Category: news

The Queen and Prince Phillip are on a visit to the Isles of Scilly, their first since 1967.

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Durham University students have taken part in a question and answer session with Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe.

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A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.

The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.

The story only came to light after the teenager’s mother became suspicious.

The case highlights China’s black market in organ trafficking. A scarcity of organ donors has led to a flourishing trade.

It all started when the high school student saw an online advert offering money to organ donors.

Illegal agents organised a trip to the hospital and paid him $3,392 (£2,077) after the operation.

With the cash the student bought an iPad 2, as well as a laptop.

When his mother noticed the computers and the deep red scar on his body, which was caused by the surgery, Little Zheng confessed.

In 2007, Chinese authorities banned organ trafficking and have introduced a voluntary donor scheme to try to combat the trade.

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Actress Miriam Karlin, known to many for her role as shop steward Paddy in TV sitcom The Rag Trade, has died in London aged 85.

The actress, who became an OBE in 1975, had cancer and died in hospital.

Born Miriam Samuels in 1925, Karlin was one of Malcolm McDowell’s victims in A Clockwork Orange and also had roles in The Entertainer and Room at the Top.

Sir Antony Sher, one of her former co-stars, paid tribute to her as “a great actress [and] a great lady”.

Working with Karlin on the play Torch Song Trilogy had been “one of the most enjoyable experiences of my career,” he said.

“She gave a tremendous performance as the Jewish mother, full of power and anger, but there was always a twinkle in her eye.”

Screen demise

Raised as an orthodox Jew in London, Karlin was a staunch political activist and an active member of actors’ union Equity.

She had been a patron of Dignity in Dying, a body that campaigns for a change to the laws on assisted dying.

The Hampstead-born actress – who lost some family members in Auschwitz – trained at Rada and performed for troops with the Entertainments National Service Association (Ensa).

Her stage work included engagements with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also became the first woman to play the traditionally male lead in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker.

The actress frequently played formidable Jewish matriarchs, among them Golde in the original West End production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Karlin appeared as Polly – known for calling “Everybody out!” at regular intervals – in the original 1960s version of The Rag Trade.

She would later reprise her role when the show was revived by ITV in the 1970s.

It was her startling demise in A Clockwork Orange, though, for which some film fans will remember her best.

As the so-called “Cat Lady”, she was beaten to death with a phallic-looking sculpture in Stanley Kubrick’s controversial take on Anthony Burgess’s novel.

West End theatre producer David Pugh was a friend of Karlin’s and remembered her as “a wonderful woman.”

Equity spokesman Martin Brown has also paid tribute, remembering her in The Stage as “an absolutely indefatigable campaigner and a marvellous friend”.

In a statement, Lord and Baroness Kinnock said the actress had been “superbly talented in roles of every kind”.

“Mim was easy to love, an infectious friend, a true comrade and a sparkling spirit.”

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The UK’s economy is experiencing weak growth but inflation pressures have eased, according to the firm behind closely-watched surveys.

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The bodies of some 150 migrants have been found off Tunisia’s coast after a Europe-bound boat capsized, UN and Red Cross officials say.

An operation to rescue passengers began off the Tunisian Kerkennah islands on Wednesday.

More than 580 people were saved, but some 250 went missing as the boat capsized in the stampede to leave.

The migrants were on a boat bound from Libya for Italy.

Rescue operations by the Tunisian navy and coast guard are still continuing.

Seven people, including two pregnant women, are in intensive care in hospitals at Sfax on the Tunisian mainland.

“Up to now 150 bodies of refugees have been found off the shores of Kerkennah,” Carole Laleve from the UN refugee agency told Reuters news agency.

The passengers – mostly from West Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh – had set sail from Libya’s capital Tripoli on Saturday afternoon.

According to survivors interviewed by UNHCR, the boat was manned by people with little or no maritime experience.

It ran into difficulty soon after departure and experienced problems with its steering and power.

By the third day of the journey the passengers ran out of food and water and the boat then ran aground near the Kerkennah islands, some 300km (about 185 miles) north-west of Tripoli.

