Ms Ariyawathie (left) was left deeply traumatised after the August attack, doctors said
Saudi Arabia has suspended the recruitment of workers from Sri Lanka following a housemaid’s claims that nails and needles were forced into her.
Doctors removed 13 nails and five needles from the Sri Lankan maid in August. She said her employer had hammered them into her body.
LP Ariyawathie, 49, told staff in Colombo that her employer had inflicted the injuries as a punishment.
Saudi officials say her claims are baseless and harmful to their country.
A spokesman in the Saudi government told the BBC that the main reason for the suspension was not Ms Ariyawathie’s claims but the Sri Lankan authorities’s failure to train maids adequately.
They say the new ban will not affect more than 500,000 workers from Sri Lanka already in the country, most of whom are women. But it will affect Sri Lankans applying to renew a visa or get one for the first time.
In the first half of this year nearly 20,000 Sri Lankans went to Saudi Arabia to work.
Doctors say this X-ray shows nails embedded in the housemaid’s hand
Ms Ariyawathie travelled to Saudi Arabia in March to become a housemaid.
She flew back to Sri Lanka in August and was admitted to hospital in the south of the island, where she told doctors she had undergone abuse for more than a month.
X-rays showed that there were 24 nails and needles in Ms Ariyawathie’s legs and hands.
The nails were up to 2in (5cm) long, a hospital official said.
The mother of three had three hours of surgery to have most removed. Further surgery to remove the remainder may be required.
The Sri Lankan authorities also launched an investigation into the incident in addition to launching a strong protest with the Saudi government.
Around 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, 70% of whom are women.
Most work as housemaids in the Middle East, while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong.
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David Cameron: “Linda may not have died at the hands of her captors, as originally believed”
British aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been accidentally killed by US forces during a rescue mission in Afghanistan, David Cameron has said.
International forces there originally said the 36-year-old died on Friday when one of her captors detonated a suicide vest.
But the prime minister said new details had come to light suggesting her death may have resulted from a US grenade.
He said he had spoken to her family about the “deeply distressing” news.
Mr Cameron defended the rescue mission, saying it had his full support as Ms Norgrove had been in “grave danger”.
He said: “The decision to launch this rescue operation was not an easy one. You will understand that I can’t discuss the intelligence which led us to conclude that a rescue operation was the best way forward
“But I am clear that Linda’s life was in grave danger from the moment she was taken.
“Those on the ground and in London feared that she was going to be passed up the terrorist chain which would increase further the already high risk that she would be killed.
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“I’m clear that the best chance of saving Linda’s life was to go ahead, recognising that any operation was fraught with risk for all those involved, and success could by no means be guaranteed.”
It had been thought that Ms Norgrove had been killed by her abductors just as US forces reached the compound in which she was being held in Afghanistan.
But at the start of a press conference in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said it had since emerged that she may have died as a result of a US grenade being detonated during the rescue.
Mr Cameron said the manner of her death had not been confirmed and everything was now being done to do establish certainty about the circumstances.
He said US military commanders had expressed their “deep regrets” about the possibility that she may have died in this way.
“We must get to the bottom of what happened, first of all so the family gets this information and knows exactly how their wonderful daughter died,” he said.
Linda Norgrove was seized in the province of Kunar on 26 September
He announced that a full US/UK investigation is being launched into the circumstances surrounding her death.
Mr Cameron said he was told of the new developments in a phone call with Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, on Monday morning.
He had later spoken to Ms Norgrove’s father, John, to inform the family about what he had been told.
“My thoughts and the thoughts of the whole country are with them, as they come to terms with the death of their daughter and this deeply distressing development,” Mr Cameron told the conference.
“Linda’s death is a tragedy for her family and those who worked alongside her in Afghanistan. She was a dedicated professional doing a job she loved in a country she loved.”
Speaking from the Isle of Lewis, Mr Norgrove said: “We are not saying anything to the press at the moment. We might issue a statement in another day or two, we’re not certain, but now we are not saying anything.”
Ms Norgrove was seized in the province of Kunar on 26 September.
Three local staff were also kidnapped when the two cars they were in were ambushed. The staff were released unharmed last week.
The Briton, who was employed by US aid group DAI, is believed to have been taken by her captors from village to village as British, Afghan and other intelligence agencies searched the remote area.
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By Tim Weber
Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer hopes that Windows Phone 7 can rival iPhone and Android phones
Microsoft is set to launch Windows Phone 7, its latest attempt to break into the lucrative smartphone market.
