Category: news

The US singer pays tribute to newly-weds the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as she headlines Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Carlisle.

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Tarantulas release silk through their feet to stop themselves from slipping on slippery, vertical surfaces, according to scientists.

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Torrential rain and flash flooding have caused chaos in north-eastern Colombia.

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Glacial lakes in the Himalayas could pose a major hazard to population centres if they are ruptured by earthquakes, scientists say.

The true risk to settlements and infrastructure downstream in the Hindu-Kush-Himalayas region is difficult to assess.

But the Himalayan region is dotted with glacial lakes and is in a seismically active zone.

Experts say that, on the basis of past records, a large quake in the region is overdue.

Many glacial lakes are said to be growing – some of them alarmingly – because of melting glaciers.

Some are at risk of rupturing, which would flood areas downstream.

There have been at least 35 glacial lake outburst events in Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and China during the last century, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).

But the increased risk from the quake-induced rupture of glacial lakes has been rarely discussed.

“Such a disaster is very much possible, more so, when we are expecting a big earthquake in the region now,” says Sushil Kumar, a geophysicist with the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in India.

“If the acceleration is very high in the epicentre of the earthquake, everything will be in the air as things will not be stable. So, naturally the liquids like waters in glacial lakes will burst out.”

A number of these lakes are located near seismic faults.

“Given the location of the lakes, if the epicentre of the earthquake happens to be nearby them, they will certainly explode,” says Pradeep Mool, a glaciologist with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) that works on mountain issues in the region.

A recent report produced by his organisation together with the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery has also said, that such a hazard “is a possibility that should be considered, although prediction [of earthquakes] is beyond current competence.”

Officials with Nepal’s National Seismological Centre (NSC) say at least half a dozen minor tremors are recorded in the Himalayas every day.

“And when the tremor is [Magnitude] five or above… we record many aftershocks as well,” says Dilliram Tiwari of the NSC.

“We know that these activities are happening in the Himalayas but we cannot confirm if they are happening nearby any glacial lakes.”

That is because hardly any seismic meters are installed nearby glacial lakes.

The danger is not just from the ones that are filling up.

Landslides and avalanches can make even smaller lakes dangerous, especially during earthquakes, experts say.

For instance, the outburst of the Dig Tsho glacial lake near Mount Everest in eastern Nepal in 1985 was triggered by a large ice and rock avalanche.

The splash into the relatively small lake led to an outburst. The floodwaters swamped a hydroelectric plant and other infrastructure downstream.

Nepal’s is one of the most monitored glacial lakes. The Tsho Rolpa is risky not just because of its growing size and weak moraine, but also because it has two hanging glaciers high above it.

“In case of earthquakes, glaciers such as these can make the glacial lakes like Tsho Rolpa even more dangerous because of the possibility of splash and surge,” says Mool.

Although not created by glacial melting, a lake that formed after a landslide blocked the Hunza river in Pakistan last year was caused by an earthquake, scientists there say.

What has happened in these lower parts of the Hindu Kush Himalayas could also occur in higher areas with glacial lakes.

“The main reason why we have not yet witnessed the outburst of glacial lakes because of earthquakes is because the region has not been hit by big ones in recent decades,” says Mr Kumar of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology.

“And when the last earthquakes hit the region, there were barely any glacial lakes in the Himalaya region.”

Glaciologists say the round of glacial melting leading to the formation of most new glacial lakes in the Himalayas began in the 1950s.

The last big earthquake to hit the region was in 1934.

A recent report on Nepal’s glaciers said their average area had increased by 33%.

“A great number of people are potentially in danger should the lakes classified as dangerous in the Hindu Kush Himalayas drain,” says another report by the UNEP.

“In most cases, there would be little or no warning, with insufficient time for complete evacuation.”

But studies have so far focused only on retreating glaciers and expanding glacial lakes.

“They have not been monitored in relation to seismicity,” says Professor Asif Khan, a geologist with the Peshawar University in Pakistan.

“It is indeed quite worrying given the scale of the impending risk.”

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A heart charity is calling on the government to include the teaching of life-saving skills in the national curriculum.

In a survey carried out by the British Heart Foundation, 73% of schoolchildren wanted to learn how to resuscitate someone and give first aid.

More than 75% of teachers and parents also agreed it should be taught in schools.

The survey questioned 2,000 parents, 1,000 children and 500 teachers.

The BHF wants emergency life support skills (ELS) to be taught as part of personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) lessons and alongside physical education, citizenship and science.

