Six more killed and dozens injured in Misrata, as rebels face renewed attacks from government troops Muammar Gaddafi’s forces mounted a heavy assault on Libyan rebels holding the key town of Ajdabiya on Sunday in a sign that the regime is stepping up efforts to regain territory in the east of the country. Explosions were heard for several hours in the morning, forcing some of the few remaining families to flee to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, 90 miles away. Dozens of vehicles, some of them rebel trucks with heavy machine guns mounted in the back, were seen leaving Ajdabiya for Benghazi. Rebels were also seen laying anti-tank mines at the eastern gate of the city, highlighting their fears that Gaddafi’s forces could retake the town. In the besieged town of Misrata in the west, rebels said that six civilians were killed and dozens injured on Sunday in attacks by Gaddafi’s forces. Misrata has been under heavy attack for seven weeks, with hundreds of civilians killed in the effort to rout the rebels, who are reportedly better organised and disciplined than in the east of the country. Witnesses in the city have backed up reports from Human Rights Watch that Libyan government troops have been using cluster bombs as part of their offensive. The government has denied this. Ajdabiya in the east is situated at a strategic highway junction and has changed hands several times since the conflict began. Last month, Gaddafi’s troops encircled the town with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavy artillery. Nato air strikes enabled the rebels to more or less hold their positions, but their inexperience and inferior firepower has prevented them from advancing west towards Tripoli. Assisted by sandstorms, which have provided cover for air assaults, Gaddafi’s forces have increased their attacks near Ajdabiya’s western gate in recent days, mostly through long-distance shelling. On Saturday, eight rebels were killed and 27 injured on the road leading west to the oil port of Brega, according to Dr GS Mohamed, the head surgeon at Ajdabiya’s hospital. Many of the casualties occurred when a shell struck one of the rebels’ improvised rocket launchers outside the town, causing horrific burn injuries, Mohamed said. “On the open road, Gaddafi’s troops are stronger and better trained. Our [rebel] forces shoot and stay in the same place, which is why they got hit yesterday. But in the town, which we know, we have the advantage.” During a lull in the fighting around midday, more than 20 rebel vehicles – pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns – sped into Ajdabiya to provide reinforcements. “Gaddafi is trying to clear the city before sending his troops in,” said Ahmed Shomi, 30, a rebel volunteer driving a battered pickup with no windscreen. “But with God’s help we will never allow that.” As the humanitarian situation there and in other towns worsens, international development secretary Andrew Mitchell is to travel to the United Nations on Monday for urgent talks. He said he would discuss plans to improve lead times and access for medical supplies and other aid. At the same time, David Cameron denied that a joint letter he published with the presidents of the US and France saying that Gaddafi would have to go meant that regime change was main goal of the international allies’ mission. In an interview with Sky News, the prime minister said that the three men had merely been expressing what was on every world leader’s mind. Cameron said that there was “no question of an invasion or an occupation” under the terms of the UN resolution and that this was making fighting the conflict “more difficult in many ways” for the coalition. But he said that the allies were supplying the rebels with non-lethal material, such as body armour and communications equipment. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Colonel Gaddafi is still intent on murdering people in Misrata and taking control of that large city and also pushing towards Benghazi, where I’m sure, if he ever got there, there would be a bloodbath,” Cameron said. “We should be taking all the necessary steps to stop that from happening and to save civilian life.” Libya Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Muammar Gaddafi United Nations David Cameron Foreign policy Xan Rice guardian.co.uk
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Carnival procession will celebrate restoration of Regency mill now poised to grind home-grown barley once more Halfway up Brixton Hill, in a small park hidden away behind terraces of tall Victorian houses, one of the most startling historic buildings in London has sprouted gleaming white sails. Brixton Windmill , now restored, is ready to start grinding flour again, as soon as the wheat and barley being planted around it by local volunteers is ready for harvest. “It’s a joy to see it, it’s just so beautiful,” Annick Alet said, straightening up for a moment from the back-breaking work of picking stones from the new field. On 2 May there will be singing and dancing as a carnival procession from the centre of Brixton heads towards the mill. It will be the first time many people learn of the mill’s existence. Built in 1816, and run until 1934 by generations of the Ashby family, the south London mill was a sad wreck when Florence Nosegby, a local councillor who was brought up on an estate nearby, first saw it. Many of the hundreds of residents who joined the campaign to save it, raising thousands of pounds and donating years of work, lived a few streets away but had never heard about the building. “It was so sad when I first saw it 13 years ago,” said Richard Santhini, an actor, vice-chair of the Friends of Windmill Gardens, and now a trained miller. The park had been a no-go area after dusk, the mill vandalised and littered with drug users’ needles. “I thought, we have to bring