Archive for September, 2009
Kite surfer crash man ‘critical’
A 49-year-old kite surfer is critically ill in hospital after he crashed into rocks off the West Sussex coast.
Witnesses said the men was lifted into the air before he smashed into a groyne at Lancing, on Friday afternoon.
He was taken by air ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton and later moved to Hurstwood Park neurological centre in Haywards Heath.
A police spokesman said an off-duty doctor was at the scene and had helped treat the man.
A spokeswoman for the force said: “Strong winds forced the kite surfer to collide with rocks, resulting in life threatening injuries.
“The men was administered first aid by an off-duty A & E doctor already at the scene and was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton by air ambulance.”
His accident has prompted calls for more awareness of the sport’s dangers.
Tom Bogaru, from Surface to Air Sports, who was on the beach at the time, said people needed to remember that kite surfing was an extreme activity.
Burma court finds Suu Kyi guilty
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 18 months of house arrest, after a court found her guilty of violating security laws.
Ms Suu Kyi, a 64-year-old Nobel peace laureate, was on trial for allowing a US national into her lakeside home after he swam there.
Critics of Burma’s military regime say the verdict is designed to prevent her from taking part in elections in 2010.
Ms Suu Kyi has spent nearly 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
Her American visitor, John Yettaw, was jailed for seven years including four years of hard labour.
Ms Suu Kyi was taken straight back to her home after the end of the trial, officials said.
She had always denied the charge but said she expected to be convicted.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “saddened and angry” by the verdict and described the trial as a “sham”.
In a strongly-worded statement, Mr Brown said it was “a purely political sentence”.
A statement from the office of Nicolas Sarkozy said the French president was calling on the European Union to impose new sanctions on Burma.
The EU presidency said it would impose “additional targeted measures against those responsible for the verdict”.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Aung San Suu Kyi should not have been convicted, and she also called for the release of American citizen John Yettaw.
Man arrested over cathedral rape
A 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the rape of a woman in the grounds of Chelmsford Cathedral.
The 31-year-old woman from Witham was attacked on 16 August.
She had been at Dukes Genesis nightclub on Duke Street and told police she was raped behind the club, on Cathedral Walk, in the early hours.
A man from Sussex was arrested on suspicion of rape and released on police bail until October pending further inquiries.
Philippine flood death toll rises
The Philippines government says 246 people are now known to have died in severe flooding caused when Tropical Storm Ketsana struck on Saturday.
The country has appealed for foreign aid to deal with the disaster, which has displaced 450,000 people and left 380,000 living in makeshift shelters.
Public buildings including schools, universities and the presidential palace have become relief centres.
The storm has now hit Vietnam, where at least 22 people are said to have died.
The Vietnamese government earlier ordered the evacuation of more than 170,000 people as strong winds of up to 150km/h (93mph) and heavy rain began to affect the central coast.
Local media report that Ketsana, which has now strengthened into a typhoon, has caused flooding and power cuts. Vietnam Airlines has suspended all flights to the coastal cities of Danang and Hue.
Weather forecasters are predicting more heavy rain later this week, with a new storm forming in the Pacific likely to enter Philippine waters on Thursday, making landfall on the island of Luzon.
Man arrested after six robberies
A 20-year-old man has been arrested by police investigating a string of armed robberies in Sussex in the past month.
In the latest incident on Monday, a man threatened a landlady with a gun at a bed and breakfast in Kingsway, Hove, before escaping with ￡200 in cash.
The other five offences happened in Brighton, Haywards Heath and Crawley during August, and each involved a man making threats with a gun.
The arrested man, from Crawley, is being held pending further inquiries.
Brighton businesses
Police found a replica handgun at the bed and breakfast premises after the robber escaped on foot.
Three other robberies took place at businesses in Brighton.
Newsagents were targeted in Western Road and Preston Road on 13 and 19 August, and a bureau de change in Western Road on 26 August.
A man was robbed of his wallet and mobile phone near Three Bridges railway station, Crawley on 22 August.
And on 28 August a gunman made off with cash from Elegant, a clothing shop in The Broadway, Haywards Heath.
Japan’s Next Leader Targets Bureaucracy
Likely future Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will soon select his cabinet, which includes a new and crucial position: a top official to take on the government’s bloated bureaucracy.
Mr. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan says its proposed National Strategy Bureau will set budget guidelines and other policies, wresting decisions away from government functionaries and putting them in the hands of elected leaders.
Mr. Hatoyama, fresh off his party’s landslide victory in weekend elections, said late Sunday that the finance and strategy bureau jobs are among his top priorities, as the party looks for ways to finance an expensive domestic spending plan in part by cutting bureaucratic positions.
He said he would likely fill the positions this month, after he officially becomes prime minister. Speculation abounds over which DPJ officials will take the strategy bureau job and other posts. Mr. Hatoyama said Sunday it was too early to talk about his cabinet lineup.
