A STEM cell therapy offering “natural” breast enlargement is to be made available to British women for the first time.
The treatment could boost cup size while reducing stomach fat. It involves extracting stem cells from spare fat on the stomach or thighs and growing them in a woman’s breasts. An increase of one cup size is likely, with the potential for larger gains as the technique improves.
A trial has already started in Britain to use stem cells to repair the breasts of women who have had cancerous lumps removed. A separate project is understood to be the first in Britain to use the new technique on healthy women seeking breast enlargement.
Professor Kefah Mokbel, a consultant breast surgeon at the London Breast Institute at the Princess Grace hospital, who is in charge of the project, will treat 10 patients from May. He predicts private patients will be able to pay for the procedure within six months at a cost of about £6,500.
“This is a very exciting advance in breast surgery,” said Mokbel. “They [breasts treated with stem cells] feel more natural because this tissue has the same softness as the rest of the breast.” He said the treatment offered the potential of considerable improvement on implants: “Implants are a foreign body. They are associated with long-term complications and require replacement. They can also leak and cause scarring.”
Although the stem cell technique will restore volume, it will not provide firmness and uplift.
Mokbel believes the stem cell treatment may be suitable only for modest increases in breast size, but will conduct research to find out whether larger augmentations can be achieved: “We are optimistic we can easily achieve an increase of one cup size. We cannot say yet if we can achieve more. That may depend on the stem cells we can harvest.”
The cells will be isolated from a woman’s spare fat, once it has been extracted from her thighs or stomach, using equipment owned by GE Healthcare, a technology company. The concentrated stem cells will then be mixed with another batch of fat before being injected into the breast. It takes several months for the breast to achieve the desired size and shape.
Until now, when fat was transplanted to the breast without extra stem cells, surgeons had difficulty maintaining a blood supply to the new tissue. Surgeons believe the double concentration of stem cells under this technique promotes the growth of blood vessels to ensure a sufficient blood supply circulates to the transplanted fat.
The same technique has been used in Japan for six years, initially to treat women with breast deformities caused by cancer treatment and, more recently, for cosmetic breast augmentation in healthy women.
Mokbel is confident the therapy is safe and that, after carrying out about 30 procedures, the London Breast Institute will be able to offer the procedure to private patients.
The use of stem cells in healthy women undergoing cosmetic surgery is controversial. Medical bodies have warned that the breast enlargements should not be offered to healthy women until large-scale trials in cancer patients have shown that the new technology is safe and effective. The treatment is not yet routinely available to women solely for cosmetic purposes.
Eva Weiler-Mithoff, a consultant plastic surgeon at Canniesburn hospital in Glasgow, is leading the British arm of a European trial of stem cell therapy for women who have been left with breast deformities following removal of cancerous lumps.
So far more than a dozen British cancer patients have been treated and Weiler-Mithoff is impressed with the results. She does not believe this justifies offering the treatment to healthy women, however.
She said that while breast cancer patients regularly attend follow-up appointments, young women who have had cosmetic surgery are less likely to do so and complications could be missed.
Source:the times
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Sunday, March 29, 2009
US and Iran open Afghanistan peace talks
IRANIAN and American officials have held their first talks about ending the war in Afghanistan amid signs that President Barack Obama’s efforts to thaw relations with Tehran are paying off.
While television cameras focused on Obama in Washington during the unveiling of his strategy for Afghanistan last Friday, US and Iranian diplomats were holding a remarkable meeting in Moscow.
The Russian initiative brought together Patrick Moon, the US diplomat in charge of south and central Asia, and Mehdi Akhundzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, as well as a British diplomat who has been acting as a mediator.
“We’ve turned a page to have Iranians and Americans at the same table all discussing Afghanistan,” Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told delegates.
A western official who attended the talks said: “For the first time in two years I’m optimistic about Afghanistan.”
It followed Nato’s first official contact with Iran two weeks ago, when the Iranian ambassador visited Nato’s assistant secretary-general to discuss drugs and refugees.
Friday’s meeting was held under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a six-member regional security group including Russia, China and central Asian states, to discuss combating terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan. Those present included Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and senior British diplomats.
The US and Iranian officials spoke within minutes of each other. Akhundzadeh told delegates that narcotics represent a serious threat to the region and no country could fight the trade alone. He revealed that Iran seizes three tons of opium on its border every day.
The United States and Iran have not had full diplomatic ties for almost three decades. “We see this as a very productive area for engagement in the future,” said an American official after the meeting.
Akhundzadeh will travel to the Hague on Tuesday for a conference on Afghanistan, at which Washington hopes he will meet Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.
Iran has no love for the Taliban, which murdered a group of Iranian diplomats in 1998, but in recent years any animosity has been outweighed by Iranian concern over the proliferation of US bases in Afghanistan and the view that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
Two years ago Nato troops in Afghanistan intercepted a convoy of weapons bound for the Taliban, apparently provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
“Tehran is happy to see the US bogged down in Afghanistan,” said a western official. “Our concern is to make sure they don’t start providing game-changing technology as they did in Iraq.”
Tehran is known to be concerned about the opium trade, much of which passes through its territory. Intelligence sources say it has lost 2,000 soldiers in the past two years fighting drug gangs.
Obama’s ultimate aim is to use these talks to persuade Iran to sit at the same table for negotiations about halting its uranium enrichment programme.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and Britain believe it is trying to build nuclear weapons. Last month the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security claimed Iran had reached “nuclear weapons breakout capability” – enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb – although others believe it still has some way to go.
In stark contrast to President George W Bush, who named Iran as part of the “axis of evil”, Obama believes the way forward is through diplomatic initiatives on common concerns such as Afghanistan. Earlier this month he issued a video addressed to the Iranian people, offering to turn the page on years of hostility with “a new beginning”.
On Friday, as part of his new strategy, Obama proposed creating a regional contact group which would include Iran. He described the situation in Afghanistan as “increasingly perilous”. Much of his strategy actually focused on Pakistan, which his administration sees as the greater challenge.
He linked terrorist attacks in London, Bali, Kabul and the Middle East to Pakistan and said that Al-Qaeda’s leadership had “moved across the border”.
It was the first time a western leader had located Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, something Islamabad has always denied. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was delighted. “We welcome the recognition that the Al-Qaeda threat is emanating from Pakistan,” said Humayun Hamidzada, his spokesman.
Pakistani officials reacted with predictable anger, although Obama tried to sweeten his remarks with the announcement of $1.5 billion (£1.05 billion) in annual aid. “If Obama knows the Al-Qaeda leadership are in Pakistan, why has he not given the addresses?” asked Asif Durrani, deputy high commissioner in London and until recently Pakistan’s representative in Kabul.
Durrani denied reports that Pakistan’s military intelligence has been assisting the Taliban. “We have arrested 1,500 Taliban over the past two years and handed them over to Kabul,” he claimed. “It’s not our fault if they let them go for bribes or prisoner swaps. People should be asking them why.”
While pointing a finger at Pakistan, Obama has no intention of letting the Afghan government off the hook: “I want to make it clear: we cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders.”
Hopes in Washington that Karzai would be removed in elections this August are fading, as the opposition has failed to rally behind a single candidate. “We might not like Karzai but we’re probably going to have to live with him,” said a US official in Kabul.
Obama has nominated as his new ambassador to Kabul General Karl Eikenberry, a former commander of troops in Afghanistan, who has good relations with Karzai.
Obama did not repeat the words “exit strategy”, which he had used in an interview with CBS last week. But it is clear that far from spreading democracy, he has a more limited objective aimed at getting his troops out.
He hopes to do this by handing over control to Afghan security forces, increasing the size of the Afghan national army from 83,000 to 134,000 and the Afghan police to 82,000 by 2011, then further doubling them. Most experts regard these figures as highly ambitious. Nor is it just a question of numbers. More than two-thirds of the police are illiterate and they are responsible for much of the corruption in Afghanistan.
Those involved in drawing up the new strategy admit that training the new army will cost $3 billion a year – more than double the entire budget for the Afghan government.
This week sees two international conferences about Afghanistan, one in the Hague and then a Nato meeting in Strasbourg at which Obama is expected to extend a begging bowl to his allies.
“They know there’s no point asking the Europeans for more troops,” said a western diplomat. “So they’ll ask for cash and training instead.” Mark Sedwill, Britain’s new ambassador to Afghanistan, welcomed the proposals. “This feels more like a genuine plan than anything we’ve had before,” he said.
Since troop numbers started increasing in 2004, Afghanistan has seen violence spiral. The United States has lost 640 soldiers in Afghanistan and Britain more than 150. Both governments know there is a limit to public tolerance of the casualties. For this reason, as well as military efforts, Obama has opened the door for talks with so-called “moderate Taliban”.
Many are sceptical. “Who are these moderate Taliban?” asked Gilles Dorronsoro, an expert on Afghanistan at the Carnegie Endowment, the US body. “What are their names?”
The Taliban have sent representatives to contact talks with mediators, but intelligence reports from their base in the Pakistani city of Quetta say they are planning an offensive.
“We’re expecting a very bloody summer,” said a Nato military officer.
Source:the times
While television cameras focused on Obama in Washington during the unveiling of his strategy for Afghanistan last Friday, US and Iranian diplomats were holding a remarkable meeting in Moscow.
The Russian initiative brought together Patrick Moon, the US diplomat in charge of south and central Asia, and Mehdi Akhundzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, as well as a British diplomat who has been acting as a mediator.
“We’ve turned a page to have Iranians and Americans at the same table all discussing Afghanistan,” Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told delegates.
A western official who attended the talks said: “For the first time in two years I’m optimistic about Afghanistan.”
It followed Nato’s first official contact with Iran two weeks ago, when the Iranian ambassador visited Nato’s assistant secretary-general to discuss drugs and refugees.
Friday’s meeting was held under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a six-member regional security group including Russia, China and central Asian states, to discuss combating terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan. Those present included Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and senior British diplomats.
The US and Iranian officials spoke within minutes of each other. Akhundzadeh told delegates that narcotics represent a serious threat to the region and no country could fight the trade alone. He revealed that Iran seizes three tons of opium on its border every day.
The United States and Iran have not had full diplomatic ties for almost three decades. “We see this as a very productive area for engagement in the future,” said an American official after the meeting.
Akhundzadeh will travel to the Hague on Tuesday for a conference on Afghanistan, at which Washington hopes he will meet Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.
Iran has no love for the Taliban, which murdered a group of Iranian diplomats in 1998, but in recent years any animosity has been outweighed by Iranian concern over the proliferation of US bases in Afghanistan and the view that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
Two years ago Nato troops in Afghanistan intercepted a convoy of weapons bound for the Taliban, apparently provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
“Tehran is happy to see the US bogged down in Afghanistan,” said a western official. “Our concern is to make sure they don’t start providing game-changing technology as they did in Iraq.”
Tehran is known to be concerned about the opium trade, much of which passes through its territory. Intelligence sources say it has lost 2,000 soldiers in the past two years fighting drug gangs.
Obama’s ultimate aim is to use these talks to persuade Iran to sit at the same table for negotiations about halting its uranium enrichment programme.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and Britain believe it is trying to build nuclear weapons. Last month the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security claimed Iran had reached “nuclear weapons breakout capability” – enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb – although others believe it still has some way to go.
In stark contrast to President George W Bush, who named Iran as part of the “axis of evil”, Obama believes the way forward is through diplomatic initiatives on common concerns such as Afghanistan. Earlier this month he issued a video addressed to the Iranian people, offering to turn the page on years of hostility with “a new beginning”.
On Friday, as part of his new strategy, Obama proposed creating a regional contact group which would include Iran. He described the situation in Afghanistan as “increasingly perilous”. Much of his strategy actually focused on Pakistan, which his administration sees as the greater challenge.
He linked terrorist attacks in London, Bali, Kabul and the Middle East to Pakistan and said that Al-Qaeda’s leadership had “moved across the border”.
It was the first time a western leader had located Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, something Islamabad has always denied. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was delighted. “We welcome the recognition that the Al-Qaeda threat is emanating from Pakistan,” said Humayun Hamidzada, his spokesman.
Pakistani officials reacted with predictable anger, although Obama tried to sweeten his remarks with the announcement of $1.5 billion (£1.05 billion) in annual aid. “If Obama knows the Al-Qaeda leadership are in Pakistan, why has he not given the addresses?” asked Asif Durrani, deputy high commissioner in London and until recently Pakistan’s representative in Kabul.
Durrani denied reports that Pakistan’s military intelligence has been assisting the Taliban. “We have arrested 1,500 Taliban over the past two years and handed them over to Kabul,” he claimed. “It’s not our fault if they let them go for bribes or prisoner swaps. People should be asking them why.”
While pointing a finger at Pakistan, Obama has no intention of letting the Afghan government off the hook: “I want to make it clear: we cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders.”
Hopes in Washington that Karzai would be removed in elections this August are fading, as the opposition has failed to rally behind a single candidate. “We might not like Karzai but we’re probably going to have to live with him,” said a US official in Kabul.
Obama has nominated as his new ambassador to Kabul General Karl Eikenberry, a former commander of troops in Afghanistan, who has good relations with Karzai.
Obama did not repeat the words “exit strategy”, which he had used in an interview with CBS last week. But it is clear that far from spreading democracy, he has a more limited objective aimed at getting his troops out.
He hopes to do this by handing over control to Afghan security forces, increasing the size of the Afghan national army from 83,000 to 134,000 and the Afghan police to 82,000 by 2011, then further doubling them. Most experts regard these figures as highly ambitious. Nor is it just a question of numbers. More than two-thirds of the police are illiterate and they are responsible for much of the corruption in Afghanistan.
Those involved in drawing up the new strategy admit that training the new army will cost $3 billion a year – more than double the entire budget for the Afghan government.
This week sees two international conferences about Afghanistan, one in the Hague and then a Nato meeting in Strasbourg at which Obama is expected to extend a begging bowl to his allies.
“They know there’s no point asking the Europeans for more troops,” said a western diplomat. “So they’ll ask for cash and training instead.” Mark Sedwill, Britain’s new ambassador to Afghanistan, welcomed the proposals. “This feels more like a genuine plan than anything we’ve had before,” he said.
Since troop numbers started increasing in 2004, Afghanistan has seen violence spiral. The United States has lost 640 soldiers in Afghanistan and Britain more than 150. Both governments know there is a limit to public tolerance of the casualties. For this reason, as well as military efforts, Obama has opened the door for talks with so-called “moderate Taliban”.
Many are sceptical. “Who are these moderate Taliban?” asked Gilles Dorronsoro, an expert on Afghanistan at the Carnegie Endowment, the US body. “What are their names?”
The Taliban have sent representatives to contact talks with mediators, but intelligence reports from their base in the Pakistani city of Quetta say they are planning an offensive.
“We’re expecting a very bloody summer,” said a Nato military officer.
Source:the times
Brown snubbed over tax
GORDON BROWN’S carefully laid plans for a G20 deal on worldwide tax cuts have been scuppered by an eve-of-summit ambush by European leaders.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last night led the assault on the prime minister’s “global new deal” for a $2 trillion-plus fiscal stimulus to end the recession.
“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she said.
The Spanish finance minister, Pedro Solbes, also dismissed new cash being pledged at Thursday’s London summit.
In these conditions I and the rest of my colleagues from the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans,” he said.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has insisted that “radical reform” of capitalism is more important than tax cutting.
The attacks on Brown’s ambitions for the G20 to inject more money into the world economy come at the end of a week where the prime minister has travelled to three continents to build support for his proposals.
The likely deadlock at this week’s meeting will kill any remaining hope that Alistair Darling’s April 22 budget will offer significant tax cuts.
The assault by European Union leaders also represents a defeat for President Barack Obama, who is desperate for other big economies to copy his $800 billion stimulus plan.
“There will be a very long communiqué, but there won’t be much in it,” said a Washington economist.
Adding to the disarray, a draft of the agreement Brown hopes to secure was leaked to a German news magazine, prompting suggestions of “dirty tricks” by Berlin.
The draft stated that Britain wanted a “$2 trillion” global fiscal stimulus. However, the figure appeared only in brackets, indicating agreement on the package had yet to be reached.
The stimulus would boost world growth by 2% and employment by 19m, the draft said. The rest of the document was mainly general pledges.
“We believe that an open world economy, based on the principles of the market, effective regulation and strong global institutions, can ensure sustainable globalisation with rising well-being for all,” it said.
A No 10 source expressed “disappointment” at the leak and insisted the $2 trillion figure was not new money but an expression of the total tax and spending packages already pledged by G20 members.
Privately, government officials admit that no further fiscal stimulus will be announced this week, although there will be a $250 billion package for the International Monetary Fund to help rescue struggling poor nations.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, said he sympathised with the concerns of demonstrators planning to disrupt the London summit. “There is understandable frustration and some anger. The global economic systems has stalled and what we have got to do is get it started.”
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, yesterday warned Brown against further tax cuts in the budget. “When it comes to your plans for a second fiscal stimulus, I say this Gordon Brown: enough is enough,” he said in a speech. “We will not let you play roulette with the public finances yet again.”
UK officials have not given up on the idea there could be agreement on a fresh boost for the world economy later in the year. “It is likely that there will be another heads of government meeting probably in Asia in the autumn,” said an official.
“This will be the forum where the next round of stimulus will be discussed.”
Brown still hopes to establish the IMF as an informal referee for international tax cuts. The plan is that the Washington-based body could advise on the timing of any future cuts.
