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Test pilot Peter Siebold has told the BBC’s Richard Scott that flying the Virgin Galactic spaceship is ”exhilarating”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Andy Murray wants a new coach before the clay-court season, BBC Sport understands.
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Indians celebrate after their cricketers beat arch-rivals Pakistan in the World Cup semi-final.
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Some of the dissidents have only just got out of jail Former US president Jimmy Carter has had talks with prominent Cuban dissidents on the third day of his visit to the communist-run island.
Among them were several activists recently released from prison and the dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez.
Mr Carter also met the jailed US contractor Alan Gross, but said the Cuban authorities had made it clear they did not intend to release him.
He had talks with Cuban leader Raul Castro on Tuesday.
He is due to give a news conference shortly.
The Cuban independent human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said Mr Carter “wanted to express his solidarity and his recognition of the movement for civil rights and the emerging civil society”.
“Hopefully his visit will be useful, even if it is just one step towards the normalisation of relations between the governments in Havana and Washington,” he added.
Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez – whose website Generation Y has won international acclaim – said she could not comment on what Mr Carter had to say.
“My words were dedicated to the need for freedom of expression and free internet access for Cubans,” she said.
Mr Carter, 86 – who is on his second trip to Cuba – is the only serving or former US president to visit Cuba since the revolution in 1959.
His three-day visit at the invitation of the Cuban government was only announced on Friday.
There had been speculation that he would be seeking the release of the US contractor Alan Gross, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison earlier this month for providing satellite communications equipment to Jewish groups in Havana.
But on Tuesday Mr Carter said he had not come to take Mr Gross back to the US, but to meet Cuban leaders and citizens and try to improve relations between Washington and Havana.
His visit comes a week after the Cuban authorities released the last of the “Group of 75” dissidents arrested in a crackdown on opposition activists in 2003.
Their release had been a key condition set by the US and EU for any improvement in relations.
But Washington has also said there can be no easing of tensions until Mr Gross is also freed.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Fukushima plant was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami More locations around Scotland have recorded very low levels of radioactive iodine believed to be from Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
The chemical was detected in air samples in Lerwick in Shetland and in grass samples near Dounreay in Caithness.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it also appeared to have been detected in East Kilbride.
Sepa said the levels detected did not pose any threat to health.
The Fukushima nuclear plant was crippled after being hit by a tsunami in the aftermath of a huge earthquake on 11 March.
Radiation leaks were recorded following subsequent explosions and fires.
On Tuesday, Sepa said it had been informed that an air sampler in Glasgow, almost 6,000 miles from Japan, had recorded the presence of radioactive iodine.
The environment agency said the level of iodine detected in Glasgow and now in Lerwick was extremely low and was consistent with reports from other European countries such as Iceland and Switzerland.
Dr Paul Dale, a radioactive substances specialist at Sepa, said: “The fact that such low concentrations of this radionuclide were detected demonstrates how effective the UK and Scottish surveillance programme for radioactive substances is, and supports the judgment that these observations are the result of a release or releases from the Japanese reactors.
“Sepa has an ongoing comprehensive monitoring programme for radioactivity in Scotland and has increased the level of scrutiny to provide ongoing public assurance during this period.
“Sepa will provide any further information on the detection of radioactive iodine in the environment as it becomes available.”
The organisation said the concentration of the substance found at East Kilbride was yet to be determined.
However it said there is no reason to believe its potential health implications would be any different from those associated with the iodine-131 detected elsewhere in the UK.
Very low levels of iodine-131 were found during initial analysis of routine grass samples collected around former nuclear power plant Dounreay.
Sepa said it was confident the chemical was not from the site itself because it had been detected at the same time as samples across Europe.
It said current site operations were highly unlikely to have released iodine-131 in the concentrations detected.
The chemical’s presence was picked up during routine environmental monitoring by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, which is decommissioning the site.
The Food Standards Agency has been informed about the discovery.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Peter Rowell has been found safe and well in the Lake District A BBC Bristol and Somerset radio presenter who went missing has been found “safe and well” in Cumbria.
Peter Rowell, 52, was found in Keswick at about 2130 BST after being reported missing when he failed to turn up for work on Tuesday.
Mr Rowell, of Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, was believed to be depressed after his father’s death.
His wife Mirinda Rowell said police had found him and told her he seemed to be safe and well.