Given the party’s agenda to increase spending for families and consumers, revamping the national budget to find funds is a crucial task.
DPJ Secretary-General Katsuya Okada said Monday that when government ministries submitted budgets at the end of August as scheduled for the fiscal year beginning in April, party officials immediately began scrutinizing them. For the next fiscal year alone, the DPJ must find 7.1 trillion yen, or about $76 billion, to cover its social-spending program that includes a child allowance and elimination of highway tolls.
“This is the first hurdle we have to overcome,” Mr. Okada said on public broadcaster NHK.
The party is also reviewing the 14-trillion-yen supplementary budget that departing Prime Minister Taro Aso has already implemented to cover his economic-stimulus plan with an eye toward revising it by canceling some projects.
The DPJ trounced the Liberal Democratic Party in the election for the Japanese parliament’s lower house, giving it broad sway to remake the government. Final voting statistics Monday showed 72 million people, or 69% of eligible voters, participated, the highest percentage since the current voting system was enacted 13 years ago.
Two arrests over leaked BNP list
Two people have been arrested in Nottinghamshire in connection with the unauthorised publication of a British National Party (BNP) membership list.
The arrests, in Brinsley, followed an investigation by Dyfed Powys Police and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Police said the individuals – who have not been named – were arrested for alleged criminal offences under the Data Protection Act.
The BNP said the list dated from 2007 and some people were no longer members.
Court injunction
The investigation began following the publication on the internet last month of a list which contained the names of thousands of BNP supporters.
The list included the names of current and former servicemen, police officer, teachers and doctors.
A Merseyside Police officer whose name was included has since been suspended from duty.
BNP leader Nick Griffin had said he was disappointed by the leak and complained to Dyfed Powys Police.
Earlier this year the party obtained an injunction from the High Court in Manchester banning any publication of the list.
No bomber release cover-up – PM
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said there was “no conspiracy” leading to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
He added there had also been “no cover-up” over the UK’s dealings with the Scottish or Libyan governments.
The bomber, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, was released last month by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds.
Mr Brown said there was “no linkage” between UK commercial interests and the decision to free Megrahi.
But he said that the UK was constantly seeking to combat international terrorism and halt nuclear proliferation – both aims which were helped by Libya’s return to the international fold.
‘No assurances’
Megrahi was freed earlier this month, eight years into a life sentence imposed for his part in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people.
The Scottish government, which deals with criminal justice matters in Scotland, said the decision had been made on compassionate grounds, as Megrahi has terminal cancer.
But the release was opposed by the US government and Megrahi’s return to Libya, amid triumphant scenes, caused widespread anger in the UK and US.
On Tuesday, Scottish officials released a report saying a Libyan official had said Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell had told them Mr Brown did not want the Lockerbie bomber to die in a Scottish prison.
Mr Rammell – and UK foreign secretary David Miliband – have since confirmed that this report was accurate.
Speaking in Birmingham, Mr Brown did not directly refer to the suggestion the Libyans had been told he did not want to see Megrahi die in a UK prison.
But he said: “There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to [Libyan leader] Colonel Gaddafi.”
He said the release of Megrahi was a matter for the Scottish government.
Mr Brown also said: “Our interest throughout has been to strengthen the coalition against international terrorism. I made it clear that for us there was never a linkage between any other issue and the Scottish government’s own decision about Megrahi’s future.”
Wide spread in global mobile fees
Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the cheapest mobile phone tariffs among 30 countries surveyed in a comprehensive communications report.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that Canada, Spain and the US had the highest mobile charges.
Charges for average monthly use varied between $11 (£6.70) and $53.
Mobile phone use accounted for 41% of the total revenue in the telecommunications sector, it added.
But the decline in revenue from fixed telephone lines has slowed as people use these lines to secure access to high-speed broadband internet, the report concluded.
The OECD’s Communications Outlook said mobile call prices fell by 21% for low-usage customers, by 28% for medium-usage and by 32% for high-usage between 2006 and 2008.
Comparing domestic prices on a medium use of 780 phone calls, 600 short texts and eight multimedia messages, the survey found that monthly prices ranged from $11 to $53 across the 30 countries of the OECD in August 2008.
T-Mobile and Orange in UK merger
T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers.
If completed, a deal between Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and Orange owner France Telecom would see a firm with sales of 9.4bn euros (£8.2bn; $13.5bn).
It would be the UK’s largest provider, overtaking Telefonica’s O2, with about 37% of the mobile market.
It is the second large corporate action in two days, after Kraft Food’s £10.2bn takeover proposal for Cadbury.
Orange and T-Mobile said their deal – due to be signed by November – would “bring substantial benefits to UK customers”, and promised expanded network coverage, better network quality and improved customer services.
However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal.