Merkel’s criticism drew an angry response from Labour MPs. Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister, said: “Who does Mrs Merkel think is going to buy Mercedes and BMWs if she . . . says putting demand into the economy is a bad thing?” Another Labour MP said: “One has to ask who had something to gain from the leak of the communiqué. This feels like a dirty trick.”
There are growing fears that protests at the summit venue, the ExCeL centre in London’s Docklands could be marred by violence. Scotland Yard will be deploying specialist officers trained to use 50,000-volt Taser stun guns.
Source:the times
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last night led the assault on the prime minister’s “global new deal” for a $2 trillion-plus fiscal stimulus to end the recession.
“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she said.
The Spanish finance minister, Pedro Solbes, also dismissed new cash being pledged at Thursday’s London summit.
In these conditions I and the rest of my colleagues from the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans,” he said.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has insisted that “radical reform” of capitalism is more important than tax cutting.
The attacks on Brown’s ambitions for the G20 to inject more money into the world economy come at the end of a week where the prime minister has travelled to three continents to build support for his proposals.
The likely deadlock at this week’s meeting will kill any remaining hope that Alistair Darling’s April 22 budget will offer significant tax cuts.
The assault by European Union leaders also represents a defeat for President Barack Obama, who is desperate for other big economies to copy his $800 billion stimulus plan.
“There will be a very long communiqué, but there won’t be much in it,” said a Washington economist.
Adding to the disarray, a draft of the agreement Brown hopes to secure was leaked to a German news magazine, prompting suggestions of “dirty tricks” by Berlin.
The draft stated that Britain wanted a “$2 trillion” global fiscal stimulus. However, the figure appeared only in brackets, indicating agreement on the package had yet to be reached.
The stimulus would boost world growth by 2% and employment by 19m, the draft said. The rest of the document was mainly general pledges.
“We believe that an open world economy, based on the principles of the market, effective regulation and strong global institutions, can ensure sustainable globalisation with rising well-being for all,” it said.
A No 10 source expressed “disappointment” at the leak and insisted the $2 trillion figure was not new money but an expression of the total tax and spending packages already pledged by G20 members.
Privately, government officials admit that no further fiscal stimulus will be announced this week, although there will be a $250 billion package for the International Monetary Fund to help rescue struggling poor nations.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, said he sympathised with the concerns of demonstrators planning to disrupt the London summit. “There is understandable frustration and some anger. The global economic systems has stalled and what we have got to do is get it started.”
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, yesterday warned Brown against further tax cuts in the budget. “When it comes to your plans for a second fiscal stimulus, I say this Gordon Brown: enough is enough,” he said in a speech. “We will not let you play roulette with the public finances yet again.”
UK officials have not given up on the idea there could be agreement on a fresh boost for the world economy later in the year. “It is likely that there will be another heads of government meeting probably in Asia in the autumn,” said an official.
“This will be the forum where the next round of stimulus will be discussed.”
Brown still hopes to establish the IMF as an informal referee for international tax cuts. The plan is that the Washington-based body could advise on the timing of any future cuts.
Merkel’s criticism drew an angry response from Labour MPs. Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister, said: “Who does Mrs Merkel think is going to buy Mercedes and BMWs if she . . . says putting demand into the economy is a bad thing?” Another Labour MP said: “One has to ask who had something to gain from the leak of the communiqué. This feels like a dirty trick.”
There are growing fears that protests at the summit venue, the ExCeL centre in London’s Docklands could be marred by violence. Scotland Yard will be deploying specialist officers trained to use 50,000-volt Taser stun guns.
Source:the times
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Barack Obama offers new strategy to tame Pakistan
More than seven years after America declared war on the Taleban, Afghanistan still stands on the brink of disaster, President Obama declared yesterday as he unveiled a new regional strategy to win the war in South Asia. An additional 21,000 US troops will be sent to Afghanistan and civilian aid to neighbouring Pakistan will be trebled, Mr Obama said in a speech that showed his desire to take full US ownership of the deepening conflict.
He warned both governments that they had to take far greater responsibility in tackling their own corruption and the lethal insurgency that is threatening their survival.
Mr Obama spoke only hours after a suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers in the tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 50 people. It was the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year.
The Khyber tribal region, where the bombing took place, is the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan and has become a prime target for the Taleban. The militants have regularly attacked convoys. Pakistani security forces have started a campaign to clear the area of them and a senior Pakistani official said that the attack could be revenge for local support for the operation. An Afghan soldier later shot dead two US troops in northern Afghanistan.
“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Mr Obama said in Washington as the White House released its long-awaited review of US strategy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It has been more than seven years since the Taleban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Mr Obama said that in nearly eight years since the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda and it allies had moved to havens in the mountainous Pakistani side of the Afghan border, almost certainly including, he said, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. He called it “the most dangerous place in the world”.
He added: “Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. If the Afghan Government falls to the Taleban - or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged - that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”
He said that other terror attacks, including the London 7/7 bombings, were tied to al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and that “the safety of people around the world is at stake”.
Mr Obama announced no grand vision of a democratic Afghanistan, or a timeline for withdrawal from a war that his advisers say will be long and hard. Instead, in a radical downgrade of the more lofty objectives set by President Bush, he said the mission was “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat” alQaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet one ambitious element of Mr Obama's plan is to recast the war as a regional conflict involving Pakistan, Russia, Iran, India, China and the Central Asian states. He said he wanted to forge a new “Contact Group” of all the nations to help to address the conflict.
One aspect of the plan not publicly addressed by Mr Obama is a decision to increase US drone attacks inside Pakistan, The Times has learnt. Mr Obama also hinted that military action could be taken by US forces inside Pakistan, with or without its approval. US intelligence officials believe elements in the Pakistani security forces have tipped off insurgents about impending US attacks and there is a reluctance to share intelligence.
Mr Obama's aides say that the President has now accepted that Nato allies will not contribute significantly more troops to the effort, although as The Times reported yesterday, the UK is to send an additional 2,000 British troops. The military aspect of the war will increasingly fall to US forces. At next week's Nato summit, Mr Obama will press allies for help in training Afghan forces.
In addition to 17,000 extra US troops that will be sent to Afghanistan, Mr Obama announced another 4,000 yesterday to help to train the Afghan Army and police. He is also sending hundreds of civilian experts to bolster reconstruction and tackle the opium trade, which provides the Taleban with billions of dollars each year.
Mr Obama is to ask Congress for $7.5 billion (£5.2 billion) in civilian aid over five years for Pakistan, to help it to build democracy and strengthen its infrastructure. The move is fraught with risk, given Pakistan's history of corruption.
Source:the times
He warned both governments that they had to take far greater responsibility in tackling their own corruption and the lethal insurgency that is threatening their survival.
Mr Obama spoke only hours after a suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers in the tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 50 people. It was the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year.
The Khyber tribal region, where the bombing took place, is the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan and has become a prime target for the Taleban. The militants have regularly attacked convoys. Pakistani security forces have started a campaign to clear the area of them and a senior Pakistani official said that the attack could be revenge for local support for the operation. An Afghan soldier later shot dead two US troops in northern Afghanistan.
“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Mr Obama said in Washington as the White House released its long-awaited review of US strategy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It has been more than seven years since the Taleban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Mr Obama said that in nearly eight years since the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda and it allies had moved to havens in the mountainous Pakistani side of the Afghan border, almost certainly including, he said, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. He called it “the most dangerous place in the world”.
He added: “Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. If the Afghan Government falls to the Taleban - or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged - that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”
He said that other terror attacks, including the London 7/7 bombings, were tied to al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and that “the safety of people around the world is at stake”.
Mr Obama announced no grand vision of a democratic Afghanistan, or a timeline for withdrawal from a war that his advisers say will be long and hard. Instead, in a radical downgrade of the more lofty objectives set by President Bush, he said the mission was “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat” alQaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet one ambitious element of Mr Obama's plan is to recast the war as a regional conflict involving Pakistan, Russia, Iran, India, China and the Central Asian states. He said he wanted to forge a new “Contact Group” of all the nations to help to address the conflict.
One aspect of the plan not publicly addressed by Mr Obama is a decision to increase US drone attacks inside Pakistan, The Times has learnt. Mr Obama also hinted that military action could be taken by US forces inside Pakistan, with or without its approval. US intelligence officials believe elements in the Pakistani security forces have tipped off insurgents about impending US attacks and there is a reluctance to share intelligence.
Mr Obama's aides say that the President has now accepted that Nato allies will not contribute significantly more troops to the effort, although as The Times reported yesterday, the UK is to send an additional 2,000 British troops. The military aspect of the war will increasingly fall to US forces. At next week's Nato summit, Mr Obama will press allies for help in training Afghan forces.
In addition to 17,000 extra US troops that will be sent to Afghanistan, Mr Obama announced another 4,000 yesterday to help to train the Afghan Army and police. He is also sending hundreds of civilian experts to bolster reconstruction and tackle the opium trade, which provides the Taleban with billions of dollars each year.
Mr Obama is to ask Congress for $7.5 billion (£5.2 billion) in civilian aid over five years for Pakistan, to help it to build democracy and strengthen its infrastructure. The move is fraught with risk, given Pakistan's history of corruption.
Source:the times
British soldiers victims of a mental conflict without end
It was nobody's fault, he said. Anthony Montgomery was a 21-year-old Royal Marine when he was ambushed by his own side on regular reconnaissance in the Falklands. Minutes later, he was trying to revive his friend who had been cut in half by British guns.
“It was confusing and awful,” he said. “We were both firing at each other. I saw Bob, Keith and Pete [surnames omitted] cut down. I tried to put Keith back together but I couldn't. He died in my arms. They were good brothers.” The incident was dealt with brusquely. “Back to business,” the commander said the next day.
Two years on Mr Montgomery was discharged with deafness and asthma brought on by stress, having been offered no treatment for trauma. Outside the Army, he quickly developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His doctor said that they would go away. They didn't.
Mr Montgomery is only one casualty of a hidden war, a cruel conflict that takes place long after the physical battle, in ways that are seldom obvious and often ignored. Thousands of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are failing to benefit from government compensation for the mental scars inflicted by military service. Many feel abandoned by the society that sent them to war.
“The Government have been very slow to react,” Mr Montgomery said. “I've got a war pension but I had to fight for it. Every stage was a battle. As opposed to saying, ‘Well done, we'll look after you' they threw me on the scrapheap of society.”
He added: “I couldn't handle any emotion or show any and my marriage became very numb. It took me 13 years to seek help. Now I still have the symptoms but I can cope.”
Today, Mr Montgomery's health may never recover. His military career over, he cannot work, he suffers daily from nightmares and flashbacks so severe that he pictures his two sons fighting and dying alongside his comrades - even though they were born years after fighting ceased.
Although almost 4,000 military staff annually are found to have some form of mental disorder, in just over three years only 115 British personnel or veterans were compensated for the psychological injuries of war.
Under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme any soldier or veteran who can show a service-related mental disorder lasting at least six weeks is eligible for a £3,000 payout. Any serviceman or woman whose mental injury lasts for five years or more is entitled, in principle, to £23,100. However, those who receive permanent mental scars from war - injuries which often cause lifelong disablement - can receive only up to £48,875. A soldier who loses a foot is paid the same, even though he may not even be discharged. By contrast, a soldier who is blinded receives £402,500.
As troops prepare to leave Iraq and up to 2,000 more troops are being earmarked for possible deployment to Afghanistan, psychiatrists and veterans' groups are warning of a “time bomb” of mental suffering. About 100,000 British armed service personnel have been deployed in Iraq, and the social impact of returning soldiers is also likely to be profound.
A study in 2007 showed that soldiers sent to Afghanistan are nine times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and those sent to Iraq six times more vulnerable than personnel who had not served in the war zones.
“The guerrilla nature of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts means that veterans will find it difficult to differentiate between a safe environment and a dangerous one, even back home,” Nikki Scheiner, a psychologist at the Traumatic Stress Service in St George's Hospital, South London, said. “There are no defined ‘war zones' in modern battle. You're always in danger.”
Depression and PTSD can lead to divorce, alcoholism and drug use. One in four personnel deployed overseas for more than 13 months had severe alcohol problems, research found.
Combat Stress, the charity set up to treat veterans with mental health problems, has reported a 53 per cent rise in GP referrals of veterans, with almost 1,200 cases last year. “On average veterans wait 14 years before seeking our help, and they often only do so after their lives have fallen apart,” Robert Marsh, director of fundraising at the charity, said. “If even 5 per cent of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan develop mental health issues that would equate to thousands of people. We won't cope.”
It is a fraught issue for the military, where the potential for psychological problems remains a taboo.“Most guys don't go and seek help,” said former Sergeant Charles Brindley, 58, who has PTSD. “I didn't and nothing's changed. They still see it as a sign of weakness. Unless your leg's fallen off you carry on.”
One former soldier, who did not want to be named, said: “In these theatres you saw a sustained and highly intense conflict. Young soldiers feel at constant threat, from suicide bombs, mortars, the whole thing. That sort of conflict has to have an impact on your mental state which the Government is not taking seriously. To award £5,000 for a disease that could cost you your job for life is outrageous.”
By comparison, prison officers regularly receive “six-figure payouts” for PTSD, the Prison Officers' Association said.
“I thought I was fine,” said former Lance Sergeant Alec Webster, 33, who served in Afghanistan with the Territorial Army in 2001. Mr Webster was discharged three years ago and got a job in security when he was attacked by a burglar. “After that the anxiety attacks started. It's getting worse. I'm jumpy and on edge. It's like a loaded gun.”
Mr Webster receives a war pension for a physical injury suffered in a Land Rover accident before 2005.
“I had to give up work a couple of years ago because I was so afraid I'd slap my supervisor,” he said. “The NHS gives you medication and says get lost. I feel that the Ministry of Defence don't care. They take the attitude that when you finish your service it's all over.”
Walter Busuttil, medical director of Combat Stress - which is part-funded by the MoD - has warned that the NHS cannot cope with military trauma. But with the demise of psychiatric centres for the Forces, the NHS is the only option. “I have heard cases of ex-servicemen put in NHS group therapy sessions,” he said. “When they have tried to talk about experiences in Afghanistan or Iraq, they have been told, ‘You can't talk about those things. You'll traumatise other patients'.”
Kevan Jones, Under Secretary of State for Defence, said that his department had “invested heavily”. He added: “We now have mental health units throughout the UK, psychiatric nurses in theatre, and a trauma mentoring scheme to encourage personnel to understand symptoms.”
alexi.mostrous@thetimes.co.uk
Source:the times
“It was confusing and awful,” he said. “We were both firing at each other. I saw Bob, Keith and Pete [surnames omitted] cut down. I tried to put Keith back together but I couldn't. He died in my arms. They were good brothers.” The incident was dealt with brusquely. “Back to business,” the commander said the next day.
Two years on Mr Montgomery was discharged with deafness and asthma brought on by stress, having been offered no treatment for trauma. Outside the Army, he quickly developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His doctor said that they would go away. They didn't.
Mr Montgomery is only one casualty of a hidden war, a cruel conflict that takes place long after the physical battle, in ways that are seldom obvious and often ignored. Thousands of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are failing to benefit from government compensation for the mental scars inflicted by military service. Many feel abandoned by the society that sent them to war.
“The Government have been very slow to react,” Mr Montgomery said. “I've got a war pension but I had to fight for it. Every stage was a battle. As opposed to saying, ‘Well done, we'll look after you' they threw me on the scrapheap of society.”
He added: “I couldn't handle any emotion or show any and my marriage became very numb. It took me 13 years to seek help. Now I still have the symptoms but I can cope.”
Today, Mr Montgomery's health may never recover. His military career over, he cannot work, he suffers daily from nightmares and flashbacks so severe that he pictures his two sons fighting and dying alongside his comrades - even though they were born years after fighting ceased.
Although almost 4,000 military staff annually are found to have some form of mental disorder, in just over three years only 115 British personnel or veterans were compensated for the psychological injuries of war.
Under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme any soldier or veteran who can show a service-related mental disorder lasting at least six weeks is eligible for a £3,000 payout. Any serviceman or woman whose mental injury lasts for five years or more is entitled, in principle, to £23,100. However, those who receive permanent mental scars from war - injuries which often cause lifelong disablement - can receive only up to £48,875. A soldier who loses a foot is paid the same, even though he may not even be discharged. By contrast, a soldier who is blinded receives £402,500.
As troops prepare to leave Iraq and up to 2,000 more troops are being earmarked for possible deployment to Afghanistan, psychiatrists and veterans' groups are warning of a “time bomb” of mental suffering. About 100,000 British armed service personnel have been deployed in Iraq, and the social impact of returning soldiers is also likely to be profound.
A study in 2007 showed that soldiers sent to Afghanistan are nine times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and those sent to Iraq six times more vulnerable than personnel who had not served in the war zones.
“The guerrilla nature of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts means that veterans will find it difficult to differentiate between a safe environment and a dangerous one, even back home,” Nikki Scheiner, a psychologist at the Traumatic Stress Service in St George's Hospital, South London, said. “There are no defined ‘war zones' in modern battle. You're always in danger.”
Depression and PTSD can lead to divorce, alcoholism and drug use. One in four personnel deployed overseas for more than 13 months had severe alcohol problems, research found.
Combat Stress, the charity set up to treat veterans with mental health problems, has reported a 53 per cent rise in GP referrals of veterans, with almost 1,200 cases last year. “On average veterans wait 14 years before seeking our help, and they often only do so after their lives have fallen apart,” Robert Marsh, director of fundraising at the charity, said. “If even 5 per cent of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan develop mental health issues that would equate to thousands of people. We won't cope.”
