Category: news

The commander of Canada’s largest air force base is to plead guilty to the murder of two women and the sexual assault of two others, his lawyer says.

Col Russell Williams once acted as pilot for Queen Elizabeth II and was in charge of Base Trenton in Ontario – Canada’s busiest air force hub.

Williams’s lawyer told an Ontario court he would plead guilty to all charges.

He is also charged with 82 counts of breaking and entering. Prosecutors said he had stolen women’s underwear.

One woman was found dead in her house in November 2009. The other went missing in January this year.

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A barrister who was shot by police marksmen following a five-hour armed stand-off in west London was lawfully killed, an inquest jury has found.

The siege began after Mark Saunders, 32, fired shots from his home in Markham Square, Chelsea, on 6 May 2008.

The Westminster Coroner’s Court jury found the actions of the officers were lawful, proportionate and reasonable.

Officers acted lawfully and the fatal shots to the head, chest and liver were fired in “reasonable self-defence”.

Following the verdict the barrister’s widow, Elizabeth Saunders, said: “I respect the verdict of a jury who have carefully considered all the evidence.”

Mr Saunders’ home was surrounded by officers carrying more than 100 guns.

The court was told that Mr Saunders had asked to speak to his wife during the siege. But she told the jury that police told her to turn her phone off.

Jurors found that police should have given more thought to allowing Mrs Saunders or his friend to speak to the barrister.

But the panel stressed that the decision of asking them to switch off their phones did not contribute to the fatal outcome.

The panel was not sure whether the barrister “deliberately and consciously took steps with a shotgun” to provoke officers to shoot him.

The jury said there was a “lack of clarity” over who was in control of the frontline officers, but clarified that it did not lead to the outcome.

Jurors found that police, who knew about Mr Saunders’ problem with alcohol, had given insufficient weight to the fact that he was a vulnerable alcoholic. But the panel said that this did not contribute to his death.

Following the verdict Coroner Dr Paul Knapman said: “I am satisfied there is insufficient evidence to justify leaving the jury with the option of finding that unlawful killing is made out to the criminal standard.”

To the Saunders family he said: “These have not been an easy three weeks for Mrs Saunders and the Saunders family.

“In fact it must have been an extraordinarily difficult period. I would just like to say, on behalf of us all, I am sure that they have our sympathy in a desperately sad situation.”

In a statement, Mrs Saunders said: “I did not approach the process with any pre-determined conclusions and I respect the verdict of a jury who have carefully considered all the evidence.

“I spoke at length about Mark when I gave my evidence. He was a loving and much-loved husband, son, brother and friend.

“He is very much missed by all who knew and cared about him.

“I would like to thank all those who have supported me since Mark died, my family, my friends and my colleagues, the residents of Markham Square who have been unfailingly generous to me and all those people whom I did not know before Mark died who have been so kind to me.”

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

Labour will reveal the 19 MPs who will join new leader Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet on Thursday.

In opposition, the party’s top team is voted in by its MPs although the leader gets to allocate specific jobs.

Voting closes on Thursday and ballots will be counted from 1700 BST with an announcement expected hours later.

Forty-nine MPs, including ex-cabinet ministers and former leadership contenders such as Ed Balls and Andy Burnham, are contesting the election.

Ed Miliband – whose brother David decided not put his name forward for election – is expected to wait until Friday to announce who will be given which roles.

Most speculation has surrounded the job of shadow chancellor, with both Mr Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper – leading figures in the last Labour government – seen as strong candidates.

Whoever is given the plum job will lead the opposition’s response to the government’s spending review in two weeks’ time.

Harriet Harman, elected deputy party leader in 2007, is already in the shadow cabinet as is chief whip Rosie Winterton – who was elected unopposed to the position last week.

But 49 MPs are fighting for 19 other places in the first shadow cabinet elections since 1996.

Under rules agreed by Labour MPs last month, at least six places must go to both women and men. Labour’s 258 MPs can vote for a maximum of 19 candidates but must vote for a minimum of 12 people for their ballot to be valid.

The 19 candidates with the most votes will be elected.