So far the company has failed to provide a credible challenge to rival operating systems from Apple, Google, Research in Motion and Nokia.
Mobile phone operators predict smartphones will have a 70% market share in just three years.
Microsoft says it has rebuilt the user interface from the bottom up, making Windows Phone 7 more user-friendly.
Previous operating systems from Microsoft have failed to make an impact with customers, and their limited functionality and lack of applications to customise the phones has resulted in a steady loss of market share.
While Nokia’s Symbian operating system is still the market leader, Apple has rapidly gained market share with its iPhones, while phones using Google’s Android software are forecast to overtake Apple soon.
Research in Motion, meanwhile, has seen its Blackberry phones gain popularity beyond its stronghold of business users.
Microsoft is expected to pitch its phone at consumers, integrating it with its popular XBox live service for video games, and the much less popular Zune music service.
The software will be launched with established partners such as HTC, Samsung and LG – three phone makers who have experience building phones for the Windows mobile platform.
In the US there are strong indications that Windows phones will first launch on the AT&T network, while T-Mobile has been mentioned as one of the system’s key European partners.
Microsoft hopes to build on the recent success of its Windows 7 operating system for desktop computers and the broadly positive reviews for its new browser, Internet Explorer 9.
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The chief executive of the industrial plant at the centre of the toxic sludge spill in Hungary has been taken in for questioning by police.
The arrest of Zoltan Bakonyi was announced by the PM Viktor Orban.
Mr Orban also said the company would be temporarily nationalised and that those responsible for the disaster should bear the financial consequences.
Seven people have so far died from the 4 October spill near Ajka in the west of the country.
About 150 people were also injured after up to 700,000 cubic metres (24.7m cu ft) of toxic by-product from the production of aluminium burst from a storage reservoir.
A team of experts from the European Union is on the scene looking at how to lessen the impact of a further rupture in the reservoir, which officials say is now inevitable.
A protective ring of rock and earth is hurriedly being built to try to beat the expected next torrent.
The EU’s civil protection unit is also helping to assess the contamination to the region’s ground water and soil. They are also examining the potential airborne hazard as the toxic mud dries out.
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The Balmoral was nearing the end of a three-week cruise in the Adriatic
A search is being carried out for a passenger who is believed to have fallen overboard a cruise ship in the English Channel.
Brixham Coastguard in Devon received a call for assistance from authorities in France at about 0930 BST.
The missing passenger was on board the Fred Olsen liner Balmoral, which was due to return to Dover, Kent, on Tuesday after a 21-day Adriatic cruise.
A Royal Navy frigate, HMS Westminster, is also taking part in the search.
The Balmoral is the largest liner in the Fred Olson fleet and can carry 1,350 passengers.
A statement released by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines said the company was co-operating fully with both the French and British authorities.
When the passenger was reported as missing, staff carried out a thorough search of the ship without success.
A coastguard helicopter from Portland, Dorset, a French coastguard fixed-wing plane and a French warship are also searching the English Channel.
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A man who put an imitation gun to his ex-wife’s head and subjected her to a serious sexual assault has been jailed for six years at Londonderry Crown Court.
The offence took place in the woman’s home in November last year.
The court heard her children were asleep upstairs at the time.
The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was also placed on the sex offenders register.
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George Michael said he received no special treatment while behind bars
Pop star George Michael has been released from prison in Suffolk after serving a sentence for drug driving.
The 47-year-old star was handed an eight-week sentence on 14 September for crashing his vehicle while under the influence of cannabis.
Michael was arrested in July after being found slumped at the wheel of his Land Rover in Hampstead, north London.
The singer served the initial days of his sentence in Pentonville Prison before being transferred to Highpoint.
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While serving his time in jail, Michael – real name Georgios Panayiotou – issued a statement to say that he had received “no special treatment of any kind”.
He said he had been treated with kindness by prison staff and fellow inmates.
The star, who had a previous conviction for a similar offence, was told there was no option apart from a custodial sentence when he appeared at Highbury Magistrates Court.
Police found Michael at his wheel after he crashed into the Hampstead branch of photographic store Snappy Snaps.
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In June, HP said it was cutting jobs as a result of productivity gains and automation
Computer giant Hewlett Packard (HP) plans to cut 1,300 jobs in the UK and move work overseas, according to the Unite union.
Unite branded the news “butchery”, saying the cuts came on top of job losses announced in June to take place by the end of October.
Then, the company said net job losses worldwide would total 3,000.
However, HP said it was still consulting and that the cuts were part of the losses announced in June.
