Category: news

Rafael Nadal beats British number one Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second year running and will play Novak Djokovic in Sunday’s final.

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

Rafael Nadal beats British number one Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second year running and will play Novak Djokovic in Sunday’s final.

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

Rafael Nadal beats British number one Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second year running and will play Novak Djokovic in Sunday’s final.

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

Bombardier is the UK’s last train-making factory

The leader of Derby City Council has spoken of a possible jobs “disaster” after train-maker Bombardier lost a major contract.

Philip Hickson went to a meeting with the firm in Berlin after it missed out on a contract for London’s Thameslink.

He said the full impact would be revealed to staff next week and added the future of the train-making factory – the UK’s last – was “dire”.

Bombardier employs about 3,000 people at its plant in Derby.

Concerns for the factory were immediately raised when it lost the £1.4bn Thameslink contract last month, as most of its other projects are ending in the near future.

Mr Hickson said he went to Berlin hoping for good news but was now far less confident.

“We were hoping, in terms of the discussion, there might be some mileage in moving other things around in Europe to bring to Derby but clearly that is not going to be possible.

“Clearly the situation is dire.”

He added: “I understand Bombardier have called all their workers to a meeting on Tuesday and although we were not told directly, I believe that is when the news of the full consequences of the loss of this contract are going to be.

“I think that is when the full scale of the disaster will be revealed.”

Bombardier’s Derby plant is the UK’s last remaining train factory.

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

Bombardier is the UK’s last train-making factory

The leader of Derby City Council has spoken of a possible jobs “disaster” after train-maker Bombardier lost a major contract.

Philip Hickson went to a meeting with the firm in Berlin after it missed out on a contract for London’s Thameslink.

He said the full impact would be revealed to staff next week and added the future of the train-making factory – the UK’s last – was “dire”.

Bombardier employs about 3,000 people at its plant in Derby.

Concerns for the factory were immediately raised when it lost the £1.4bn Thameslink contract last month, as most of its other projects are ending in the near future.

Mr Hickson said he went to Berlin hoping for good news but was now far less confident.

“We were hoping, in terms of the discussion, there might be some mileage in moving other things around in Europe to bring to Derby but clearly that is not going to be possible.

“Clearly the situation is dire.”

He added: “I understand Bombardier have called all their workers to a meeting on Tuesday and although we were not told directly, I believe that is when the news of the full consequences of the loss of this contract are going to be.

“I think that is when the full scale of the disaster will be revealed.”

Bombardier’s Derby plant is the UK’s last remaining train factory.

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

Bombardier is the UK’s last train-making factory

The leader of Derby City Council has spoken of a possible jobs “disaster” after train-maker Bombardier lost a major contract.

Philip Hickson went to a meeting with the firm in Berlin after it missed out on a contract for London’s Thameslink.

He said the full impact would be revealed to staff next week and added the future of the train-making factory – the UK’s last – was “dire”.

Bombardier employs about 3,000 people at its plant in Derby.

Concerns for the factory were immediately raised when it lost the £1.4bn Thameslink contract last month, as most of its other projects are ending in the near future.

Mr Hickson said he went to Berlin hoping for good news but was now far less confident.

“We were hoping, in terms of the discussion, there might be some mileage in moving other things around in Europe to bring to Derby but clearly that is not going to be possible.

“Clearly the situation is dire.”

He added: “I understand Bombardier have called all their workers to a meeting on Tuesday and although we were not told directly, I believe that is when the news of the full consequences of the loss of this contract are going to be.

“I think that is when the full scale of the disaster will be revealed.”

Bombardier’s Derby plant is the UK’s last remaining train factory.

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

The temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings of Travancore

Treasure, thought to be worth billions of rupees, has been unearthed from secret underground chambers in a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Precious stones, gold and silver have been found at Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, unnamed officials say.

The riches are thought to have been languishing in the temple vaults for more than a century, interred by the Maharajahs of Travancore over time.

They have not been officially valued and inspectors are taking an inventory.

Inspectors say they will continue cataloguing the treasure for at least one more week.

Unofficial estimates say that the treasure discovered so far over four days of inspections may be valued at more than 25 billion rupees ($500m). But historians say that assessing the true value of these objects is likely to be extremely difficult.

Nevertheless security has been stepped up at the temple: “I have instructed the police chief to reinforce security further following the findings and it would be there permanently,” Oomen Chandy, the state’s chief minister said.