Former cabinet ministers Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and Bob Ainsworth are stepping down from the front bench and not contesting the elections.

Lord Adonis and Lord Mandelson resigned in the wake of Labour’s election defeat and former Foreign Secretary David Miliband is also returning to the back benches, having lost the party leadership to his brother.

The departure of these big names means several top jobs are up for grabs, and a mixture of senior figures and backbench MPs have entered the ballot.

Aside from former Education Secretary Mr Balls and former Health Secretary Mr Burnham, ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson is in contention as are other former cabinet ministers Ben Bradshaw, John Denham, Douglas Alexander, Hilary Benn, Peter Hain and Shaun Woodward.

Aside from Ms Cooper, former Europe minister Caroline Flint, former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and former leadership contender Diane Abbott are among the 15 women standing.

Mr Balls, who was Gordon Brown’s adviser at the Treasury when he was chancellor, is known to be interested in the role of shadow chancellor but Ms Cooper – a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury – has also been suggested as a candidate.

And there has been speculation Ms Harman may be offered an additional role following her stint as acting leader.

Earlier this month, party members rejected a move to allow the party leader to choose who serves on the shadow cabinet when Labour is in opposition, but elections were limited to every two years as opposed to every year before 1997.

The chief whip is elected separately but Mr Miliband effectively got his choice – Ms Winterton – last week when he asked the incumbent, Nick Brown, to step aside.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, its leader in the House of Lords and its chief whip in the Upper House also sit in the shadow cabinet.

Here is the full list of MPs standing for election to the shadow cabinet:

Diane Abbott

Douglas Alexander

Ed Balls

Hilary Benn

Roberta Blackman-Woods

Ben Bradshaw

Kevin Brennan

Chris Bryant

Andy Burnham

Liam Byrne

Vernon Coaker

Yvette Cooper

Mary Creagh

Wayne David

John Denham

Angela Eagle

Maria Eagle

Rob Flello

Caroline Flint

Mike Gapes

Barry Gardiner

Helen Goodman

Peter Hain

David Hanson

Tom Harris

John Healey

Meg Hillier

Huw Irranca-Davies

Kevan Jones

Alan Johnson

Tessa Jowell

Eric Joyce

Barbara Keeley

Sadiq Khan

David Lammy

Chris Leslie

Ivan Lewis

Ian Lucas

Fiona Mactaggart

Pat McFadden

Ann McKechin

Alun Michael

Jim Murphy

Gareth Thomas

Emily Thornberry

Stephen Timms

Stephen Twigg

Shaun Woodward

Iain Wright

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The PSNI are launching a major security operation against dissident republicans over the coming days, a senior officer announced on Thursday.

The move to increase police checkpoints and patrols follows Monday’s car bomb attack in Londonderry.

The blast was the latest in a series of attacks by dissident groups this year.

The police have appealed to the public for patience while the operation gets underway.

At the October meeting of the policing board, PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie said that the public may face disruption as a result of the operations.

“Over the coming days you will see an increase in police activity across Northern Ireland as we continue our efforts to prevent serious harm and keep our communities safe,” Mrs Gillespie told members of the independent oversight body in Belfast.

She said that on occasion police activity may “delay or disrupt people going about their legitimate business”.

However, she said the force would seek to minimise the impact of their activities on ordinary people and asked the public for understanding.

The threat level posed by dissidents in Northern Ireland has been classed as severe for the last 18 months.

In September, MI5 warned that an attack on the UK mainland was now likely.

Two police officers were slightly injured when the 200lb car bomb detonated near a hotel and bank in Derry.

The blast caused substantial damage and traffic was severely disrupted for days.

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The lawyer for the family of X Factor entrant Gamu Nhengu has confirmed she will appeal against a Home Office decision to send them back to Zimbabwe.

Frances Farrell said she had intended to seek a judicial review, but now believes there are grounds to appeal directly to the immigration tribunal.

Gamu’s mother, Nokuthula Ngazana, was refused permission to stay in the UK after her visa expired in August.

Mrs Ngazana has been living in Clackmannanshire for eight years.

