22 February.

Passengers wishing to cancel their journeys and claim a refund are advised to visit www.eurostar.com/UK/uk/leisure/customer_care/questions_answers.jsp

More...Richard Branson furious over plan to let BA and American Airlines team upFull-body scanners at Heathrow and Manchester airports could be illegalBritish children "as likely to visit Paris as London"

Those wanting to exchange tickets for future travel have two months to do so and are advised to call 08432 186 186.

Services to and from Lille in France are operating a reduced service as the city is at a junction from which trains usually run on to both Paris and Brussels.

Eurostar has advised passengers to check the latest timetable on their website and warned that there may be delays. For the latest changes visit www.eurostar.com/UK/uk/leisure/customer_care/questions_answers.jsp

However, the company does report that services between London and Paris and Disneyland Resort Paris are operatingnormally.

For passengers whose travel cannot be avoided, the company is also running a shuttle coach service between Brussles and Lille which takes around one and a half hours.

In a statement, Eurostar said: "Passengers travelling to the UK are being checked in at Brussels Midistation for their onward journey by coach to Lille and then by Eurostarto Ashford, Ebbsfleet and London St Pancras International."

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

David Cameron tells Titchmarsh hes going to unleash his mother on voters

David Cameron on the Alan Titchmarsh Show

Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor & , : {}

David Cameron put his mother to the front of the Conservatives choosing debate as he concurred that he had to work harder to overcome electorate cynicism.

The Tory personality used his coming on the Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV yesterday to exhibit that Samantha Cameron had asked to take a distinguished purpose in the campaign. The 38-year-old beautiful executive of Smythsons, an upmarket stationers, has until right away avoided giving interviews about her husband.

Praising his mother as an extraordinary lady who total a successful career with being a shining mother, Mr Cameron said: She pronounced to me the alternative day, I work hard, I run my own commercial operation but I wish you to do this, I wish you to win, Im right at the back of you. Tell me what I can do to help. I wish to get out there. So you are going to see a lot some-more of her on the debate trail. So, Britain get ready.

Mrs Cameron has already since her initial interview. In an coming to be promote as piece of an hour-long radio form on Sunday, she speaks of their 18-year relationship. I can overtly contend that I dont think in all that time he has ever let me down, she tells Sir Trevor McDonald.

Related LinksCameron aims for the stars with TitchmarshGardeners QuestionsBrown and Cameron review to contention on troops

Mr Cameron concluded to take piece in the ITV show after branch down a ask to be interviewed by Piers Morgan, insisting that he longed for something a bit some-more substantial. With both leaders jostling for space on promote sofas Mr Cameron did not, however, abstain from the possibility to plead his love of gardening, in progress and dress play with Mr Titchmarsh on his afternoon show. Asked to deliver himself, Mr Cameron, who is 43, pronounced he was a immature man who was ardent about his country, cared for his family and was relaxed, normal and reasonable. The Tory personality pronounced that he was not astounded by the new squeezing of the Conservative lead over Labour in the perspective polls. I think people in this nation have been by a unequivocally formidable recession. They have been by the total disaster of the losses liaison in Parliament.

They are cynical, they are apathetic. Frankly, right right away they do not certitude any politicians. They wish to see a little genuine gumption prior to they confirm to put their cranky in the box. I think they are holding back, Prove to me that you will be different.

He insisted that his absolved credentials had never prevented him from bargain the concerns of others. I have never had any difficulty relating to people or listening to them, articulate to them, bargain peoples lives.

I simply do not hold only since you went to a sold propagandize you cannot assimilate alternative people or work for alternative people.

Mrs Camerons publicity of her husbands efforts to turn Britains subsequent budding apportion followed an strong idea by one of the couples friends that she had not regularly voted Conservative in elections.

Ed Vaizey, the Shadow Arts Minister, said: She would be going in to this check meditative Is Cameron the genuine deal, or should I hang with Brown? Mr Vaizey after retracted the acknowledgement whilst Conservative debate domicile released a rejection that the Tory leaders mother had ever voted Labour.

Mrs Cameron has done transparent that she intends to go on to work if her father heads the subsequent government.

A ask by Gordon Brown to crop up on BBC2s Match of the Day 2 was incited down at the finish of last year. Downing Street had referred to that Mr Brown could speak about Englands bid to host the football World Cup in 2018 on the show but producers ruled that it would be inapt in the run-up to a ubiquitous election.

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Ministry of Defence sinks navys bubbly beverage parties

Sara Dixon & , : {}

COCKTAIL parties hosted by Royal Navy commanders on vacation unfamiliar ports, a buttress of British naval convention given the time of Lord Nelson, are to be scrapped in an bid to save money.

Navy chiefs are pronounced to be mad over the passing of the tradition, that helps concrete great family for the UK opposite the globe.

The comparatively small cost of each bubbly beverage celebration estimated to be around 1,000 as ethanol served on house a army vessel is free from taxation is teenager compared with the 36 billion troops bill that the Ministry of Defence is struggling to move underneath control.

It is estimated that scrapping the much-loved Cockers P, as the parties are well known in army jargon, could save the MoD in between 50,000 and 70,000. An MoD orator said: Royal Navy warships organize central receptions in sequence to set up and say family and general family whilst on central pier visits. We are asking autocratic officers not to hold these receptions when on slight commercial operation to have assets in the financially formidable times.

Related LinksOfficers in banishment line as MoD forced to face cutsMoD mulls Merchant Navy outsourcing options

One comparison commander in chief said: Its a damn contrition that this critical apparatus in British tact is being discarded. We call these receptions soft energy since we are receiving a bit of British unfamiliar process to an central accepting in a unfamiliar territory. It does wonders for general family and trade.