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings who ruled over the then kingdom of Travancore. Local legends say the Travancore kings sealed immense riches within the thick stone walls and vaults of the temple.

The current Maharajah of Travancore has been the managing trustee of the temple

Since Independence, the temple has been controlled by a trust run by the descendants of the Travancore royal family. After 1947 the kingdom of Travancore merged with the princely state of Cochin, which eventually became the present-day state of Kerala.

The inspections at the temple began after India’s Supreme Court appointed a seven-member panel to enter and assess the value of the objects stored in its cellars, including two chambers last thought to have been opened about 130 years ago.

The Supreme Court also endorsed a ruling by the high court in Kerala, which ordered the state government to take over the temple and its assets from the royal trust. It also ordered the trust to hand over responsibility for the temple’s security to the police.

The initial court petition was brought by a local lawyer, Sundar Rajan, who filed a case in the Kerala High Court demanding the takeover of the temple, saying that the current controllers were incapable of protecting the wealth of the temple because it did not have its own security force.

The current Maharajah of Travancore Uthradan Thirunaal Marthanda Varma, who is also the managing trustee of the temple, appealed to India’s Supreme Court.

He said that as Maharajah he had every right to control the temple because of a special law enacted after independence, which vested the management of the temple with the erstwhile ruler of Travancore.

But his appeal was rejected – Maharajahs have no special status in India and they are treated like ordinary citizens.

The members of the Travancore royal family consider themselves to be servants of the presiding deity at the temple, Padmanabhaswamy, which is an aspect of the Hindu God Vishnu in eternal sleep. This is why they historically entrusted their wealth to the temple.

But there was a public outcry when the Maharajah attempted to retain control of the temple by citing the special law, with many arguing that the wealth belonged to the people now.

The vaults were opened in the presence of the panel, and observers, which include high court judges, temple officials, archaeology authorities, Sundar Rajan and a representative of the current Maharajah.

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

The temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings of Travancore

Treasure, thought to be worth billions of rupees, has been unearthed from secret underground chambers in a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Precious stones, gold and silver have been found at Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, unnamed officials say.

The riches are thought to have been languishing in the temple vaults for more than a century, interred by the Maharajahs of Travancore over time.

They have not been officially valued and inspectors are taking an inventory.

Inspectors say they will continue cataloguing the treasure for at least one more week.

Unofficial estimates say that the treasure discovered so far over four days of inspections may be valued at more than 25 billion rupees ($500m). But historians say that assessing the true value of these objects is likely to be extremely difficult.

Nevertheless security has been stepped up at the temple: “I have instructed the police chief to reinforce security further following the findings and it would be there permanently,” Oomen Chandy, the state’s chief minister said.

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings who ruled over the then kingdom of Travancore. Local legends say the Travancore kings sealed immense riches within the thick stone walls and vaults of the temple.

The current Maharajah of Travancore has been the managing trustee of the temple

Since Independence, the temple has been controlled by a trust run by the descendants of the Travancore royal family. After 1947 the kingdom of Travancore merged with the princely state of Cochin, which eventually became the present-day state of Kerala.

The inspections at the temple began after India’s Supreme Court appointed a seven-member panel to enter and assess the value of the objects stored in its cellars, including two chambers last thought to have been opened about 130 years ago.

The Supreme Court also endorsed a ruling by the high court in Kerala, which ordered the state government to take over the temple and its assets from the royal trust. It also ordered the trust to hand over responsibility for the temple’s security to the police.

The initial court petition was brought by a local lawyer, Sundar Rajan, who filed a case in the Kerala High Court demanding the takeover of the temple, saying that the current controllers were incapable of protecting the wealth of the temple because it did not have its own security force.

The current Maharajah of Travancore Uthradan Thirunaal Marthanda Varma, who is also the managing trustee of the temple, appealed to India’s Supreme Court.

He said that as Maharajah he had every right to control the temple because of a special law enacted after independence, which vested the management of the temple with the erstwhile ruler of Travancore.

But his appeal was rejected – Maharajahs have no special status in India and they are treated like ordinary citizens.

The members of the Travancore royal family consider themselves to be servants of the presiding deity at the temple, Padmanabhaswamy, which is an aspect of the Hindu God Vishnu in eternal sleep. This is why they historically entrusted their wealth to the temple.

But there was a public outcry when the Maharajah attempted to retain control of the temple by citing the special law, with many arguing that the wealth belonged to the people now.

The vaults were opened in the presence of the panel, and observers, which include high court judges, temple officials, archaeology authorities, Sundar Rajan and a representative of the current Maharajah.