Her daughter was controversially eliminated from ITV’s X Factor on Sunday. The show’s bossed have denied reports that the decision was influenced by fears that Gamu’s visa was about to run out.

Almost 250,000 people have joined a Facebook campaign calling for Gamu’s return to the show.

Family lawyer Mrs Farrell said the situation had been “very upsetting for all the family” and deplored the leaking of confidential details of the case to some newspapers.

“We believe there is a right of appeal against the decision and we’re going to be lodging an appeal with the immigration tribunal as soon as possible,” she said.

“My client has been in this country for about eight years now, absolutely legally all the time.”

She also said she would refute claims that the family had claimed benefits illegally, contending that Gamu’s mother Nokutula Ngazana had been advised by the Inland Revenue that she could claim Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.

The visa extension was turned down on the grounds there was an administrative error in the application.

The family’s solicitors said the error was due to Mrs Ngazana giving the wrong bank details, so the fee for the application could not be taken.

The application was judged “out of time” as a result, but the lawyers said it was lodged in time.

A crowd of about 150 people gathered outside the family’s home in Tillicoultry to show their support after news of the visa refusal was made public.

Many of them where pupils at Alva Academy, where Gamu used to be a pupil.

And locals have now started an online petition against the decision by the UK Border Agency.

More than 1,100 people have signed the appeal started by John Locke, the pastor of the evangelical church that Gamu and her family attend.

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

Hungary is racing to prevent red chemical sludge from a huge spill reaching the Danube river, officials have said.

The alkalinity has risen in the Raba river, which flows into the Danube – Central Europe’s major waterway.

If the sludge enters the Danube the pollution could reach six countries down river, including Croatia, Serbia and Romania.

Hungary’s PM says the worst-hit area will have to be abandoned.

Clay has been dumped into a tributary of the Danube to try to neutralise the sludge.

The alkalinity in the Raba river was higher than normal, at about pH9 early on Thursday – above the harmless level of between pH6 and pH8, a spokesman for the disaster agency told Reuters news agency.

Hungary says it will take at least a year to clean up the spill from an alumina plant reservoir in the western county of Veszprem.

Police have opened a criminal negligence inquiry into the incident, which has killed four people and led to at least 120 others needing medical treatment.

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At least seven people have been killed by two suicide blasts at a Sufi shrine in the Pakistani city of Karachi, say officials.

Several other people were injured in the explosions at the busy Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine.

The BBC’s Shoaib Hasan at the scene says crowds of people are outside the shrine awaiting news of loved ones.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari said he condemned the incident “in the strongest possible terms”.

Our correspondent says dozens of security force members were at the scene, and there are scenes of mayhem around the shrine.

Police official Mohammad Nasim told the AFP news agency that the number of casualties could rise.

In a statement, Mr Zardari said the blasts had happened on the shrine’s busiest evening of the week, when people gathered to hand out free food to the poor.

He blamed the attacks on “those who want to impose an extremist mindset and lifestyle upon our country” but said the government would not be deterred.

“We remain committed to fighting these murderers and expelling them from our land,” he said.

The explosions appear to be similar to a double suicide attack on another Sufi shrine in Lahore in July.

More than 40 people were killed and nearly 200 injured in the attack on the popular Data Darbar shrine.

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London Underground says it will cut 400 office and management jobs and leave an equivalent number of vacancies unfilled.

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A woman has been killed following a road traffic accident in County Antrim.

The accident happened at the Rushpark Roundabout in Whiteabbey at about 1300 BST on Thursday.

It is understood three cars were involved in the accident. All roads leading to Rushpark Roundabout have been closed.

This includes the M5 and A2 Shore Road between Doagh Road and Station Road. Motorists can expect severe delays around the area.

The closures are expected to remain in place through the evening rush hour.

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Euro MPs say the European Police College (Cepol) in the UK has failed to meet EU accounting standards and they are freezing 425,000 euros (£373,000) of its funding for next year.

EU auditors highlighted shortcomings in Cepol’s accounts last year and MEPs decided on Thursday that Cepol had not yet addressed the auditors’ concerns.