“Despite significant profits HP appears hell-bent on continuing to butcher its highly skilled UK workforce,” said Unite national officer Peter Skyte.
“Lax employment protection in the UK compared to other European countries means that the UK is bearing the brunt of cuts, as it’s quicker and cheaper to sack UK people and export their jobs abroad.”
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The drug could soon be available on the NHS
A drug discovered in the UK could help thousands of men with advanced prostate cancer, experts say.
Trials involving men who had exhausted all other treatment options found abiraterone acetate extended life by an average of four months.
Researchers hope that in less advanced cases, the benefits could be greater.
The drug’s makers, the pharmaceutical firm Janssen, are now seeking a licence which would allow it to be used on the NHS.
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More than 36,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in the UK – more than 10,000 die from the disease.
If the disease spreads beyond the prostate, a small gland found near the bladder, then it becomes far more difficult to treat.
Abiraterone acetate interferes with the production of the hormone testosterone, which can fuel the growth of prostate cancer.
The trials involved more than 1,000 men with very advanced, aggressive cancers, whose prognosis was poor, with only months left to live.
“It’s certainly a significant improvement in what might be expected for men with such advanced prostate cancer”
Harpal Kumar Cancer Research UK
The 797 patients given abiraterone plus a steroid lived for an average of 14.8 months, compared to 10.9 months for the remainder who simply got the steroid.
Scans showed that tumour growth halted for longer in the group given the drug.
Another advantage of the drug was the relative lack of side effects compared with chemotherapy or radiotherapy, making it a far more attractive prospect for patients.
The drug was first discovered at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, and its chief executive Professor Peter Rigby said he was “very proud” that men with advanced prostate cancer had this new treatment option.
Other cancer charities, who helped fund research into the drug, also welcomed the study results, presented at the European cancer drug conference ESMO.
John Neate, from the Prostate Cancer Charity, said that the drug represented a “significant move forward”.
He said: “These initial findings are particularly important as they offer new hope to men diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer who can quickly run out of treatment options once their tumour stops responding to the existing methods of controlling its progression.”
He said that while the full results of the study had yet to be published in medical journals, he hoped that they would provide the evidence needed to allow the drug to be licensed for use in the NHS.
Harpal Kumar from Cancer Research UK, added: “It’s certainly a significant improvement in what might be expected for men with such advanced prostate cancer.”
Pharmaceutical firm Janssen will now apply for a European licence, which would allow UK doctors to prescribe it, although there is no decision yet on how much it should cost.
Further trials will look at whether men with slightly less advanced prostate cancer could also benefit from the drug, perhaps even more than those taking part in this study.
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Mr Cameron insisted the welfare reforms were not all about saving money
David Cameron has defended the government’s welfare reforms, saying they could help individuals and families get out of “the poverty trap”.
At a No 10 news conference, the prime minister said its plans were “bold and radical” but the gains could be huge.
Simplying benefits and ensuring people were better off in work than on welfare could transform lives, he said.
All welfare changes, including child benefit cuts, had been fully discussed with Lib Dem ministers, he insisted.
But Labour has said ministers are desperately hunting around for savings without enough thought given to their impact.
A new method of assessing whether people are entitled to incapacity benefit is being launched in a handful of areas on Monday as the coalition’s welfare reform programme gathers pace.
Ministers want anyone among the 2.5 million current claimants who are deemed fit enough to start work to do so.
At his first Downing Street news conference of the autumn, the prime minister said reducing the welfare bill was one of the many “very difficult” decisions that ministers were currently grappling with in the run-up to next week’s comprehensive spending review.
Welfare could not be immune from attention, he said, as the government sought to substantially cut government borrowing over the next five years – with individual departments facing cuts of at least 25%.
“If you want to deal with the deficit, you have to deal with welfare,” he told reporters.
“I think that will, over time, solve the whole poverty trap issue that has bedevilled governments of all colours”
David Cameron
But he said the reforms were not all about saving money, as simplifying welfare by consolidating all out-of-work and in-work benefits into a single payment could transform the lives of individuals and families which had not worked for generations.
The new proposed universal credit, ministers say will be designed to enable those moving from welfare to work to keep more of their income for longer and ensure they were better rewarded in work, would help tackle the underlying causes of poverty.
“I think that will, over time, solve the whole poverty trap issue that has bedevilled governments of all colours,” he said.
“It used to be a poverty trap that mostly affected people out of work. Then it became more of a poverty trap that affected people on low paid work. Now it is a poverty trap that can affect both.”
“The universal credit system can solve that problem. That is an enormous prize that has eluded governments for years.”