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

The temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings of Travancore

Treasure, thought to be worth billions of rupees, has been unearthed from secret underground chambers in a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Precious stones, gold and silver have been found at Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, unnamed officials say.

The riches are thought to have been languishing in the temple vaults for more than a century, interred by the Maharajahs of Travancore over time.

They have not been officially valued and inspectors are taking an inventory.

Inspectors say they will continue cataloguing the treasure for at least one more week.

Unofficial estimates say that the treasure discovered so far over four days of inspections may be valued at more than 25 billion rupees ($500m). But historians say that assessing the true value of these objects is likely to be extremely difficult.

Nevertheless security has been stepped up at the temple: “I have instructed the police chief to reinforce security further following the findings and it would be there permanently,” Oomen Chandy, the state’s chief minister said.

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple was built in the 16th Century by the kings who ruled over the then kingdom of Travancore. Local legends say the Travancore kings sealed immense riches within the thick stone walls and vaults of the temple.

The current Maharajah of Travancore has been the managing trustee of the temple

Since Independence, the temple has been controlled by a trust run by the descendants of the Travancore royal family. After 1947 the kingdom of Travancore merged with the princely state of Cochin, which eventually became the present-day state of Kerala.

The inspections at the temple began after India’s Supreme Court appointed a seven-member panel to enter and assess the value of the objects stored in its cellars, including two chambers last thought to have been opened about 130 years ago.

The Supreme Court also endorsed a ruling by the high court in Kerala, which ordered the state government to take over the temple and its assets from the royal trust. It also ordered the trust to hand over responsibility for the temple’s security to the police.

The initial court petition was brought by a local lawyer, Sundar Rajan, who filed a case in the Kerala High Court demanding the takeover of the temple, saying that the current controllers were incapable of protecting the wealth of the temple because it did not have its own security force.

The current Maharajah of Travancore Uthradan Thirunaal Marthanda Varma, who is also the managing trustee of the temple, appealed to India’s Supreme Court.

He said that as Maharajah he had every right to control the temple because of a special law enacted after independence, which vested the management of the temple with the erstwhile ruler of Travancore.

But his appeal was rejected – Maharajahs have no special status in India and they are treated like ordinary citizens.

The members of the Travancore royal family consider themselves to be servants of the presiding deity at the temple, Padmanabhaswamy, which is an aspect of the Hindu God Vishnu in eternal sleep. This is why they historically entrusted their wealth to the temple.

But there was a public outcry when the Maharajah attempted to retain control of the temple by citing the special law, with many arguing that the wealth belonged to the people now.

The vaults were opened in the presence of the panel, and observers, which include high court judges, temple officials, archaeology authorities, Sundar Rajan and a representative of the current Maharajah.

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

The peer was a front bench spokesman for the Conservatives in the House of Lords

Former Tory peer and Essex Council leader Lord Hanningfield has been jailed for nine months for fiddling his parliamentary expenses.

Paul White, 70, was convicted of six counts of false accounting relating to nearly £14,000 of claims in May.

White has said he will seek leave to appeal against the verdict. If granted, the Court of Appeal will hear the case.

He was found guilty of claiming money for overnight stays in London when he had actually returned home to Essex.

Peers were able to claim up to £174-a-night when attending Parliament, if their main home was outside the city.

But during his trial in May, the court was told White submitted false claims for hotel bills including one when he was actually on board a flight to India at the time.

He also fraudulently claimed for train fares and car mileage.

White is the sixth parliamentarian to be jailed for expenses fraud. Tory peer Lord Taylor and four former Labour MPs – Eric Illsley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Elliot Morley – were all given prison sentences.

Chaytor and Illsley have since been released under the home detention curfew scheme.

The BBC’s Helen Fawkes, at Maidstone Crown Court, said the judge took into account White’s reportedly fragile mental state and his age before sentencing him. She said the judge was told that the former peer had expressed suicidal ideas at the prospect of being sent to prison.

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

The peer was a front bench spokesman for the Conservatives in the House of Lords

Former Tory peer and Essex Council leader Lord Hanningfield has been jailed for nine months for fiddling his parliamentary expenses.

Paul White, 70, was convicted of six counts of false accounting relating to nearly £14,000 of claims in May.

White has said he will seek leave to appeal against the verdict. If granted, the Court of Appeal will hear the case.

He was found guilty of claiming money for overnight stays in London when he had actually returned home to Essex.

