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Warplane wonder

 Dornier 17The Dornier 17, known as the flying pencil, were employed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain
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The discovery of a unique German warplane off the Kent coast left experts “incredulous”. New images suggest the Dornier 17 is still intact and there are hopes that it will go on show.

They called it “the flying pencil”: a slim, elegant aircraft originally designed in 1934 to carry passengers, which by the start of World War II had been converted into a deadly weapon of war.

The Dornier 17 was one of the mainstays of the Luftwaffe bombing fleets which began their assault on British cities and RAF airfields in the summer of 1940, in what became known as the Battle of Britain.

A total of 1,700 Dorniers were built, but the plane discovered in Goodwin Sands is thought to be the last remaining one.

Dornier 17 Z-2, serial number 1160, of number 7 squadron, 3 Group, third Bomber Wing, was shot down on 26 August 1940 and made an emergency landing in the sea just off the Kent coast.

Two of the four crew members died, two – including the pilot – survived to become prisoners of war.

“It’s one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century”

Ian Thirsk RAF Museum

The wreck of the plane sank some 50 ft (15.24m) to the bottom, turning turtle as it did so, and came to rest on its back on the notoriously shifting Goodwin Sands, which soon covered it.

Last month, a team on board the Port of London Authority (PLA) vessel, Yantlet, set out from Ramsgate to survey the wreck using the latest high-tech sonar equipment.

The survey confirmed an earlier finding that the plane has now been uncovered by the sand, as 70 years of time and tide have done their work.

“The really good news today is that we’ve got some very clear imagery,” said John Dillon-Leetch, the PLA’s deputy port hydrographer.

“The wreck is there. It seems to be still intact, and we’ll find out more information over the next few days as we process and look down deeper into the data we have.”

The BBC has been given exclusive access to the resulting 3D images, which are startling in their clarity.

Sonar image of Dornier 17 Copyright: PORT OF LONDON/RESONThe twin-engined German wartime bomber is said to be largely intact

The most important thing they show is that the aircraft’s structure suffered no catastrophic damage during its final landing. The Dornier is largely intact, except for damage to the forward cockpit and observation windows.

The survey was carried out for the RAF Museum at Hendon in North London. The museum’s head of collections, Ian Thirsk, was on board the Yantlet.

When he first learnt of the plane’s existence he was, he says, “incredulous”.

“This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it’s linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be overemphasised, nationally and internationally. It’s one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century.”

Very few Dorniers survived the war.

“They were either all shot down or they were scrapped. After the war the German people didn’t want to remember, so aircraft like that were destroyed,” he says.

Some continued to fly with the Finnish airforce until the early 1950s, but they too were eventually scrapped.

The plan now is to raise the aircraft and put it on show at Hendon.

Dornier 17Known as ‘The Flying Pencil’Originally designed in 1934 to carry passengersBecame a mainstay of the Luftwaffe bombing fleetsAbout 1,700 were builtTwin engine, twin fin configurationMost numerous model was the Dornier 17 ZDornier 17 Z had a wingspan of 59ft (18m), and a length of 52ft (15.8m)The maximum bomb load of the Dornier 17 Z-2 was slightly over 2,000lbs

The museum, which is funded by the Ministry of Defence, is bidding for cash from heritage organisations to cover the costs.

The work has become urgent because recreational divers have now discovered the wreck and already souvenir hunters have started taking bits of it to the surface. In doing so they risk prosecution, since the wreck is MoD property.

Though the museum has complete examples of the other German bombers that took part in the Blitz, including a Heinkel 111 and a Junkers 88 – as well as fighter aircraft like the Spitfire, Hurricane and Messerschmitt 109 – it has only a few Dornier fragments salvaged from wrecked aircraft.

The salvaged plane will form part of a new Battle of Britain Beacon display which will replace the museum’s present gallery devoted to the battle.

But though the wreck will be conserved it will not be restored to its original appearance.

That, says Mr Thirsk, would involve so much work and replacement of damaged parts that the result would be nothing more than a replica.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

England bans under-18 sunbed use

Teenage boy on a sunbedTeenagers should no longer be allowed to use sunbeds
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Businesses in England that allow under-18s to use sunbeds risk being fined up to £20,000 under new legislation.