It is a fraught issue for the military, where the potential for psychological problems remains a taboo.“Most guys don't go and seek help,” said former Sergeant Charles Brindley, 58, who has PTSD. “I didn't and nothing's changed. They still see it as a sign of weakness. Unless your leg's fallen off you carry on.”
One former soldier, who did not want to be named, said: “In these theatres you saw a sustained and highly intense conflict. Young soldiers feel at constant threat, from suicide bombs, mortars, the whole thing. That sort of conflict has to have an impact on your mental state which the Government is not taking seriously. To award £5,000 for a disease that could cost you your job for life is outrageous.”
By comparison, prison officers regularly receive “six-figure payouts” for PTSD, the Prison Officers' Association said.
“I thought I was fine,” said former Lance Sergeant Alec Webster, 33, who served in Afghanistan with the Territorial Army in 2001. Mr Webster was discharged three years ago and got a job in security when he was attacked by a burglar. “After that the anxiety attacks started. It's getting worse. I'm jumpy and on edge. It's like a loaded gun.”
Mr Webster receives a war pension for a physical injury suffered in a Land Rover accident before 2005.
“I had to give up work a couple of years ago because I was so afraid I'd slap my supervisor,” he said. “The NHS gives you medication and says get lost. I feel that the Ministry of Defence don't care. They take the attitude that when you finish your service it's all over.”
Walter Busuttil, medical director of Combat Stress - which is part-funded by the MoD - has warned that the NHS cannot cope with military trauma. But with the demise of psychiatric centres for the Forces, the NHS is the only option. “I have heard cases of ex-servicemen put in NHS group therapy sessions,” he said. “When they have tried to talk about experiences in Afghanistan or Iraq, they have been told, ‘You can't talk about those things. You'll traumatise other patients'.”
Kevan Jones, Under Secretary of State for Defence, said that his department had “invested heavily”. He added: “We now have mental health units throughout the UK, psychiatric nurses in theatre, and a trauma mentoring scheme to encourage personnel to understand symptoms.”
alexi.mostrous@thetimes.co.uk
Source:the times
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Natasha Richardson's Organs Donated After Her Death
As the loved ones of Natasha Richardson continue to mourn, a family decision made in the wake of the Tony-winning actress's sudden death March 18 has brought a measure of comfort: After Richardson was taken off life support at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital, her family requested that her organs be donated to other patients whose lives they might save.
Organ donation "is very Natasha," a family friend says in the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. "She spent so much time fighting the stigma of AIDS; someone like that would naturally donate her organs. At least by donating her organs something good could come out of [the tragedy]."
Richardson, 45, died after falling during a ski lesson at a Canadian resort on March 16. An autopsy performed in New York City showed that a blow to her head had caused a fatal epidural hematoma, bleeding between her brain and her skull.
'Liam Doing Okay'
In the days since Richardson's death, her husband of 14 years, actor Liam Neeson, 56, and the couple's sons Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12, have shown remarkable public poise in dealing with the tragedy. "Liam is doing okay," says family friend Blaine Trump. "It takes a while to absorb this. But he says the family needs to move forward. They will take it one step at a time."
The Irish actor was expected to return to work on the Toronto set of his upcoming drama Chloe, and the boys were headed back to school. "With good friends by their side," says Trump, "they will get through the tough days ahead."
Source:people.com
Organ donation "is very Natasha," a family friend says in the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. "She spent so much time fighting the stigma of AIDS; someone like that would naturally donate her organs. At least by donating her organs something good could come out of [the tragedy]."
Richardson, 45, died after falling during a ski lesson at a Canadian resort on March 16. An autopsy performed in New York City showed that a blow to her head had caused a fatal epidural hematoma, bleeding between her brain and her skull.
'Liam Doing Okay'
In the days since Richardson's death, her husband of 14 years, actor Liam Neeson, 56, and the couple's sons Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12, have shown remarkable public poise in dealing with the tragedy. "Liam is doing okay," says family friend Blaine Trump. "It takes a while to absorb this. But he says the family needs to move forward. They will take it one step at a time."
The Irish actor was expected to return to work on the Toronto set of his upcoming drama Chloe, and the boys were headed back to school. "With good friends by their side," says Trump, "they will get through the tough days ahead."
Source:people.com
37-year-old charged with PSNI murder
A 37-year-old man from Co Armagh has appeared before Lisburn Magistrates Court charged with the murder of PSNI officer Stephen Carroll.
He is the second person to be charged in connection with the killing in Craigavon on 9 March.
The court heard that when interviewed by police, Brendan McConville, from Glenholme Avenue in Lurgan, had denied the shooting.
He also faced a second charge of possessing an AKM assault rifle and 26 rounds of ammunition with intent to endanger life on the same date.
A PSNI detective inspector told the court he believed he could connect the accused to the charges. There was no application for bail.
Mr McConville, who was a Sinn Féin Councillor in Craigavon for four years until leaving the party in 1997, was remanded in custody.
He is due to appear again via video link at Craigavon Magistrates' Court on 3 April.
Source:RTENews
He is the second person to be charged in connection with the killing in Craigavon on 9 March.
The court heard that when interviewed by police, Brendan McConville, from Glenholme Avenue in Lurgan, had denied the shooting.
He also faced a second charge of possessing an AKM assault rifle and 26 rounds of ammunition with intent to endanger life on the same date.
A PSNI detective inspector told the court he believed he could connect the accused to the charges. There was no application for bail.
Mr McConville, who was a Sinn Féin Councillor in Craigavon for four years until leaving the party in 1997, was remanded in custody.
He is due to appear again via video link at Craigavon Magistrates' Court on 3 April.
Source:RTENews
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Raid on safe deposit boxes uncovers 'Aladdin's cave of ill gotten gains'
A police raid on safe deposit boxes has revealed an "Aladdin's cave of criminality" that spans murder, money laundering, paedophilia, people trafficking and drug running. The findings have led to 1,000 inquiries around the world.
More than 3,500 boxes were raided by officers from the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Crime Directorate in June last year.
They seized £35 million of cash in various denominations, of which £1 million has still to be claimed, dozens of passports, cocaine, firearms, forged banking bonds, including one for $4.95 milion, suitcases full of gold and cannabis.
The contents of some of the boxes are being investigated by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, The Times has learnt.
Seven hundred of the box holders are being referred to Customs for suspected tax evasion involving £15 million and officers have discovered a significant number of "ghosts" – people who have never paid any tax at all.
Elephant tusks worth £40,000 were also confiscated after a suspect's home was searched.
Police inquiries have led all over the world and officers expect the investigations to run for years to come. So far 11 people have been charged in connection with the raid, codenamed Operation Rize, and 40 have been arrested.
More than half of the boxes are thought to be connected to criminal activity.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Ponting, from the Economic and Specialist Crime Command, said: "We have uncovered an Aladdin's cave of criminality that has disrupted organised crime around the world.
"Absolutely any crime you can think about is being investigated. Some of the boxes have not been accessed for some years, including boxes that contain millions of pounds.
"We are unravelling a whole heap of criminality."
Some of the boxes belong to serving prisoners who were hoping to serve their sentences and then pick up their hidden booty. Detectives are investigating the contents of one box – not accessed for more than 10 years – that contained a hammer, chisel and pipe wrench. "There is clearly a story behind these items," Mr Ponting said.
He added: "Operation Rize was the first of its kind, targeting criminals who use this type of secure storage. This has had a dramatic impact on organised criminal networks globally, there is no doubt about that at all. This is a significant operation and it will be running for a number of years.
"Many boxes were being used to store undisclosed income and we have even discovered a significant number of individuals who have never paid tax in their lives who are now being investigated.
Sixty officers are working on the case full time.
All legitimate property had been returned, Mr Ponting added.
The police raided three addresses in Hampstead, Edgware, and Westminster in June last year and made several arrests of people associated with the companies on suspicion of money laundering. They have been bailed to return to police later this year.
Source:the times
More than 3,500 boxes were raided by officers from the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Crime Directorate in June last year.
They seized £35 million of cash in various denominations, of which £1 million has still to be claimed, dozens of passports, cocaine, firearms, forged banking bonds, including one for $4.95 milion, suitcases full of gold and cannabis.
The contents of some of the boxes are being investigated by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, The Times has learnt.
Seven hundred of the box holders are being referred to Customs for suspected tax evasion involving £15 million and officers have discovered a significant number of "ghosts" – people who have never paid any tax at all.
Elephant tusks worth £40,000 were also confiscated after a suspect's home was searched.
Police inquiries have led all over the world and officers expect the investigations to run for years to come. So far 11 people have been charged in connection with the raid, codenamed Operation Rize, and 40 have been arrested.
More than half of the boxes are thought to be connected to criminal activity.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Ponting, from the Economic and Specialist Crime Command, said: "We have uncovered an Aladdin's cave of criminality that has disrupted organised crime around the world.
"Absolutely any crime you can think about is being investigated. Some of the boxes have not been accessed for some years, including boxes that contain millions of pounds.
"We are unravelling a whole heap of criminality."
Some of the boxes belong to serving prisoners who were hoping to serve their sentences and then pick up their hidden booty. Detectives are investigating the contents of one box – not accessed for more than 10 years – that contained a hammer, chisel and pipe wrench. "There is clearly a story behind these items," Mr Ponting said.
He added: "Operation Rize was the first of its kind, targeting criminals who use this type of secure storage. This has had a dramatic impact on organised criminal networks globally, there is no doubt about that at all. This is a significant operation and it will be running for a number of years.
"Many boxes were being used to store undisclosed income and we have even discovered a significant number of individuals who have never paid tax in their lives who are now being investigated.
Sixty officers are working on the case full time.
All legitimate property had been returned, Mr Ponting added.
The police raided three addresses in Hampstead, Edgware, and Westminster in June last year and made several arrests of people associated with the companies on suspicion of money laundering. They have been bailed to return to police later this year.
Source:the times
British yachtsman 'beaten to death' by pirates off Thai coast
A British man is believed to have been beaten to death aboard his yacht off the Thai coast while his wife was locked in the cabin.
Malcolm Robertson, 64, was sailing with his wife, Linda, near to the Thai-Malaysian border when three men clambered aboard and attacked them early this morning.
Thai police say that the couple, from St Leonards, East Sussex, were overpowered and Mrs Robertson was locked in the cabin. When she managed to get out, she found blood on the decks, but no sign of her husband. She waved down a passing vessel and the police were called.
On their way to the yacht, the police spotted three men in a dinghy that had been attached to the Robertsons’ yacht. The men, all Burmese, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and a police spokesman said that the men - migrant workers - confessed to the killing. The body has still not yet been found.
The Robertsons’ next of kin have been informed, and family members were on their way to Thailand last night. A police spokesman said that Mrs Robertson had been beaten and was recovering in hospital. “One British national has been reported missing and another British national is in hospital," a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said.
Piracy along the Malaysia-Thai sea boundary was common in the 1990s, but intensive patrols by the marine police of both nations reduced the number of attacks.
There was no indication of the ethnicity of the three Burmese men detained for the murder of Mr Robertson, but each year hundreds of Rohingya men make the perilous journey along the coast from Burma to Malaysia looking for work.
Earlier this year there was an international outcry when it was claimed that the Thai military was detaining boatloads of Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in Burma, removing the engines from their vessels and towing them back out to sea where an unknown number drowned.
Source:the times
Malcolm Robertson, 64, was sailing with his wife, Linda, near to the Thai-Malaysian border when three men clambered aboard and attacked them early this morning.
Thai police say that the couple, from St Leonards, East Sussex, were overpowered and Mrs Robertson was locked in the cabin. When she managed to get out, she found blood on the decks, but no sign of her husband. She waved down a passing vessel and the police were called.
On their way to the yacht, the police spotted three men in a dinghy that had been attached to the Robertsons’ yacht. The men, all Burmese, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and a police spokesman said that the men - migrant workers - confessed to the killing. The body has still not yet been found.
The Robertsons’ next of kin have been informed, and family members were on their way to Thailand last night. A police spokesman said that Mrs Robertson had been beaten and was recovering in hospital. “One British national has been reported missing and another British national is in hospital," a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said.
Piracy along the Malaysia-Thai sea boundary was common in the 1990s, but intensive patrols by the marine police of both nations reduced the number of attacks.
There was no indication of the ethnicity of the three Burmese men detained for the murder of Mr Robertson, but each year hundreds of Rohingya men make the perilous journey along the coast from Burma to Malaysia looking for work.
Earlier this year there was an international outcry when it was claimed that the Thai military was detaining boatloads of Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in Burma, removing the engines from their vessels and towing them back out to sea where an unknown number drowned.
Source:the times
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Power crisis: More companies may leave Nigeria
Except the Federal Government finds an urgent solution to epileptic state of power supply in the country, more multinational companies may dump Nigeria for other African countries with better business climates, manufacturers and captains of industries have warned.
This warning was in spite of the $16bn which a House of Representatives probe said the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration committed to the provision of electricity in the country between 1999 and 2007.
It is also coming 22 months into the administration of President Umaru Yar‘Adua, on top of whose seven-point-agenda provision of power stands.
In separate interviews with SUNDAY PUNCH at the weekend, the manufacturers bemoaned the colossal extra cost they bear on their production activities due to unavailability of electricity supply by government.
Mr. Simeon Okoro, president of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture said the nation‘s erratic power supply constituted great drawback to both the small-scale entrepreneurs and large-scale manufacturers whom he said have kept closing their shops.
“You know, the economy hinges on power. Nothing can be done without electricity, as even barbers, carpenters and the likes use the facility. It is basic to whatever we do. The negative impact is indeed unquantifiable,” Okoro told our correspondent on phone.
The NACCIMA boss warned that more companies, especially multinational firms were leaving Nigeria for countries like Ghana, South Africa and other places with the right business environment.
According to him, industries are losing heavily as they spend a lot of money purchasing diesel and servicing their plants and generators.
The President, Institute of Directors, Chief Olusola Dada, described the state of power supply in the country as worrisome and said it required urgent attention.
He nonetheless blamed corruption for the poor state of power supply, adding that hiring the right people to do the right job would go a long way in addressing the problem.
Similarly, Mr. Michael Adeyemo, managing director of Fumman Group, manufacturers of juice drinks, lamented that 95 per cent of his company’s production was done on power from generators.
“Our machines run on generators. We work on diesel 95 per cent of the month in our factory in Ibadan. In the office here in Lagos, we work on diesel 80 per cent of the month,” Adeyemo explained to our correspondent on Friday.
The story is not better elsewhere. The External Communication Manager of Dunlop Nigeria Plc, Mr. Abiona Babarinde, says the company spends a minimum of N150m monthly on the purchase of diesel, adding that hardly could any tyre manufacturing firm be competitive in such a situation.
He said the company needed at least 10 megawatts to operate at full capacity, and lack of power in some of the electrical lines for about three minutes was a loss of about N3m to the company, meaning huge expenditure on generators and diesel to maintain steady power supply.
Mr. Wale Goodluck, the Corporate Services Executive of MTN Nigeria said the telecoms company had over 4,000 base stations in the country, each of which he said two generators and a set of batteries were attached to provide power for the round-the-clock service it provided.
”We lose at least a 37KVA generator a day in doing business. And in a year we are losing over 300 generators. This is different from when people just come and take out the IGR of the generator, and take out the battery.
“Now, we are talking about when they come with a bus and yank out the entire generator. It is going to take a bit of time to bring the generator back, connect it and have the site start working,” Goodluck explained.
Scandalised by the state of power supply in the country in spite of the huge financial commitment to the provision of electricity through the National Integrated Power Project by the Obasanjo government, Nigerian lawmakers of the lower chamber in 2007 set up the Ndudi Elumelu probe panel to ascertain state of the projects.
The debate on the probe panel report which catalogued many abuses of due processes and outright corruption commenced just last week amidst moves to rubbish it by some lawmakers.
Elumelu had told the House as part of the findings of the probe that about $13.28bn was expended on the power sector between 1999 and 2007 with almost nothing to show for it.
”Many strange things happened in the power sector during that time. There were instances where contracts were inflated by over 1,000 per cent and there were abuse of due process. There were some contractors who were fully paid in advance for some projects but have never visited their sites,” Elumelu, who came under barrage of criticisms from his colleagues said.
Some representatives, including members of the probe panel condemned the report for being twisted to favour popular sentiments.
Source:the punch
This warning was in spite of the $16bn which a House of Representatives probe said the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration committed to the provision of electricity in the country between 1999 and 2007.
It is also coming 22 months into the administration of President Umaru Yar‘Adua, on top of whose seven-point-agenda provision of power stands.
In separate interviews with SUNDAY PUNCH at the weekend, the manufacturers bemoaned the colossal extra cost they bear on their production activities due to unavailability of electricity supply by government.
Mr. Simeon Okoro, president of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture said the nation‘s erratic power supply constituted great drawback to both the small-scale entrepreneurs and large-scale manufacturers whom he said have kept closing their shops.
“You know, the economy hinges on power. Nothing can be done without electricity, as even barbers, carpenters and the likes use the facility. It is basic to whatever we do. The negative impact is indeed unquantifiable,” Okoro told our correspondent on phone.
The NACCIMA boss warned that more companies, especially multinational firms were leaving Nigeria for countries like Ghana, South Africa and other places with the right business environment.
According to him, industries are losing heavily as they spend a lot of money purchasing diesel and servicing their plants and generators.
The President, Institute of Directors, Chief Olusola Dada, described the state of power supply in the country as worrisome and said it required urgent attention.