this wonderful treasure back to life,” he said. The structure is the last survivor of a small regiment of mills that once stood in open countryside on the hills of Lambeth, producing food for London. Even by the 1860s the city had crept so far up the hill there was no longer enough wind to turn the sails; the Ashbys installed first steam and then gas power to keep the mill grinding until 1934. Its importance was recognised as early as 1951 with a Grade II* listing, but its inexorable decline continued. It passed into the ownership of London county council and then Lambeth council. In the 1960s, Carmela Zucconi, who owns the flower stall outside the station, climbed the mill’s narrow winding staircase with her excited twin sons; she recalls, too, the little buildings and shops that surrounded it. By the 1970s the miller’s cottage and outbuildings were flattened, and the building was judged too dangerous for the public, though one local man remembered hiding out there from the police. By the 1990s the mill had taken up what looked like a permanent place on the Buildings at Risk register, until the Friends of Windmill Gardens were founded and took up the cause. Despite ominous cracks in the walls, and the fact that the building turned out to have no foundations, being built straight on to the London clay, the mill proved surprisingly sound structurally. Most of the machinery and millstones, much of the woodwork, and the timber cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind, are the restored originals. The small provender mill the Ashbys added is ready to run, now powered by electricity, but Santhini is determined to continue until the wind-powered 1.5-tonne millstones are also working again. The restoration cost just under £600,000, including help of £400,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £55,000 from the council. “It’s a living part of our history,” Santhini said. “If we lose buildings like this, we lose something of ourselves as human beings.” Heritage London Communities Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Carnival procession will celebrate restoration of Regency mill now poised to grind home-grown barley once more Halfway up Brixton Hill, in a small park hidden away behind terraces of tall Victorian houses, one of the most startling historic buildings in London has sprouted gleaming white sails. Brixton Windmill , now restored, is ready to start grinding flour again, as soon as the wheat and barley being planted around it by local volunteers is ready for harvest. “It’s a joy to see it, it’s just so beautiful,” Annick Alet said, straightening up for a moment from the back-breaking work of picking stones from the new field. On 2 May there will be singing and dancing as a carnival procession from the centre of Brixton heads towards the mill. It will be the first time many people learn of the mill’s existence. Built in 1816, and run until 1934 by generations of the Ashby family, the south London mill was a sad wreck when Florence Nosegby, a local councillor who was brought up on an estate nearby, first saw it. Many of the hundreds of residents who joined the campaign to save it, raising thousands of pounds and donating years of work, lived a few streets away but had never heard about the building. “It was so sad when I first saw it 13 years ago,” said Richard Santhini, an actor, vice-chair of the Friends of Windmill Gardens, and now a trained miller. The park had been a no-go area after dusk, the mill vandalised and littered with drug users’ needles. “I thought, we have to bring this wonderful treasure back to life,” he said. The structure is the last survivor of a small regiment of mills that once stood in open countryside on the hills of Lambeth, producing food for London. Even by the 1860s the city had crept so far up the hill there was no longer enough wind to turn the sails; the Ashbys installed first steam and then gas power to keep the mill grinding until 1934. Its importance was recognised as early as 1951 with a Grade II* listing, but its inexorable decline continued. It passed into the ownership of London county council and then Lambeth council. In the 1960s, Carmela Zucconi, who owns the flower stall outside the station, climbed the mill’s narrow winding staircase with her excited twin sons; she recalls, too, the little buildings and shops that surrounded it. By the 1970s the miller’s cottage and outbuildings were flattened, and the building was judged too dangerous for the public, though one local man remembered hiding out there from the police. By the 1990s the mill had taken up what looked like a permanent place on the Buildings at Risk register, until the Friends of Windmill Gardens were founded and took up the cause. Despite ominous cracks in the walls, and the fact that the building turned out to have no foundations, being built straight on to the London clay, the mill proved surprisingly sound structurally. Most of the machinery and millstones, much of the woodwork, and the timber cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind, are the restored originals. The small provender mill the Ashbys added is ready to run, now powered by electricity, but Santhini is determined to continue until the wind-powered 1.5-tonne millstones are also working again. The restoration cost just under £600,000, including help of £400,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £55,000 from the council. “It’s a living part of our history,” Santhini said. “If we lose buildings like this, we lose something of ourselves as human beings.” Heritage London Communities Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