Mr Rowell, originally from Sunderland, has presented the Afternoon Show on BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Somerset since last May and is a well-known face in the West Country.
His family are on the way to Cumbria to see him and have thanked the public and the media for all their help.
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Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is being honoured at a spectacular concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London to celebrate his 80th birthday.
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Park of the Antrim Road has been closed because of the alert Police have evacuated a number of homes in north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object.
Antrim Road is closed between Willowbank Gardens and Hopefield Avenue.
Earlier, police said that a man has been arrested over a separate hoax alert in the north of the city.
Twenty families were allowed to return to their homes in the Oldpark area after army bomb experts carried out a number of controlled explosions.
A man in his 30s was detained under terrorism legislation and is being questioned at Antrim PSNI station in connection with making a hoax call.
During the alert, which began on Tuesday evening, 40 premises, including 10 businesses and 20 houses were evacuated.
The search was concentrated on an area at the junction of the Oldpark Road and Rosapenna Street.
Earlier on Wednesday, police confirmed that one telephone call had been made to the Samaritans about the device.
Police said a code word had been given but it was not recognised.
The alert followed reports of a shooting incident in the Oldpark area on Monday night.
A number of shots were heard at Glenview Street off the Oldpark Road.
PSNI superintendent Amanda Cooke said that while she apologised for the inconvenience “police cannot and will not take risks with the lives of people in our community”.
“Had there been a device, there could have been devastating consequences had it exploded,” she added.
“Once again our community has been disrupted and the lives of residents put at risk by a cowardly element intent on causing as much disruption as they can.
“They have no regard for who may be affected by their actions and as a community we should be looking to blame this disruption on the person or persons who made the call claiming a device had been left in the area.
“The people who carry out these acts are not part of the society within which the majority of people of Northern Ireland wish to live.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The TV presenter came under fire after he fenced off a section of his land, to increase his family’s privacy Vandals have uprooted fence posts and a gate near the Isle of Man home of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.
The posts were then thrown from the cliff on to rocks below the beauty spot of Langness.
Wire fencing has also been cut away from around the perimeter of Mr Clarkson’s holiday home.
The peninsula became the subject of controversy after ramblers complained Mr Clarkson had diverted a footpath.
He claimed there had never been any public right of way across the land.
The row is currently being dealt with by the High Court and no final ruling has been made.
Anyone with information to help the police is advised to contact the southern neighbourhood policing team.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Motherwell knock holders Dundee United out of the Scottish Cup and set up a semi-final meeting with St Johnstone.
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By Frank Gardner
Prince Harry swims in icy water on the island of Spitzbergen At -23C people can do strange things. Like throwing yourself into the icy Arctic Ocean between shifting floes of sea ice.
It’s an odd enough experience for anyone to try, but stranger still for someone missing an arm – or part of a leg.
And it’s not every day you see the third in line to the British throne run headlong into the treacherous waters with a smile across his royal face.
But this is survival training, polar style.
It’s one of the final tests being thrown at the team of disabled British soldiers setting out this weekend to walk, unassisted, all the way across the ice cap to the North Pole.
I’ve come to Arctic Svalbard to report on Walking With The Wounded, a charity set up 18 months ago to help badly injured British servicemen and women find jobs in civilian life after suffering life-changing injuries on active service, mostly in Afghanistan.
After a lengthy and rigorous selection process four candidates have been chosen to make the 4-week, 200 mile (320km) trek across the frozen wastes to reach the Geographic North Pole. (The Magnetic North Pole is now somewhere in Canada and rumoured to be within walking distance of a sweet shop).
Capt Martin Hewitt from Liverpool has a paralysed arm that hangs in a sling, Capt Guy Disney from Oxford has one leg amputated below the knee, Welshman Sgt Steve Young has a painful broken back and South African-born Londoner Pte Jaco Van Gass is missing half an arm where it was blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Together with their Norwegian polar guide and the charity’s founders they will be dragging heavy sledges behind them across buckled ice and snow in temperatures as low as -40C.
In polar jargon I’m told an “unassisted” trek doesn’t mean they can’t have anyone with them; it just means they can’t have any resupplies along the route.
Coming to the Arctic brings its own special challenges for me too.
The preparations included a dip in an immersion suit As a wheelchair user after a Saudi gunman’s bullets damaged my spinal nerves seven years ago, it’s not the easiest environment to get around.