He nonetheless blamed corruption for the poor state of power supply, adding that hiring the right people to do the right job would go a long way in addressing the problem.
Similarly, Mr. Michael Adeyemo, managing director of Fumman Group, manufacturers of juice drinks, lamented that 95 per cent of his company’s production was done on power from generators.
“Our machines run on generators. We work on diesel 95 per cent of the month in our factory in Ibadan. In the office here in Lagos, we work on diesel 80 per cent of the month,” Adeyemo explained to our correspondent on Friday.
The story is not better elsewhere. The External Communication Manager of Dunlop Nigeria Plc, Mr. Abiona Babarinde, says the company spends a minimum of N150m monthly on the purchase of diesel, adding that hardly could any tyre manufacturing firm be competitive in such a situation.
He said the company needed at least 10 megawatts to operate at full capacity, and lack of power in some of the electrical lines for about three minutes was a loss of about N3m to the company, meaning huge expenditure on generators and diesel to maintain steady power supply.
Mr. Wale Goodluck, the Corporate Services Executive of MTN Nigeria said the telecoms company had over 4,000 base stations in the country, each of which he said two generators and a set of batteries were attached to provide power for the round-the-clock service it provided.
”We lose at least a 37KVA generator a day in doing business. And in a year we are losing over 300 generators. This is different from when people just come and take out the IGR of the generator, and take out the battery.
“Now, we are talking about when they come with a bus and yank out the entire generator. It is going to take a bit of time to bring the generator back, connect it and have the site start working,” Goodluck explained.
Scandalised by the state of power supply in the country in spite of the huge financial commitment to the provision of electricity through the National Integrated Power Project by the Obasanjo government, Nigerian lawmakers of the lower chamber in 2007 set up the Ndudi Elumelu probe panel to ascertain state of the projects.
The debate on the probe panel report which catalogued many abuses of due processes and outright corruption commenced just last week amidst moves to rubbish it by some lawmakers.
Elumelu had told the House as part of the findings of the probe that about $13.28bn was expended on the power sector between 1999 and 2007 with almost nothing to show for it.
”Many strange things happened in the power sector during that time. There were instances where contracts were inflated by over 1,000 per cent and there were abuse of due process. There were some contractors who were fully paid in advance for some projects but have never visited their sites,” Elumelu, who came under barrage of criticisms from his colleagues said.
Some representatives, including members of the probe panel condemned the report for being twisted to favour popular sentiments.
Source:the punch
Police launch murder inquiry after man found dead in canal
A murder investigation is under way after the body of a man was found dumped in a canal near Selby, North Yorkshire.
Police said the man died from severe head injuries in what was a "brutal attack" and the body could have been in the water for up to three weeks.
The man's body was discovered by an off-duty police officer who was fishing at Burn Bridge, between the North Yorkshire villages of Brayton and Burn. Police have now cordoned off an area of the canal footpath immediately next to the main A19 bridge.
A post mortem on the body was been carried out lastnight but no details have been released.
Detective Superintendent Karnail Dulku said police were hoping distinctive labels on the man's clothes would help them determine his identity and are appealing to the public for help.
"My appeal today is for anyone that may help us to identify this man and to anyone who may have been in the Burn Canal area in the last two to three weeks," he said.
The man was of Oriental appearance, 5ft 7in tall, about 10st and thought to have been aged between his late teens and early 30s, with black, straight, collar-length hair.
He was wearing a black t-shirt with a Calvin Klein Jeans logo, black underpants and khaki long-johns. He was not wearing any shoes or socks.
Mr Dulku said the pants had a logo featuring the letters PROEA and the long-johns a logo featuring the letters UTEJIAO.
"What we have here is an Oriental male who has been brutally murdered and his body has been dumped in the canal.
"We don't know yet whether it was deposited in the location where we found him or whether he was placed in the water elsewhere," the officer said.
Source:the times
Police said the man died from severe head injuries in what was a "brutal attack" and the body could have been in the water for up to three weeks.
The man's body was discovered by an off-duty police officer who was fishing at Burn Bridge, between the North Yorkshire villages of Brayton and Burn. Police have now cordoned off an area of the canal footpath immediately next to the main A19 bridge.
A post mortem on the body was been carried out lastnight but no details have been released.
Detective Superintendent Karnail Dulku said police were hoping distinctive labels on the man's clothes would help them determine his identity and are appealing to the public for help.
"My appeal today is for anyone that may help us to identify this man and to anyone who may have been in the Burn Canal area in the last two to three weeks," he said.
The man was of Oriental appearance, 5ft 7in tall, about 10st and thought to have been aged between his late teens and early 30s, with black, straight, collar-length hair.
He was wearing a black t-shirt with a Calvin Klein Jeans logo, black underpants and khaki long-johns. He was not wearing any shoes or socks.
Mr Dulku said the pants had a logo featuring the letters PROEA and the long-johns a logo featuring the letters UTEJIAO.
"What we have here is an Oriental male who has been brutally murdered and his body has been dumped in the canal.
"We don't know yet whether it was deposited in the location where we found him or whether he was placed in the water elsewhere," the officer said.
Source:the times
Baby dies after court decision
A SERIOUSLY ill baby boy, whose parents lost a High Court battle to keep him alive, died in hospital yesterday after his life support machine was switched off.
The nine-month-old baby — known only as OT, who cannot be identified for legal reasons died after doctors carried out a judge’s ruling.
Christopher Cuddihee, a lawyer for the baby’s parents, said the death followed the “withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment” by the unnamed NHS hospital where he was being cared for.
In a statement, the baby’s parents said: “During his short time with us, OT became the focus of our lives. We were present during his last moments, together with OT’s extended family. He died peacefully. We will miss him greatly and wish to say we are proud to have known our beautiful son for his brief life.”
The parents had fought to keep the child alive despite doctors claiming he had endured a “life of suffering” that should be allowed to end.
Last week, Mrs Justice Parker ruled the boy did not have the right to life “in all circumstances”.
After a 10-day hearing, she gave doctors permission to turn off the ventilator that had kept Baby OT alive for eight months. Her decision was upheld late on Friday night by two Court of Appeal judges.
Yesterday lawyers for the NHS trust which brought the court case to allow Baby OT to die declined to discuss it. The trust, like the parents, cannot be identified under the court’s gagging order. Caroline Harry Thomas QC, its barrister, said: “I do not wish to make any comment on this very sad case.” Cuddihee said it was “a very difficult and emotional time” for his clients. He declined to say more.
Baby OT suffered from a rare metabolic disease. He had brain damage and respiratory failure. Victims of the disorder cannot process food and oxygen into energy properly, leaving byproducts that poison the body.
He was born last May and had been in the hospital’s intensive care unit since he was three weeks old. His parents said he smiled and cooed when being cuddled by his mother and kicked his legs when they gave him a bath. They had hoped that he might one day recover as medical standards improved.
Only one other child with their son’s medical condition had been identified, they said, adding: “We are all in unknown territory.” They remained “deeply distressed” by the court’s decision and said the life of their “beautiful boy” was worth preserving. The case contrasts with that of Charlotte Wyatt who was born in 2003, three months prematurely and weighing only 1lb. She suffered severe brain and lung damage. Her parents won a court battle to ensure she was revived in the event of a collapse. Charlotte survived, although she has severe disabilities.
Baby OT’s Afghan father, who is from a professional background, speaks English although his mother does not. Their relations with hospital staff became strained at the end of last year after doctors at the hospital first told them they wanted to withdraw treatment.
The parents insisted they “had to fight to ensure that he is given every possible chance”.
Professor Sam Leinster of the University of East Anglia school of medicine said: “My heart goes out to the family but also to the medical team. The court is charged with weighing all the evidence that is put before them.
“There is a belief among us, it’s kind of fed by everyone around us, that medicine has the answer to everything. But unfortunately there are occasions where medicine can’t do anything.”
A British Medical Association spokesman said: “We are extremely empathetic to the parents at this incredibly difficult time. But . . . when there is disagreement between parents and a child’s clinical team, the only option is for the case to go to court and for the courts to decide what action would be in the interests of the child. The clinical team must be guided by best interest.”
In her ruling, Mrs Justice Parker accepted that the parents “love him devotedly”, but said the father’s belief that Baby OT would get better and come home and go to school was “sadly, wholly unrealistic”.
Baby OT died at 10.08am yesterday.
Source:the times
The nine-month-old baby — known only as OT, who cannot be identified for legal reasons died after doctors carried out a judge’s ruling.
Christopher Cuddihee, a lawyer for the baby’s parents, said the death followed the “withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment” by the unnamed NHS hospital where he was being cared for.
In a statement, the baby’s parents said: “During his short time with us, OT became the focus of our lives. We were present during his last moments, together with OT’s extended family. He died peacefully. We will miss him greatly and wish to say we are proud to have known our beautiful son for his brief life.”
The parents had fought to keep the child alive despite doctors claiming he had endured a “life of suffering” that should be allowed to end.
Last week, Mrs Justice Parker ruled the boy did not have the right to life “in all circumstances”.
After a 10-day hearing, she gave doctors permission to turn off the ventilator that had kept Baby OT alive for eight months. Her decision was upheld late on Friday night by two Court of Appeal judges.
Yesterday lawyers for the NHS trust which brought the court case to allow Baby OT to die declined to discuss it. The trust, like the parents, cannot be identified under the court’s gagging order. Caroline Harry Thomas QC, its barrister, said: “I do not wish to make any comment on this very sad case.” Cuddihee said it was “a very difficult and emotional time” for his clients. He declined to say more.
Baby OT suffered from a rare metabolic disease. He had brain damage and respiratory failure. Victims of the disorder cannot process food and oxygen into energy properly, leaving byproducts that poison the body.
He was born last May and had been in the hospital’s intensive care unit since he was three weeks old. His parents said he smiled and cooed when being cuddled by his mother and kicked his legs when they gave him a bath. They had hoped that he might one day recover as medical standards improved.
Only one other child with their son’s medical condition had been identified, they said, adding: “We are all in unknown territory.” They remained “deeply distressed” by the court’s decision and said the life of their “beautiful boy” was worth preserving. The case contrasts with that of Charlotte Wyatt who was born in 2003, three months prematurely and weighing only 1lb. She suffered severe brain and lung damage. Her parents won a court battle to ensure she was revived in the event of a collapse. Charlotte survived, although she has severe disabilities.
Baby OT’s Afghan father, who is from a professional background, speaks English although his mother does not. Their relations with hospital staff became strained at the end of last year after doctors at the hospital first told them they wanted to withdraw treatment.
The parents insisted they “had to fight to ensure that he is given every possible chance”.
Professor Sam Leinster of the University of East Anglia school of medicine said: “My heart goes out to the family but also to the medical team. The court is charged with weighing all the evidence that is put before them.
“There is a belief among us, it’s kind of fed by everyone around us, that medicine has the answer to everything. But unfortunately there are occasions where medicine can’t do anything.”
A British Medical Association spokesman said: “We are extremely empathetic to the parents at this incredibly difficult time. But . . . when there is disagreement between parents and a child’s clinical team, the only option is for the case to go to court and for the courts to decide what action would be in the interests of the child. The clinical team must be guided by best interest.”
In her ruling, Mrs Justice Parker accepted that the parents “love him devotedly”, but said the father’s belief that Baby OT would get better and come home and go to school was “sadly, wholly unrealistic”.
Baby OT died at 10.08am yesterday.
Source:the times
Lawyers use NHS as £100m cash cow
LAWYERS are earning £800 an hour from the National Health Service and taking “indefensible” fees of tens of millions of pounds in legal disputes. The money is coming from a government scheme intended to compensate patients for medical blunders and inadequate care, an investigation has found.
The compensation lawyers are claiming costs and “success fees” worth about £100m a year out of the scheme. In some cases the payouts claimed are 10 times more than the damages won by the patient.
Health professionals warn that it could get much more expensive. There is an estimated backlog of cases against the NHS amounting to £12 billion in claims, of which lawyers could get up to £6 billion.
The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), which operates the compensation scheme, has lambasted the fees in a submission to Lord Justice Jackson, the judge. He is reviewing civil litigation costs.
The document warns that some “no-win, no-fee” lawyers are allowed to charge the NHS compensation scheme £804 an hour to pursue patients’ claims.
It states: “The whole costs structure is indefensibly expensive in relation to the compensation awarded or agreed. It is difficult to believe that it would be sustained were it not for the lack of motivation to change it.”
Mark Simmonds, the shadow health minister, said the huge fees being earned by the lawyers would be better spent on patient care. “It is unacceptable in some cases that the legal fees are many times higher than the awarded damages,” he said.
Bertie Leigh, a lawyer who defends the NHS in litigation cases, said he regards many of the cases he sees as a “buccaneering attack on the funds of the NHS”.
In one case involving Barking, Havering & Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust, a legal firm claimed nearly £78,000 in costs and fees, having won just £7,000 for a female patient. A Liverpool firm submitted a legal bill for £4.4m for a single case.
The figures for 2007-8 show that more than one in four NHS trusts are paying out more in legal costs than in damages. The clinical negligence scheme paid £264m in compensation in 2007-8 of which £90m was in claimants’ fees.
Compensation lawyers say the success fees help to cover the cost of fighting cases they lose.
Source:the times
The compensation lawyers are claiming costs and “success fees” worth about £100m a year out of the scheme. In some cases the payouts claimed are 10 times more than the damages won by the patient.
Health professionals warn that it could get much more expensive. There is an estimated backlog of cases against the NHS amounting to £12 billion in claims, of which lawyers could get up to £6 billion.
The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), which operates the compensation scheme, has lambasted the fees in a submission to Lord Justice Jackson, the judge. He is reviewing civil litigation costs.
The document warns that some “no-win, no-fee” lawyers are allowed to charge the NHS compensation scheme £804 an hour to pursue patients’ claims.
It states: “The whole costs structure is indefensibly expensive in relation to the compensation awarded or agreed. It is difficult to believe that it would be sustained were it not for the lack of motivation to change it.”
Mark Simmonds, the shadow health minister, said the huge fees being earned by the lawyers would be better spent on patient care. “It is unacceptable in some cases that the legal fees are many times higher than the awarded damages,” he said.
Bertie Leigh, a lawyer who defends the NHS in litigation cases, said he regards many of the cases he sees as a “buccaneering attack on the funds of the NHS”.
In one case involving Barking, Havering & Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust, a legal firm claimed nearly £78,000 in costs and fees, having won just £7,000 for a female patient. A Liverpool firm submitted a legal bill for £4.4m for a single case.
The figures for 2007-8 show that more than one in four NHS trusts are paying out more in legal costs than in damages. The clinical negligence scheme paid £264m in compensation in 2007-8 of which £90m was in claimants’ fees.
Compensation lawyers say the success fees help to cover the cost of fighting cases they lose.
Source:the times
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Parents lose court fight to keep baby OT alive
The parents of a gravely ill baby boy failed last night in their attempt to overturn a court ruling that gave doctors the power to end his treatment and allow him to die.
Born in May last year, the nine-month-old baby suffers from a rare metabolic disease and has lived in an intensive care unit since he was three weeks old, kept alive on a ventilator.
On Thursday a judge at the High Court ruled that the baby, named only as OT, was in constant pain and gave the medical team treating him the right to stop painful invasive treatment and to take him off the ventilator, replacing that treatment with palliative care.
But Mrs Justice Parker placed a temporary stay on the order to allow the child’s parents to try to reverse the decision at the Court of Appeal.
Last night that attempt failed. Two judges — Lord Justice Ward and Lord Justice Wilson — refused them permission to challenge the ruling.
Lord Justice Ward had been told that the parents could not face hearing the decision of the court and were waiting outside. “We are not unmindful of the horror of their predicament,” he said.
The parents of baby OT do not accept that his condition is as serious as doctors have claimed and still believe that he could one day recover, go home and go to school. They want doctors to keep him alive as long as possible, so long as that does not cause him unacceptable suffering.
Lord Justice Ward asked their lawyers to pass on the message that although the hearing seeking permission to appeal had been conducted “in a brusque, uncaring, unfeeling way on a crude issue of law”, it was impossible not to feel the “deepest sympathy for their predicament”.
“One has great respect and admiration for them,” he said.
The judges said that they would give their reasons for rejecting permission to appeal at a later date. The court order allowing doctors to withdraw treatment now comes into effect immediately, though Caroline Harry Thomas, QC, for the NHS Trust involved, which cannot be identified, told the court that “there will be no unseemly rush” to withdraw treatment.
The parents of OT said that they were “devastated”. The Court of Appeal ruling follows a ten-day hearing, partly conducted at the baby’s bedside this week, which Mrs Justice Parker described as a “desperately sad and anguished case”.
The baby’s condition was deteriorating and at one stage it was thought that he would not last the week.
She rejected claims by the father that doctors and nurses treating the child had infected him to speed up his death and that they could have done more. At his bedside this week she said the father had tried to interfere with treatment and shouted: “This is murder! This is murder!” She said this outburst was a result of the terrible strain of the situation.
She accepted that the baby’s parents “love him devotedly” but said the father’s belief that he would one day go to school was “sadly, wholly unrealistic”.
She said the child was already suffering severe brain damage and that after his latest relapse, it was possible that his lungs had been damaged. The evidence suggested that he would not live more than three years: he faced a future of progressive organ failure and invasive treatment to keep him alive.
As well as granting orders to take the child off the ventilator, she gave doctors and nurses the right not to keep him alive with painful invasive treatment. One doctor said what they were doing amounted to torture.
The judge said that she accepted that “the sanctity of life is not absolute, requiring treatment that is futile”.
Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee, said there was “a good deal of case law” surrounding such cases.
“Sometimes there will be an agreement between the medical team and the parents. Where that breaks down and where the medical team feel that there is undue stress being put on a child, undue pain and with no chance of a decent outcome the medical team will go to the court and ask them to determine it.”
Cruel dilemmas
— Charlotte Wyatt was born in 2003 — three months prematurely and weighing only 1 lb — with severe brain and lung damage. Her parents won a court battle to ensure that she was revived in the event of a collapse. The child survived with severe disabilities, but living in care, as her parents struggled to meet her 24-hour healthcare needs
— In 2004 Luke Winston-Jones died at the age of ten months, at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. Doctors had been granted permission by the High Court to withhold life-saving treatment by “aggressive” medical ventilation. Luke had been born with Edwards syndrome, a rare genetic disorder
— In 2006 a child identified only as MB, suffering from a degenerative muscle-wasting disease, was given the right to be kept alive on a life-support machine against the wishes of his doctors
— In 2007 Mr Justice Holman ruled that a seriously ill baby girl should undergo a bone marrow transplant that would give her a 50 per cent chance of life, despite her parents’ wish to spare her further suffering
Source: Times Database
Born in May last year, the nine-month-old baby suffers from a rare metabolic disease and has lived in an intensive care unit since he was three weeks old, kept alive on a ventilator.
On Thursday a judge at the High Court ruled that the baby, named only as OT, was in constant pain and gave the medical team treating him the right to stop painful invasive treatment and to take him off the ventilator, replacing that treatment with palliative care.
But Mrs Justice Parker placed a temporary stay on the order to allow the child’s parents to try to reverse the decision at the Court of Appeal.
Last night that attempt failed. Two judges — Lord Justice Ward and Lord Justice Wilson — refused them permission to challenge the ruling.
Lord Justice Ward had been told that the parents could not face hearing the decision of the court and were waiting outside. “We are not unmindful of the horror of their predicament,” he said.
The parents of baby OT do not accept that his condition is as serious as doctors have claimed and still believe that he could one day recover, go home and go to school. They want doctors to keep him alive as long as possible, so long as that does not cause him unacceptable suffering.
Lord Justice Ward asked their lawyers to pass on the message that although the hearing seeking permission to appeal had been conducted “in a brusque, uncaring, unfeeling way on a crude issue of law”, it was impossible not to feel the “deepest sympathy for their predicament”.
“One has great respect and admiration for them,” he said.
The judges said that they would give their reasons for rejecting permission to appeal at a later date. The court order allowing doctors to withdraw treatment now comes into effect immediately, though Caroline Harry Thomas, QC, for the NHS Trust involved, which cannot be identified, told the court that “there will be no unseemly rush” to withdraw treatment.
The parents of OT said that they were “devastated”. The Court of Appeal ruling follows a ten-day hearing, partly conducted at the baby’s bedside this week, which Mrs Justice Parker described as a “desperately sad and anguished case”.
The baby’s condition was deteriorating and at one stage it was thought that he would not last the week.
She rejected claims by the father that doctors and nurses treating the child had infected him to speed up his death and that they could have done more. At his bedside this week she said the father had tried to interfere with treatment and shouted: “This is murder! This is murder!” She said this outburst was a result of the terrible strain of the situation.
She accepted that the baby’s parents “love him devotedly” but said the father’s belief that he would one day go to school was “sadly, wholly unrealistic”.
She said the child was already suffering severe brain damage and that after his latest relapse, it was possible that his lungs had been damaged. The evidence suggested that he would not live more than three years: he faced a future of progressive organ failure and invasive treatment to keep him alive.
As well as granting orders to take the child off the ventilator, she gave doctors and nurses the right not to keep him alive with painful invasive treatment. One doctor said what they were doing amounted to torture.
The judge said that she accepted that “the sanctity of life is not absolute, requiring treatment that is futile”.
Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee, said there was “a good deal of case law” surrounding such cases.
“Sometimes there will be an agreement between the medical team and the parents. Where that breaks down and where the medical team feel that there is undue stress being put on a child, undue pain and with no chance of a decent outcome the medical team will go to the court and ask them to determine it.”
Cruel dilemmas
— Charlotte Wyatt was born in 2003 — three months prematurely and weighing only 1 lb — with severe brain and lung damage. Her parents won a court battle to ensure that she was revived in the event of a collapse. The child survived with severe disabilities, but living in care, as her parents struggled to meet her 24-hour healthcare needs
— In 2004 Luke Winston-Jones died at the age of ten months, at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. Doctors had been granted permission by the High Court to withhold life-saving treatment by “aggressive” medical ventilation. Luke had been born with Edwards syndrome, a rare genetic disorder
— In 2006 a child identified only as MB, suffering from a degenerative muscle-wasting disease, was given the right to be kept alive on a life-support machine against the wishes of his doctors
— In 2007 Mr Justice Holman ruled that a seriously ill baby girl should undergo a bone marrow transplant that would give her a 50 per cent chance of life, despite her parents’ wish to spare her further suffering
Source: Times Database
Met: G20 protesters will stretch us to our limit
Scotland Yard issued a stark warning of violent disorder in the City of London on the eve of the G20 summit, with the police stretched to their limit in the middle of an extraordinary week of public protest.
Anarchists, environmentalists and anti-globalisation groups are collaborating to mount an “unprecedented” sequence of demonstrations across London and police chiefs fear that they will be playing cat and mouse with militants.
The cost of the operation to protect the City and the summit on the first two days of April could hit £10 million, more than five times the cost of the 2001 May Day demonstration. At least 1,000 anti-capitalist demonstrators plan to converge on the Bank of England and will be met by 2,500 uniformed police, many equipped with riot gear. Hundreds more officers will be deployed in security operations at the G20 summit venue in East London and protecting locations where 40 delegations of world leaders will be staying.
City bosses have been advised to cancel meetings and place extra security on their offices in anticipation of trouble on what the protesters have labelled Financial Fools’ Day.
The officer commanding the police response said that a hard core of protesters was intent on storming buildings and provoking violence. “Everything is up for grabs. That is the aspiration, to get in and clog up these City institutions as best they can,” Commander Bob Broadhurst, of the Metropolitan Police, said. “We are seeing unprecedented planning among protest groups. Some of the groups of the late 90s are coming back to the fore and there is a coming together of anarchists, anti-globalisation groups and environmentalists. They are plotting and planning what they are going to do and the picture is changing almost every minute. They have some very clever people and their intention on April 1 is to stop the City.”
The summit eve is the most dangerous flashpoint in a week of demonstrations and other big events, including two England football internationals, that require public order policing. Mr Broadhurst said: “This is a challenging week. It is what we do and what we do best, but it is not often you get 20 world leaders plus. I think we live in extraordinary times and this has led to an extraordinary event, which will bring a challenge to the Met.”
Protesters are talking online about “a summer of rage” marking the tenth anniversary of the J18 anti-capitalism protest, in which there was widespread rioting and vandalism in the City. Organisers are communicating on blogs, forums and social networking sites and will change their tactics on the day by text-message alerts.
The G20 Meltdown site states: “We can’t pay, we won’t pay and we are taking to the streets. At 12 noon, April 1st, we’re going to reclaim the City, thrusting into the very belly of the beast: the Bank of England.”
The police’s ability to pre-empt trouble is hampered because they cannot obtain intercept warrants to gather intelligence for public order matters. There is no intelligence pointing to imminent terrorist activity but Britain’s threat level remains “severe” and there will be a big security operation to protect the delegations.
A big potential flashpoint will come when roads have to be closed to allow diplomatic convoys to travel between their accommodation, the summit venue and official receptions at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Mr Broadhurst said that the coincidence of security and public order operations was always problematic.
Britain is not immune to the danger of serious social unrest and public disorder as a result of the economic crisis, a report said yesterday. Bouts of social unrest will disrupt economies and topple governments around the world over the next two years, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which rated the threat of upheaval as “grave” and named 95 countries as being at high or very high risk. Britain was rated as being at “moderate” risk, but the document made clear that this was “far from a clean bill of health”.
Source:the times
Anarchists, environmentalists and anti-globalisation groups are collaborating to mount an “unprecedented” sequence of demonstrations across London and police chiefs fear that they will be playing cat and mouse with militants.
The cost of the operation to protect the City and the summit on the first two days of April could hit £10 million, more than five times the cost of the 2001 May Day demonstration. At least 1,000 anti-capitalist demonstrators plan to converge on the Bank of England and will be met by 2,500 uniformed police, many equipped with riot gear. Hundreds more officers will be deployed in security operations at the G20 summit venue in East London and protecting locations where 40 delegations of world leaders will be staying.
City bosses have been advised to cancel meetings and place extra security on their offices in anticipation of trouble on what the protesters have labelled Financial Fools’ Day.
The officer commanding the police response said that a hard core of protesters was intent on storming buildings and provoking violence. “Everything is up for grabs. That is the aspiration, to get in and clog up these City institutions as best they can,” Commander Bob Broadhurst, of the Metropolitan Police, said. “We are seeing unprecedented planning among protest groups. Some of the groups of the late 90s are coming back to the fore and there is a coming together of anarchists, anti-globalisation groups and environmentalists. They are plotting and planning what they are going to do and the picture is changing almost every minute. They have some very clever people and their intention on April 1 is to stop the City.”
The summit eve is the most dangerous flashpoint in a week of demonstrations and other big events, including two England football internationals, that require public order policing. Mr Broadhurst said: “This is a challenging week. It is what we do and what we do best, but it is not often you get 20 world leaders plus. I think we live in extraordinary times and this has led to an extraordinary event, which will bring a challenge to the Met.”
Protesters are talking online about “a summer of rage” marking the tenth anniversary of the J18 anti-capitalism protest, in which there was widespread rioting and vandalism in the City. Organisers are communicating on blogs, forums and social networking sites and will change their tactics on the day by text-message alerts.
The G20 Meltdown site states: “We can’t pay, we won’t pay and we are taking to the streets. At 12 noon, April 1st, we’re going to reclaim the City, thrusting into the very belly of the beast: the Bank of England.”
The police’s ability to pre-empt trouble is hampered because they cannot obtain intercept warrants to gather intelligence for public order matters. There is no intelligence pointing to imminent terrorist activity but Britain’s threat level remains “severe” and there will be a big security operation to protect the delegations.
A big potential flashpoint will come when roads have to be closed to allow diplomatic convoys to travel between their accommodation, the summit venue and official receptions at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Mr Broadhurst said that the coincidence of security and public order operations was always problematic.
Britain is not immune to the danger of serious social unrest and public disorder as a result of the economic crisis, a report said yesterday. Bouts of social unrest will disrupt economies and topple governments around the world over the next two years, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which rated the threat of upheaval as “grave” and named 95 countries as being at high or very high risk. Britain was rated as being at “moderate” risk, but the document made clear that this was “far from a clean bill of health”.
Source:the times
Barack Obama tells Iran to choose between terror and peace
Iran cautiously welcomed Barack Obama’s videotaped message for a “new beginning” between the US and Tehran yesterday, but said that the new Administration needed a change in attitude for relations between them to improve.
Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Ahmadinejad of Iran, reacted to the appeal by saying: “The Iranian nation has shown that it can forget hasty behaviour.” Iran, he said, would “not show its back” to Mr Obama if the US put its words into practice, but the new Administration needed “a fundamental change in attitude”.
Mr Javanfekr added that “minor changes will not end the differences” existing between Tehran and Washington. “Obama has talked of change but has taken no practical measures to address America’s past mistakes in Iran,” he said.
The video, which aides said took weeks to prepare and was taped in the White House on Wednesday, was aired yesterday morning to coincide with the start of the major Persian festival of Nowruz, which marks the beginning of spring and the Iranian new year. Mr Ahmadinejad and the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not mention the overture in speeches marking the 12-day holiday.
In a rare gesture from Israel that appeared to be coordinated with Mr Obama’s video, President Peres also sent a greeting to the people of Iran, praising what he called a great and ancient culture and saying that they would be better off without their hard-line leadership.
On the streets of Tehran the reaction to Mr Obama’s speech was mixed. “I hope this will help melt the ice between the two governments,” Hasan Mahmoudi, a street vendor, said. However, Ali Mohammadi, a student, said: “There is little optimism for a change in Iran-US ties.”
Mr Obama told Iranians: “You too have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right, but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilisation.” Significantly, reflecting what Mr Obama’s advisers regard as only a cautious first step by the President to try to get the two sides talking, he did not mention any of the issues dividing the two countries: Iran’s nuclear programme, its hostility to Israel and its sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. He focused instead on what they have in common “in this season of new beginnings”.
Last night Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama’s press secretary, said that the Administration had already planned a next phase to encourage dialogue with Tehran. Pressed whether a “step two” had been articulated on paper, Mr Gibbs said: “There is, and there are many more, but none of which I am going to get into today.”
US policy towards Iran is in the midst of a big review, and while military action against the country to halt its alleged nuclear weapons programme is not off the table, Mr Obama’s advisers believe that there are only two realistic options left with Tehran: direct diplomacy to try to stop the nuclear programme, or a policy of containment involving Israel and Sunni Arab allies if Iran ultimately gets the bomb. There are myriad complicating factors and obstacles, and the Obama team is clear-eyed as to the difficulty of the task.
The opaque nature of the Iranian leadership is one of those complications. The ultimate authority over its nuclear programme is Mr Khamenei, not Mr Ahmadinejad. There also indications that time is against Mr Obama. Admiral Mike Mullen, America’s top military officer, said recently that Iran already had sufficient nuclear material for one bomb.
The level of mistrust is also profound. Mr Javanfekr blamed America’s “hostile policy towards Iran” for the tensions and said that the country “will never forget” the 1953 US-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh.
Source:the times
Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Ahmadinejad of Iran, reacted to the appeal by saying: “The Iranian nation has shown that it can forget hasty behaviour.” Iran, he said, would “not show its back” to Mr Obama if the US put its words into practice, but the new Administration needed “a fundamental change in attitude”.
Mr Javanfekr added that “minor changes will not end the differences” existing between Tehran and Washington. “Obama has talked of change but has taken no practical measures to address America’s past mistakes in Iran,” he said.
The video, which aides said took weeks to prepare and was taped in the White House on Wednesday, was aired yesterday morning to coincide with the start of the major Persian festival of Nowruz, which marks the beginning of spring and the Iranian new year. Mr Ahmadinejad and the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not mention the overture in speeches marking the 12-day holiday.
In a rare gesture from Israel that appeared to be coordinated with Mr Obama’s video, President Peres also sent a greeting to the people of Iran, praising what he called a great and ancient culture and saying that they would be better off without their hard-line leadership.
On the streets of Tehran the reaction to Mr Obama’s speech was mixed. “I hope this will help melt the ice between the two governments,” Hasan Mahmoudi, a street vendor, said. However, Ali Mohammadi, a student, said: “There is little optimism for a change in Iran-US ties.”
Mr Obama told Iranians: “You too have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right, but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilisation.” Significantly, reflecting what Mr Obama’s advisers regard as only a cautious first step by the President to try to get the two sides talking, he did not mention any of the issues dividing the two countries: Iran’s nuclear programme, its hostility to Israel and its sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. He focused instead on what they have in common “in this season of new beginnings”.
Last night Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama’s press secretary, said that the Administration had already planned a next phase to encourage dialogue with Tehran. Pressed whether a “step two” had been articulated on paper, Mr Gibbs said: “There is, and there are many more, but none of which I am going to get into today.”
US policy towards Iran is in the midst of a big review, and while military action against the country to halt its alleged nuclear weapons programme is not off the table, Mr Obama’s advisers believe that there are only two realistic options left with Tehran: direct diplomacy to try to stop the nuclear programme, or a policy of containment involving Israel and Sunni Arab allies if Iran ultimately gets the bomb. There are myriad complicating factors and obstacles, and the Obama team is clear-eyed as to the difficulty of the task.
The opaque nature of the Iranian leadership is one of those complications. The ultimate authority over its nuclear programme is Mr Khamenei, not Mr Ahmadinejad. There also indications that time is against Mr Obama. Admiral Mike Mullen, America’s top military officer, said recently that Iran already had sufficient nuclear material for one bomb.
The level of mistrust is also profound. Mr Javanfekr blamed America’s “hostile policy towards Iran” for the tensions and said that the country “will never forget” the 1953 US-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh.
Source:the times
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Israeli soldiers admit to deliberate killing of Gaza civilians
The Israeli army has been forced to open an investigation into the conduct of its troops in Gaza after damning testimony from its own front line soldiers revealed the killing of civilians and rules of engagement so lax that one combatant said that they amounted on occasion to “cold-blooded murder”.
The revelations, compiled by the head of an Israel military academy who declared that he was “shocked” at the findings, come as international rights groups are calling for independent inquiries into the conduct of both sides in the three-week Israeli offensive against Palestinian Islamists.
The soldiers’ testimonies include accounts of an unarmed old woman being shot at a distance of 100 yards, a woman and her two children being killed after Israeli soldiers ordered them from their house into the line of fire of a sniper and soldiers clearing houses by shooting anyone they encountered on sight.
“That’s the beauty of Gaza. You see a man walking, he doesn’t have to have a weapon, and you can shoot him,” one soldier told Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy, who asked him why a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be shot. I gathered the graduate students of the course who fought in Gaza, to hear their impressions from the fighting. I wasn't prepared for any of the stuff I heard there. I was shocked,” Mr Zamir said. “I think that the writing was on the wall, but we just didn't want to see it, we didn't want to face it."
