Category: news

Yelena Bonner (right) married the nuclear scientist and fellow human rights activist Andrei Sakharov

The Russian human rights activist Yelena Bonner has died at the age of 88 after a long illness.

She married the nuclear scientist and fellow human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Mrs Bonner became active in the human rights movement in the 1960s, and was a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a rights monitoring body.

She swiftly became one of the Soviet Union’s leading rights activists.

When her husband was sent into internal exile for his activism, it was Mrs Bonner that made sure his writing got out, and when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, it was his wife who collected the award on his behalf.

She was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation in 1984 and exiled to Gorki, but she was allowed to travel to the US a year later.

Sakharov died in 1989, but Yelena Bonner continued her political activism and criticism of the Russian political system.

“Until the [Communist] party truly gives up all its wealth to the people who really earned it, everything, down to the last… rouble, Stalinism will still triumph and it will still triumph until we can establish the principle of sovereignty,” she said in 1991.

“Sovereignty of the individual, sovereignty of the family and home, sovereignty of every ethnic group and every state.”

Mrs Bonner was a fierce critic of President Boris Yeltsin after he sent troops into Chechnya, says the BBC’s Stephen Rosenberg in Moscow.

Last year, she was one of the first and most prominent signatories of an online petition against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, adds our correspondent.

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Alison Manning went missing on Friday night from a hotel in Llandudno

Police have appealed for help in tracing a woman, missing from a hotel at a Conwy seaside resort.

Alison Manning, 58, from Market Drayton, Shropshire, has not been seen since Friday night.

She had been staying at the Risboro Hotel in Llandudno and left the hotel at around 2130 BST.

North Wales Police said she contacted a family member at around 2300 and has made no further contact.

Police and her family say they are becoming increasingly concerned for her safety and whereabouts.

She is described as white, 5ft 1ins tall, with short blonde hair which is greying slightly.

She is also described as being of quite stocky build, has blue eyes and wears black-rimmed glasses.

Ms Manning was possibly wearing a blue coloured light raincoat, brown trousers, sandals and a light coloured top.

Police have appealed to anyone who has seen her, who may know of her whereabouts or for Ms Manning herself to get in touch with police in Llandudno on 101 (if in Wales) 0845 6071001 (Welsh language line) 0845 6071002 (English language line).

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Celia was finally coaxed on to the rescue platform after five days

An Atlantic grey seal has been rescued from the Hinkley Point B nuclear power station in Somerset.

The seal, which had not been harmed, had been spotted swimming around in the cooling chamber but could not escape.

Staff from EDF Energy, observed by RSPCA officials, designed a cradle made from scaffolding and netting to eventually rescue the stranded animal.

After five days they managed to capture the seal, which they called Celia, and it was released nearby.

“Celia the seal seemed in no hurry to leave as there were plenty of fish for her to eat,” a spokesman for the power station said.

After being hoisted out of the water intake Celia was checked by a vet who said she was none-the-worse for her ordeal.

Celia was released back into the sea from a beach several miles away from the power station.

“The spot was chosen as it was far enough away, and on the outgoing tide, so she was not likely to return,” the EDF spokesman added.

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The British Olympic Association is “incredibly positive” that there will be an Olympic football team comprising players from across Great Britain for the 2012 Games.

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More than 50,000 of Scotland’s public service jobs can be expected to go in the next four years, according to a leading economic forecast.

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Russell Brand is invited to become a member the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, giving him a vote in the Oscars.

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The US and a number of other countries are holding “outreach” talks with the Taliban, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirms.

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Clarence Clemons, the burly saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has died, aged 69, a spokeswoman for the band says.

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At least two people die as an apparent Nato air strike hits a three-storey house in a residential area of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

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Government policies for treating drug addicts in England are flawed and “doomed to failure”, the Centre for Policy Studies think tank says.

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Rory McIlroy is closing in on a maiden major title with an eight-shot lead over YE Yang going into the final round of the US Open.

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The most senior UN official for refugees is to visit the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa to where thousands of people have fled unrest in north Africa.

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Christie Vincett shows her friends the aging kit she will be wearing during Isolation Week.

A team of volunteers is about to begin an unusual experiment – for one week they will each be living a life cut off from the world around them.

There will be no conversations, no phones, no interactions with other people at all, with only the TV for company.

They’re trying to reproduce the experience of more than a million elderly people who live lonely and isolated lives.

And for one of the 10 volunteers, 23-year-old drama student Christie Vincett, it could be a long week.

She has said goodbye to her boyfriend and flatmates and is preparing to do without all the paraphernalia that we take for granted.

So it’s goodbye too to her mobile phone and to text messaging, and there will be no Facebook updates either.

Christie and the other volunteers will be recording their experiences on a video diary and will be able to post one-way Tweets, but there will be no other contact with the outside world.

“I’m feeling a little bit apprehensive and a little bit scared”, says Christie.

“But I’m looking forward to it at the same time, it’ll be quite interesting.

“It’s an experience for me and I’ll learn something and I’m doing it for a good cause. But actually it’s a serious issue for so many people.”

In her flat in Golders Green in north London, Christie has unpacked various bits of kit sent to her by the charity Friends of the Elderly, who are organising the Isolation Week experiment.