It capsized as the passengers rushed to one side to reach the Tunisian coast guard and fishing boats that had approached the vessel.

On Wednesday, 195 survivors were transferred to a camp run by the International Federation of the Red Cross near Ras Adjir, close to Tunisia’s border with Libya.

Another 383 are scheduled to be transported to the same or nearby camps on Thursday, the UN refugee agency said.

Italy has faced a massive influx of refugees since the fall of the regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia in January and the outbreak of war in neighbouring Libya.

The Italian island of Lampedusa lies only about 130km (80 miles) off the Tunisian coast.

Italy has complained it is not getting enough help from its EU partners to deal with the influx, which has prompted some European countries to warn they may reimpose border controls.

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Investigators are still at the scene of a fire and explosion at an oil refinery which killed four workers and badly injured another.

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Star performers, including Keira Knightley, helped ensure that the proportion of West End theatregoers watching plays in 2010 rose again.

The share of attendances for plays last year was 26.2% – up 0.7% from 2009, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) said. It was already up 4.3% from 2008.

The share for musicals was 59.5% – down 1.2% from 2009. It fell 4.4% from 2008 to 2009. Total attendances topped 14m.

Figures refuted “claims that musicals are taking over”, the SOLT said.

Plays also achieved a record attendance total of 3,702,031, while the musicals attendance total was down 3% to 8,423,430.

In its box office data report, the SOLT states that “the big driver” behind business in 2010 was major name actors in plays.

They included Knightley and Damian Lewis in The Misanthrope, as well as Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen in Private Lives.

Other stars of the screen who trod the West End boards included David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker, in All My Sons, and Sherlock star Martin Freeman in Clybourne Park.

The overall attendances, at 14,152,230 were 0.8% down on 2009’s record figure.

“Arguably this would have been exceeded if the country had not been ‘closed due to snow’ for two weeks in December,” the SOLT said.

It said major new musicals were scarce, saying the few that did open included Phantom of the Opera sequel love Never Dies, Broadway hit Fela! and Legally Blonde with Sheridan Smith.

Box office receipts reached a record high of £512.3m.

The figures cover theatres that are members of the SOLT, which include those in the commercial West End as well as major grant-aided institutions.

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A 31-year-old woman has died in custody in York, prompting an investigation by the police watchdog.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said the woman, whose name has not yet been released, was detained under the Mental Health Act.

She was taken to Fulford Road police station on Thursday at 1500 BST and found collapsed in her cell at about 1800 BST.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said they were co-operating fully.

The IPCC said the woman had been stopped in the Botham area of York after concerns were raised with officers about her behaviour.

The watchdog said it would examine the circumstances of the woman’s detention, her transportation to the station and the care she received while in custody.

A police spokesman said: “While this independent investigation is ongoing it would not be appropriate for North Yorkshire Police to comment further other than to extend our deepest sympathy to the woman’s loved ones at this very difficult time.”

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South Africa is mourning one of the leading lights of the anti-apartheid movement, Albertina Sisulu, who has died aged 92.

Mrs Sisulu was the widow of Walter Sisulu, a friend and mentor of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

A political figure in her own right, she was active in the women’s league of the African National Congress (ANC).

ANC spokesman Brian Sokutu said Mrs Sisulu had dedicated her life to bringing democracy to South Africa.

On Thursday, social networking websites in South Africa were flooded with tributes to the veteran campaigner.

Mrs Sisulu first met Walter Sisulu in the 1940s after she moved to Johannesburg to work as a nurse.

Although not from a political background, she quickly established herself as an anti-apartheid activist in her own right and was among those who in 1956 led a march of 20,000 women protesting at being forced to carry passbooks.

While her husband was confined to jail with Nelson Mandela, she found herself subject to periods of house arrest.

However, she also became an envoy for the ANC, visiting leaders overseas and drawing attention to the anti-apartheid struggle.

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An investigation is under way after four contractors were killed in an explosion and fire at a Pembrokeshire oil refinery.