The Sunbed (Regulation) Act 2010 stops young people using sunbeds in places including salons, leisure centres, gyms and hotels.

However, there will be no requirement for businesses to ask for ID, or to keep a register of customers.

Cancer experts said the move would help protect children from developing skin cancer in later life.

Figures show that, on average, 6% of 11 to 17-year-olds in England use sunbeds, rising to 50% of 15 to 17-year-olds girls in Liverpool and Sunderland.

Data published by Cancer Research UK earlier this week showed more than two people under the age of 35 are diagnosed with malignant melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – every day in the UK.

It will be up to local authorities to decide how to check businesses are complying with the law, using measures such as unannounced spot-checks or pre-planned visits.

Members of the public will also be able to report concerns over a business allowing children and adolescents to use sunbeds.

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) said the ban would help protect young people, but said it did not go far enough.

“This law will go a long way to protecting children from developing malignant melanoma in later life”

Institute of Cancer Research

It called for similar measures to those in Wales, where use of unsupervised machines is also banned and businesses are required to provide health information and protective eyewear to customers.

Andrew Griffiths of the CIEH, said: “We are extremely pleased to see the Act coming into force and believe it will give valuable protection to young people who are particularly vulnerable when it comes to contracting skin cancer.”

Scotland banned under-18 sunbed use in 2008. The Northern Ireland Assembly has also proposed a ban.

Announcing the English legislative change, public health minister Anne Milton said: “This new law will go some way to help reduce one of the biggest cancers among 15 to 24-year-olds.

“We want to protect under-18s from the dangers of sunbeds and reduce the number of young people getting skin cancer.”

Cancer Research UK’s director of policy, Sarah Woolnough, said: “The World Health Organization has classified sunbed use in its highest risk category for cancer, alongside tobacco.

“We encourage people to take care in the sun and avoid using sunbeds.”

Dr Elizabeth Rapley, from the Institute of Cancer Research, added: “Using sunbeds under the age of 35 increases the risk of developing malignant melanoma by 75%.

“This law will go a long way to protecting children from developing malignant melanoma in later life.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

New warning on Arctic ice melt

Richard BlackBy Richard Black

Arctic ice The researchers are now working with a new computer model for Arctic ice
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Scientists who predicted a few years ago that Arctic summers could be ice-free by 2013 now say summer ice will probably be gone within this decade.

The original prediction, made in 2007, gained Wieslaw Maslowski’s team a deal of criticism from some of their peers.

Now they are working with a new computer model – compiled partly in response to those criticisms – that produces a “best guess” date of 2016.

Their work was unveiled at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting.

The new model is designed to replicate real-world interactions, or “couplings”, between the Arctic ocean, the atmosphere, the ice and rivers carrying freshwater into the sea.

“In the past… we were just extrapolating into the future assuming that trends might persist as we’ve seen in recent times,” said Dr Maslowski, who works at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

“Now we’re trying to be more systematic, and we’ve developed a regional Arctic climate model that’s very similar to the global climate models participating in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments,” he told BBC News.

“We can run a fully coupled model for the past and present and see what our model will predict for the future in terms of the sea ice and the Arctic climate.”

And one of the projections it comes out with is that the summer melt could lead to ice-free Arctic seas by 2016 – “plus or minus three years”.

One of the important ingredients of the new model is data on the thickness of ice floating on the sea.

Satellites are increasingly able to detect this, usually by measuring how far the ice sits above the sea surface – which also indicates how far the ice extends beneath.

Inclusion of this data into the team’s modelling was one of the factors causing them to retrench on the 2013 date, which raised eyebrows – and subsequently some criticism – when it emerged at a US science meeting four years ago.

Since the spectacularly pronounced melting of 2007, a greater proportion of the Arctic Ocean has been covered by thin ice that is formed in a single season and is more vulnerable to slight temperature increases than older, thicker ice.

Even taking this into account, the projected date range is earlier than other researchers believe likely.