A celebration due to be hold on the destroyer HMS York when it docked in the Falkland Islands dual weeks ago was reportedly cancelled at the last notation as piece of the cuts. Another bubbly beverage celebration on house a warship at Simons Town, South Africa, was cancelled after the MoD refused funding.

In future, output on bubbly beverage parties will be strictly authorised usually for visits from high-ranking VIPs such as the Queen and comparison army officers, together with the initial sea lord.

In one notorious, but less formal, situation Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber, was invited on house the frigate HMS Danae as it docked in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in the late 1970s. The refugee enjoyed a booze with a series of inebriated sailors usually to travel off the boat with parole even though he was a longed for man in the UK.

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Amanda Knox did not kill out of passion or annoy judges say

Amanda Knox

Richard Owen, Rome & , : {}

Amanda Knox, the American tyro convicted last year of receiving piece in the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder and passionate attack of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, acted on incentive and not out of "any passion or feeling of spite" as the charge had claimed, according to the judges who upheld the sentence.

Releasing the logic at the behind of their verdict, the judges pronounced Knox had killed her roommate as the outcome of "casual contingencies". The attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder had not been programmed or premeditated.

Prosecution witnesses, together with British friends of Ms Kercher in Perugia, testified during the hearing that Ms Knox had depressed out with her British flatmate over blank cash, lavatory hygiene and Knox"s robe of bringing "strange men" behind to the bank lodge they common with dual Italian women.

Knox, 22, was condemned last Dec to twenty-six years in jail for her piece in the murder, whilst Raffaele Sollecito, 25, her former Italian boyfriend, was given twenty-five years. Their initial of dual appeals is approaching in the autumn.

Related LinksA she-devil or all-American innocent?Amanda Knox: I have conviction in Italian probity

A third suspect, Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast immigrant, was condemned to thirty years for the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder in a apart hearing underneath fast lane procedures. His judgment was marked down to sixteen years on initial appeal, and he is available a second last interest prior to the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors at the hearing claimed that Sollecito had hold Ms Kercher down whilst Mr Guede assaulted her intimately and Knox cut her throat with a kitchen blade after found in Sollecito"s flat.

In a riposte to Knox"s family and friends who explain she was the plant of a voided trial formed on injured evidence, the judges pronounced the charge had drawn "a extensive and awake picture, but holes or inconsistencies". The defendants had been means to report Ms Kercher"s injuries, and their shame was transparent from DNA traces and exposed footprints found "in assorted tools of the house".

The judges pronounced it was Guede who had carried out the passionate violence, with Knox and Sollecito who were underneath the change of drug "actively participating" by assisting him to overpower Ms Kercher so that he could "give opening to his passionate impulses".

The ground was "erotic passionate violence" in that Knox and Sollecito had "actively collaborated" in Guede"s "evil act". They had probably found subjugating Ms Kercher "exciting".

In their 427-page summing up the dual judges, Giancarlo Massei and Beatrice Cristiani, indicated that they and the jury of 6 had additionally been convinced by Knox"s attempts to change the censure by secretly accusing Patrick Diya Lumumba, a Congolese bartender for whom she worked piece time, "knowing him to be innocent".

Knox had attempted to "put the investigators onto the wrong track" even though Mr Lumumba had regularly treated with colour her well and she had "no ground for spite, animosity or punish toward him that could clear such a critical accusation".

Knox initally certified she had been at the crime stage and had lonesome her ears so as not to listen to Ms Kercher screaming as she was killed, but after withdrew this, claiming she had done this "confession" underneath compulsion and that military had struck her. Police repudiate this and are suing her for damages.

The judges pronounced that on the dusk of the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder in Nov 2007 Knox and Sollecito had found themselves at a lax finish when they met Guede by possibility at the lodge at a time when Ms Kercher was alone. After the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder they had lonesome Ms Kercher"s routine physique in a gesticulate mixing pity, denial, and "a sort of repentence for what had been done".

Ms Kercher"s bloodied half-naked remains was found on the building of her room underneath a duvet, with one feet sicking out. The building and walls were additionally lonesome in blood. The judges pronounced some-more than one chairman contingency have committed the crime given Ms Kercher was fit and strong, as her mom and sister had testified, and her sports enclosed fighting and gym training.

Last month Knox"s distant parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, claimed on the Oprah Winfrey show that their daughter had been the plant of "trial by media". Ms Mellas said: "She"s positively regularly confirmed that she never had anything to do with it. Meredith was her friend, they were good friends."

The Knox family authorised cameras in to their Seattle home as they waited for their weekly ten-minute Saturday sunrise phone call from Knox. Mr Knox pronounced his daughter, who continues to confess her innocence, had "good and bad days", and on one of his visits to her in jail had "cried in my arms for 45 minutes".

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Devastated Wayne Bridge snubs England over John Terry sex liaison Football

Bridge as well far: the Manchester City defender is incompetent to put his emotions about Terry to one side

Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent & , : {}

Wayne Bridge dumbfounded Fabio Capello this sunrise by branch his behind on his England career, observant that his on all sides had been rendered illogical and potentially divisive by the John Terry affair.

The Manchester City full-back voiced in a make a difference expelled by his lawyers that he has spoken himself taken for preference for England, a move that roughly positively manners him out of row for the World Cup finals.

Bridge has outlayed the past 3 weeks weighing up his options given being ravaged by the explanation that his former partner, Vanessa Perroncel, had an event with Terry, his former Chelsea team-mate.

Sources close to Bridge had hinted on multiform occasions that he would find it intensely formidable to be piece of the same England patrol as Terry, but Capello settled as not prolonged ago as Tuesday that he resolutely approaching both players to finalise the make a difference for the consequence of the inhabitant team.