So there are socks to fill with dried peas, beans and popcorn kernels which will mimic the painful sensation of walking on arthritic feet.

Distorting, fuzzy glasses give an impression of what it is like to live with impaired vision like cataracts or glaucoma.

And diving gloves will make it hard to pick things up or to manipulate simple items like a knife and fork as though you had arthritis.

All the equipment is designed to reproduce the physical challenges of ageing as well as the mental toll that living an isolated life can bring.

It’s not surprising then that Christie has mixed feelings.

“I’ve got to try on all these pieces of equipment and experience some of what an elderly person would experience.

“But it’s only for a short amount of time and then I get to come out of it, whereas many elderly people are experiencing this for years and years and years.”

“I can’t imagine what that must feel like. You do take advantage of the people around you when you call or text or Facebook a friend.

“That communication is so quick – and to have that cut away for a week will be quite hard. I think I’ll find myself going to call or text and then realise that I can’t.”

And research suggests that, while a million older people live isolated and lonely lives, another million more feel trapped in their own homes.

One in five older people see other people less than once a week.

Those statistics would be recognised by many of the residents at the Sir Thomas Lipton Memorial Home in Southgate.

It was originally set up as a retirement home for nurses and is now run by Friends of the Elderly.

One of the residents, Betty Judge, lived alone for most of her life.

She says she coped well most of the time, but there were occasions when it was tough.

“I did get the feeling of depression once. That was awful. I couldn’t sort of ward it off. It would just come over you.

“I just left it and thought ‘It’ll pass’, and I said a little prayer. That’s how you get by.

“Then you think perhaps I should have had a family, but I wasn’t the type for that.”

Simple solutions

In fact elderly people who live a life of isolation are more prone to depression – and are less likely to try and get help and support.

But Jenny Sykes of Friends of the Elderly says overcoming loneliness doesn’t have to be complicated.

“If you see an older person in the supermarket, you might be able to help them take that jar down off the shelf. And then don’t run off – just smile at them and see if they want a little chat.

“So it can be something as small as that. It can be making sure your neighbour is OK, having a chat over the garden fence.

“And then don’t let’s forget our elderly relatives. Birthday cards can be so important to them.

“At Friends of the Elderly we send birthday cards to some of our beneficiaries and often they say it’s the only one they get and they keep it up all year.”

So while it could be a difficult week for Christie and her fellow volunteers, many more elderly people face a life of loneliness day in, day out.

Christie Vincett shows her friends the aging kit she will be wearing during Isolation Week.

Christie Vincett shows her friends the aging kit she will be wearing during Isolation Week.

Christie Vincett shows her friends the aging kit she will be wearing during Isolation Week.

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

Ringo Starr regularly wishes his fans “peace and love”

Ringo Starr has performed in Liverpool for the first time since he sparked anger three years ago by saying he did not miss his home city.

The former Beatle sought to repair relations with his fellow Liverpudlians by stressing how much he loved the city three times during Saturday’s show.

He received a warm reception at the Liverpool Empire, although the 2,300-capacity venue was not sold out.

He last played Liverpool in 2008, when it was European Capital of Culture.

Shortly after that appearance, he antagonised some during an interview with Jonathan Ross on BBC One, when he said he missed nothing about the city.

At Saturday’s homecoming concert, he emphatically declared: “I love Liverpool” at three points in a light-hearted attempt to bury the hatchet.

The crowd, made up of fans from around the world as well as from Liverpool, were on his side from the outset and gave him a hero’s welcome.

But ticket sales showed that not everyone in the city was so enthusiastic. Three hours before the concert, the official Ticketmaster website was showing more than 350 seats still available.

Freda Kelly, who ran the Beatles fan club for a decade from 1962, said it was a “very good” show, adding that many in the crowd had travelled from overseas.

“There weren’t a lot of Liverpool people here,” she said. “From the people’s reactions tonight, the ones that were here, they seem to have accepted what he said tonight, that he loves Liverpool. I’m sure he does.”

Another fan, Christopher Hayes, 72, from Kensington, Liverpool, watched Ringo perform on the top of St George’s Hall, opposite the Empire, to launch the Capital of Culture year in January 2008.

“I heard his comments afterwards – they didn’t go down very well at all,” he explained. Of Saturday’s concert, he said: “I didn’t know what kind of reception he would get.

“He got a very good reception – better than we expected, really.”

Saturday’s gig was the second UK leg of a European tour with the drummer’s “All Starr Band”, featuring a mixture of of pop and rock veterans, including Mr Mister frontman Richard Page and The McCoys singer Rick Derringer.

The set was split between Starr, who sang Beatles and solo material, and his bandmates, who performed hits from their own back catalogues.

Starr did not perform Liverpool 8, the song he wrote and recorded for the Capital of Culture celebrations, but did play The Other Side Of Liverpool, from his last album Y Not.

He dedicated that song to his 94-year-old aunt, who was on her feet with the rest of the crowd during songs like Yellow Submarine and With A Little Help From My Friends.

The Empire was the venue for The Beatles’ last live show in Liverpool, in December 1965.

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