Another worker suffered serious burns in the blast at the Chevron refinery, Pembroke, at 1820 BST on Thursday.

Dyfed-Powys Police said the explosion was in a 730 cubic metre storage tank, where maintenance was being carried out.

The plant’s general manager called the news “utterly devastating”.

Chevron confirmed that the four people who died were contractors and said another worker was receiving treatment in hospital for serious injuries.

Greg Hanggi, refinery general manager, said: “The loss of our co-workers has come as a huge shock to us all.

“Our thoughts and deepest sympathy go out to their families. We will ensure that all employees and contractors are fully supported throughout this difficult time.”

He added that Chevron would take every step possible to determine the series of events leading to the tragic incident and ensure that any lessons learnt from it would be learned.

Mr Hanggi also paid tribute to the emergency services who attended.

First Minister Carwyn Jones offered his sympathy to bereaved families and workers, adding: “I am shocked to learn of the accident at the Chevron refinery in Pembroke”.

Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan added her condolences to families and colleagues of the dead.

“We’ve been in contact with Chevron and Milford Haven Port Authority and have been asked to be kept fully informed about the investigation into this tragic event,” she said.

“It is essential to understand how this tragedy occurred.”

Eyewitnesses in the area described the moment when the blast occurred.

Marcus Lutwyche, owner of a shop in the village of Angle near the refinery, said: “I ran to the front and saw a huge plume of smoke. It was black and filled the sky. It must have been 50 or so metres wide.”

His wife, Joanne Lutwyche, said: “Quite a few people in the village work at Chevron and would have been changing shifts when the explosion happened, so everyone’s really concerned for who might be involved.

“The last time something like this happened must have been about 17 years ago.”

Phil Horne was in his back garden in Milford Haven, on the opposite side of the waterway, at the time of the incident.

“I heard a large explosion, turned around and saw a large fireball disappearing into the sky,” he said.

“It went about halfway up the chimney stack of the refinery.”

Liz Herbert, who also lives on the other side of the haven, said: “I heard a massive bang and saw a huge plume of thick black smoke.

“It was really frightening.”

‘No ongoing risk’

Earlier Ch Supt Gwyn Thomas of Dyfed-Powys Police said officers were informing the victims’ families and an investigation was under way into what appeared to be a “tragic industrial incident”.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Chris Davies said there was no ongoing risk to health to members of the public as a result of the incident.

“We can confirm that any material released into the atmosphere as a result of the blast was immediately dispersed. The wind was blowing off shore, away from residential areas,” he said.

The Health and Safety Executive said it was too early speculate about the cause of the blast.

Milford Haven coastguards reported a “blast large enough to shake the windows” with “black smoke in the air” shortly after 1820 BST.

The Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service sent 10 engines to the scene and brought the incident under control within an hour and a half.

Wales Air Ambulance said a man had been airlifted to Morriston Hospital in Swansea with severe burns.

The refinery was formerly known as Texaco, later rebranded Chevron-Texaco and known as Chevron since around 2005.

In March, Chevron confirmed Texan oil company Valero Energy had agreed to buy the refinery for $730m (£446m) and pay a further $1bn (£611m) for the stocks of oil, petrol and other products on site.

The site, which can refine 220,000 barrels of crude oil a day into petrol and other products, has yet to change hands.

Earlier this year the sale of the refinery, which is one of the largest in western Europe and employs 1,400 people, was secured.

Valero agreed to buy the refinery site for $730m (£458m) and another $1bn (£611m) for assets including Chevron’s petrol stations in the UK and Ireland.

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A second man has been arrested in connection with a three-hour siege at a bank in Watford which ended after the arrest of a 23-year-old.

Officers were called to the Co-op bank in Market Street on Thursday morning.

The newly arrested man, also 23, is unemployed and from Luton. He was arrested at his home on Thursday night on suspicion of conspiracy to steal.

The man arrested after the stand-off, from Luton, is a Co-op bank worker, police said.

He remains in custody and is being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to steal.