Related LinksBridge reaction: it is the majority appropriate thing for EnglandCapello hopes time will heal injuries and egosBridge: timeline of sex liaison MultimediaOLIVER KAY QA: Bridge has shop-worn World Cup hopes PATRICK BARCLAY: Neville can compromise left behind complaint DEBATE: Has Bridge let down the nation? TOM DART: Five others who incited their behind on England

Bridge was due to be enclosed to one side Terry in a subject to 30-man patrol for the accessible compare opposite Egypt at Wembley subsequent Wednesday, but he sensitive Capello progressing currently that he felt he could not be piece of the inhabitant group for as prolonged as Terry who has been nude of the captaincy over this and alternative allegations about his in isolation hold up is involved.

In a statement, Bridge said: I have thought prolonged and tough about my on all sides in the England football group in the light of the stating and events over the last couple of weeks. It has regularly been an honour to fool around for England. However, after clever thought I hold my on all sides in the patrol is right away illogical and potentially divisive. Sadly thus I feel for the consequence of the group and in sequence to equivocate what will be unavoidable distractions, I have motionless not to put myself brazen for selection. I have currently sensitive the government of this decision. I instruct the group all the really majority appropriate in South Africa.

Although Bridge is not one of Englands majority critical players, the headlines is a outrageous blow to Capello, not slightest since Ashley Cole, the first-choice left-back, is struggling to be fit for the World Cup after pang a damaged ankle progressing this month. Capello settled quietly progressing this week that Bridge was the No 2 left-back, able of stuffing in for Cole in South Africa if required, but that purpose is right away expected to tumble to Leighton Baines or Stephen Warnock.

The headlines will additionally move Terrys on all sides in the patrol underneath uninformed scrutiny. Although Capello would not demur to select the former captain over Bridge if he had been compulsory to do so, the Chelsea defender will right away be hold obliged for the loss of a renouned team-mate.

Bridge will be incompetent to equivocate Terry in the evident term, however, with Chelsea and City locking horns in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday afternoon at Stamford Bridge. With Bridge pronounced to be reluctant to shake up Terrys palm as piece of the pre-match festivities and with 3 of his team-mates carrying publicly displayed Team Bridge T-shirts during the 2-0 win over Portsmouth progressing this month, it promises to be a vigourous occasion.

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Monday, July 26, 2010

Sir Stirling Moss breaks ankles descending down lift shaft

Valentine Low & , : {}

As a engine racing legend, Stirling Moss had his satisfactory share of life-threatening accidents during his Grand Prix days, majority memorably the 1962 pile-up at Goodwood that put him in a deep sleep for 38 days and finished his career.

He competence have thought that scarcely 40 years after his retirement, and in the joy of his own home, he would be safe.

However, last night Sir Stirling, 80, was recuperating in sanatorium after descending 9m (30ft) down a lift missile on Saturday at his gadget-filled home in Mayfair, London, after the doorway non-stop at the wrong time.

Among his injuries were dual damaged ankles, 4 damaged skeleton in his feet and 4 chipped vertebrae. Surgeons operated on both ankles and his liberation is approaching to take up to 6 weeks.

Times ArchiveTimes Archive, 1962: Stirling Moss really bad harm in 105mph crashMoss: Doubt about full recoveryStirling Moss flown home: damage to backRelated LinksRugby fable JPR attempted to kick breath testSir Ranulph Fiennes in car pound on the A6Moss on his Mayfair tool houseMultimediaVIDEO: Stirling Moss"s residence of gadgets (and lift)

His mother Lady Susie said: This was a really hapless accident; it could have only as simply been an additional part of of the family stepping in to where the lift should have been.

For all the damaged bones, the collision has not dented Sir Stirlings spirit. I am not ready to go only yet, he told his son Elliott in the ambulance on the approach to hospital.

Sir Stirling"s spokesman, Patrick Crew, pronounced that that the collision was less critical than it competence have been since the bigotry of the lift missile ensured that he landed on his legs.

His home, that in the 1960s featured afterwards unheard-of innovations such as a remote-controlled radio and a washing-up machine, includes between the decorations the deformed steering wheels from dual of his majority thespian crashes.

One is from the Lotus-Climax he crashed in during use for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1960, when he pennyless his back; the alternative is from the Goodwood pile-up of 1962, after that he remained in a deep sleep for 38 days.

During his career, from 1951 to 1961, Sir Stirling entered 66 grands prix and had sixteen wins, sixteen stick positions and twenty-four lectern finishes. He was runner-up in the World Championship 4 times.

Tiger Woods breaks overpower on sex scandal

Tiger Woods went jogging circuitously his Orlando home forward of his initial press discussion given the liaison broke

Times Online & , : {}

Tiger Woods will lapse to care after he ends a three-month overpower and speaks about his doubt or disloyalty this afternoon.

The universe No 1 will residence the sex liaison that has used up his hold up given late Nov and afterwards will lapse to the hospital where he has been undergoing therapy, according to a minute from PGA Tour government official Tim Finchem.

Finchem"s minute to the PGA Tour process house and alternative officials explained because Woods chose currently to have his initial open comments, that are to be televised live by the vital networks from 4pm GMT.

"As we assimilate it, Tiger"s care called for a week"s mangle at this time during that he has outlayed a couple of days with his young kids and afterwards will have his matter prior to returning," Finchem pronounced in the letter. "Accordingly, there was really small coherence in the date for the announcement."

Related LinksNow Woods needs the shot of his lifeTrump: Tiger should turn a playboyWoods and the relaunching of a code

The minute strew no light on either Woods plans to lapse to the debate anytime soon.

Woods will verbalise to a small organisation of "friends, colleagues and close associates" at TPC Sawgrass, home of the PGA Tour. Just one video camera will promote the eventuality and there will be no questions.

Golf incited on Woods yesterday as he rebuilt to face the world.