Life-saving skills include cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which can help someone who’s had a cardiac arrest.

It also covers how to deal with an unconscious person, serious bleeding, choking and heart attacks.

Latest figures show that in 2007 around 100,000 people had a heart attack in England.

A spokesman from the Department of Education said there was nothing stopping schools teaching these life-saving skills already.

“It’s down to heads to set a curriculum which best meets the needs of their pupils.

“We are carrying out a root and branch reform of the national curriculum to set out the essential academic knowledge that children need, while leaving schools free to decide how to teach it.

“We know that high-quality PSHE is important – that’s why it will remain a compulsory part of the curriculum, but we trust teachers to design lessons to suit their pupils.”

Maura Gillespie, head of policy and public affairs at the BHF, said teaching these skills was crucial.

“Teaching young people how to save a life is as important as learning to read and write. They are skills which equip them for real situations they might face in their lives.”

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Voters in Zurich, Switzerland, have rejected proposed bans on assisted suicide and “suicide tourism”, early projections suggest.

The projections showed voters had heavily turned down both initiatives, Swiss news agency SDA reported.

About 200 people commit assisted suicide each year in Zurich, including many foreign visitors.

It has been legal in Switzerland since 1941 if performed by a non-physician with no vested interest in the death.

Assistance can be provided only in a passive way, such as by providing drugs. Active assistance – helping a person to take or administer a product – is prohibited.

While opinion polls indicated that most Swiss were in favour of assisted suicide, they also suggested that many are against what has become known as suicide tourism.

Residents are uneasy that so many citizens from Germany, France and other nations are coming to die in Switzerland because the practice remains illegal abroad.

One local organisation, Dignitas, says it has helped more than 1,000 foreigners to take their own lives.

Another group, Exit, will only help those who are permanently resident in the country – saying the process takes time, and much counselling for both patients and relatives.

The referendum offered a proposal to limit suicide tourism, by imposing a residency requirement of at least one year in the Zurich area in order to qualify for the service.

It was backed by two conservative political parties, the Evangelical People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union.

But the major parties of the left and right, including the Swiss People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party, had called on their supporters to vote against both motions.

The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes, in Geneva, says the size of the vote against a ban on assisted suicide reflects the widely held belief among the Swiss that is their individual right to decide when and how to die.

Their rejection of the proposal to limit assisted suicide to those living in Zurich shows that concerns about suicide tourism carry less weight with voters than their conviction that the right to die is universal, our correspondent says.

But the debate in Switzerland will continue, she adds. Polls show voters do want clearer national legislation setting out conditions under which assisted suicide is permitted.

The Swiss government is planning to revise the country’s federal laws on assisted suicide.

It has said it is looking to make sure it was used only as a last resort by the terminally ill, and to limit suicide tourism.

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This week was Madeleine McCann’s eighth birthday and her mother, Kate McCann, released a book about the missing child. Commentators have reflected on how the McCanns have been treated by the press over the last four years.

In the Telegraph Allison Pearson recalls the “vitriolic” online comments about Kate McCann, which accused her of selfishness and said she “had it coming”.

“Kate McCann’s ‘crime’ – a lapse for which she would receive a life sentence – was to have left her children sleeping while having dinner 100 metres away, returning to their apartment every half-hour,” Pearson says.

“It was a latter-day Grimm’s fairy story”, says Cassandra Jardine in the Telegraph referring to parents’ fears about “tiny risks” taken by many people from “leaving children in the car while dashing to the cash point” to “nipping to the loo when they are playing in water”.

Jardine goes on to say the seeming lack of sympathy has less to do with the circumstances and more to do with Kate McCann’s identity. “Had Kate not been pretty, middle-class and educated, she might have received more sympathy – like, say, Karen Matthews, mother of Shannon, who wept fetchingly for the cameras the following year, although her daughter had not in fact been abducted, only hidden for mercenary reasons.”

Jardin says Loaded magazine was one of Mrs McCann’s few supporters when “crassly, it put the bereft mother on a most-fanciable list”.

Ravening beast

The Independent’s Christina Patterson has other reasons why the finger of blame pointed towards the parents. The columnist argues the treatment of Mrs McCann is indicative of an industry that demands new details, even when there aren’t any.

She calls the press a ravening beast with a 24-hour appetite that can “chew you up, and spew you up”.