One non-commissioned officer told Mr Zamir, himself a deputy battalion commander in the reserves, that the army “fired a lot of rounds and killed a lot of people in order for us not to be injured or shot at.
"When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up storey by storey… I call that murder. Each storey, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself – how is this reasonable?"
The same unnamed NCO said that his commanding officer ordered soldiers on to a rooftop to shoot an old woman crossing a main street during the fighting, which a Palestinian rights groups said left 1,434 people dead, 960 of them civilians.
"I don't know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don't know her story,” the NCO said. “I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder."
Another NCO recounted a military blunder that led to a mother and her two children being shot dead by an Israeli sniper. "We had taken over the house… and the family was released and told to go right. A mother and two children got confused and went left… The sniper on the roof wasn't told that this was okay and that he shouldn't shoot… you can say he just did what he was told… he was told not to let anyone approach the left flank and he shot at them.
"I don't know whether he first shot at their feet or not, but he killed them," the soldier said.
The soldiers’ accounts were submitted anonymously at a meeting at the academy around a month ago. The Israel army said that it had started an investigation, but that this was the first time it had heard such testimony, despite having debriefed troops itself.
Breaking The Silence, an organisation of former soldiers who gather witness accounts from troops in the Palestinian territories, said that its own investigation into Operation Cast Lead, as the war was known in Israel, had revealed a similar picture of the fighting.
“It’s definitely in line with what we are hearing,” said one of the researchers.
Another disturbing element reported by the soldiers was the role of military rabbis in distributing booklets that framed the fighting as a religious war. “All these articles had a clear message: we are the Jewish people, we have come to the land by miraculous means, and now we have to fight to remove the Gentiles who are getting in our way and preventing us from occupying the Holy Land… a great many soldiers had a feeling throughout this operation of a religious war,” said one soldier.
There were also accounts of soldiers being ordered to throw all the furniture out of Palestinians’ homes as they were taken over.
“We simply threw everything out the windows to make room and order. The entire contents of the house flew out the windows: refrigerator, plates, furniture. The order was to remove the entire contents of the house.”
Source:the times
The revelations, compiled by the head of an Israel military academy who declared that he was “shocked” at the findings, come as international rights groups are calling for independent inquiries into the conduct of both sides in the three-week Israeli offensive against Palestinian Islamists.
The soldiers’ testimonies include accounts of an unarmed old woman being shot at a distance of 100 yards, a woman and her two children being killed after Israeli soldiers ordered them from their house into the line of fire of a sniper and soldiers clearing houses by shooting anyone they encountered on sight.
“That’s the beauty of Gaza. You see a man walking, he doesn’t have to have a weapon, and you can shoot him,” one soldier told Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy, who asked him why a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be shot. I gathered the graduate students of the course who fought in Gaza, to hear their impressions from the fighting. I wasn't prepared for any of the stuff I heard there. I was shocked,” Mr Zamir said. “I think that the writing was on the wall, but we just didn't want to see it, we didn't want to face it."
One non-commissioned officer told Mr Zamir, himself a deputy battalion commander in the reserves, that the army “fired a lot of rounds and killed a lot of people in order for us not to be injured or shot at.
"When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up storey by storey… I call that murder. Each storey, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself – how is this reasonable?"
The same unnamed NCO said that his commanding officer ordered soldiers on to a rooftop to shoot an old woman crossing a main street during the fighting, which a Palestinian rights groups said left 1,434 people dead, 960 of them civilians.
"I don't know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don't know her story,” the NCO said. “I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder."
Another NCO recounted a military blunder that led to a mother and her two children being shot dead by an Israeli sniper. "We had taken over the house… and the family was released and told to go right. A mother and two children got confused and went left… The sniper on the roof wasn't told that this was okay and that he shouldn't shoot… you can say he just did what he was told… he was told not to let anyone approach the left flank and he shot at them.
"I don't know whether he first shot at their feet or not, but he killed them," the soldier said.
The soldiers’ accounts were submitted anonymously at a meeting at the academy around a month ago. The Israel army said that it had started an investigation, but that this was the first time it had heard such testimony, despite having debriefed troops itself.
Breaking The Silence, an organisation of former soldiers who gather witness accounts from troops in the Palestinian territories, said that its own investigation into Operation Cast Lead, as the war was known in Israel, had revealed a similar picture of the fighting.
“It’s definitely in line with what we are hearing,” said one of the researchers.
Another disturbing element reported by the soldiers was the role of military rabbis in distributing booklets that framed the fighting as a religious war. “All these articles had a clear message: we are the Jewish people, we have come to the land by miraculous means, and now we have to fight to remove the Gentiles who are getting in our way and preventing us from occupying the Holy Land… a great many soldiers had a feeling throughout this operation of a religious war,” said one soldier.
There were also accounts of soldiers being ordered to throw all the furniture out of Palestinians’ homes as they were taken over.
“We simply threw everything out the windows to make room and order. The entire contents of the house flew out the windows: refrigerator, plates, furniture. The order was to remove the entire contents of the house.”
Source:the times
Josef Fritzl sentenced to life for murder of child
Josef Fritzl is likely to spend the rest of his life in a mental institution after an Austrian jury convicted him today of murdering one of the seven children he fathered by his own daughter.
It was the first in a string of guilty verdicts against the 73-year-old tyrant, who kept his daughter Elisabeth locked up as a sex slave in a dark, rat-infested cellar for 24 years. He was also found guilty of rape, sequestration, grievous assault and enslavement.
Among the seven children Elisabeth bore were twin boys born in 1996, one of whom, Michael, died after a few days. Fritzl, found guilty of "murder by neglect", disposed of his corpse in a domestic boiler.
After a four-day trial, Fritzl told the court that he accepted the sentence, meaning that it will come into effect immediately without any appeal.
"After confessing to 3,000 instances of rapes, 24 years of captivity in a cellar plus murder, it’s obvious that such a sentence will be handed down," his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, told reporters outside the courtroom after Fritzl was driven away. "Obviously, he thinks this sentence is fair."
A court official, Franz Cutka, said that Fritzl could theoretically be released in 15 years - or 14 years including time already served - if doctors considered him cured and a panel of judges ruled that he had been punished enough. It is considered far more likely that he will die either in a pyschiatric hospital or mainstream prison.
On Monday Fritzl pleaded not guilty to the most serious charges - those of murder and enslavement - apparently hoping that he could get out of prison within a few years.
But he abruptly changed his plea yesterday, accepting his guilt on all counts, although under the Austrian judicial system the jury still had to consider his guilt and assess his punishment, which took them only three hours.
In his closing statement to the jury, Mr Mayer explained his client's change of heart: his resistance crumbled after he caught sight of his daughter Elisabeth during her secret visit to the courtroom on Tuesday
Mr Mayer, who has received repeated death threats for his decision to defend Fritzl, told jurors: "It was a meeting of eyes that changed his mind. Josef Fritzl recognised that Elisabeth was in court and, from this point on, you could see [him] going pale and he broke down."
At the same time Fritzl himself offered his first clear public apology for his crimes. "I am sorry from the bottom of my heart," he told the jury. "I cannot take back what I did."
"Don’t believe him," replied Christiane Burkheiser, the chief prosecutor. "He’s shown his true face in trying to exploit people’s gullibility ... It was murder by neglect and that demands the maximum sentence."
Friztl’s demeanour during his trial, when he at first tried to prevent himself being photographed with a document file, marked a dramatic break with the image of strength and control he displayed to the outside world throughout the period of abuse and even after it was exposed.
While raping Elisabeth at will in the secret basement dungeon, Fritzl posed as the father of an everyday household back upstairs, where he slept at night with his wife, Rosemarie.
The act was apparently so successful that Rosemarie had no inkling of her husband’s double life and believed that Elisabeth had simply run off to join a sect.
Fritzl also had little trouble playing the respectable electrical engineer while keeping his daughter and her children as prisoners. "Do you think I could have held grill parties in the garden if I’d thought about them?" Fritzl asked his psychiatrist, Adelheid Kastner.
According to Ms Kastner, Fritzl knew of his evil side and had a mental dysfunction that would not lessen with age.
Fritzl’s severe personality disorder is rooted in the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother, the psychiatrist said.
Born in Amstetten, a nondescript town west of Vienna, on April 9, 1935, Fritzl was constantly beaten and had few friends. In later life he turned from victim to perpetrator, developing a "massive need for power" which soon became sexual.
Fritzl was emotionally stunted, the psychiatrist told the court. "He is aware - he says so himself - that he has an evil side. He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under control. But as soon as he loosens his grip everything erupts out," she said.
Ms Kastner asked him why he had chosen Elisabeth, out of his seven legitimate children, as his victim: "His reply was, 'Because she was most like me. She was as stubborn me, as strong as me. The stronger your opponent, the bigger the victory.' "
Source:the times
It was the first in a string of guilty verdicts against the 73-year-old tyrant, who kept his daughter Elisabeth locked up as a sex slave in a dark, rat-infested cellar for 24 years. He was also found guilty of rape, sequestration, grievous assault and enslavement.
Among the seven children Elisabeth bore were twin boys born in 1996, one of whom, Michael, died after a few days. Fritzl, found guilty of "murder by neglect", disposed of his corpse in a domestic boiler.
After a four-day trial, Fritzl told the court that he accepted the sentence, meaning that it will come into effect immediately without any appeal.
"After confessing to 3,000 instances of rapes, 24 years of captivity in a cellar plus murder, it’s obvious that such a sentence will be handed down," his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, told reporters outside the courtroom after Fritzl was driven away. "Obviously, he thinks this sentence is fair."
A court official, Franz Cutka, said that Fritzl could theoretically be released in 15 years - or 14 years including time already served - if doctors considered him cured and a panel of judges ruled that he had been punished enough. It is considered far more likely that he will die either in a pyschiatric hospital or mainstream prison.
On Monday Fritzl pleaded not guilty to the most serious charges - those of murder and enslavement - apparently hoping that he could get out of prison within a few years.
But he abruptly changed his plea yesterday, accepting his guilt on all counts, although under the Austrian judicial system the jury still had to consider his guilt and assess his punishment, which took them only three hours.
In his closing statement to the jury, Mr Mayer explained his client's change of heart: his resistance crumbled after he caught sight of his daughter Elisabeth during her secret visit to the courtroom on Tuesday
Mr Mayer, who has received repeated death threats for his decision to defend Fritzl, told jurors: "It was a meeting of eyes that changed his mind. Josef Fritzl recognised that Elisabeth was in court and, from this point on, you could see [him] going pale and he broke down."
At the same time Fritzl himself offered his first clear public apology for his crimes. "I am sorry from the bottom of my heart," he told the jury. "I cannot take back what I did."
"Don’t believe him," replied Christiane Burkheiser, the chief prosecutor. "He’s shown his true face in trying to exploit people’s gullibility ... It was murder by neglect and that demands the maximum sentence."
Friztl’s demeanour during his trial, when he at first tried to prevent himself being photographed with a document file, marked a dramatic break with the image of strength and control he displayed to the outside world throughout the period of abuse and even after it was exposed.
While raping Elisabeth at will in the secret basement dungeon, Fritzl posed as the father of an everyday household back upstairs, where he slept at night with his wife, Rosemarie.
The act was apparently so successful that Rosemarie had no inkling of her husband’s double life and believed that Elisabeth had simply run off to join a sect.
Fritzl also had little trouble playing the respectable electrical engineer while keeping his daughter and her children as prisoners. "Do you think I could have held grill parties in the garden if I’d thought about them?" Fritzl asked his psychiatrist, Adelheid Kastner.
According to Ms Kastner, Fritzl knew of his evil side and had a mental dysfunction that would not lessen with age.
Fritzl’s severe personality disorder is rooted in the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother, the psychiatrist said.
Born in Amstetten, a nondescript town west of Vienna, on April 9, 1935, Fritzl was constantly beaten and had few friends. In later life he turned from victim to perpetrator, developing a "massive need for power" which soon became sexual.
Fritzl was emotionally stunted, the psychiatrist told the court. "He is aware - he says so himself - that he has an evil side. He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under control. But as soon as he loosens his grip everything erupts out," she said.
Ms Kastner asked him why he had chosen Elisabeth, out of his seven legitimate children, as his victim: "His reply was, 'Because she was most like me. She was as stubborn me, as strong as me. The stronger your opponent, the bigger the victory.' "
Source:the times
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Josef Fritzl changes plea to guilty on all charges
Josef Fritzl today dramatically changed his plea to guilty to all charges, including murder for which he faces a life sentence.
The 73-year-old retired electrical engineer admitted enslaving his teenage daughter Elisabeth from 1984 to 2008 in a soundproofed dungeon under his house, and in 1996 murdering one of the seven children he fathered by her by failing to take the newborn twin boy to a doctor when it developed breathing difficulties.
When Judge Andrea Humer asked Fritzl in court what led him to change his plea, he pointed to Elisabeth’s evidence.
“My daughter’s videotaped testimony,“ he said. “I’m sorry.” At one point he referred to “my sick behaviour”.
Yesterday Fritzl was forced to watch a lengthy and harrowing video testimony recorded by Elisabeth, detailing what he had done to her and the emotional and physical impact it had had on her.
One Austrian newspaper, the Kurier, has alleged that Elisabeth herself was present in the courtroom in person yesterday, sitting in disguise. She reportedly sat silently at the back watching her father and then left through a side door. If true, it could have piled emotional pressure on Fritzl, who professes to love her.
A court spokesman has however refused to confirm the report. BBC reporters said that there were people present in a private viewing gallery yesterday, but that it was not clear who they were.
The court also heard evidence yesterday afternoon from a neo-natal expert on whether Fritzl was indeed responsible for the death of newborn Michael, whose twin brother survived.
“I plead guilty to the crimes I’ve been charged with,” said Fritzl at the start of the day’s proceedings.
“When I saw the video tapes I realised for the first time how cruel I was to Elisabeth.
"I don’t know why I have not seen the baby would have needed help. I just overlooked it. I thought the little one would survive. I just want to say that it happened by accident and that I never planned it.”
In another departure, Fritzl entered the courtroom this time with his face uncovered, unlike the previous two days when he had hidden behind a blue lever-arch folder and refused to respond to media questions.
He had already admitted incest, and pleaded partially guilty to raping his daughter, but until this morning was contesting the charges which carried the highest prison sentences. He has now changed his plea to fully guilty on the rape charge as well.
Dr Franz Cutka, the vice president of St Polten court in Austria where Fritzl is on trial, revealed yesterday that Fritzl is on suicide watch, with a psychiatrist on hand to talk to him during breaks in court proceedings.
After his dramatic plea change, the court went ahead with testimony from Adelheid Kastner, a psychiatrist who interviewed Fritzl extensively during the year before the trial and has written a 130-page report on his personality disorder.
“On the surface, everything functions smoothly. But deep down, his unfulfilled needs are simmering,” Kastner said.
“He is aware - he says so himself - that he has an evil side. He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under control. But as soon as he loosens his grip, everything erupts out."
Ms Kastner said that Fritzl's overwhelming need to dominate and control stemmed from his upbringing as the unwanted, unloved but intelligent child of a single mother. He had grown up determined to have somebody who belonged to him alone, she said. He was emotionally deficient but that he knew what he was doing what wrong.
“The danger is still very much there that he will reoffend if he is not treated,” Ms Kastner told the court.
“It is necessary that he continue being treated until he can no longer be classified as dangerous. Thus, the conditions are in place for him to be put in a psychiatric institute.”
Legal experts say the jury will still have to deliver verdicts despite Fritzl’s guilty pleas, although his confessions are grounds for a more lenient sentence.
After the psychiatrist’s testimony, the judges adjourned the trial until tomorrow morning. They will spend the afternoon compiling a list of questions, with simple yes or no answers, designed to lead the jury towards their decisions.
Closing statements from the prosecution and the defence will be heard tomorrow morning and the verdicts are expected in the afternoon.
Source:the times
The 73-year-old retired electrical engineer admitted enslaving his teenage daughter Elisabeth from 1984 to 2008 in a soundproofed dungeon under his house, and in 1996 murdering one of the seven children he fathered by her by failing to take the newborn twin boy to a doctor when it developed breathing difficulties.
When Judge Andrea Humer asked Fritzl in court what led him to change his plea, he pointed to Elisabeth’s evidence.
“My daughter’s videotaped testimony,“ he said. “I’m sorry.” At one point he referred to “my sick behaviour”.
Yesterday Fritzl was forced to watch a lengthy and harrowing video testimony recorded by Elisabeth, detailing what he had done to her and the emotional and physical impact it had had on her.
One Austrian newspaper, the Kurier, has alleged that Elisabeth herself was present in the courtroom in person yesterday, sitting in disguise. She reportedly sat silently at the back watching her father and then left through a side door. If true, it could have piled emotional pressure on Fritzl, who professes to love her.
A court spokesman has however refused to confirm the report. BBC reporters said that there were people present in a private viewing gallery yesterday, but that it was not clear who they were.
The court also heard evidence yesterday afternoon from a neo-natal expert on whether Fritzl was indeed responsible for the death of newborn Michael, whose twin brother survived.
“I plead guilty to the crimes I’ve been charged with,” said Fritzl at the start of the day’s proceedings.
“When I saw the video tapes I realised for the first time how cruel I was to Elisabeth.
"I don’t know why I have not seen the baby would have needed help. I just overlooked it. I thought the little one would survive. I just want to say that it happened by accident and that I never planned it.”
In another departure, Fritzl entered the courtroom this time with his face uncovered, unlike the previous two days when he had hidden behind a blue lever-arch folder and refused to respond to media questions.