If the biggest player of the complicated epoch believed that he would be tenderly welcomed behind in to the overlay by his associate professionals, should he have known his approaching lapse currently when he ends his three-month self- imposed exile, he was forced to think again as he eaten the comments of his peers.

Ernie Els was between the majority strident as he cursed the greedy timing of the universe No 1s preference to face a comparison media entertainment but take no questions in the center of the prestigious WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Its selfish. You can write that, Els said. I feel contemptible for the sponsor. Mondays are a great day to have statements, not Friday. This takes a lot afar from the tournament.

It could not go neglected that Accenture was one of the initial companies to disjoin sponsorship links with Woods when it became strong that the diver with a squeaky-clean family picture was dependant to sex with women alternative than his wife.

The PGA Tour done accessible the sprawling, Mediterranean-styled hall for the announcement, and was assisting to set up diagonally opposite ballrooms at the circuitously Sawgrass Marriott for media, where they will watch Woods on closed-circuit TV. Finchem pronounced in the minute that Woods" government asked for the facilities, and "we concluded as we would for any part of of the PGA Tour."

About 300 people had purebred as media at the site, and about twenty-five heavenly body trucks were parked outside. Television crews by the dozen were report from the scene.

Three headlines handle services the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg were invited. The Golf Writers Association of America was offering a pool of 3 reporters, negotiated for 6 reporters, afterwards the house of directors voted overwhelmingly not to participate.

"I cannot highlight how strongly the house felt that this should be open to all media and additionally for the event to subject Woods," pronounced Vartan Kupelian, boss of the 950-member group. "The position, simply put, is all or none. This is a vital story of general scope. To extent the capability of reporters to attend, listen, see and subject Woods goes opposite the pellet of all we believe."

The allegations of woe taken from 4 UN reports

Zeeshan Siddique

Foreign Staff & , : {}

Bisher al-Rawi alleges he was interrogated in Afghanistan by officials from MI5, between others

Moazzam Begg alleges that during apprehension in Kandahar he was subjected to complicated woe and interrogated, infrequently naked, by security services, together with MI5

0mar Deghayes alleges that British security services were concerned in his apprehension in Pakistan and Afghanistan and that, at his third interrogation, there was an MI6 military officer present. He additionally says British and American officers took him to Bagram, where he was tortured and intimately abused by US soldiers

Mohammed Ezzoueck claims that MI5 was concerned in his apprehension in Kenya. He alleges that in Nairobi he was interrogated by British security services about his purported links to militant attacks or groups. He was told that British consular officers attempted to see him, but were told he was at an additional military station. In Baidoa, Somalia, he was put on a moody to London. A consular central additionally took the flight. In London he says he was met by people from Scotland Yard and interrogated at the airfield military hire underneath the Terrorism Act 2000, Schedule 7, and incarcerated for 9 hours prior to being let go

Related LinksUK called to comment over woe allegationsTell the law about torture, watchdog insistsMI5 investigated over uninformed woe claimsMultimediaGRAPHIC: men who explain ill diagnosis

Maryam Kallis alleges that she met member from the British consulate twice in Syria. She does not lay that they were concerned in woe but says they did not discuss it her family where she was being hold

Azhar Khan alleges that when he was interrogated, underneath torture, in Egypt he was asked in English about a prior detain and his personal hold up in Britain. He says that on attainment at Cairo military station, a lady from the British Embassy told him to leave the nation inside of twenty-four hours. After his release, he claims British officers asked him to work for them but he refused. In London, after his release, he says MI5 officers were watchful for him, but did not survey him

Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni alleges that he was hold on Diego García during a delivery moody in 2002. He says British officials were benefaction at interrogations at Guantánamo Bay

Binyam Mohamed alleges that an MI5 representative was concerned in his apprehension in Pakistan. The Government lost the quarrel last week to keep out of the open domain element that showed that British officials knew of the diagnosis he had suffered. A US justice has additionally found convincing justification that he was tortured in Pakistan and Morocco

Abu Omar alleges that whilst being hold at a military hire in Nairobi he was by officials from the British Consulate, who asked him either his family knew where he was. In London he was interrogated by MI5 officers about his reasons for going to Kenya and either he had been mistreated. He was expelled after but his boots and income were confiscated From the Human Rights Watch report, Cruel Britannia:

Rangzieb Ahmed alleges that he was authorised to transport to Pakistan, but was incarcerated there and asked questions granted by MI5 and Greater Manchester Police. He claims he was deported to Britain thirteen months after with 3 fingernails missing. After his detain in Aug 2006 he says he was knocked about with sticks, churned with electric cables and deprived of sleep. He says his fingernails were pulled out underneath inquire over a three-day duration by Pakistani comprehension officials. He was after convicted in a British court. The decider deserted claims that Britain was outsourcing torture, but the Government did not repudiate counterclaim claims that MI5 sent questions for Pakistans comprehension services to ask him and that MI5 questioned him whilst in their control

Salahuddin Amin claims that he was tortured during apprehension in Pakistan. He was after convicted in a British court. The decider did not accept the allegations of woe and found no justification that British authorities were complicit in wrong apprehension or ill diagnosis in Pakistan, but pronounced that his diagnosis was oppressive. But Human Rights Watch has justification from Pakistani sources that UK and US agents were ideally wakeful that we were utilizing all equates to probable to remove inform from him

Rashid Rauf was incarcerated on terrorism charges in Pakistan. He claimed he was tortured in front of people with British and American accents. He was privileged of charges and was to be extradited to Britain. But he was killed, assumingly by a US barb set upon nearby the Afghan-Pakistan border. Human Rights Watch claims he was tortured so really bad that he could not have been attempted in the UK