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A disused, contaminated stretch in north Kent is an ecological wonder that charity Buglife is fighting to have recognised It looks like one of Britain’s least attractive places, a blighted stretch of abandoned industrial land littered with plastic, broken concrete, crash barriers and building rubble. Contaminated with asbestos, oil and industrial chemicals, this 189-hectare (467-acre) former BP oil refinery brownfield site on the Isle of Grain in the Thames estuary is a messy, dangerous place. But the site near Rochester in north Kent is also potentially one of Britain’s two or three most important wildlife sites – the equivalent of a national park for bees, butterflies, beetles and other invertebrates. Left alone by humans for nearly 25 years, fenced off and allowed to degenerate by its present owner, National Grid, this remote corner of the Thames Gateway is being compared to a miniature lost world by conservationists who are fighting to avoid its planned destruction to make way for a giant lorry park. No one knows exactly what nature has squatted here, says Sarah Hensall, a conservation officer with the charity Buglife . In the past 40 years, she says, one person has been allowed in to study its wildlife. In a few hours in August 2009, that researcher found 258 species of invertebrates, birds and reptiles. Of these, 13 were classified as threatened with extinction on the conservation red list, many were priority species that Britain has to protect in law, 23 were nationally scarce and 11 were considered rare. They included the white eye-stripe hoverfly ( Paragus albifrons ) – until recently believed to be extinct – and Mellet’s downy-back beetle ( Ophonus melletii ) , which is so rare that it has been seen only five times in the UK in the past 20 years. The site is also home to most of Britain’s rarest native bees, including the brown-banded carder bee ( Bombus humilis ) and the shrill carder bee ( Bombus sylvarum ). Not surprisingly Hensall, an ecologist, is eager to get on to the site. To find a habitat of this size and quality, she says, is extraordinary. “It looks messy and polluted but sites like this are few and far between. It’s perfect ‘open mosaic’ habitat for bugs, spiders, flies and insects. They need this mix of bare land, pools, ditches. It’s got everything. They can burrow in it, bask, shelter and feed there, breed and hibernate. It’s just heaven for them.” She wants to take a team of researchers through the fence to study the wildlife. She is confident that if four people could go in for a few days several times over a year, as recommended by government ecologists, they could record 1,000, perhaps even 1,300 species. This would put the old refinery site on a par with West Thurrock marshes , an old power station site in Essex and now better protected after a long struggle. But it is unlikely she will get permission, because Buglife and National Grid are locked in a court dispute over the future of the site. The company wants to turn it into a giant lorry park and warehousing for Thamesport, Britain’s third largest container port, and its plan would sweep away the bug and bee paradise before it had even been properly recorded. Buglife claims the owners failed to properly assess the impact on the wildlife of the site. “We say that they did not follow the environmental impact survey properly and the council should have insisted on a better inspection. But we don’t want to stop development. We want the company and the local Medway council to rethink the plan to save the most valuable parts of the site,” Hensall says. “People and bugs should be able to live side by side. We were not consulted, but somebody has got to stick up for the bugs, give them a voice, too.” National Grid is adamant that it has followed the law. In a statement, a spokesman said: “We did consult with the community and with bodies including Natural England, and we do believe our development will provide a number of benefits for the local area.” Wildlife Endangered habitats Conservation Endangered species Animals National Grid John Vidal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A disused, contaminated stretch in north Kent is an ecological wonder that charity Buglife is fighting to have recognised It looks like one of Britain’s least attractive places, a blighted stretch of abandoned industrial land littered with plastic, broken concrete, crash barriers and building rubble. Contaminated with asbestos, oil and industrial chemicals, this 189-hectare (467-acre) former BP oil refinery brownfield site on the Isle of Grain in the Thames estuary is a messy, dangerous place. But the site near Rochester in north Kent is also potentially one of Britain’s two or three most important wildlife sites – the equivalent of a national park for bees, butterflies, beetles and other invertebrates. Left alone by humans for nearly 25 years, fenced off and allowed to degenerate by its present owner, National Grid, this remote corner of the Thames Gateway is being compared to a miniature lost world by conservationists who are fighting to avoid its planned destruction to make way for a giant lorry park. No one knows exactly what nature has squatted here, says Sarah Hensall, a conservation officer with the charity Buglife . In the past 40 years, she says, one person has been allowed in to study its wildlife. In a few hours in August 2009, that researcher found 258 species of invertebrates, birds and reptiles. Of these, 13 were classified as threatened with extinction on the conservation red list, many were priority species that Britain has to protect in law, 23 were nationally scarce and 11 were considered rare. They included the white eye-stripe hoverfly ( Paragus albifrons ) – until recently believed to be extinct – and Mellet’s downy-back beetle ( Ophonus melletii ) , which is so rare that it has been seen only five times in the UK in the past 20 years. The site is also home to most of Britain’s rarest native bees, including the brown-banded carder bee ( Bombus humilis ) and the shrill carder bee ( Bombus sylvarum ). Not surprisingly Hensall, an ecologist, is eager to get on to the site. To find a habitat of this size and quality, she says, is extraordinary. “It looks messy and polluted but sites like this are few and far between. It’s perfect ‘open mosaic’ habitat for bugs, spiders, flies and insects. They need this mix of bare land, pools, ditches. It’s got everything. They can burrow in it, bask, shelter and feed there, breed and hibernate. It’s just heaven for them.” She wants to take a team of researchers through the fence to study the wildlife. She is confident that if four people could go in for a few days several times over a year, as recommended by government ecologists, they could record 1,000, perhaps even 1,300 species. This would put the old refinery site on a par with West Thurrock marshes , an old power station site in Essex and now better protected after a long struggle. But it is unlikely she will get permission, because Buglife and National Grid are locked in a court dispute over the future of the site. The company wants to turn it into a giant lorry park and warehousing for Thamesport, Britain’s third largest container port, and its plan would sweep away the bug and bee paradise before it had even been properly recorded. Buglife claims the owners failed to properly assess the impact on the wildlife of the site. “We say that they did not follow the environmental impact survey properly and the council should have insisted on a better inspection. But we don’t want to stop development. We want the company and the local Medway council to rethink the plan to save the most valuable parts of the site,” Hensall says. “People and bugs should be able to live side by side. We were not consulted, but somebody has got to stick up for the bugs, give them a voice, too.” National Grid is adamant that it has followed the law. In a statement, a spokesman said: “We did consult with the community and with bodies including Natural England, and we do believe our development will provide a number of benefits for the local area.” Wildlife Endangered habitats Conservation Endangered species Animals National Grid John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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An often-vapid match became gripping far into stoppage time when each side converted a penalty, Arsenal took the lead in the 98th minute when Robin van Persie converted his slickly after Jay Spearing brought down Cesc Fábregas. At the very end, though, the hosts confounded themselves. Luis Suárez’s free-kick broke to Lucas and although he presented no danger Emmanuel Eboué still barged him over. Dirk Kuyt struck home the penalty with the last kick of the game. The folly of Eboué leaves Arsenal, with no games in hand, six points adrift of Manchester United in the Premier League . That will bring solace for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side after their defeat in the FA Cup semi-final. This match had largely been listless and, penalties aside, it may be remembered for the head injury that saw the Liverpool captain, Jamie Carragher, carried off in the second half. Before the match had ended, however, it was reported that he had regained consciousness fully in the dressing room. Few had pestered Arsenal with talk of the Premier League title in any case. That subject seemed inappropriate for a side that have been beaten three times on their own pitch , although people tend not to appreciate just how the they have atoned for such sins in away matches. Arsenal were at risk early in the fixture when Spearing seemed to be fouled inside the penalty area by Johan Djourou after nine minutes. The referee, Andre Marriner, did not see a foul. Where the hosts were concerned, the moment that gripped the home crowd in the first-half was Laurent Koscielny’s header against the bar following a Robin van Persie corner in the 16th minute. The greatest concern for the visitors would, all the same, have been the collision between Carragher and team-mate Barry Flanagan that saw a brace fitted to the Liverpool captain before he was stretchered away after prolonged treatment. Sotirios Kyrgiakos took over in defence and Arsenal, in open play, continued to flounder in their efforts to prise open a line-up that became ever more secure, even if Van Persie did shoot against Reina in the 85th minute. Premier League Arsenal Liverpool Kevin McCarra guardian.co.uk
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Los Angeles health officials identify legionella bacterium but say flu contracted by three guests is possible cause of outbreak Health inspectors have found a possible source of illness among guests at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion in Los Angeles: bacteria in the hot tub. More than a 100 people fell ill after the fundraising party in February, reporting pneumonia and flu-like symptoms. Officials contacted 439 people who attended the event and found 123 had fallen sick with symptoms including fever, headache, cough, shortness of breath and aches. Sixty-nine people fell sick on the day of the party. Three tested positive for H1N1 flu. The Los Angeles health department took samples from the water in the hot tub and identified the legionella bacterium which can cause the potentially fatal legionnaires’ disease. Investigators used Twitter and Facebook to trace guests, who travelled to the fundraiser for DomainFest, a conference for internet investors from 30 countries. Officials say the bug in the pool may not be the cause of the outbreak. In a statement the Los Angeles County department of public health said: “Though legionella bacteria was identified in a water sample taken from the Playboy Mansion, this bacteria has not been determined as the source of the respiratory outbreak. “Other potential causes under investigation include influenza, as three individuals who attended the