Peers were able to claim up to £174-a-night when attending Parliament, if their main home was outside the city.

But during his trial in May, the court was told White submitted false claims for hotel bills including one when he was actually on board a flight to India at the time.

He also fraudulently claimed for train fares and car mileage.

White is the sixth parliamentarian to be jailed for expenses fraud. Tory peer Lord Taylor and four former Labour MPs – Eric Illsley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Elliot Morley – were all given prison sentences.

Chaytor and Illsley have since been released under the home detention curfew scheme.

The BBC’s Helen Fawkes, at Maidstone Crown Court, said the judge took into account White’s reportedly fragile mental state and his age before sentencing him. She said the judge was told that the former peer had expressed suicidal ideas at the prospect of being sent to prison.

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

The peer was a front bench spokesman for the Conservatives in the House of Lords

Former Tory peer and Essex Council leader Lord Hanningfield has been jailed for nine months for fiddling his parliamentary expenses.

Paul White, 70, was convicted of six counts of false accounting relating to nearly £14,000 of claims in May.

White has said he will seek leave to appeal against the verdict. If granted, the Court of Appeal will hear the case.

He was found guilty of claiming money for overnight stays in London when he had actually returned home to Essex.

Peers were able to claim up to £174-a-night when attending Parliament, if their main home was outside the city.

But during his trial in May, the court was told White submitted false claims for hotel bills including one when he was actually on board a flight to India at the time.

He also fraudulently claimed for train fares and car mileage.

White is the sixth parliamentarian to be jailed for expenses fraud. Tory peer Lord Taylor and four former Labour MPs – Eric Illsley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Elliot Morley – were all given prison sentences.

Chaytor and Illsley have since been released under the home detention curfew scheme.

The BBC’s Helen Fawkes, at Maidstone Crown Court, said the judge took into account White’s reportedly fragile mental state and his age before sentencing him. She said the judge was told that the former peer had expressed suicidal ideas at the prospect of being sent to prison.

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

The Dzero team is also part of a mystery about a potential new particle

US particle physicists are inching closer to determining why the Universe exists in its current form, made overwhelmingly of matter.

Physics suggests equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been made in the Big Bang.

In 2010, researchers at the Tevatron accelerator claimed preliminary results showing a small excess of matter over antimatter as particles decayed.

The team has submitted a paper showing those results are on a firmer footing.

Each of the fundamental particles known has an antimatter cousin, with identical properties but opposite electric charge.

When a particle encounters its antiparticle, they “annihilate” each other, disappearing in a high-energy flash of light.

The question remains: why did this not occur in the early Universe with the equal amounts of matter and antimatter, resulting in a Universe devoid of both?

The Tevatron results come from a shower of particles produced at the facility when smashing protons into their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons.

The proton-antiproton collisions in turn create a number of different particles, and the team operating the Tevatron’s DZero detector first noticed a discrepancy in the decay of particles called B mesons.

Statistics of a ‘discovery’

Particle physics has an accepted definition for a “discovery”: a five-sigma level of certaintyThe number of sigmas is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effectSimilarly, tossing a coin and getting a number of heads in a row may just be chance, rather than a sign of a “loaded” coinThe “three sigma” level represents about the same likelihood of tossing more than eight heads in a rowFive sigma, on the other hand, would correspond to tossing more than 20 in a rowA five-sigma result is highly unlikely to happen by chance, and thus an experimental result becomes an accepted discovery

These decayed into pairs of particles called muons alongside pairs of their antimatter versions, antimuons. But, as the team reported in May 2010 in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, there was a notable 1% excess of the matter particles.

However, unpicking important events in the soup of interactions created in particle physics experiments meant that those measurements were associated with a level of uncertainty – reflecting the probability that the effect they see is a random statistical occurrence, rather than new physics.

The researchers now have 50% more data to work with, and have tried to establish that their earlier result in fact came from the particle decays that they first proposed.

As they reported this Thursday, they have now reduced the uncertainty in their experiment to a level of 3.9 sigma – equivalent to a 0.005% probability that the effect is a fluke.

But particle physics has a strict definition for what may be called a discovery – the “five sigma” level of certainty, or about a 0.00003% chance that the effect is not real – which the team must show before they can claim to have solved the long-standing matter/antimatter mystery.

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

The Dzero team is also part of a mystery about a potential new particle

US particle physicists are inching closer to determining why the Universe exists in its current form, made overwhelmingly of matter.