ZZ (also referred to as MSS in the JCHR report) was a British-born alloy at a Pakistani sanatorium in 2005. He says he was taken and questioned over the London bombings, tortured, forced to declare torture, questioned by British comprehension officers and afterwards expelled dual months after

Zeeshan Siddiqui reports being beaten, chained, injected with drug and in jeopardy with passionate abuse. HRW says that British comprehension officials, whom he says him, contingency have well well known from perceivable injuries that he had been mistreated

From the JCHR 23rd report:

Details of allegations by MSS, Ragzieb Ahmed, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Salahuddin Amin, Rashid Rauf, Azhar Khan, Binyam Mohamed and Tariq Mahmood, who dead in Pakistan in 2003 and is thought to be in Dubai. Family members explain he was tortured and that Britain was concerned Tahir Shah was incarcerated after the 2005 London bombings in Pakistan. He claims he was treated with colour inhumanely

Seven people are bringing claims for indemnification opposite the Government:

Bisher al-Rawi, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg, Binyam Mohamed and Martin Mubanga, Jamil El Banna and Richard Belmar.

They were incarcerated at locations together with Guantánamo Bay. Each is looking indemnification over purported acts or omissions by MI5, MI6, the Foreign Office and the Home Office. The defendants repudiate the allegations

The following lay indignity by the US in Guantánamo Bay:

Feroz Abbasi says he was subjected to really shrill song in interrogations, attempted to dedicate self-murder and outlayed over a year in unique capture

Tarek Dergoul claims that British comprehension services were wakeful that he was tortured

Shaker Aamer claims he suffered serious beatings at Bagram Theatre Internment Facility. He says a dozen men kick him, together with interrogators who pronounced they were from MI5.

Three men well well known as the Tipton Taleban Shafiq Rasul, Ruhal Ahmed and Asif Iqbal have done their allegations in their own inform

Some Iraqi claims of woe by British soldiers are probably true

Deborah Haynes, Commentary & , : {}

Most people in southern Iraq gave British soldiers a comfortable acquire when they arrived in Mar 2003 as piece of the US-led bid to disintegrate Saddam Hussein.

A Shia Arab majority, the Iraqis in Basra and the surrounding 3 provinces underneath British carry out had been persecuted underneath the former complement of administration and were triumphant at the downfall.

The soft-hat, friendly-smile strategy deployed in those initial couple of months went down well with the internal people, in sheer contrariety to the assertive position of US forces who hid at the back of dim eyeglasses in Baghdad and beyond.

However, reputations are simply lost, and when British soldiers proposed rounding up detainees word widespread that Iraqis were not being respected. The liaison of US abuse at Abu Ghraib reflected really bad on all coalition-run apprehension centres, whilst the genocide of Baha Musa in British control in Sep 2003 cemented guess that the occupiers were as bad as Saddam.

Related LinksIraq check audience tops 60 per cent notwithstanding attacksNew exploration in to Iraq woe claimsMillions of Iraqis challenge the bombers to opinion

Lessons were in the future learnt and systems commissioned to ensure opposite hurt that Britain and the US say was perpetrated by usually a brute couple of but the repairs had already been done.

A year after the infancy of British forces pulled out of Iraq, allegations of abuse of Iraqi detainees a little of them intensely critical go on to emerge. While a little are probably true, there is additionally the probability of people receiving value of the ghastly being to board fake reports of torture.

It is to be hoped that the new complement will assistance to move probity to Iraqis who suffered at the hands of British infantry and additionally weed out those who simply wish to have a little easy money.

Budget 2010: Tax breaks for video diversion developers

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor 422PM GMT twenty-four March 2010

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Microsoft XBox 360 games console Alistair Darling has voiced that UK-based video diversion studios will embrace taxation credits identical to those enjoyed by the movie industry Photo EDDIE MULHOLLAND

The Chancellor pronounced that the beautiful industries, together with video games, done a "valuable mercantile and informative grant to the UK". Mr Darling pronounced a taxation credit system, identical to the one offering to the British movie industry, would be introduced. The intrigue will need state assist capitulation from the European Commission prior to it can be implemented.

The Budget proclamation was tenderly greeted by the video games industry. "This is an desirous decision,"said Dr Richard Wilson, arch senior manager of Tiga, the traffic organisation representing the UK"s games industry.

Budget 2010 key points Budget 2010 winners Budget 2010 losers Budget electronic caclulator - are you improved off? The Treasury"s Budget inform Budget 2010 greeting from markets and economists

"Games taxation service will enlarge employment, investment and creation in the UK video games sector. Over a five-year duration it should emanate or strengthen 3,550 connoisseur turn jobs, enlarge or guarantee 457 million in growth output and inspire developers to adopt new commercial operation models and emanate new egghead property."

The games industry has been job for taxation breaks for multiform months. Many alternative countries, such as Canada and France, suggest subsidies and incentives for developers, and British studios fright a "brain drain" of bent to these regions. The UK has already slipped from third in the tellurian growth rankings to fifth.

But notwithstanding a formidable mercantile environment, the industry now contributes around 1 billion per year to the UK"s GDP, and a new inform showed that a entertain of the world"s 100 majority successful games studios are formed in Britain.

"This is positively the right preference from the Government," pronounced Paul Mayze, arch handling military officer of Monumental, a diversion college of music formed in Nottingham. "We have been struggling with an increasingly disproportionate tellurian personification field. Todays preference by the Government will go a prolonged approach to assisting safeguard that we can sojourn rival in the tellurian market."

World headlines in brief

& , : {}

Gunmen rob gin rummy tournament

Armed robbers stormed a oppulance road house in executive Berlin and raided a gin rummy contest last night. Armed with machineguns, machetes and palm grenades, the raiders done off with the kitty of 726,000. Several of the 1,000 players were injured. There was panic, and people jumped underneath tables prior to they attempted to shun by the puncture exit, pronounced a bystander. The contest was being shown live on the internet.