Hertfordshire Police said a suspected explosive device recovered after the incident had not been “viable”.

Ch Insp Mike Pryce, of Hertfordshire Police, told a press conference that Army bomb disposal experts had been at the scene.

The force was also supported by specialist firearms experts from the military.

Witnesses described police marksmen aiming their guns at the bank.

Police closed the main roads around the bank and the ring road, causing traffic to back up.

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Google is phasing out support for older browsers from 1 August.

Those using IE7, Safari 3, Firefox 3.5 and their predecessors to view Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites will then lose some functions.

Eventually, it warned, these web services will stop working for those sticking with older browsers.

The move is part of a trend to stop the use of ageing browsers which can be insecure and not sophisticated enough to handle the latest web technologies.

Statistics on browser versions gathered by StatCounter suggest about 17% need to change in the light of Google’s decision.

Google made its announcement in a blogpost saying its engineers were keen to make use of the latest capabilities in browsers, and that required support for HTML5 technology.

As a result, from 1 August, Google will only support what it calls “modern browsers”. By this it means the latest versions and major prior releases of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

As new versions of these are released, Google will get its web services working with that and then drop support for the third-oldest version.

Support in this sense means that Google will only do compatibility testing with more up-to-date browsers. It will make not test with older programmes and can make guarantees that web services will work with them.

Concluding the blogpost, Venkat Panchapakesan, vice president of engineering at Google, wrote: “These new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds.”

In mid-May, Mozilla, which oversees development of Firefox, kicked off a plan to get the 12 million or so people using version 3.5 of its browser to update.

It said it was “frustrated” with efforts to get people to upgrade and had taken a series of steps to force change.

It used pop-up screens, adverts, re-directs and updates to steer people towards more recent versions of Firefox.

Figures gathered by Mozilla suggest the campaign has had some success as the number of users on Firefox 3.5 has now dropped to about one million.

Microsoft’s campaign to stop people using Internet Explorer 6 is one of the longest running upgrade efforts.

The software giant has used its automatic update system to get newer versions of its browser out to many users.

However, many companies prefer not to use this system and that has meant IE6 clinging on in some firms and nations.

Globally about 11% of browsers are IE6, suggest figures compiled by Microsoft, and there is a wide variation around the world.

About 34% of Chinese net users are on IE6, as are 22.3% of South Koreans and 11.6% of Vietnamese people.

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Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has indicated that Sinn Fein will not reconsider the appointment of a convicted killer as a Stormont adviser.

Mary McArdle was convicted of killing Mary Travers in 1984 and her new role has angered the Travers family.

Mr McGuinness said that the killing of the magistrate’s daughter was “wrong” and “should never have happened”.

But he said those who were part of conflict needed to be part of building a new society.

Mrs McArdle was part of an IRA gang which ambushed magistrate Tom Travers and his family as they left Mass shooting his daughter Mary dead.

The former prisoner was controversially appointed to a role as a special adviser at the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure last month.

In her first interview since the row began, Mrs McArdle said she regretted the murder and that it was a “tragic mistake” – comments rejected by the Travers’ family.

‘Better future’

Mr McGuinness told BBC Radio Ulster’s Inside Politics programme that his heart went out to Mary Travers’ sister Anne and he fully understood why she would be angered by Ms McArdle’s appointment.

He added: “The big question that people have to answer is: are people who have been part of the conflict, are they entitled to have a role in building a better future?”

He said the appointment of IRA hunger striker Leo Green as an adviser at the restoration of devolution had not caused a similar problem.

“There was no controversy about that at that particular time,” he said.

“There is controversy now because Anne obviously feels very hurt and I respect the fact that she feels the way she feels.

“But if we were to apply the rule that people who were part of the conflict can’t be part of building a better future, then Nelson Mandela would never have been president of South Africa.”

And you can hear more of Mr McGuinness’ interview with Inside Politics at 1300 BST on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday.

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Four police officers accused of beating up a terror suspect have all been found not guilty at Southwark Crown Court.

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