But one peer – Dr Walt Meier from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado – said the behaviour of sea ice becomes less predictable as it gets thinner.

“[Maslowski’s] is quite a good model, one thing it has is really high resolution, it can capture details that are lost in global climate models,” he said.

“But 2019 is only eight years away; there’s been modelling showing that [likely dates are around] 2040/50, and I’d still lean towards that.

“I’d be very surprised if it’s 2013 – I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it’s 2019.”

The drastic melt of 2007 remains the record loss of ice area in the satellite era, although subsequent years have still been below the long-term average.

But some researchers believe 2010’s melt was equally as notable as 2007’s, given weather conditions that were favourable to the durability of ice.

Although many climate scientists and environmental campaigners are seriously concerned about the fate of the Arctic ice, for other parts of society and other arms of government its degradation presents challenges and opportunities.

The Russian and Canadian governments, for example, are looking to the opportunities for mineral exploitation that will arise; while the US military has expressed concern about losing a natural defence around the country’s northern border for part of the year.

“I’m not trying to be alarmist and not trying to say ‘we know the future because we have a crystal ball’,” said Dr Maslowski.

“Basically, we’re trying to make policymakers and people who need to know about climate change in the Arctic realise there is a chance that summer sea ice could be gone by the end of the decade.

“For the national interest, the defence interest, I think it’s important to realise that 2040 is not a crystal ball prediction.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Twelve die in Rio school shooting

Breaking news

A man has entered a school in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro and opened fire on children inside, local media say.

Brazil’s Globo TV said nine people were killed and 15 injured in the school, which is in the western part of the city.

It says the gunman then killed himself. The attacker has not been identified.

Globo also showed images of the victims being taken in ambulances in the Realengo district.

“The person entered, and fired shots,” a spokeswoman for Rio’s military police told Globo.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Hospital outbreak link to US lab

Serratia marcescens bacteriaSerratia bacteria tend to spread in hospital patients’ respiratory and urinary tracts
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Health officials have linked an outbreak of bacterial infection found in nine Alabama hospital patients who died to contamination at a laboratory.

The victims, already seriously ill, were stricken with Serratia marcescens bacteraemia in February and March.

Ten other patients also fell ill after receiving an intravenous nutritional product made by Alabama’s Meds IV.

State officials said it was likely contaminated ingredients and pharmacy equipment had led to the infections.

“We are trying to identify where the weak point in the chain of infection control occurred,” Alabama Department of Public Health director Dr Donald Williamson told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Upon learning of the outbreak, Meds IV Pharmacy ceased production and on 24 March recalled all of its intravenous products, officials have said.

No further infections were reported.

The Alabama Department of Public Health said in a statement it had discovered bacteria genetically identical to that found in 12 of the 19 patients in a container and stirrer used to mix ingredients in the nutritional product, on a tap water spigot and in a bag of amino acids used to produce the product.

Of the seven other patients, six had no bacteria samples available for genetic testing and one more case was pending a test, the department said.

About 35% of hospital patients who were given the product manufactured by Meds IV were stricken with Serratia marcescens infection.

The affected individuals ranged in age from 38 to 94, the health department said.

However, officials told the Associated Press that they might never know whether the infections caused the illnesses and deaths because the patients were so ill to begin with.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Call to end Ivory Coast sanctions

Soldiers loyal to Ivory Coast president-elect Alassane Ouattara ride a vehicle through the main city Abidjan April 6, 2011Abidjan is a city in crisis, with many residents fleeing and sporadic fighting breaking out

Ivory Coast’s internationally recognised President Alassane Ouattara has urged the EU to lift sanctions, in a bid to restart the ailing economy.

Mr Ouattara now controls the main cocoa-exporting port of San Pedro, and wants to restart the trade.

But his troops are still not in control of all of the main city Abidjan, where his rival Laurent Gbagbo remains holed up in the presidential residence.

Aid agencies are warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Abidjan.

Residents of the city are without basic amenities such as running water and power, and food supplies are running low.

Witnesses say bodies are lying on the streets after days of bitter fighting between loyalists of the two presidential claimants.