Mubarak undergoes surgery

The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, at the moment handed over energy to the budding minister, Ahmed Nazif, as he underwent a gall bladder operation in Germany yesterday. The 81-year-old leader, right, who has governed for scarcely 3 decades, was staying at a sanatorium in Heidelberg. Mubarak, who been boss given 1981, has looked diseased at new open appearances. The operation was pronounced to have been successful.

Bear Attack

An Asiatic black bear bit off a womans fingers at a zoo in the America state of Wisconsin after she abandoned signs that warned opposite perplexing to feed the animal. The 47-year-old lady lost a ride and a forefinger, and dual fingers were to some extent severed. Her beloved was bitten as he attempted to rescue her. The bear will not be put down.

Apology Anger

Thirty-eight staff at the Danish every day Politiken yesterday published a minute protesting at the preference to apologize for copy cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists, who this year was the theme of an conflict at his home, pronounced it had tricked the avocation to defend leisure of speech.

The art of dining on the highway Travel

The Pale Blue Door pop-up restaurant

Wherever I lay my list ... guest have themselves at home at The Pale Blue Door pop-up grill in Buenos Aires. Photograph: Cristobal Muhr

The direction for proxy or "secret" restaurants shows no pointer of abating. But there"s a turn to the the ultimate "pop up": the Pale Blue Door, combined by British artist Tony Hornecker, pops up, packs up, afterwards pops behind up again in an additional country. And it takes in an iconic legal holiday along the way.

Having proposed in a terraced residence in London, Hornecker took the judgment to Santiago de Chile, where he combined a rickety treehouse on the side of a hill. Now he has written a speakeasy-style grill inside an deserted palace in the heart of Buenos Aires. Candle-lit tables, exploding frame ceilings and a outrageous alfresco yard resemble sets from the Mad Hatter"s tea party. Breadbaskets are served around a pulley-and-rope complement and a transvestite tops up the booze glasses.

After finishing the run in Buenos Aires this Saturday, Hornecker plans to move onwards to New York, Berlin and Tokyo. Dates will be posted on tonyhornecker.wordpress.com.

But the subsequent reliable stop is Glastonbury Festival at the finish of June, where he will set up a proxy residence among the farmland. According to Glastonbury food and splash physical education instructor Dick Vernon, "As audiences have changed, expectations have increased."

Dan Perlman of Casa Saltshaker – one of the best-known closed-door restaurants on the Buenos Aires stage – keeps a list of venues as they come and go around the world. He records that last year"s blast of venues opposite London was tough to keep up with. Since afterwards the thought has widespread opposite the UK, from Bognor to Bristol to Norwich. Most newcomers to the stage have taken to swelling the word around Facebook or by this Ning group.

Alternative or quirky restaurants crop up to be on "to-do" transport ticklists for many, be they in someone else"s house, up a tree in New Zealand or on the world"s largest ferris circle in Singapore.

What is the majority surprising place you"ve eaten on your travels? Or are you the sort who"d take an old-fashioned, sign-on-the-door bistro any day and who thinks that legal holiday food should be no some-more difficult than a bap-to-go from the Hog Roast stand?

Cesc Fabregas and Wayne Rooney puzzled for Champions League European Football

Jonathan Northcroft, Football Correspondent & , : {}

WAYNE ROONEY of Manchester United and Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas are puzzled for their clubs" Champions League second-leg ties this week. Rooney, who aggravated a knee damage whilst personification twice in 4 days on Wembleys complicated territory last week, was not in the patrol for last nights diversion at Wolverhampton.

Sir Alex Ferguson pronounced after Uniteds 1-0 win that Rooney was a disbelief for Wednesdays diversion opposite AC Milan. The Wembley representation has killed him, pronounced Ferguson, obviously still unfortunate that the brazen done himself accessible for England in midweek when Uniteds physical education instructor felt he should have pulled out. Rooney was consequential to Uniteds 3-2 first-leg win at the San Siro, streamer dual goals in the second half.

Fabregas suffered a injure leg tendon damage and was replaced after scoring Arsenal"s opening idea in the 3-1 better of Burnley at the Emirates. Arsène Wenger, Arsenals manager, said: We have to have a late preference over either he plays on Tuesday [against Porto]. It is the same injure leg tendon that he harm progressing in the season.

Arsenal route 2-1 after the initial leg in Portugal.

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Driver crashes �528,000 supercar

1022AM GMT twenty-four March 2010

Previous of Images Next Driver crashes 528,000 supercar The last check could be some-more than 300,000 once all the repairs are finished Photo PA Driver crashes 528,000 supercar The car has right away been sent for correct to Modena in Italy, where the vehicles are done Photo Jeff Gilbert

The Pagani Zonda S, that can reach speeds of 220mph, was concerned in the collision nearby Aberdeen last September.

The car strike a telegram stick and outstanding by a fence.

Satnav fumble ends in hit-and-run residence pile-up The Ashes England v Australia live, fifth Test day two, inform Steam supercar grown by Donald Campbells nephew to kick century old speed jot down Labour counterpart Lord Ahmed locked up for main highway texting Now I know what the similar to to be a convene motorist

It has right away been sent for correct to Modena in Italy, where the vehicles are made.

The last check could be some-more than 300,000 once all the repairs are completed, a orator for insurer Aviva said.

Aviva pronounced it is thought to be one of the top ever pay-outs in the UK.

A orator pronounced ""This is the greatest word pay-out we have had for repairs to a in isolation car in the UK. This is out of the typical for an insurer.