But I have been delighted to find that I can ride a snowmobile, which is how the Norwegians get around these frozen wastes.
So together with my production team we have bounced and revved our way across snowy ravines, marvelling at the breathtaking winter scenery and keeping a weather eye out for polar bears (none seen so far), to reach the team as they pole their way through the valleys.
To cope with the extreme temperatures and my part-paralysed legs, my producer Mark Georgiou has come up with a cunning foot thermometer with an extension lead that allows me to fend off frostbite.
Our Norwegian guide, the veteran polar explorer Stian Aker, is taking an almost paternal interest in my welfare.
So that’s quite enough about me, what about Prince Harry?
This week the team have been joined by the prince, their patron, who flew up to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, flanked by his usual Police Close Protection Team.
While the rest of the team have been training hard for the trek, he’s spent much of the last year ensconced with the Army Air Corps, learning to fly Apache helicopters.
In reality, he has been relatively unprepared for the rigours of the polar icecap; so this week is his last chance to get his survival skills up to speed.
The prince will join the men on the first five days of what is expected to be a four-week mission.
There had been talk of him joining the team for the final push to the pole, so we asked him: “Why the change?”
It was a combination, he replied, of his military commitments, the impending Royal Wedding – he is best man to his brother Prince William – and a desire not to turn up right at the end of the trek and, in his words, “grab all the glory”.
And so it was that early this morning we trooped out to a frozen inlet to watch the Prince and the team don bright orange “immersion suits” and throw themselves one by one into a “lead”, the technical name for a gap in the sea ice of the sort they will have to cross with their floating sledges throughout April.
Harry said he didn’t want to “grab all the glory” One-legged cavalry officer Guy Disney was first in, bobbing around like a Michelin man in his suit then doing an impressive back-stroke. Then came paratrooper Martin Hewitt who charged at the water and managed to haul himself back up onto the ice with just one arm.
As others followed suit Prince Harry gave a final bear hug embrace to the expedition’s co-founder, Ed Parker, before pushing him in then taking a running jump into the murky sub zero water himself.
But this being a media event as much as a training session, there was an element of showbiz glamour in the air.
Ben Fogle, the polar adventurer, author and TV presenter, is up here reporting on it for a US network. With a touch of the eccentric Englishman, he turned down the comfort of an immersion suit and jumped in in his day clothes, stripping off afterwards in the Arctic air.
“I must admit”, he told me afterwards, “it hurt like hell, especially my fingers”.
But this weekend, when the team are due to lift off from Svalbard and set down on the edge of the icecap to begin their trek, today’s fun and games will probably seem a world away.
As the reality of the enormous challenge facing them sets in the time for training will be over and it will be down to hard-learned skills and survival against the elements in one of the toughest environments on the planet.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The village mayor says the memorial has been put in storage Residents of a Belgian village are furious after their mayor ordered the removal of a Royal Air Force war memorial, honouring British troops.
The monument in Doel, on the River Schelde near Antwerp, was taken away in the early hours of Monday and its plinth was destroyed by workmen.
It had stood on the site since 1948 in memory of those who manned defences against German air raids in WWII.
Officials say the memorial is being moved to make way for a bigger port.
But campaigners say no such plans have been approved and think it an insult to British forces that the monument has been prematurely taken away.
Since the first rumours emerged that the memorial was under threat, Alain Heyrman, 48, has campaigned to protect it.
“It was still respected and honoured by everyone round here,” he said.
“It’s important for us to have the remembrance of the Second World War and the brave British soldiers who fought for our freedom.”
Every July since 1948 the villagers have held a procession finishing at the polished granite memorial, honouring their RAF defenders. But that ended in 2009 when the local mayor, Marc Van de Vijver, banned it.
He claimed the event was being hijacked by Doel residents campaigning against the bulldozing of their village to make way for the port expansion.
Those villagers believe the memorial’s removal is the latest part of a plan to weaken their resolve to campaign to save Doel.
“The embankment of the River Schelde is the place where the action took place, where the artillery guns were, so people have to respect that the monument should be here”
Alain Heyrman
Marc Van de Vijver denies this and insists the two issues must not be linked. He says the memorial’s future is guaranteed, albeit in another nearby town five or six miles away.
The official said: “We’re moving this to protect the monument.
“We want to continue the tradition that has existed for over 50 years. For the last 10 years we’ve known this area could be redeveloped so in order to preserve it, we thought it should be relocated.”