Mr Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner of a presidential election last November, told French TV channel La Chaine Info he was taking measures to get the economy back up and running.

“I have asked that European Union sanctions on the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro and certain public entities, be lifted,” he said.

Ivorian turmoil28 Nov 2010: Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and challenger Alassane Ouattara in election run-off2 Dec: Electoral commission announces that Ouattara won 54% of vote3 Dec: Constitutional Council declaring Gbagbo the winner; UN says Ouattara was victor30 Mar 2011: Pro-Ouattara forces enter the capital, Yamoussoukro4 Apr: UN launches air strikes on Gbagbo in main city, Abidjan5 Apr: Three generals negotiate Gbagbo’s surrender6 Apr: Gbagbo denies he is ready to leaveOuattara’s political tightrope

Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa-producing nation, but uncertainty and violence since the disputed election has badly damaged the industry.

Mr Ouattara said the central bank would begin reopening its branches, and the army would secure delivery of medical supplies to hospitals and food to markets.

He blamed Mr Gbagbo for plunging the country into crisis, but said his forces now had the presidential palace under blockade.

Advisers to Mr Gbagbo, who insists he won the election, say the embattled incumbent is determined not to surrender.

“President Gbagbo will not cede,” said his Paris-based adviser Toussaint Alain.

“It’s a question of principle. President Gbagbo is not a monarch. He is not a king. He is not an emperor. He is a president elected by his people.”

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said Mr Gbagbo had fewer than 1,000 troops left loyal to him.

Mr Ouattara’s forces launched a sustained offensive last month, rushing southwards from their northern strongholds.

They rapidly took over most of the country, but much of Abidjan is dominated by Gbagbo supporters, and days of fighting has now plunged the city into crisis.

“There are armed rebel groups who don’t know which side they are on looting not only private houses but also some stocks of humanitarian agencies – that is unacceptable,” said the UN’s Elisabeth Byrs.

Last November’s election had been intended to reunite the former French colony, which split in two following a northern rebellion in 2002.

But the result highlighted the divide in the country, with Mr Gbagbo dominating the south and Mr Ouattara winning most of the votes in the north.

As the crisis deepened in the past week, the UN and French forces have joined the battle for Abidjan.

On Monday, they launched air strikes on pro-Gbagbo military bases, after Mr Gbagbo’s forces were accused of using heavy weapons to attack civilians and UN peacekeepers.

The UN has repeatedly called for Mr Gbagbo to step down.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court says it will investigate alleged human rights abuses by both sides during the fighting, which has left hundreds dead.

In his TV address, Mr Ouattara promised to punish the perpetrators of violence.

“On behalf of you all I would therefore like to express our recognition to the Republican forces of Cote d’Ivoire for having done their duty,” he said.

“I urge them to be exemplary in their conduct and to refrain from any crimes, any violence against the people or any act of looting. All those involved in such deeds will be punished.”

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Koussa interviewed over Lockerbie

Moussa KoussaProsecutors believe Moussa Koussa may have information about the Lockerbie bombing

The former Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, has been interviewed by Scottish police investigating the Lockerbie bombing, the BBC has learned.

Prosecutors believe he has information on the murders of 270 people in the 1988 terrorist attack.

Mr Koussa is believed to have been a senior figure in the Libyan intelligence service when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

One of Colonel Gaddafi’s sons says Mr Koussa has no information about this.

And in an interview with the BBC’s John Simpson earlier this week, the Libyan leader’s son – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi – also denied the former foreign minister could reveal anything about the Lockerbie bombing.

He said: “The British and the Americans they know about Lockerbie. There are no secrets anymore.

“We have no secrets to the world.”

Last week the former Libyan foreign minister arrived in the UK, saying he was “no longer willing” to work for Col Gaddafi.

His defection came amid continued unrest in Libya.

Colonel Gaddafi accepted Libya’s responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims’ families in 2003.

However, he has never admitted personally giving the order for the attack.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was jailed in 2001 for the attack.

However, the Libyan was released on compassionate grounds in August 2009 by the Scottish government after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.