""An Aviva deputy was asked to check a badly-damaged supercar after the insurer"s policy-holder, who had been test-driving the supercar, lost carry out on a slight nation highway and collided side-on with a telegram stick prior to careering by a fence.

""Although the car was really bad damaged, Aviva motionless that the car might be repairable and set about creation arrangements for the car to be shipped opposite to Modena, Italy, home of Pagani, the car manufacturer.

""There are rounded off usually 10 Zondas assembled per year and they are painstakingly constructed.""

The word explain was lodged by the exam driver, not the owners of the car.

Work on the vehicle, that is done out of CO fibre, titanium and aircraft aluminium, is approaching to be finished by May.

Bank of England starts debate to put some-more 5 records in the pockets

David Robertson, Business Correspondent & , : {}

Five-pound records have turn increasingly singular and those that sojourn in dissemination are mostly so scabby that they are hardly recognizable as currency. Sorry, I dont have anything larger, is an all-too-familiar forgive from shopkeepers as they lapse a fistful of complicated bruise coins as change.

Now the Bank of England is branch the courtesy to easing the nonesuch of the smallest and tattiest of the paper currency. It is so endangered about the miss of fivers in dissemination that it is examining ways to refill the nations tills and wallets with crisper, newer notes.

Since the early 1990s the sum worth of 5 records in dissemination has stayed constant, at about 1 billion, whilst the sum worth of all records has scarcely tripled to some-more than 40 billion.

The Banks initial step, voiced yesterday, is to open talks with monetary institutions to inspire them to lapse some-more fivers from their classification offices, permitting old records to be transposed with new. Bank money centres cite to lapse higher-value records since the logistical costs of counting and transporting 5 records is greater.

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The Bank additionally wants to get some-more fivers in to dissemination by enlivening banks to supplement them to involuntary teller machines (ATMs). Without fivers, machines can be not as big and be refilled less often, that reduces handling costs.

The Bank is additionally to inspire vital retailers to make use of some-more 5 records when giving change. In a hearing last year, Sainsburys systematic some-more 5 records and found an astonishing great as the remuneration routine at tills was faster.

Andrew Bailey, arch assistant of the Bank of England, pronounced in a debate last December: My comment is that there is a great understanding of hatred between the blurb zone to shift in this area. Yet the justification suggests that the open wants some-more 5 notes, and of a improved quality. To grasp that design we need to see some-more 5s dispensed from ATMs and by retailers in change.

Husband arrested over Kent car explosion

Laura Pitel , : {}

The father of a profound lady stays in control after she was severely harmed when her car exploded in a Kent encampment yesterday.

Nicholas Fabian, 32, was arrested on guess of attempted attempted murder last night as debate examiners began a minute poke of the scene, a community car play ground in the encampment of Vigo, circuitously Meopham. He is set to be questioned by detectives this afternoon.

His mother Victoria Fabian, additionally 32, was sitting in the drivers chair of her Mazda 323 when she was harmed in the blast circuitously her home before long after 1pm.

The couple"s dual young kids were uninjured. People sitting in cars parked circuitously were additionally unhurt.

Army explosve ordering experts were called in to inspect the car and beside houses evacuated, but they after deemed it safe.

Some residents outlayed the night in a proxy rest centre set up in the encampment hall, and a little roads and alleyways in the encampment sojourn cordoned off.

Mrs Fabian stays in hospital. Her injuries are described as "serious but not hold up threatening". It is accepted the unborn kid has not been injured.

One internal proprietor who saw the issue of the blast described how people used their garments as a headrest for Mrs Fabian, who was thought to be 6 months pregnant. Michelle Davis, 44, said: She was in a lot of suffering and was screaming.

Vincent Redman, 17, described the blast as massive, it roughly blew my windows out.

Anne Lucas, 51, an additional neighbour, pronounced that the couples car was set on glow last October. She claimed that the stop lines on the car belonging to Mrs Fabian had been cut 3 times.

Ms Lucas described the integrate as unequivocally nice. She pronounced that Mr Fabian worked at a Battersea dogs home in circuitously West Kingsdown.

Mr Redman pronounced he rushed to the stage and saw Mrs Fabian in pain. She was in the drivers chair screaming, he said. Her legs were shredded - one was really bad burnt and the alternative was all bloodied.

Mr Redman pronounced he saw a gaping hole in between the accelerator pedal and purchase of the Mazda and the engine compartment.

Neither the Ministry of Defence nor Kent Police could not endorse a inform that Mr Fabian had served with the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment until 2003 and was about to react the Army.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Toyota says contemptible to worlds greatest car market

Leo Lewis, Middle East Business Correspondent & , : {}

The trainer of Toyota done a intense televised reparation to Chinese business currently in an try to deliver the companys repute in the worlds majority critical car market.

Akio Toyoda, less than a week after his open hammering at the hands of a US congressional hearing, offering his deepest apologies to the 75,000 Chinese motorists inconvenienced by the problems that have influenced Toyota accelerator pedals and stirred outrageous tellurian recalls.

The bid in China reflects Toyotas flourishing recklessness in the issue of the reserve crisis, that has been related to at slightest thirty deaths in America and stirred the stop of scarcely 9 million cars worldwide.

Although the recalls released for RAV4 vehicles in China were usually a small fragment of the sum recall, the nation is the worlds largest and fastest-growing car marketplace after overtaking the United States, a tectonic change for the industry that really bad unprotected Toyotas relations miss of invasion in to the region.

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The company, pronounced Edwin Merner, trainer of Atlantis Investment Research, is right away in the formidable on all sides of carrying to fool around the worlds toughest diversion of catch-up in the arise of one of the misfortune branding crises you could imagine.

Mr Toyoda pronounced that he would designate a arch peculiarity military officer for the Chinese marketplace a magnitude not introduced elsewhere and an denote of Toyota"s regard about the on all sides in the Chinese market.