Physics suggests equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been made in the Big Bang.

In 2010, researchers at the Tevatron accelerator claimed preliminary results showing a small excess of matter over antimatter as particles decayed.

The team has submitted a paper showing those results are on a firmer footing.

Each of the fundamental particles known has an antimatter cousin, with identical properties but opposite electric charge.

When a particle encounters its antiparticle, they “annihilate” each other, disappearing in a high-energy flash of light.

The question remains: why did this not occur in the early Universe with the equal amounts of matter and antimatter, resulting in a Universe devoid of both?

The Tevatron results come from a shower of particles produced at the facility when smashing protons into their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons.

The proton-antiproton collisions in turn create a number of different particles, and the team operating the Tevatron’s DZero detector first noticed a discrepancy in the decay of particles called B mesons.

Statistics of a ‘discovery’

Particle physics has an accepted definition for a “discovery”: a five-sigma level of certaintyThe number of sigmas is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effectSimilarly, tossing a coin and getting a number of heads in a row may just be chance, rather than a sign of a “loaded” coinThe “three sigma” level represents about the same likelihood of tossing more than eight heads in a rowFive sigma, on the other hand, would correspond to tossing more than 20 in a rowA five-sigma result is highly unlikely to happen by chance, and thus an experimental result becomes an accepted discovery

These decayed into pairs of particles called muons alongside pairs of their antimatter versions, antimuons. But, as the team reported in May 2010 in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, there was a notable 1% excess of the matter particles.

However, unpicking important events in the soup of interactions created in particle physics experiments meant that those measurements were associated with a level of uncertainty – reflecting the probability that the effect they see is a random statistical occurrence, rather than new physics.

The researchers now have 50% more data to work with, and have tried to establish that their earlier result in fact came from the particle decays that they first proposed.

As they reported this Thursday, they have now reduced the uncertainty in their experiment to a level of 3.9 sigma – equivalent to a 0.005% probability that the effect is a fluke.

But particle physics has a strict definition for what may be called a discovery – the “five sigma” level of certainty, or about a 0.00003% chance that the effect is not real – which the team must show before they can claim to have solved the long-standing matter/antimatter mystery.

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

The Dzero team is also part of a mystery about a potential new particle

US particle physicists are inching closer to determining why the Universe exists in its current form, made overwhelmingly of matter.

Physics suggests equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been made in the Big Bang.

In 2010, researchers at the Tevatron accelerator claimed preliminary results showing a small excess of matter over antimatter as particles decayed.

The team has submitted a paper showing those results are on a firmer footing.

Each of the fundamental particles known has an antimatter cousin, with identical properties but opposite electric charge.

When a particle encounters its antiparticle, they “annihilate” each other, disappearing in a high-energy flash of light.

The question remains: why did this not occur in the early Universe with the equal amounts of matter and antimatter, resulting in a Universe devoid of both?

The Tevatron results come from a shower of particles produced at the facility when smashing protons into their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons.

The proton-antiproton collisions in turn create a number of different particles, and the team operating the Tevatron’s DZero detector first noticed a discrepancy in the decay of particles called B mesons.

Statistics of a ‘discovery’

Particle physics has an accepted definition for a “discovery”: a five-sigma level of certaintyThe number of sigmas is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effectSimilarly, tossing a coin and getting a number of heads in a row may just be chance, rather than a sign of a “loaded” coinThe “three sigma” level represents about the same likelihood of tossing more than eight heads in a rowFive sigma, on the other hand, would correspond to tossing more than 20 in a rowA five-sigma result is highly unlikely to happen by chance, and thus an experimental result becomes an accepted discovery

These decayed into pairs of particles called muons alongside pairs of their antimatter versions, antimuons. But, as the team reported in May 2010 in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, there was a notable 1% excess of the matter particles.

However, unpicking important events in the soup of interactions created in particle physics experiments meant that those measurements were associated with a level of uncertainty – reflecting the probability that the effect they see is a random statistical occurrence, rather than new physics.

The researchers now have 50% more data to work with, and have tried to establish that their earlier result in fact came from the particle decays that they first proposed.

As they reported this Thursday, they have now reduced the uncertainty in their experiment to a level of 3.9 sigma – equivalent to a 0.005% probability that the effect is a fluke.

But particle physics has a strict definition for what may be called a discovery – the “five sigma” level of certainty, or about a 0.00003% chance that the effect is not real – which the team must show before they can claim to have solved the long-standing matter/antimatter mystery.

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