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The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, says the progress Nato forces are making against the Taleban in Afghanistan is “far from irreversible”, but he said British troops would not be pulled out too early.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The bullet-riddled minibus in which 10 Protestant workmen were massacred Families of those killed in the Kingsmills Massacre have received the report into the shootings after an investigation by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).
The families said the report confirms much of what they already believed.
It found that the IRA was responsible for the atrocity and that the victims were targeted because of their religion.
The full HET report is expected to be made public on 21 June.
Part of the investigation centres on claims that guns used that night may be linked to as many as 90 other murders and attempted murders.
Survivor Alan Black was shot 18 times. He said the memory would “never leave him”.
“There is a memorial to the men in the village of Bessbrook, close to where I live, and I think often of my work mates who lost their lives on that terrible evening.
“I have suffered physical and mental scars but the families of the men who died have suffered much more.
“Their grief continues every day and I hope they will find some comfort in the HET report.”
On 5 January 1976, the 10 textile workers were travelling home from work in the dark and rain on a minibus in the heart of rural County Armagh.
Just after the van cleared the rise of a hill, there was a man standing in the road flashing a torch.
They stopped and there was the sudden, ominous movement of 11 other men, all armed, emerging from the hedges around them.
Their first thought was that it was the Army, but the gunmen were masked.
A man asked their religions. There was only one Catholic left on the bus. He was identified and ordered away from his Protestant work mates. He was able to run off.
The lead gunman spoke one other word – “Right” – and the shooting began.
Mr Black was the only one to survive.
After the initial screams, he recalled years later: “There was silence. I was semi-conscious and passed out several times with the deadly pain and cold.
“I must have been lying at the roadside waiting on the ambulance for up to 30 minutes. It was like an eternity.
“When help arrived I could not get the words out quick enough. I was afraid I’d die and nobody would ever know what happened.
“I was hysterical and wanted to tell everyone – the ambulance men, nurses, doctors, police.”
Bessbrook, a small, Quaker model village that because of the Troubles hosted a massive Army base, was devastated. Nine of the men lived in Bessbrook. They had 14 children.
They were Joseph Lemmon, whose wife was standing over their tea as he died; Reginald Chapman, a Sunday school teacher who played football for Newry Town; his younger brother Walter Chapman; Kenneth Worton, whose youngest daughter had not even started school; James McWhirter, who belonged to the local Orange lodge; Robert Chambers, still a teenager and living with his parents; James McConville, who was planning to train as a missionary; John Bryans, a widower who left two children orphaned; and Robert Freeburn, who was also a father of two.
The van driver, Robert Walker, came from near Glenanne.
The IRA never admitted involvement and was supposed to be on ceasefire at the time.
The South Armagh Republican Action Force claimed the deaths. The HET reinvestigated the killings as part of work spanning three decades of conflict.
More Kingsmills family members are expected to give their reactions soon.
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RIM has had problems with product delays Research in Motion (RIM), which makes Blackberry phones, has missed even its lowered profit forecasts and lowered its predictions for the full year.
RIM made a net profit of $695m (£430m) in the three months to 28 May, down from $769m in the same period last year.
It warned in April that its profits would be low because of lower shipments of its Blackberry phones.
RIM has announced a cost-cutting programme, which will include job cuts.
“Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start,” said Jim Balsillie, joint chief executive of RIM.
“The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter.”
The company’s shares fell sharply in after-hours trading and had to be suspended briefly.
“The guidance was just awful. The devices are receiving less shelf space and less support from carriers,” said Peter Misek at Jefferies and Co in New York.
“People are not waiting. They’re going to other platforms.”
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Ten percent of the infalling star’s mass is turned into energy and irradiated as X-rays from the black hole. Astronomers have spied a star’s swan song as it is shredded by a black hole.
Researchers suspect that the star wandered too close to the black hole and got sucked in by the huge gravitational forces.
The star’s final moments sent a flash of radiation hurtling towards Earth.
The energy burst is still visible by telescope more than two-and-a-half months later, the researchers report in the journal Science.
The Swift spacecraft constantly scans the skies for bursts of radiation, notifying astronomers when it locates a potential flare.
These bursts usually indicate the implosion of an aging star, which produces a single, quick blast of energy.
But this event, first spotted on 28 March 2011 and designated Sw 1644+57, does not have the marks of an imploding sun.
What intrigued the researchers about this gamma ray burst is that it flared up four times over a period of four hours.