In the early 1990s, Toyota was asked by the Chinese Government to enhance the sales and prolongation in to the Middle Kingdom, but the Toyota government declined the call in on the basement that the association was not ready for the move.

A couple of analysts at the time warned that this warding off was a grave mistake, but their fears were drowned out by Toyotas resounding enlargement in the United States, that couple of saw as losing the on all sides as the worlds greatest car marketplace by 2010.

The effect for Toyota was that the contingent enlargement in to China in the late 1990s was as well late to give it as clever a foothold as it enjoys elsewhere. Over 13.6 million new cars were sole in China last year, an enlarge of 46 per cent from a year earlier.

Toyota sole about 709,000 of those, nonetheless the sales enlargement rates were about half the altogether inhabitant gait of increase. The association has set itself a sales aim of 800,000 cars in China this year.

Microsoft urges antitrust complaints about Google

Mike Harvey in San Francisco & , : {}

Microsoft has speedy alternative companies to protest about Google to antitrust regulators in the majority outspoken conflict on the rival.

The program group, that for years has been the budding aim of foe regulators in the US and Europe over the approach it rubbed the near-monopoly of computer handling systems, wants to spin the spotlight on to Google"s on all sides as the world"s greatest internet poke and promotion company.

Microsoft called Google"s actions potentially anti-competitive in a blog post by Dave Heiner, Microsoft"s emissary ubiquitous counsel, on the company"s website.

Last week it emerged that the European Commission has launched a rough review after a Microsoft-owned business, and dual alternative small online companies, complained to regulators about Google"s operations.

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Google acts as a gateway to the internet for 90 per cent of British users and dominates the marketplace worldwide. The complaints were done by Foundem, a British cost some-more aged site, ejustice.fr, a French authorised poke engine, and Microsofts Ciao! Bing, a German selling portal. Google is indicted of commanding astray conditions for advertisers and demoting opposition sites in the poke results.

"As Google"s energy has grown in new years, we"ve increasingly listened complaints from a range of firms - large and small - about a far-reaching accumulation of Google commercial operation practices. Some of the complaints usually simulate assertive commercial operation stances taken by Google. Some simulate the privacy with that Google operates in most areas. Some crop up to lift critical antitrust issues," Mr Heiner wrote.

"When their antitrust concerns crop up to be substantial, we indicate that firms speak to the foe law agencies," he added. Microsoft is additionally fighting a plan by Google to digitize millions of books, that is right away underneath inspection by the US Department of Justice.

"Our concerns describe usually to Google practices that lend towards to close in commercial operation partners and calm - similar to Google Books - and bar competitors, thereby undermining foe some-more broadly," Mr Heiner wrote. "Ultimately the foe law agencies will have to confirm either or not Google"s practices should be seen as illegal," he added.

When the complaints opposite Google emerged, Google discharged the claims and forked out that dual of the plaintiffs in the EU movement had links to Microsoft. Foundem is piece of a traffic organisation partly sponsored by Microsoft called the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace.

Microsoft"s conflict will worsen adversary in between the dual companies, that right away contest on a extended spectrum of record products, from program applications and mobile phone systems to internet poke and email programs. The program hulk has usually been privileged by European regulators to form a poke partnership with Yahoo! to plea Googles marketplace lead.

US to assign tourists for entering nation Travel

US President Barack Obama delivers a spe

Barack Obama"s beginning will account the initial inhabitant tourism graduation physique in the US. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The US yesterday upheld a new law written to progress shrinking numbers of unfamiliar tourists – it will begin charging them for the payoff of entering the country.

The weird move has stirred debate on both sides of the Atlantic and warnings that it could backfire. Under the Travel Promotion Act sealed in to law by Barack Obama yesterday, a new inhabitant selling physique will be set up to foster US holidays abroad, a pursuit that until right away has usually been finished waste by particular states. However the income to compensate for the "multi-channel selling campaign" is to be lifted in piece from on vacation tourists, by charging them $10 for accede to enter. The rest of the appropriation will be lifted in private-sector contributions.

Currently visitors from Britain and the EU do not need a visa to revisit the US on holiday, but contingency finish an ESTA (Electronic Scheme for Travel Authorisation) focus online, giving minute personal information. Filling in the form has been free, but it will right away cost $10 per person. The date for the key of the price has not nonetheless been announced, but officials guess it will take in between five months and a year to set up a complement to pick up the money.

Many inside of the tourism industry, in both the US and the UK, welcomed the move, observant it would assistance retreat the decrease in visitors as a outcome of the tellurian retrogression and augmenting open concerns about the diagnosis of tourists by US immigration officials.

"President Obama has acted to await the energy of transport to offer as an mercantile stimulant, pursuit generator of electric power and tactful tool," pronounced Roger Dow, boss of the US Travel Association, an powerful physique for the US transport industry.

Richard Wimms, handling executive of British-based legal holiday association The Vacations Group, pronounced the move was "great news". "Up until right away the US hasn"t had a executive account to foster transport there, but it has been most indispensable and is prolonged overdue," he said. "As far as the $10 price is concerned, I think it"s a comparatively small total compared with the cost of the total holiday, and is positively far less than the airfield taxation charged for withdrawal the UK."

But others have warned the US levy competence prompt tit-for-tat charges from some-more countries.

"We in all conflict tourism taxes, that this is – we"re endangered about retaliatory movement by alternative countries," pronounced Steve Lott, a North America orator for the International Air Transport Association, that represents 230 airlines worldwide. "We don"t wish foreigners to have to burst by so most hoops that they only give up and don"t worry entrance to the US."

According to the US Travel Association, unfamiliar caller numbers have forsaken each year given 2001, with 2.4 million fewer abroad visitors last year than in 2000.