Patterson thinks the McCanns’ willingness to cooperate is fuelled by their belief in the power of the media. But Patterson worries Mrs McCann “has come near to selling her soul”.

But she goes on to defend Mrs McCann as “no-one who hasn’t been through what she has been through can blame her for the choice she has made”.

One choice was to engage with “Britain’s sleaziest red-top, to get a missing child back”.

Two days before the release of the book, The Sun’s front page said “I couldn’t make love to Gerry” – a detail pulled out of an extract of Mrs McCann’s book.

Whatever it takes?

A different reaction to the private life revelations comes from Sandra Parsons at the Daily Mail. She is in awe of the McCanns. It’s not their willingness to share their private life that impresses her, but that they haven’t split up.

Mrs McCann recounts in the book that the night before Madeleine disappeared she slept in the children’s room because she was hurt by her husband’s “abrupt” manner. Parsons supposes that Gerry McCann’s uncompromising attitude after Madeleine was abducted and his resolve may have not been matched by another man.

The writer defends what could be construed as cynical use of the media and an unemotional appearance. For Parsons, Mr McCann’s “cool logic and ability to compartmentalise” allowed the couple to run their campaign to find Madeleine.

Similarly, Allison Pearson commends “ferocious” maternal love demonstrated in Mrs McCann’s book.

Away from the personal revelations, the book also calls for a comprehensive review of the case. The Sun backs the “moving” open letter delivered to the prime minister.

Sky news suggests some leads to the new investigation could follow. The first is a team of UK detectives to go to Portugal and “pore over” the police files. It suggests a “crucial exercise” would be to do the mobile phone cell-site analysis that wasn’t done. It also suggests follow-up reports of previous intruders into the holiday homes of other Brits.

For those who argue Mrs McCann will do whatever it takes to find her daughter, the evidence seems clear: a few personal revelations later, the McCann family have got press support for the new investigations and David Cameron has promised that the home secretary will be in touch to set out the “new action” involving the Met Police. No mean feat considering it is four years after Madeleine went missing.

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David Cameron will try to rally support for planned changes to the NHS in England, in a speech to health staff.

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A Malaysian court says opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has case to answer on sodomy charges in politically charged ruling.

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IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has consented to a medical examination over allegations of serious sexual assault.

Ms Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested on Saturday, denies attacking and attempting to rape a hotel maid.

He had been due to appear in court on Sunday but the hearing has been postponed until Monday to allow the forensic tests to be carried out.

The married former French finance minister is also considered a possible Socialist candidate for the presidency.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, had been detained at JFK airport on Saturday night as he prepared to fly to Europe.

He was kept overnight in a special unit for sexual harassment in New York’s Harlem borough.

Lawyer William Taylor said his client had “willingly consented to a scientific and forensic examination”.

A second lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said Mr Strauss-Kahn “intends to vigorously defend these charges and he denies any wrongdoing”.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s wife has also said she believes he is innocent.

“I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband,” she said in a statement sent to the AFP news agency on Sunday.

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The head of the IMF, Dominique Strass-Kahn, is being questioned by New York police over an alleged sex attack on a hotel maid, say reports.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken off a plane at JFK airport, minutes before it left for Paris.

Police said he was being questioned but has not been charged.

The married former French finance minister is also a leading Socialist party figure and is considered a possible presidential candidate.

He is due to attend a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss the bailouts of Portugal and Greece.

Paul J Browne, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said the allegations had been made by a 32-year-old woman who worked at a Manhattan hotel.

The IMF had no immediate comment on the incident.

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Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at border points with Gaza and on the Golan Heights border with Syria, reports say.

The Israeli military said it opened fire on the Golan Heights as a group tried to breach the border. Reports said at least 10 were injured.

At least 45 Palestinians were injured as Israeli forces fired at a group near a Gaza border crossing, medics said.

Palestinians are marking the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, of Israel’s founding.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in fighting after the state of Israel was created in 1948.

The BBC’s John Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year’s Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

In Ramallah there have been clashes at a border crossing into East Jerusalem.

Palestinian protesters have been throwing stones at Israeli security forces, who have been firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

The Israeli military said it only fired warning shots on the Golan Heights as protesters tried to breach a border fence. But unconfirmed reports said four people had been killed and at least 10 people injured.

To the south, at the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza, Israeli troops opened fire with tanks and machine guns injuring at least 15 people, Palestinian medical officials said.

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Australian police say a man who plunged seven floors to his death from an apartment balcony was participating in the internet craze of “planking”.

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