He also defended proposed cuts to child benefits for higher-rate taxpayers, which have prompted a backlash among some Conservative supporters, saying it was right that those further up the income scale had to make sacrifices.
Money-saving measures “have got to be fair and seen to be fair”, he insisted.
All benefit decisions were reached collectively “round a table”, he said, with Chancellor George Osborne, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander all involved.
Labour has said it will consider the government’s welfare plans on their merits but warned that cuts would inevitably hit the most vulnerable. It said a proposed £26,000 cap on the amount of benefits a single family could get was counter-productive.
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Swindon – home to lots of concrete
From Mevafishy, through Barlick to Amazingstoke, nicknames for Britain’s towns and cities are legion. Now a new project seeks to create a database of what we really call where we live.
What we name things says as much about us as it does about them. Take cars, for instance; I’ve come across heard pet names which include Eric Robinson (a famous bandleader), Pompidou (a former President of France) and Oscar (presumably Wilde). I also know someone who insists on referring to the TV remote as a “klangenstuhl”.
And so it goes for places.
“No man is an island… apart from Barry,” goes the old quip. And the South Wales resort of Barry Island is just one of countless places in Britain to have its own nickname. As a major filming location for BBC television’s award-winning comedy, Gavin and Stacey, it was christened BarryWood by the actor Russell Tovey.
Some slang names are just simple abbreviations, so in Lancashire Skelmersdale became Skem, Barnoldswick is known as Barlick and Ricky is the chummy moniker given by locals to Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.
And, in the historic tradition of spoken English, ironic puns abound.
The comedian and broadcaster Phill Jupitus says that his home town of Stanford Le Hope in Essex is called Stanford No Hope by locals.
Elsewhere, the picturesque Cornish port of Mevagissey is becoming known as Mevafishy, for obvious reasons, and the South Yorkshire town of Wath-Upon-Dearne is often cheekily referred to as Where Upon Earth.
Now, as part of English Language Day on Wednesday 13 October, the English Project and Ordnance Survey are launching Location Lingo, an interactive project which aims to uncover the nicknames, pet names and hate-names which people use in their daily lives for the places which are near and dear to them.
“The name that people conjure up or create for a place forms an emotional connection,” explains Winchester University¹s Professor Bill Lucas, a patron of the English Project.
“So Basingstoke becomes Amazingstoke, Swindon is known as Swindump and Padstow, home town of chef Rick Stein, is nicknamed Padstein.”
Other nicknames, though, require a little explanation. In Scotland, the 80-odd roundabouts which grace the new town of East Kilbride have led it to acquire the name Polo Mint City.
Glitz, glamour, grey skies – filming on the streets of Barrywood
Devonport, the Royal Navy’s home in Plymouth, is known in the Senior Service as Guz, short for “Guzzle”, a comment on West Countryfolk’s alleged devotion to cream teas.
And in Northern Ireland, local radio presenter Gerry Anderson came up with the jocular name Stroke City to describe the politically contentious Londonderry/Derry.
The practice of bestowing pet names extends far beyond towns and cities, though. Millions of people in the UK have heard of the complex feat of engineering known as Spaghetti Junction. But just how many are aware of its proper title – Gravelly Hill Interchange, where junction 6 of the M6 meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway in Birmingham?
Beyond this, there are places like the Banana Bridge, a curvy crossing over the River Itchen in Hampshire, and one of London¹s newest landmarks, the Gherkin, otherwise known as the Swiss RE building.
And the intimacy of a place name can also extend to what occurs there.
“Many of these names may also refer to little natural features of landscape where people go for a hug and a kiss,” says Prof Lucas.
Find out moreProf Bill Lucas of the English Project will be talking about the Location Lingo scheme on Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, 13 October
BBC – TodayAs well as creating what promises to be a fascinating resource detailing the linguistic richness – and sheer quirkiness – of pet place names, there is a practical side to the project.
“With the huge variety of place nicknames that exist we could never hope to capture them all ourselves,² says Glen Hart, Ordnance Survey’s head of research.
“But the information from Location Lingo could prove vital. Organisations like the emergency services rely on our information when responding to 999 calls, so by having the most complete set of nicknames we could help the emergency services quickly locate the right place, and maybe even save lives.”
Anyone in Great Britain can submit their location lingo – and, if possible, the story behind it to the English Project website where they can either plot their entry on an interactive map or fill in a simple form.
As Bill Lucas puts it: “It’s not about apostrophes or no apostrophes. Its about what a place name means to you.”
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