The mayor also explained that workmen removed the memorial under cover of darkness because they simply wanted to make an early start.
Mr Heyrman is livid with the mayor’s conduct and says the port expansion should at worst need the memorial to have been shifted a short distance along the riverbank.
“Even if the port expansion ever takes place, they could still keep the monument here,” he said.
“If necessary relocating it 100m along the embankment to outside the limits of the new port. The monument is the soul of the village and should not have been moved.
“There’s no connection with the other village. The embankment of the River Schelde is the place where the action took place, where the artillery guns were, so people have to respect that the monument should be here.”
But Mayor Van de Vijver says that as the air defences protected the wider region, the monument does not have to be on the exact site of the guns.
Villagers remain worried that as no land has been secured for a new memorial, it will not happen. The mayor says the main part of the original monument is now safely in storage.
However he is refusing to let residents or the BBC know the location of its storage so its condition can be verified.
Those who have spent decades honouring the memory of British troops who fought to keep Europe free of Nazi tyranny say they will fight on until the memorial is returned to where they believe is the only fitting and proper place – the village of Doel.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
David Cameron lost his patience with the shadow chancellor David Cameron dubbed shadow chancellor Ed Balls “the most annoying person in modern politics” during angry Commons exchanges.
The PM had his dig at Mr Balls as he was trying to answer a question from Labour MP Joan Whalley.
“I wish the shadow chancellor would occasionally shut up and listen to the answer,” said Mr Cameron.
He told a grinning Mr Balls: “I may be alone in thinking him the most annoying person in modern politics.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Obama said that it is time for America to “get serious” about its energy demands President Barack Obama has outlined an ambitious target to reduce US oil imports by one-third by 2025.
He said in a speech in Washington that America had to “get serious” about a secure and affordable energy future.
Higher oil prices are threatening to hamper US economic recovery and there is growing dissatisfaction among car drivers with pump prices.
He said the US must move towards getting 80% of its electricity from non-oil sources by 2035.
“We cannot keep going from shock to trance on the issue of energy security, rushing to propose action when gas prices rise, then hitting the snooze button when they fall again,” he said during a speech at Georgetown University.
Mr Obama said that presidents and politicians had for years promised energy independence through finding cleaner and more renewable sources.
Petrol prices in the US have shot up 50 cents a gallon this year, reaching a national average of $3.58 a gallon last week.
“We have to discover and produce cleaner, renewable sources of energy,” Mr Obama said. “And we have to do it quickly.”
As well as increasing the use of alternative energies such as biofuels and making vehicles more efficient, Mr Obama said the US must raise domestic oil production.
An Interior Department report published on Tuesday said that more than two-thirds of offshore exploration licences in the Gulf of Mexico have yet to be acted upon by oil companies.
The department said that the sites could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet (1.42 trillion cubic meters) of natural gas.
Mr Obama also embraced an expansion of nuclear power, but added that there would be a thorough review of power plants to ensure any lessons from the crisis in Japan were learned.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Mr Hague said the diplomats could pose a “threat” to national security The UK has taken steps to expel five Libyan diplomats, Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.
Updating MPs on the crisis, he said they “could pose a threat” to national security.
Meanwhile, David Cameron said the UK was not ruling out providing arms to rebels in “certain circumstances” but no decision had yet been taken.
He said it might be allowed under the original UN resolution which authorised the allies’ military action.
Earlier, the prime minister’s official spokesman rejected suggestions the UK’s stance on supplying weapons had shifted.
It comes after the allies held a summit in London on Tuesday to discuss Libya’s future.
The coalition military action is aimed at enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya and protecting civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Col Gaddafi. It has denied air strikes are meant to provide cover for a rebel advance.
Mr Hague said: “To underline our grave concern at the [Gaddafi] regime’s behaviour, I can announce to the House that we have today taken steps to expel five diplomats at the Libyan embassy in London, including the military attache.
“The government also judged that were these individuals to remain in Britain, they could pose a threat to our security.”
At Prime Minister’s Questions Mr Cameron said the UN resolutions “would not necessarily rule out the provision of assistance to those protecting civilians in certain circumstances”.
He said: “The legal position is clear that the arms embargo applies to the whole territory of Libya.
“But at the same time UNSCR 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas… We do not rule it out but we have not taken the decision to do so.”
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