Astrophysicist Dr Andrew Levan from the University of Warwick, and his colleagues suspected that they were looking at a very different sort of galactic event; one where a passing star got sucked into a black hole.
The energy bursts matched nicely with what you might expect when you “throw a star into a black hole”, Dr Levan told BBC News.
Black holes are thought to reside at the centres of most major galaxies. Some black holes are surrounded by matter in the form of gas; light is emitted when the gas is dragged into the hole. However, the centres of most galaxies are devoid of gas and so are invisible from Earth.
These black holes only become visible when an object such as a star is pulled in. If this happens, the star becomes elongated, first spreading out to form a “banana shape” before its inner edge – orbiting faster than the outer edge – pulls the star into a disc-shape that wraps itself around the hole.
As material drops into the black hole it becomes compressed and releases radiation that is usually visible from Earth for a month or so.
Events like these, termed mini-quasars, are incredibly rare – researchers expect one every hundred million years in any one galaxy.
The researchers used some of most powerful ground-based and space-based observatories – the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Gemini and Keck Telescopes.
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Anti-austerity riots rocked Athens on Wednesday Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is set to announce a new cabinet in a concessionary move as he seeks support for new austerity measures.
Mr Papandreou, who will stay in his post, says he will put the new government to a vote of confidence in the parliament.
Renewed fears that Greece will default on its debt have shaken markets.
The proposed measures are necessary to gain EU and IMF aid, but have been met with fierce opposition in Greece.
Athens witnessed some of the most violent protests in more than a year on Wednesday as demonstrators went on to the streets and took part in a general strike.
Mr Papandreou had also faced the threat of a revolt in his socialist Pasok party over the controversial package.
Mr Papandreou, who came to power in 2009, has not indicated the extent of his ministerial shuffle, but correspondents say it may include the replacement of Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou.
The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant in Athens says economic analysts say the post is likely to be filled by Lucas Papademos, a former vice president of the European Central Bank.
This would be met with approval from the IMF and EU, but whether it will satisfy members of parliament remains unclear, our correspondent says.
The government is seeking approval for a package of 28bn euros (£24.6bn; $40.5bn) of cuts, due to take effect from 2012 to 2015.
George Papandreou: “This is a time of duty”
The policies are required for the release of the next tranche of aid – 12bn euros – from the EU and IMF.
In an address on Wednesday, Mr Papandreou announced he would “continue on the same course”.
“This is the road of duty, together with Pasok’s parliamentary group, its members, and the Greek people.
“Tomorrow I will form a new government, and then I will ask for a vote of confidence,” he said.
During talks, Mr Papandreou was said to have offered to step down to clinch a coalition, but later agreed to carry on.
EU commissioners are said to have a “profound sense of foreboding” about Greece and the future of the eurozone, according to leaked account of a meeting on Wednesday seen by the BBC.
Greece became the world’s least credit-worthy nation after Standard & Poor’s ratings agency downgraded it earlier this week.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of activists and unionists gathered in Syntagma square in Athens, near parliament.
A further 20,000 people also demonstrated in Thessaloniki, police said.
The general strike was the third in Greece this year.
The events destabilised markets, with major indexes witnessing the biggest drop on Wednesday since 1 June, and the euro sliding more than 1% against the dollar.
Yields on Greece’s 10-year bonds reached a record high of 18.4%.
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A powerful explosion has hit the Nigerian police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, officials say.
“The police force headquarters has been bombed, everywhere is bombed,” deputy police spokesman Yemi Ajayi told AFP.
A BBC correspondent says he can see smoke rising from near the building.
There are no details of casualties and it is not clear what caused the blast but Islamist group Boko Haram has recently been targeting police and government officials.
Most of their attacks have been in the northern city of Maiduguri, but the group said it was behind a series of bombings that took place hours after President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration last month.
The group accuses Nigeria’s government of being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to overthrow the state and impose Islamic law on the country.
It has killed dozens of people, mostly shot by gunmen riding motorbikes, in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
Last year, officials blamed two explosions in Abuja during celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence on militants from the oil-rich Niger Delta.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Aston Villa are set to appoint Alex McLeish as their new manager on Thursday after holding successful talks, BBC Sport understands.
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Children in poor inner-city areas are more likely to be raised by other family members, researchers say Better support is needed for the thousands of children being raised by family members who are not their parents, a children’s charity says.
The Buttle UK study showed one in 77 UK children were being raised in “kinship” care in 2001 and it believes the figure has risen “considerably” since.
These children were more likely to be living in poverty and overcrowded homes, it added.