He had already admitted incest, and pleaded partially guilty to raping his daughter, but until this morning was contesting the charges which carried the highest prison sentences. He has now changed his plea to fully guilty on the rape charge as well.
Dr Franz Cutka, the vice president of St Polten court in Austria where Fritzl is on trial, revealed yesterday that Fritzl is on suicide watch, with a psychiatrist on hand to talk to him during breaks in court proceedings.
After his dramatic plea change, the court went ahead with testimony from Adelheid Kastner, a psychiatrist who interviewed Fritzl extensively during the year before the trial and has written a 130-page report on his personality disorder.
“On the surface, everything functions smoothly. But deep down, his unfulfilled needs are simmering,” Kastner said.
“He is aware - he says so himself - that he has an evil side. He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under control. But as soon as he loosens his grip, everything erupts out."
Ms Kastner said that Fritzl's overwhelming need to dominate and control stemmed from his upbringing as the unwanted, unloved but intelligent child of a single mother. He had grown up determined to have somebody who belonged to him alone, she said. He was emotionally deficient but that he knew what he was doing what wrong.
“The danger is still very much there that he will reoffend if he is not treated,” Ms Kastner told the court.
“It is necessary that he continue being treated until he can no longer be classified as dangerous. Thus, the conditions are in place for him to be put in a psychiatric institute.”
Legal experts say the jury will still have to deliver verdicts despite Fritzl’s guilty pleas, although his confessions are grounds for a more lenient sentence.
After the psychiatrist’s testimony, the judges adjourned the trial until tomorrow morning. They will spend the afternoon compiling a list of questions, with simple yes or no answers, designed to lead the jury towards their decisions.
Closing statements from the prosecution and the defence will be heard tomorrow morning and the verdicts are expected in the afternoon.
Source:the times
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Taliban chief backs Afghan peace talks
THE TALIBAN leader, Mullah Omar, has given his approval for talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan and has allowed his representatives to attend Saudi-sponsored peace negotiations.
“Mullah Omar has given the green light to talks,” said one of the mediators, Abdullah Anas, a former friend of Osama Bin Laden who used to fight in Afghanistan but now lives in London.
One of those negotiating for the Afghan government confirmed: “It’s extremely sensitive but we have been in contact both with Mullah Omar’s direct representatives and commanders from the front line.”
The breakthrough emerged after President Barack Obama admitted that US-led forces are not winning the war in Afghanistan and called for negotiations with “moderate Taliban”. A big, big step has happened,” Anas said. “For the first time, there is a language of . . . peace on both sides.”
His words were echoed by the brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who has been attending talks on his behalf. “I have been meeting with Taliban for the last five days and I can tell you Obama’s words have created enormous optimism,” said Qayum Karzai. “There is no other way left but talks. All sides know that more fighting is not the way.”
As Britain and the US have increased troop numbers over the past two years, security has worsened, leading many to doubt the wisdom of sending in more.
A Sunday Times poll published today found that 64% of respondents favour talking to the Taliban to achieve a deal. Some 69% said the aim of stabilising Afghanistan was not sufficiently worthwhile to risk the lives of British troops and 64% thought the war could never be won.
Although observers question why the Taliban would agree to talks when they appear to have the upper hand in the conflict, Anas said its leaders knew they could not retake power without a bloodbath.
“Taliban are in a strong position now but that doesn’t mean they can control the state,” he said. “They are well aware that it’s a different situation to 1996 when they swept to power because Afghans saw them as bringing peace.”
Britain is also backing talks with the Taliban that could lead to their inclusion in the Afghan government and is pushing for a “reconciliation czar” to coordinate efforts.
“Economic development and a workable reconciliation strategy are as crucial as boots on the ground when it comes to dismantling the insurgency,” said David Miliband, the foreign secretary.
British death toll hits 150
A British soldier was killed in an explosion yesterday while on foot patrol in northern Helmand, Afghanistan. The soldier was from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Welsh Regiment. His death brings the number of British service personnel killed in the region to 150 since 2001. Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said: “We are saddened by this brave soldier’s death, and offer our heartfelt condolences to the soldier’s family and friends.”
Source:the times
“Mullah Omar has given the green light to talks,” said one of the mediators, Abdullah Anas, a former friend of Osama Bin Laden who used to fight in Afghanistan but now lives in London.
One of those negotiating for the Afghan government confirmed: “It’s extremely sensitive but we have been in contact both with Mullah Omar’s direct representatives and commanders from the front line.”
The breakthrough emerged after President Barack Obama admitted that US-led forces are not winning the war in Afghanistan and called for negotiations with “moderate Taliban”. A big, big step has happened,” Anas said. “For the first time, there is a language of . . . peace on both sides.”
His words were echoed by the brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who has been attending talks on his behalf. “I have been meeting with Taliban for the last five days and I can tell you Obama’s words have created enormous optimism,” said Qayum Karzai. “There is no other way left but talks. All sides know that more fighting is not the way.”
As Britain and the US have increased troop numbers over the past two years, security has worsened, leading many to doubt the wisdom of sending in more.
A Sunday Times poll published today found that 64% of respondents favour talking to the Taliban to achieve a deal. Some 69% said the aim of stabilising Afghanistan was not sufficiently worthwhile to risk the lives of British troops and 64% thought the war could never be won.
Although observers question why the Taliban would agree to talks when they appear to have the upper hand in the conflict, Anas said its leaders knew they could not retake power without a bloodbath.
“Taliban are in a strong position now but that doesn’t mean they can control the state,” he said. “They are well aware that it’s a different situation to 1996 when they swept to power because Afghans saw them as bringing peace.”
Britain is also backing talks with the Taliban that could lead to their inclusion in the Afghan government and is pushing for a “reconciliation czar” to coordinate efforts.
“Economic development and a workable reconciliation strategy are as crucial as boots on the ground when it comes to dismantling the insurgency,” said David Miliband, the foreign secretary.
British death toll hits 150
A British soldier was killed in an explosion yesterday while on foot patrol in northern Helmand, Afghanistan. The soldier was from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Welsh Regiment. His death brings the number of British service personnel killed in the region to 150 since 2001. Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said: “We are saddened by this brave soldier’s death, and offer our heartfelt condolences to the soldier’s family and friends.”
Source:the times
Tension rises in Pakistan
The fragile rule of government in Pakistan is looking increasingly unstable after Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader, was allowed to defy a house arrest order and join a protest march that has raised fears of a return to military leadership.
Hundreds of riot police surrounded Mr Sharif's house in the eastern city of Lahore this morning after negotiations with the government collapsed, despite the intervention of Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. Police moved in after the former Prime Minister gave a rousing speech to his supporters last night.
But despite the restrictions, officers later stood aside to allow Mr Sharif to join the "long march" to Islamabad, the capital, to demand the re-instatement of several judges.
Police had originally moved in after Mr Sharif urged supporters to take to the streets to "fight this obsolete system" of government
"The winds of change are blowing, and nobody can stop them," he said. "Whoever tries to stop them will be destroyed."
Mr Sharif was placed under house arrest for three days, with similar restrictions imposed on other oppostion leaders including Imran Khan, the former cricketer turned politician. Mr Khan's aides said he had evaded police and was in hiding, preparing to make his way to the capital.
Pakistani authorities have now sealed off both Islamabad and Lahore, blocking all major roads with cargo containers, and detained hundreds of lawyers and opposition activists trying to join the march.
The army says it has also brought re-enforcements to Islamabad from northwestern Pakistan, fuelling concerns that it is being distracted from the fight against al Qaeda and Taleban militants near the Afghan border.
“It may affect our fight against terrorists, but we don’t have any choice," Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, told reporters in Islamabad.
“The government cannot allow mass demonstrations in the capital because of the threat of violence,” he said. "I urge all Pakistanis not to join the long march as we have credible information that enemies of Pakistan could take advantage of the situation."
The breakdown of negotiations came after Mrs Clinton telephoned Mr Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the President, yesterday in the United States’ boldest effort yet to mediate in the crisis.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to India and Pakistan, had also spoken to both men last week, as had David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, and the U.S. and British ambassadors.
US and British officials fear the unrest is undermining counter-terrorism operations and could precipitate another military coup in a country that has been ruled by the army for more than half of its 61-year history.
Mr Zardari had agreed to lift direct rule of Punjab province – Mr Sharif’s political heartland – and to appeal a recent ban on Mr Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, holding elected office.
But the President refused to re-instate Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the former Chief Justice,who was sacked along with several other judges by Pervez Musharraf, the former President, in 2007.
Mr Zardari fears that Mr Chaudhry could challenge the legitimacy of his presidency, as well as an agreement signed by Mr Musharraf that quashed corruption charges against him.
Mr Sharif, who leads the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party, responded last night by vowing to go ahead with the “long march” despite the government’s attempts to block it.
“This is a flood of people. This flood will break all hurdles. This flood will, God willing, reach its destination,” he told his supporters.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Zardari, who took over the Pakistan People’s Party after the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007, and became President after Mr Musharraf resigned in August.
Farhatullah Babar, his spokesman, said: “We will continue efforts to defuse the present political tension through dialogue, reconciliation, respect for the Constitution and democratic principles.“ Analysts, however, said it was unlikely that the two sides could reach a negotiated compromise.
They also said Mr Zardari appeared to be losing the support of his own Pakistan People’s Party, because his attempts to stop the long march are so reminiscent of Mr Musharraf’s efforts to block similar protests in 2007.
Sherry Rehman became the latest of Bhutto’s former inner circle to abandon Mr Zardari yesterday when she resigned as Information Minister over restrictions placed on a private news channel.
A former journalist, Ms Rehman is believed to have told Mr Zardari that she could not defend his government’s policies. Last week, Raza Rabbani, a senior federal minister also quit his job. Both ministers had been publically humiliated by Mr Zardari.
Source:the times
Hundreds of riot police surrounded Mr Sharif's house in the eastern city of Lahore this morning after negotiations with the government collapsed, despite the intervention of Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. Police moved in after the former Prime Minister gave a rousing speech to his supporters last night.
But despite the restrictions, officers later stood aside to allow Mr Sharif to join the "long march" to Islamabad, the capital, to demand the re-instatement of several judges.
Police had originally moved in after Mr Sharif urged supporters to take to the streets to "fight this obsolete system" of government
"The winds of change are blowing, and nobody can stop them," he said. "Whoever tries to stop them will be destroyed."
Mr Sharif was placed under house arrest for three days, with similar restrictions imposed on other oppostion leaders including Imran Khan, the former cricketer turned politician. Mr Khan's aides said he had evaded police and was in hiding, preparing to make his way to the capital.
Pakistani authorities have now sealed off both Islamabad and Lahore, blocking all major roads with cargo containers, and detained hundreds of lawyers and opposition activists trying to join the march.
The army says it has also brought re-enforcements to Islamabad from northwestern Pakistan, fuelling concerns that it is being distracted from the fight against al Qaeda and Taleban militants near the Afghan border.
“It may affect our fight against terrorists, but we don’t have any choice," Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, told reporters in Islamabad.
“The government cannot allow mass demonstrations in the capital because of the threat of violence,” he said. "I urge all Pakistanis not to join the long march as we have credible information that enemies of Pakistan could take advantage of the situation."
The breakdown of negotiations came after Mrs Clinton telephoned Mr Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the President, yesterday in the United States’ boldest effort yet to mediate in the crisis.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to India and Pakistan, had also spoken to both men last week, as had David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, and the U.S. and British ambassadors.
US and British officials fear the unrest is undermining counter-terrorism operations and could precipitate another military coup in a country that has been ruled by the army for more than half of its 61-year history.
Mr Zardari had agreed to lift direct rule of Punjab province – Mr Sharif’s political heartland – and to appeal a recent ban on Mr Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, holding elected office.
But the President refused to re-instate Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the former Chief Justice,who was sacked along with several other judges by Pervez Musharraf, the former President, in 2007.
Mr Zardari fears that Mr Chaudhry could challenge the legitimacy of his presidency, as well as an agreement signed by Mr Musharraf that quashed corruption charges against him.
Mr Sharif, who leads the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party, responded last night by vowing to go ahead with the “long march” despite the government’s attempts to block it.
“This is a flood of people. This flood will break all hurdles. This flood will, God willing, reach its destination,” he told his supporters.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Zardari, who took over the Pakistan People’s Party after the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007, and became President after Mr Musharraf resigned in August.
Farhatullah Babar, his spokesman, said: “We will continue efforts to defuse the present political tension through dialogue, reconciliation, respect for the Constitution and democratic principles.“ Analysts, however, said it was unlikely that the two sides could reach a negotiated compromise.
They also said Mr Zardari appeared to be losing the support of his own Pakistan People’s Party, because his attempts to stop the long march are so reminiscent of Mr Musharraf’s efforts to block similar protests in 2007.
Sherry Rehman became the latest of Bhutto’s former inner circle to abandon Mr Zardari yesterday when she resigned as Information Minister over restrictions placed on a private news channel.
A former journalist, Ms Rehman is believed to have told Mr Zardari that she could not defend his government’s policies. Last week, Raza Rabbani, a senior federal minister also quit his job. Both ministers had been publically humiliated by Mr Zardari.
Source:the times
Price of alcohol could double
MINIMUM prices should be imposed on alcohol to curb binge drinking, the government’s top medical adviser will urge.
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson will tomorrow recommend a ban on drinks being sold for less than 50p per alcoholic unit when he delivers his annual report on the state of the nation’s health.
Such a move would particularly affect prices in supermarkets, which have been criticised for selling alcohol as loss leaders.
It would mean the minimum price of a 750ml bottle of Jacob’s Creek red wine, with 9.75 units of alcohol, would be £4.87 and of a 440ml can of Beck’s beer, with 2.2 units, at least £1.10.
The price increase would have most impact on strong, cheap drinks. Four 440ml cans of K cider, which contain nearly 15 units units of alcohol and are currently sold in Tesco for £3.13, would rise to £7.39, and a 70cl bottle of Smirnoff Red Label vodka with 26.25 units of alcohol, which is sold at Tesco for £11.19, would rise to £13.12.
The move would be welcomed by many medical professionals, with alcohol-related illnesses costing the NHS £3 billion a year. Some 400,000 people are admitted to hospital each year with drink-related problems, including 1,000 children below the age of 14.
Scotland is currently preparing legislation to set minimum prices for alcohol including banning two-for-one offers. The Scottish executive has discussed a minimum price of 40p a unit.
But ministers have repeatedly indicated they are reluctant to follow Scotland’s lead, fearing accusations of creating a “nanny state”. They have taken seriously evidence that the measure would have little impact on problem drinking.
Many Labour MPs are also likely to argue that it would not be in the party’s interests to alienate voters who are responsible drinkers by introducing huge price hikes, especially when households are already struggling to make ends meet because of the recession.
David Poley, the chief executive of the Portman Group, set up by drinks manufacturers to promote sensible drinking, said: “This will have a marginal effect on harmful drinkers, while making everyone pay more for a drink. Peer pressure and role modelling are more influential than the price of a drink.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We have not ruled out taking action on very cheap alcohol. Any decisions we make will take into account their wider economic impact during this difficult time.
We need to do more work on this to make sure any action we take is appropriate, fair and effective.”
However, where Scotland has led the way on public health issues, Westminster has often followed some time later — most significantly with the ban on smoking in public places.
Source:the times
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson will tomorrow recommend a ban on drinks being sold for less than 50p per alcoholic unit when he delivers his annual report on the state of the nation’s health.
Such a move would particularly affect prices in supermarkets, which have been criticised for selling alcohol as loss leaders.
It would mean the minimum price of a 750ml bottle of Jacob’s Creek red wine, with 9.75 units of alcohol, would be £4.87 and of a 440ml can of Beck’s beer, with 2.2 units, at least £1.10.
The price increase would have most impact on strong, cheap drinks. Four 440ml cans of K cider, which contain nearly 15 units units of alcohol and are currently sold in Tesco for £3.13, would rise to £7.39, and a 70cl bottle of Smirnoff Red Label vodka with 26.25 units of alcohol, which is sold at Tesco for £11.19, would rise to £13.12.
The move would be welcomed by many medical professionals, with alcohol-related illnesses costing the NHS £3 billion a year. Some 400,000 people are admitted to hospital each year with drink-related problems, including 1,000 children below the age of 14.
Scotland is currently preparing legislation to set minimum prices for alcohol including banning two-for-one offers. The Scottish executive has discussed a minimum price of 40p a unit.
But ministers have repeatedly indicated they are reluctant to follow Scotland’s lead, fearing accusations of creating a “nanny state”. They have taken seriously evidence that the measure would have little impact on problem drinking.
Many Labour MPs are also likely to argue that it would not be in the party’s interests to alienate voters who are responsible drinkers by introducing huge price hikes, especially when households are already struggling to make ends meet because of the recession.
David Poley, the chief executive of the Portman Group, set up by drinks manufacturers to promote sensible drinking, said: “This will have a marginal effect on harmful drinkers, while making everyone pay more for a drink. Peer pressure and role modelling are more influential than the price of a drink.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We have not ruled out taking action on very cheap alcohol. Any decisions we make will take into account their wider economic impact during this difficult time.
We need to do more work on this to make sure any action we take is appropriate, fair and effective.”
However, where Scotland has led the way on public health issues, Westminster has often followed some time later — most significantly with the ban on smoking in public places.
Source:the times
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Revealed: Taxi driver rapist John Worboys is Britain's most prolific sex attacker
The driver of a black cab convicted yesterday of sex attacks on a dozen women is believed to be Britain’s most prolific sex attacker.