The EU anti-fraud office Olaf has been investigating Cepol.

The college is in Bramshill, a village 70km (43 miles) west of London.

In February this year the previous director, Ulf Goeransson, was replaced by Ferenc Banfi, a Hungarian police officer.

A statement on Cepol’s website on Thursday said the Olaf investigation had “led to a referral for criminal procedure against the former director”.

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday not to give the discharge for Cepol’s 2008 accounts. It is rare for MEPs to signal such general disapproval of an EU agency’s accounts.

So far MEPs have granted budget discharges to all other EU agencies.

Cepol was launched in 2005 with a mission to develop an EU network of senior police officers. It organises training courses, seminars and exchange programmes.

According to Cepol, it has “implemented a transformation programme” and “the Cepol of 2008 no longer exists”.

The college’s 2008 budget was 8.7m euros and the college employed 27 staff.

MEPs have questioned the small college’s governance costs, noting that it has a 27-member governing board.

The parliament’s budgetary control committee said the new director had delivered an action plan on time, but it was “vague” and the MEPs were “not ready to accept that the college needs four more years to reach an acceptable standard of good administration”.

Last year the EU Court of Auditors found there had been “a high number of breaches” of EU administrative and financial rules at Cepol.

In previous years the auditors had also criticised the college for not having the documentation to justify certain purchases.

According to the parliamentary committee, “the amount of expenditure for the use of mobile phones and cars by staff is still not clear”.

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

The Wales Audit Office (WAO) has uncovered a black hole in its accounts of more than £1m.

WAO, which ensures billions of public money in Wales is spent properly, also admitted it had been breaching financial rules since 2005.

The £1.049m shortfall relates to pension liabilities for staff who had left, which should have been disclosed in its accounts.

The assembly Public Accounts Committee chair said he is “extremely concerned”.

On the advice of external auditors the liabilities did not appear in the accounts, which is contrary to the financial reporting standards the WAO expects of other public organisations.

The organisation has asked the UK public spending watchdog the National Audit Office to conduct an investigation of its accounts for the last five years.

This is to examine whether there have been any other breaches of the financial reporting rules.

The disclosure was described as “embarrassing” by the new Auditor General for Wales, Huw Vaughan Thomas, and “staggering” by AMs.

More to follow…

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The leader of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) has told a court that he refused a request from Tommy Sheridan to lie for him.

Colin Fox also told the High Court in Glasgow he was “sick to the stomach” at being described as a scab after the former MSP’s defamation trial in 2006.

Mr Sheridan and his wife Gail, both 46, are on trial accused of perjury.

The couple deny lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World.

Mr Sheridan won £200,000 in damages after the newspaper printed allegations about his private life, claiming that he was an adulterer who had visited a swingers club.

After a police investigation, Mr and Mrs Sheridan were charged with perjury.

Giving evidence on the fourth day of the trial, Mr Fox said he saw a newspaper article describing him as a scab in the days following Mr Sheridan’s successful defamation case.

He said the description made him feel “sick to the stomach”.

Mr Fox also claimed he had earlier been asked by Mr Sheridan to make a statement denying that he had heard the former party leader admit to visiting a swingers club in Manchester.

Mr Fox said he refused and described the strategy as a “train wreck”.

It is alleged that Mr Sheridan made false statements as a witness in his defamation action against the News of the World on 21 July 2006.

He also denies another charge of attempting to persuade a witness to commit perjury shortly before the 23-day legal action got under way.

Mrs Sheridan denies making false statements on 31 July 2006, after being sworn in as a witness in the civil jury trial at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

The trial, before judge Lord Bracadale, is due to last between two and three months and is expected to become the longest perjury case in Scottish legal history.

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A former Edinburgh boxer at the centre of a major cocaine trafficking network, infiltrated by under-cover detectives, has been jailed for nine years.

James Carlin, 24, was caught when detectives fooled Carlin into believing they were big-time criminals.

Earlier, a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh found him guilty of being involved in the supply of cocaine between January 2007 and February 2009.