The report argues new policies are needed to help the “invisible” carers.
The study, produced by the charity in conjunction with the University of Bristol, found that more than 90% of families with kinship care arrangements were working on informal agreements and therefore not entitled to financial support from social services.
The research was gathered using 2001 Census data.
Although more up-to-date data will not be available until 2013, the report authors say the study marks the first time an accurate estimate on the number of kinship families has been made.
“If the government is going to meet its targets to reduce child poverty, children in kinship care need to be recognised as a group with specific and considerable needs,” said report co-author Dr Julie Selwyn, director of the Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies.
Buttle UK says it hopes its findings will be used by local authorities to inform new policy decisions on family and friends care due in September this year.
“Kinship carers are an invisible population who have little contact with social services,” said Gerri McAndrew, Buttle UK’s chief executive.
“This report shines a light, for the first time, on this hidden group who play a critical role in raising a generation of children and young people with little assistance, financial or otherwise.
“We’re all together as a family and that’s what matters”
Paul Family carer
“Even in these economically difficult times, we owe it to these families to give them the support they need.”
The report notes that children in kinship arrangements were twice as likely as other children to come from poorer areas, while one in five children in sibling care also lived in overcrowded households with more than one person per room.
In England, one in five children lived in a kinship household where no adult was working.
Increasing levels of drug and alcohol abuse were cited as a key factor in the rise, as well as changes in “the nature of the family”.
Children from minority backgrounds were over-represented in the study – with one in 11 of all African boys in England aged 15-17 reportedly living with relatives.
In England, Scotland and Wales, the majority of children in kinship care were living with their grandparents.
In Northern Ireland, however, half of all kinship care children were being brought up by a sibling.
Paul, 24, has looked after his six brothers and sisters – aged eight to 18 – for the past two years after they were taken away from their mother following accusations of neglect.
“I had to give up my job to look after them so it’s difficult and money is an issue but we’re all alive, we all eat and there are few moments of madness,” he said.
“Things will get tighter as the family grows older but for now everyone is still in school and we’re all together as a family and that’s what matters.”
Sir Mark Potter, a former Head of Family Justice, which is linked to the High Court’s Family Division, welcomed the study’s findings and the renewed call for greater recognition of family carers.
“This is a very important piece of groundbreaking research,” he said.
“I hope it will provide much needed impetus for action to improve their circumstances and their chances in adult life.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Zawahiri warned a week ago that Bin Laden would continue to “terrify” the US from beyond the grave Al-Qaeda has appointed Ayman al-Zawahiri as leader following the death of Osama Bin Laden, the organisation’s general command says in a statement.
Bin Laden was killed by US forces in Pakistan in early May.
In the statement, al-Qaeda “announces that Sheikh Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, may God guide him, assumed responsibility as the group’s amir [leader]”.
It warned it would continue to fight a jihad or holy war against the US and Israel under his direction.
The statement posted on a militant website was attributed to al-Qaeda’s General Command and was disseminated by the al-Fajr Media Centre, the media wing of al-Qaeda Central.
Egyptian-born Zawahiri was for years Bin Laden’s deputy and had been widely anticipated to replace him at the helm.
Zawahiri, whose 60th birthday is believed to be this Sunday, is claimed by some experts to have been the “operational brains” behind the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Zawahiri warned just over a week ago that Bin Laden would continue to “terrify” the US from beyond the grave.
In a video message posted on the internet on 8 June, Zawahiri said al-Qaeda would continue to fight.
“The sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice,” Zawahiri said.
“Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance.”
The BBC’s Jon Leyne says priorities for al-Qaeda’s new leader may include attempting to to mount a big attack to show the organisation is still in business.
In addition, he says, Zawahiri will want to turn the wave of unrest in the Middle East to al-Qaeda’s advantage – perhaps building more of a power base in Yemen and working to intensify the instability there.
In his message last week, Zawahiri applauded the Arab uprisings against “corrupt and tyrant leaders” and urged those involved to continue their “struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries”.
Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri was always going to be the default choice to succeed Osama Bin Laden.
A highly intelligent Egyptian extremist, he was the man who got Bin Laden to “think global” in the 1990s, broadening his message from just complaining about US troops on Saudi soil to a whole range of Muslim grievances from Kashmir to Palestine.
But experts say al-Zawahiri lacks the personal charisma of his predecessor. There are also doubts as to whether, as an Egyptian, he will command full authority over al-Qaeda’s operatives from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
But our correspondent adds that the delay in announcing Zawahiri as al-Qaeda chief – coming as it does more than six weeks after Bin Laden’s death, despite his being the obvious choice – may point to divisions within the leadership.