John Worboys was found guilty of 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 female passengers. In one case he raped his victim. He was cleared of two counts of drugging women, but is thought to have attacked more than 500 during his 13-year career as a trusted licensed taxi driver.
A senior detective told The Times: "The truth is we’ll never know how many women Worboys attacked but it could easily be hundreds and hundreds."
Worboys, dressed in a grey suit and tie, put his face in his hands and shook his head as he stood in the dock. As the guilty verdict for rape was read out he said: "Oh my God," and wiped away tears before Mr Justice Penry-Davey told him to expect a "very substantial term of imprisonment". He then looked at a friend in the public gallery and shook his head in desbelief.
The former porn actor and stripper, who performed under the name of Terry the Minder at hen parties and gay venues, was arrested by police in the summer of 2007 but was freed to attack scores more women, at least 30 while he was on bail.
Senior officers have discovered that 12 women had gone to the Metropolitan Police before Worboys was charged to complain about a black cab driver trying to drug, sexually assault or generally pester them, but their claims were never linked.
Since his arrest, 75 more women have come forward to tell police they believe that Worboys attacked them too, including four from Dorset, where he had a flat and would sometimes take his taxi.
He was charged with attacking 14 women in a 16-month period after looking for potential victims coming out of nightclubs and pubs, Croydon Crown court was told.
Johanna Cutts, QC, for the prosecution, said that his intent "was to ensure that they were completely at his mercy and then to sexually molest them".
She added: "Having each girl alone in his cab was a start but this defendant, we say, wanted to ensure that there would be no struggle, no difficultly in achieving his aim. How did he do that? He did it by drugging them."
Once Worboys, 51, identified a victim he would offer her a cheap fare home before regaling her with a story about how he had won tens of thousands of pounds at a casino and inviting her to join him in a celabratory drink.
Worboys kept his "tool kit", which included powerful prescribed and over-the-counter sedatives, a bag of cash, alcoholic drinks, including champagne, wine, whisky, gin and vodka, condoms and gloves. He would crush the pills before putting them in the drinks and then drive around waiting for the drugs to take effect. Journeys that should have taken minutes in the early hours of the morning took more than an hour.
He would stop his taxi and get in the back to chat to the women, clumsily bringing the conversation around to sex. He told the court that he simply wanted female attention because his mother had died when he was 13 and he was starved of "cuddles".
He would ask if they would have sex for £1,000, as a woman once told him she had. He would also offer them money to perform sex acts. It was, he repeatedly told the jury, "just my banter" and he did not mean anything by it.
Worboys would persuade them to have a drink, which he had spiked with a powerful sedative drug and then assault them on the back seat of his cab before taking them home. The claims of 12 women who went to the police between 2003 and February last year would have been looked at by officers from the Met's much vaunted Sapphire Units — dedicated teams deployed across London to deal only with rape and sexual assault allegations. But they failed to link the attacks.
A senior officer told The Times: “We are really in a lot of trouble over this. Some heads are on the block. Some women were not treated well by police, some were told to 'F*** off, black cab drivers don’t do that sort of thing’. Others were not taken seriously because they were drunk.”
Some officers were influenced by a police chiefs’ report in 2006 that found little evidence of date-rape drug attacks.
The officer added: “We have been told time and again that drug-assisted rape doesn’t happen. Well it does. We should have identified this series of attacks earlier.”
Now, after a seven-month review, control of Sapphire Units is being taken away from borough level and being placed under the umbrella of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command at Scotland Yard. The Met says that the move is coincidental.
When police arrested Worboys in July 2007 after he was caught on CCTV dropping a student off, police partly bungled the operation and he was freed on bail before a decision was made not to take the matter further. This case has been voluntarily sent to the Independent Police Complaints Commission by the Met.
Although senior officers accept that the 12 attacks should have been linked after he was arrested for assaulting the student they say that it would have been difficult to do so beforehand.
Since then the policy at Sapphire Units has been changed and all serious sexual offences are now referred to the Crown Prosecution Service.
In February last year, after three attacks were finally linked, the case was handed to the Homicide and Serious Crime Command headed by Detective Chief Inspector Tim Grattan-Kane. Within six days Worboys was in custody, only hours after targeting his last victim on Valentine’s Day last year.
Officers made a public appeal to discover if any women had been attacked. A counsellor at a rape crisis centre remembered one woman mentioning being assaulted by a black cab driver and called police. After the victim positively identified Warboys police went to his house in Rotherhithe, southeast London, and arrested him as he lay in bed.
They had to make sure that he did not read the appeal and get rid of his rape kit and destroy any forensic evidence.
Adjourning sentencing until April for psychiatric reports, Justice Penry-Davey told Worboys: “You have heard already that I do not intend to sentence you today. I am putting the case back for a pre-sentencing report and also a psychiatric report. You must be under no illusion that this case requires and will get a very substantial term of imprisonment.
“You must not understand from my putting the case back that any more lenient course could be taken. It is important I know as much as possible about you before I decide what the appropriate sentence is going to be.”
Speaking outside the court yesterday, Detective Inspector Dave Reid, said: "I want to praise the courage of every single one of the women who came forward to police during this inquiry. It has been a major inquiry for the Metropolitan police.
"In particular I would like to thank all 14 women who gave evidence in the crown court over the past eight weeks."
Det Insp Reid will now be writing to all 85 women who came forward, telling them of the conviction and praising their courage. The Met has now set up a freephone number for women who believe they may have been attacked by John Worboys. The number is 0800 121 4441.
Source:the times
John Worboys was found guilty of 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 female passengers. In one case he raped his victim. He was cleared of two counts of drugging women, but is thought to have attacked more than 500 during his 13-year career as a trusted licensed taxi driver.
A senior detective told The Times: "The truth is we’ll never know how many women Worboys attacked but it could easily be hundreds and hundreds."
Worboys, dressed in a grey suit and tie, put his face in his hands and shook his head as he stood in the dock. As the guilty verdict for rape was read out he said: "Oh my God," and wiped away tears before Mr Justice Penry-Davey told him to expect a "very substantial term of imprisonment". He then looked at a friend in the public gallery and shook his head in desbelief.
The former porn actor and stripper, who performed under the name of Terry the Minder at hen parties and gay venues, was arrested by police in the summer of 2007 but was freed to attack scores more women, at least 30 while he was on bail.
Senior officers have discovered that 12 women had gone to the Metropolitan Police before Worboys was charged to complain about a black cab driver trying to drug, sexually assault or generally pester them, but their claims were never linked.
Since his arrest, 75 more women have come forward to tell police they believe that Worboys attacked them too, including four from Dorset, where he had a flat and would sometimes take his taxi.
He was charged with attacking 14 women in a 16-month period after looking for potential victims coming out of nightclubs and pubs, Croydon Crown court was told.
Johanna Cutts, QC, for the prosecution, said that his intent "was to ensure that they were completely at his mercy and then to sexually molest them".
She added: "Having each girl alone in his cab was a start but this defendant, we say, wanted to ensure that there would be no struggle, no difficultly in achieving his aim. How did he do that? He did it by drugging them."
Once Worboys, 51, identified a victim he would offer her a cheap fare home before regaling her with a story about how he had won tens of thousands of pounds at a casino and inviting her to join him in a celabratory drink.
Worboys kept his "tool kit", which included powerful prescribed and over-the-counter sedatives, a bag of cash, alcoholic drinks, including champagne, wine, whisky, gin and vodka, condoms and gloves. He would crush the pills before putting them in the drinks and then drive around waiting for the drugs to take effect. Journeys that should have taken minutes in the early hours of the morning took more than an hour.
He would stop his taxi and get in the back to chat to the women, clumsily bringing the conversation around to sex. He told the court that he simply wanted female attention because his mother had died when he was 13 and he was starved of "cuddles".
He would ask if they would have sex for £1,000, as a woman once told him she had. He would also offer them money to perform sex acts. It was, he repeatedly told the jury, "just my banter" and he did not mean anything by it.
Worboys would persuade them to have a drink, which he had spiked with a powerful sedative drug and then assault them on the back seat of his cab before taking them home. The claims of 12 women who went to the police between 2003 and February last year would have been looked at by officers from the Met's much vaunted Sapphire Units — dedicated teams deployed across London to deal only with rape and sexual assault allegations. But they failed to link the attacks.
A senior officer told The Times: “We are really in a lot of trouble over this. Some heads are on the block. Some women were not treated well by police, some were told to 'F*** off, black cab drivers don’t do that sort of thing’. Others were not taken seriously because they were drunk.”
Some officers were influenced by a police chiefs’ report in 2006 that found little evidence of date-rape drug attacks.
The officer added: “We have been told time and again that drug-assisted rape doesn’t happen. Well it does. We should have identified this series of attacks earlier.”
Now, after a seven-month review, control of Sapphire Units is being taken away from borough level and being placed under the umbrella of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command at Scotland Yard. The Met says that the move is coincidental.
When police arrested Worboys in July 2007 after he was caught on CCTV dropping a student off, police partly bungled the operation and he was freed on bail before a decision was made not to take the matter further. This case has been voluntarily sent to the Independent Police Complaints Commission by the Met.
Although senior officers accept that the 12 attacks should have been linked after he was arrested for assaulting the student they say that it would have been difficult to do so beforehand.
Since then the policy at Sapphire Units has been changed and all serious sexual offences are now referred to the Crown Prosecution Service.
In February last year, after three attacks were finally linked, the case was handed to the Homicide and Serious Crime Command headed by Detective Chief Inspector Tim Grattan-Kane. Within six days Worboys was in custody, only hours after targeting his last victim on Valentine’s Day last year.
Officers made a public appeal to discover if any women had been attacked. A counsellor at a rape crisis centre remembered one woman mentioning being assaulted by a black cab driver and called police. After the victim positively identified Warboys police went to his house in Rotherhithe, southeast London, and arrested him as he lay in bed.
They had to make sure that he did not read the appeal and get rid of his rape kit and destroy any forensic evidence.
Adjourning sentencing until April for psychiatric reports, Justice Penry-Davey told Worboys: “You have heard already that I do not intend to sentence you today. I am putting the case back for a pre-sentencing report and also a psychiatric report. You must be under no illusion that this case requires and will get a very substantial term of imprisonment.
“You must not understand from my putting the case back that any more lenient course could be taken. It is important I know as much as possible about you before I decide what the appropriate sentence is going to be.”
Speaking outside the court yesterday, Detective Inspector Dave Reid, said: "I want to praise the courage of every single one of the women who came forward to police during this inquiry. It has been a major inquiry for the Metropolitan police.
"In particular I would like to thank all 14 women who gave evidence in the crown court over the past eight weeks."
Det Insp Reid will now be writing to all 85 women who came forward, telling them of the conviction and praising their courage. The Met has now set up a freephone number for women who believe they may have been attacked by John Worboys. The number is 0800 121 4441.
Source:the times
German boy seized after threatening to blow up school on Hitler's birthday
Police may have averted another massacre as a series of hoax threats closed schools and spread fear across Germany yesterday.
Investigators in the town of Ennepetal, near Düsseldorf, discovered gunpowder, swords, knives and imitation weapons and airguns when they raided a teenager’s home.
The police, on alert after Wednesday’s school shootings, also discovered bomb-making instructions in the teenager’s bedroom in nearby Schwelm. There were reports that he had used school computers to download them.
The 17-year-old boy was detained after he allegedly threatened to blow up his school on April 20, the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday and the Columbine school shootings in America.
The teenager was arrested at the Reichenbach secondary school during lessons on Thursday after he allegedly told fellow pupils that he would destroy the building ten years to the day after the Columbine deaths.
Police were alerted on Monday, two days before another 17-year-old, Tim Kretschmer, walked into the Albertville school in Winnenden and shot nine pupils and three teachers before killing three more people and then himself.
The Reichenbach pupil, who according to German media reports had been expelled from a previous school after threatening a teacher and had told a female classmate that he did not want to live to see his 18th birthday, denied that his remarks were anything more than a joke.
Police said that they were taking the threats seriously and that chemicals discovered at his home would have been enough to construct explosives.
The teenager was in psychiatric care last night. Michael Eckhardt, the mayor of Ennepetal, said that he was “happy and fortunate that this catastrophe has been averted”.
Elsewhere, a series of copycat threats of violence in other schools in the days since Kretschmer’s killing spree threatened to create panic in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Officers with sniffer dogs searched a school in Ilsfeld, 20 miles from Winnenden, after a threat appeared on an internet chat room in the early hours of the morning.
In the northern state of Lower Saxony police arrested a 21-year-old man near the town of Soltau who posted an internet chat-room message saying: “I have a gun and I’m going to kill everybody.”
Peter Hoppe, a police spokesman, said that the man did not possess any weapons and claimed to have been joking. The arrests follow at least six hoax threats in Baden-Württemberg, the state where Winnenden lies, on Thursday. Yesterday an 18-year-old was also arrested after threatening a bloodbath at a school in the south of Holland.
Meanwhile, as police continued to search for a motive for Wednesday’s murders, the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg admitted that an internet message supposedly posted by Kretschmer was a hoax.
Officially, a police spokesman maintained that they were still investigating the authenticity of the post, in which Kretschmer supposedly said he was “fed up with this bloody life”, but Heribert Rech said that he now thought they had been fooled: “Some crazy person obviously put out this dreadful false message,” he told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
In Winnenden, where hundreds of candles burnt outside the Albertville school gates, one teenage girl expressed frustration over the apparent hoax.
“It is bad that they said it was true if they didn’t know for sure,” she said. Far more widespread, however, was a growing antagonism towards the international media attention that has descended on the normally quiet town since Wednesday.
A community that was initially prepared to share its grief and shock has begun to close ranks, collectively asking to be left alone to come to terms with the events.
Winnender Zeitung, a local newspaper, ran an editorial calling on the media to respect Wednesday’s victims and said: “Enough is enough, dear colleagues. For two days now we have politely answered the questions and requests from papers and broadcasters from Canada and New Zealand. But the requests, especially from some of our German colleagues, are becoming insufferable.” It called on reporters to allow enough distance to enable the people to mourn.
Red Cross workers have opened counselling centres in the town and a hotline that was set up after the shootings has taken more than 1,000 calls. It was announced yesterday that Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, would attend a memorial service in Winnenden on March 21.
Source:the times
Investigators in the town of Ennepetal, near Düsseldorf, discovered gunpowder, swords, knives and imitation weapons and airguns when they raided a teenager’s home.
The police, on alert after Wednesday’s school shootings, also discovered bomb-making instructions in the teenager’s bedroom in nearby Schwelm. There were reports that he had used school computers to download them.
The 17-year-old boy was detained after he allegedly threatened to blow up his school on April 20, the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday and the Columbine school shootings in America.
The teenager was arrested at the Reichenbach secondary school during lessons on Thursday after he allegedly told fellow pupils that he would destroy the building ten years to the day after the Columbine deaths.
Police were alerted on Monday, two days before another 17-year-old, Tim Kretschmer, walked into the Albertville school in Winnenden and shot nine pupils and three teachers before killing three more people and then himself.
The Reichenbach pupil, who according to German media reports had been expelled from a previous school after threatening a teacher and had told a female classmate that he did not want to live to see his 18th birthday, denied that his remarks were anything more than a joke.
Police said that they were taking the threats seriously and that chemicals discovered at his home would have been enough to construct explosives.
The teenager was in psychiatric care last night. Michael Eckhardt, the mayor of Ennepetal, said that he was “happy and fortunate that this catastrophe has been averted”.
Elsewhere, a series of copycat threats of violence in other schools in the days since Kretschmer’s killing spree threatened to create panic in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Officers with sniffer dogs searched a school in Ilsfeld, 20 miles from Winnenden, after a threat appeared on an internet chat room in the early hours of the morning.
In the northern state of Lower Saxony police arrested a 21-year-old man near the town of Soltau who posted an internet chat-room message saying: “I have a gun and I’m going to kill everybody.”
Peter Hoppe, a police spokesman, said that the man did not possess any weapons and claimed to have been joking. The arrests follow at least six hoax threats in Baden-Württemberg, the state where Winnenden lies, on Thursday. Yesterday an 18-year-old was also arrested after threatening a bloodbath at a school in the south of Holland.
Meanwhile, as police continued to search for a motive for Wednesday’s murders, the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg admitted that an internet message supposedly posted by Kretschmer was a hoax.
Officially, a police spokesman maintained that they were still investigating the authenticity of the post, in which Kretschmer supposedly said he was “fed up with this bloody life”, but Heribert Rech said that he now thought they had been fooled: “Some crazy person obviously put out this dreadful false message,” he told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
In Winnenden, where hundreds of candles burnt outside the Albertville school gates, one teenage girl expressed frustration over the apparent hoax.
“It is bad that they said it was true if they didn’t know for sure,” she said. Far more widespread, however, was a growing antagonism towards the international media attention that has descended on the normally quiet town since Wednesday.
A community that was initially prepared to share its grief and shock has begun to close ranks, collectively asking to be left alone to come to terms with the events.
Winnender Zeitung, a local newspaper, ran an editorial calling on the media to respect Wednesday’s victims and said: “Enough is enough, dear colleagues. For two days now we have politely answered the questions and requests from papers and broadcasters from Canada and New Zealand. But the requests, especially from some of our German colleagues, are becoming insufferable.” It called on reporters to allow enough distance to enable the people to mourn.
Red Cross workers have opened counselling centres in the town and a hotline that was set up after the shootings has taken more than 1,000 calls. It was announced yesterday that Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, would attend a memorial service in Winnenden on March 21.
Source:the times
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