conference tested later positive for the flu.” The news comes at an awkward moment for Hefner. In June the 84-year-old Playboy founder is set to marry Crystal Harris, 24, Playboy Playmate of the month in December 2009. Hefner and Harris are set to appear in a pre-wedding spread in the magazine. Hefner told US Weekly: “June is a big month – Crystal and I will be in London opening a new club, then we’ll come back and get married at the mansion. It’s going to be a very special year. It’s the Chinese year of the rabbit, so the bunny is back.” United States Legionnaires’ disease Flu Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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A savage storm system tore through the southern states reducing homes to rubble and leaving thousands without power A savage storm system has killed dozens of people across southern US states and left hundreds of thousands without power after they were battered by torrential rain, lightning and hail stones the size of golf balls. North Carolina was hit by 62 tornadoes, the highest number for two decades. Emergency crews expect the number of people killed to rise as they deal with the aftermath of a storm that claimed its first victim in Oklahoma on Thursday, before sweeping through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Seven people were killed in Alabama on Friday, including a mother and her two adolescent children who were crushed when their mobile home was lifted by the storm and thrown about 90 metres before landing upside down. On Sunday the National Weather Service reported 14 deaths in Bertie county, North Carolina. The state’s governor, Beverly Perdue, declared a state of emergency after fatalities were reported across the state. She said the storms were “the most widespread tornadoes we’ve seen since the mid-80s. “Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody in North Carolina who has been through this horrible day,” Perdue said. The death toll includes 23 people in North Carolina, seven in Alabama, seven in Arkansas, four in Virginia, two in Oklahoma and one in Mississippi. More than 100 tornadoes have been spotted across the southern states. Storm damage brought down power lines leaving 250,000 without electricity in North Carolina. Fallen trees blocked streets in Raleigh, the state capital. In Virginia a tornado killed three people as it ripped across more than 12 miles (19 km) in Gloucester county, uprooting trees and pounding homes to rubble. Elsewhere in Virginia the storms triggered flash floods. The storm system has now made its way into the Atlantic, according to the National Weather Service. Natural disasters and extreme weather United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A British man has been killed in Florida, the Foreign Office has said A British man has been killed in Florida, the Foreign Office said today. Reports suggest he may have been fatally injured during a shooting yesterday in Miami. The man’s family has been told of his death but his identity has not been released. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We can confirm the death of a British national in Florida on April 16. Next of kin have been informed.” More details soon United States guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Descending Into Madness: Glenn Beck Says The Republican Party Is Trying To Politically Assassinate Him, Bachmann and Palin
April 17, 2011 No Comment(h/t Media Matters) He’s losing it. It’s only a matter of time before the men with the strait jacket show up. In Beckistan, not only is world controlled by Soros-funded liberals, but the GOP now wants to “politically assassinate” him and his fellow truth tellers, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin . On his radio show today, Glenn Beck claimed that the Republican Party is out to politically assassinate him, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann. [..] Beck said, “May I just, I mean they’re going to call me a conspiracy theorist, but let’s go on a little conspiracy here, and I don’t claim to know what it is, and maybe it’s all coincidental, but I don’t believe in coincidence. I think there’s something happening with the Republicans and the right that is disturbing. There was a time when Republicans and the right if you will didn’t mind the Tea Party. They used them as fuel, but if you’ll notice Michele Bachmann is now enemy number one. Michelle Bachmann is being discredited like I haven’t seen before, and they’ve tried for a while, but like I haven’t seen before. Even those in Congress are distancing themselves from the Tea Party and the caucus, and you can make excuses and maybe some of them are valid, maybe. “ He floated his conspiracy theory that the GOP was out to politically assassinate himself, Bachmann and Palin, “Sarah Palin has always been pilloried by the left, but have you noticed the right and how she’s being pilloried? The same with me. The same with CPAC. Are decks being cleared? Is it just a coincidence, or is the 2012 presidential election raising its head now, and anyone who talks about freedom, or is a real wild card that could hurt the party, are they being politically assassinated at this point?” I’m going to give him the contextual benefit of the doubt that he means “discredit” when he talks about “political assassination”, but it’s a little hard to be absolutely sure with Beck, isn’t it? Should members of the GOP fear the Beck ultra-loyalists, like Byron Williams ? Although he does not mention him by name, Beck is apparently nursing his wounded ego over being summarily dismissed as an unserious conspiracist by William Kristol and lashing out. For someone so eager to paint others in a conspiratorial light, he certainly is thin-skinned, as evidenced by his recent similar attacks on Lawrence O’Donnell .
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