Zawahiri has for years had a bounty on his head and security analysts have suggested he is most likely to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
However, Bin Laden and other key militant leaders who were also believed to be concealed there have instead been discovered in Pakistani towns and cities.
Bin Laden’s killing by US special forces in a covert operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad on 2 May strained Washington’s relations with Islamabad.
US President Barack Obama said “someone” was protecting Bin Laden, but Pakistan has denied any knowledge of Bin Laden’s whereabouts and has arrested alleged CIA informants.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The choice of a new leader for militant group al-Qaeda is an academic issue, Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said during a visit to Afghanistan.
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The BBC must make an on-air apology to Primark over a scene in a Panorama documentary showing boys in Bangalore working on clothes, the BBC Trust says.
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US lawmaker Anthony Weiner has told friends that he plans to resign his seat in Congress after an internet sex scandal, US media report.
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A 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam University student faces extradition to the US over copyright infringement charges.
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Human rights groups urge the UK not to deport about 20 Tamils to Sri Lanka, warning that they face the risk of being tortured.
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Bellfield denies abducting and murdering Milly The man accused of killing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler has refused to give evidence at his Old Bailey trial.
Levi Bellfield, 42, who denies murdering the teenager, told judge Mr Justice Wilkie that he would not be speaking in his defence.
Prosecuting, Brian Altman QC said Bellfield was trying to put Milly’s parents Bob and Sally Dowler on trial.
Their 13-year-old daughter vanished in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002 while walking from school.
Her body was found in Yateley Heath, in Hampshire, six months later.
Mr Altman told the jury that Milly’s parents’ lives had been laid bare after the years of suffering they endured following the loss of their child.
He told jurors: “The grieving parents are not on trial here.
“That fact may have been forgotten when they came to give their evidence to you.”
After Bellfield refused to give evidence, the judge asked defence counsel Jeffrey Samuels QC if he had advised his client that “the jury may draw such inferences as it sees proper”, and he confirmed he had.
The court has now begun hearing the prosecution’s closing speech from Brian Altman QC.
Bellfield denies abducting and murdering Milly, and attempting to kidnap 11-year-old Rachel Cowles the day before.
Mr Altman said Bellfield had “ducked the opportunity” to give his side of the story from the witness box because he had no innocent explanation.
He said there was a “wealth of evidence” about “his conduct, his actions, and his words at the time of Milly’s disappearance” for which jurors would have wanted to hear his explanation.
“How, for instance, would he have explained, when tested, his behaviour on the day of, and the night following, Milly’s disappearance?” asked Mr Altman.
Milly Dowler vanished in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002 while walking home from school “We don’t know, because he has declined to give us his account, tested and examined from the witness box.”
Mr Altman told the jury that it was reasonable to expect that Bellfield would have wanted “to grasp the opportunity of explaining and protesting his innocence, but he has not done so”.
“The reason he has not done so is that he doesn’t have an innocent account to give – an account that will stand the test of critical scrutiny.”
Mr Altman said the case against Bellfield relied on “many strands of circumstantial evidence” as abductions and killings were “seldom observed by others or seen for what they really are”.
Milly was snatched from the street when the road was quiet, he said.
“No-one saw it, or saw it for what it was, such was the skill, brazenness and resourcefulness of her abductor and killer.”
Mr Altman said Bellfield had given evidence at his first trial, but chose not to in this trial.
He said the defence had implied Milly ran away that day and fell into the arms of her killer somewhere other than Bellfield’s “back yard”.
Mr Dowler had been questioned about porn he had hidden that was discovered by his daughter, Mr Altman said.
And Mrs Dowler had been accused of “shutting her eyes” to the situation, he added.
He said: “As I understand it, it is going to be suggested that Milly had run away, she did not want to be in her father’s company that day.
“So she hung around Station Avenue, only to slip away into the arms of someone else.
“What under-pins this theory? The father’s lifestyle as well as the aspects of Milly’s character.”
He said the defence was advancing a “ludicrous theory”.
And he added: “The defence is desperate to put as much clear water as it can between Bellfield and the prosecution allegation that Milly disappeared in a flash on his doorstep.”
Bellfield, a former wheelclamper and bouncer, was convicted in 2008 of the murders of Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18.
The jury of seven men and four women was told that Bellfield gave evidence in his defence at that trial.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.