Police found receipts to support Carlin had an ostentatious lifestyle.

The court heard how the officers treated Carlin to a slap-up meal, booze and invited him to share a private box at Murrayfield Stadium for an exhibition football match between Hibs and Barcelona as part of their attempts to win his confidence.

An earlier trial heard how he bragged to undercover police about being able to supply cocaine.

They found paperwork linking Carlin to a £2,277 four-night trip to Las Vegas and thousands of pounds worth of spending money.

Carlin had also paid almost £900 for a trip to Manchester to watch Man City play Arsenal.

Other purchases included a £990 designer handbag from a Louis Vuiton shop in Edinburgh’s Multrees Walk, just before Christmas 2007, a present for his girlfriend, and an Armani hooded top bought for £97.50 on Christmas Eve 2008.

Carlin had also gone to Optical Express in Princes Street, Edinburgh, in January last year and paid over £3,190 for laser surgery.

Judge Kenneth Maciver said the sentencing marked the final chapter of Operation Domino which had already put nine men from the Edinburgh area behind bars for a total of 38 years.

The undercover sting also led, directly or indirectly, to the seizure of drugs with a street value of more than £200,000.

The judge said drug dealing brought misery, crime and family breakdown to the addict victims of drug dealers but large sums of money to the traffickers.

Lord Maciver said: “You have to be regarded as being at the controlling centre of this particular drug dealing operation.

“The others had sometimes been feeding their own habits and none had showed signs of significant gain.

“You, on the other hand, have exhibited over the period these charges are concerned with, very clear and obvious, indeed on one view ostentatious, signs of gain which were very much part of the crown case.”

Solicitor advocate Vincent Belmonte, defending, said Carlin still protested his innocence so there was little he could say.

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Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature.

The Swedish Academy hailed “his cartography of structures of power” and “trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

The 74-year-old has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays.

He is the first South American winner of the prize since 1982 when it went to Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

His international breakthrough came with the 1960s novel The Time of The Hero.

Born in the town of Arequipa, the writer took Spanish nationality in 1993 – three years after an unsuccessful bid for the Peruvian presidency.

In 1995, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honour.

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A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa is 23% less likely than a man to own a mobile phone, according to research.

This figure rises to 24% in the Middle East and increases again to 37% for a woman living in South Asia, found the study by the GSM Association.

In total, it found, 300 million fewer women than men in developing countries owned a mobile.

An initiative called mWomen proposes to halve this “gender gap” within three years.

The programme, championed by Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aims to provide 150 million women around the world with access to mobile phone technology.

Mrs Blair said there were many benefits a mobile phone could bring to women.

“There is so much you can do with a mobile phone,” she told the BBC World Service.

“It can help with literacy. It can help with health programmes and projects and it’s a way of helping women develop small businesses and get financial independence.”

‘Essential item’

As part of the initiative, there will be tariffs created especially for women as well as the development of a female-specific handset. It will also create projects to educate men about the positive aspects of women owning a mobile phone.

Seventeen global mobile phone operators have already signed up to the mWomen programme, pledging more than $10m (£6.2m) between them.

According to a survey by the GSMA, more than half of all female business owners in poor countries reported earning more money because of their mobile phone.

One such woman is Samanthi, who lives in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and has a small business selling charcoal stoves.

“It’s really difficult to do business without a mobile phone,” she said.

“A phone is an essential item. My customers can contact me anytime, from any place.”

‘Transformational effect’

Mrs Blair said it was not just the women who would benefit from the initiative.

“If you help a woman set up a business, you’re not just helping her, you’re helping her children and her family. That has a ripple effect on the wider community,” she said.

Samanthi in Sri Lanka agrees- she said that the money she earned could go towards her children’s education.

The potential benefits are not solely financial. Reports suggest 93% of women feel safer because of their mobile phone; 85% say they feel more independent.

Mrs Blair was confident the initiative could achieve results.

“If we can reach 150 million women across the world and you multiply the effect of those women reinvesting in their family and in their local community, we are talking a potential transformational effect in development.”

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